Fast Forward

When we moved from California to Iowa, we settled five miles outside my Home Town on a parcel of land left to me by my Grandfather. It was a great joy for me to be 'home again', attending the Catholic church where I was baptized, confirmed and married. My husband and I had always wanted to live in the Country and it was our intention to remain there for the remainder of our lives. (We were nearly 50 when we arrived)

Our children were scattered - 3 in California, 1 in Oregon, 1 in New Mexico, and 1 in Tennessee. As we lived on and on and on, the children became concerned about us as we were aging. We had no one to care for us if we became unable to care for ourselves. In answer to their prayers, God set a plan in motion that resulted in our move to Tennessee along with a daughter who designated herself 'caretaker'. A son had settled here many years prior. So after 27 years of Country living, at the age of 76, we began a new life in a small town in a small neighborhood filled with young families, with the daughter living only 8 minutes away. The son lived about 45 easy minutes from us.

Within the year, more family arrived to live in Tennessee not far from us. First it was a single Grandson. A few months later, we learned that God had been working overtime setting up a marvelous family network in which another daughter's family was taking up residence in the area. In less than a year from our move, we were encompassed by eleven loving family members.

Our new Parish was full of Southern Hospitality - warm and welcoming. I joined the choir and hubby joined the Bible Study and soon we had a host of new friends.

Every life has it's hills and valleys, but they seem to intensify as we age. We've experienced a good share of trials and tribulations, but God's Mercy and Grace seem even more abundant. (Or maybe we are just more aware of His tremendous blessings because each year we draw into more intimate relationship with Him.)

In upcoming posts I hope to share with you the ups and downs as well as the lessons learned from them, along with some of the on-going conversions experienced.

New Joys

The more we learned about the Catholic Church, the more we appreciated her rich History and the treasure of our Apostolic Tradition. We began to learn what the early Church Fathers believed and taught in the first and second century. Lo and behold they believed and taught by oral Tradition the same Doctrines the Church believes today. As the Fathers wrote against Heresies, these doctrines were more fully developed. What a valiant battle the early Church fought through their writings against these heretics.

We only had a smattering of information about the Church Fathers in the beginning of our Catholic reading. Since that time, we acquired a computer, discovered the internet and the vast world of information available online. If you haven't discovered the New Advent site and if you are searching for the truth of the Christian Faith, check this out.

It's interesting to note that as arguments against certain doctrines arose among the heretics, it became necessary for the Church to more fully develop those doctrines, so they could be more clearly understood. Until they were challenged by dissenters, the Church had no need to clarify the Truths that all true believer's held. They were not inventing new doctrines (as some claim) but declaring in a formal statement what was already held to be True.

As we learned and studied the Oral Tradition along with the written Tradition, the scriptures came alive to us in a new way. Our former belief in Sola Scriptura melted away as we read with new eyes the words of St. Paul: "....hold fast the traditions which you have been taught, whether by word or our epistle". ( 2Thess. 2:15).

We know that the oral tradition is what Jesus himself taught his Disciples and sent them out to teach. It had to be taught orally since not many in that day knew how to read. Education was only available to those who could afford it. Also, there were no Bibles in the first and second centuries. The Canonicity of the present Scriptures was held by the fourth century, but was not defined until 1546 at the Council of Trent. You can check this out for yourself here under the heading: III. Origin

Another Leg of the Journey

We were both enjoying our new life in the Catholic prayer group, made new friends and adopted the Religious life as our form of pleasure.

Still, the heresies were deeply rooted, and in our Catholic involvements there was nothing to dispel these errors. We continued to drink from the Protestant wells.

But God moved us out of that situation when we moved from California to a small town in Iowa, where denominational lines were clearly drawn - no more fuzzy boundaries there. It would have been a scandal to continue being spiritual gypsies there. It felt dry and tasteless though; no access to Christian Television. There was a Christian radio station, and we did find a Charismatic Prayer Group in a town nearby. We also were introduced to the Cursillo movement, and the Lord continued to bless us with steady growth in the Spirit.

Finally, God made his move to bring us out of the deception of the heresies. In the mail one day, we received a complimentary copy of "The Rock" magazine, a Catholic apologetic publication. The articles were great; informative, inspiring and enlightening. For the first time we began to understand why we Catholics believe the way we do. When we were children in the Catholic school, we were taught to believe because the Church 'said so'. That's fine for a child, but it didn't prepare us to stand as adults against the Evangelicals' convincing references to scripture. Neither of us understood the oral tradition of the church or the authority of the Magisterium. We were easy prey.

We were happy to find this new tool for understanding our Faith. We subscribed to the magazine in the early 1990's and continue to enjoy it to this day. It launched us on another leg of the Journey.

Re-Marriage (this story begins on the June 7th post)

My husband has always been Catholic, but he had no objection to attending Services with me in a little non-denominational pentecostal community that I had joined. I had been a Spiritual gypsy that first year, tasting many flavors of Christianity, but later I joined this little church because they had a dynamic youth group and I was hoping our 15 year- old daughter & 12 year-old son could benefit from that. So we all attended there on Sunday mornings. However, on Saturday evenings we attended the Catholic church because hubby preferred the Mass.

We were living in Southern California where the culture is anything but conservative. It didn't seem eccentric to drink from many Spiritual wells. We attended other churches at the recommendation of friends and our Catholic friends thought nothing of it and did the same. With Mass on Saturday evening, we felt free to roam in other pastures on Sunday. We never tired of the delicious banquets of Praise and Worship.

We were invited to participate in a Life in the Spirit Seminar at the Catholic church and soon we were mixing with the Catholic charismatics. I was surprised to learn that there were Catholics who loved the Lord as much as I did. We joined their Prayer Group. We attended Charismatic conferences and we both grew in the Faith. I left the Pentecostal group and reconciled with the Catholic Church.

It was good that we were both Catholics, but we didn't know our Faith very well and we had forgotten much of what we learned in our youth. We knew what we believed but didn't know why. As a result, we both bought into the Protestant doctrine of Sola Scriptura. The Bible was our point of reference. We had no Bible studies in our church, and though Scripture was often quoted in the Charismatic movement, we learned the Bible from Christian radio and Televangelists. The important aspect of the Tradition of the Fathers was never discussed and that was unfortunate because we remained in error without realizing it. The Doctrine of the Real Presence, on the other hand, was a no-brainer. That's very clear in the Scriptures and we loved the Eucharist.

So in a sense, although both Catholic, we had a mixed marriage, because we were quite mixed up. But God is patient; He had us where He wanted us; We were in the Church and we were growing.