Dear Dara

Dear Dara,

If you're wondering why I'm writing you here, it's because the more I think about our conversation, the more I wish I could have explained better what's going on with us... and I'm sure that our conversation will answer so many other's questions! Wayne says I probably overwhelmed you with information, because in order for you not to worry about me, you first would have to agree with me that Catholicism is a valid expression of Christianity, and then examine each teaching of the church in light of scripture just to make sure I have all my ducks in a row(as a friend said yesterday/) I was trying to give it to you backwards--- why I believe all the different teachings are biblical first and THEN why that makes catholicism not just "an" acceptable form of Christian worship but "the" most acceptable form of Christian worship in my mind.

This is what I "should have said," in hopes that you can read it and chew on it before we talk again.

In order to understand why I retunred to the Catholic church, you have to understand why I left in the first place.
Up until sixteen, I had strong faith, but like many teenagers, I rebelled against God. That rebellion caused my need for God to skyrocket, and so at 18, I searched for God with more fervor than I ever had before.
I expressed my search in terms of my catholicism-- meaning, I tried to get closer to him through "being" a Catholic--- but because in my domestic church, my home, I had never seen an example of "personal" relationship with Christ, I didn't know how to live one out. It wasn't that my mom didn't have one, it was that she treated it sort of like a secret. And because of that, I wasn't introduced to the concept that God was absolutely a normal part of my every day life. Praying was a private, personal act. Not something we did as a family regularly.
After a brief stint in Wicca, which came about just as a "seeking God" kinda thing that teenagers do, I was ready to grow in my catholic faith, but I didn't know how.
At that time, I became friends with some of Jehova's Witnesses totally by accident. And through them, I began to discern that God was calling all of us to a life of radical holiness. I realized that the reason I wasn't getting in touch with God was that I WAS FULL OF SIN, and that that sin was keeping me in a state of farness from God. This didn't happen over night. It was a gradual thing. But it was there, nonetheless, as I tried to conform to an "image of godliness" that I began to discern in people around me. The problem was that I was looking for it in PEOPLE and not in Jesus Christ.
That's because I had never really paid attention to the Word of God. That isn't because I was catholic--- Catholics believe very strongly in knowing the Word of God and have the Word proclaimed at church every single day of the year. It was because, again, I had never had that example in my "domestic church. (at home)

Because of that, I was fascinated with what my Jehova's Witness friends had to offer. They gave me a bible and a hundred billion books and brochures using scripture quotations (out of context, I will say) telling me that my religion was dead and that God was no longer active in the Catholic Church, that the Church was actually the Whore of babylon, that people in Catholic Churches were really pagans in disguise, etc etc etc.
Fortunately, God gave me discernment to recognize immediately that their Bible was very "different " from every other bible, but I really did begin to understand the call to holiness.

Shortly afterwards, I happened to be at a Calvary Chapel on Christmas Eve and heard pastor ricky preach on surrender to Jesus. And in that moment, I realized why I hadn't been able to figure out all this time-- that I had never really "surrendered" to Jesus! I dropped to my knees right there in the service and asked Him to come into my life in a new way. Protestants call that "the day I was saved."

I had never liked Calvary Chapel people much before. They were always coming up to me and inviting me to this or that church event and "Christian concert" and asking me if I was saved and trying to share the gospel with me. They were so verbal about their salvation that it really irritated me... but slowly, this began to change as I got to know and love the CCSB and reality crew.

Being around all these Christians was wierd for me because as I was "taken into the fold," I had a hard time finding a place. Many of these kids were raised Christians and had never seen someone quite like me, who was very far removed from anything resembling holiness at the time! They were actually pretty judgemental and difficult to befriend, but I persisted and met some amazing people. Many of them would talk about my amazing testimony.... and I began to notice how when they talked about it, it was often about how I had been saved not just from a sinful lifestyle but from a dead religion.
From a religion that taught that I could be saved by works. From a religion that taught that I should worship idols. From a religion that taught that there is a man in a dress standing between me and my God.
I also began noticing that Britt would frequently mention Catholicism in his sermons in a very.....ugly....... light. Britt's passion for eschatology and end times scenarios played out (and still do ) in a beleif that the RCC had a big role to play in the damnation of the world. And thats major!
But britt knew a lot more about theology than I did, right? So I beleived him. He was teaching me. Then came Dave Hunt. And Jacob Prasch. And Jacob Reeve. and Derek Prince. And Charles Simpson. And Erik Krueger. and Michael Fletcher.... and eventually, all these pastors in my life all built this great web of theology in my brain that demonstrated that anyone stuck in the RCC, if ever they happend to BE saved, should get out right away!
But with this new opinion, I had to be able to back it up. After all, hundreds of Catholic family members and friends and people on myspace were demanding that I back up my opinion that Catholicism was a great evil. And so I began to study theology, and apologetics, which enabled me to "be ready with an answer from the Bible" (the FINAL authority) to respond to naysayers. In doing so, I distanced myself so far from teh RCC that I refused to enter a church or to take communion. In fact, it was the source of great frustration to my family.

Meanwhile, something really troubling happened to me. I made friends with Selah|Maggie in the R&P forum, and she was a mormon. A mormon who loved Jesus--- and worse yet, who demonstrated the fruits of the spirit! Gah! What a conundrum for my nondenominational mindset.... how could a mormon be saved???? WAS she saved??? I agnonized over this question. I asked all the great teachers I had come to know. She confused everyone this side of Calvinism and Arminianism.
And over time, I decided that she must be saved, but that she needed to leave the LDS church immediately. Just like some of the Catholics I knew were saved, but they had to get out. Staying meant endangering their souls by surrounding them with false information. She did.

My time returning to IV with Wayne was one of mostly disillusionment. I can't tell you how frustrated I got with both the church in IV and the church back here in NC. it seemed that everywhere I looked, Christians were trying to "reinvent the wheel." Developping new ways to worship, new things to focus on, new ideas about what the church was and wasn't. And in the midst of all this, I experienced a lot of disgust with how much evangelicals TALK and how little they ACT when compared, as a whole, with churches like the Catholic Church or the Mormon Church. This happened because I lived in lompoc, where I saw what Catholic Charities were doing every day for the poor.
When I came back to NC, my pastor started this campaign called "Revolutionary Love." In it, he provided everyone with these cards that had the gospel on them. You were supposed to hand them out as you did a good deed, and then you could blog about it on the church website. It was horrible to read--- my initial excitement over the campaign faded fast as I realized how to so many evangelicals the actual act of "giving someone the tract" was the act of love they were doing. Bleh.
At the same time, God hit me with some pretty serious disgust over what many large Christian churches were doing with money-- wasting it. They were practicing elitism. Wayne and I were always confused about authority (and rightfully so, because there is no REAL authority in protestantism... if you don't like your church, you can always start a new one, right?) and unsure of what to do. We were frustrated about how little we saw acts of true charity and acts of true love going on in the Body.
Right then, I re-discovered (totally by accident) what some of my family members had been doing for the last fifty years---and what other Catholic organizations were doing. Specifically the Little Sisters of Jesus and the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal.

And all of a sudden it was like a light bulb went off in my head.
These guys






looked and acted and sounded more like Jesus than this guy:



These women





looked and acted more like Jesus than this woman:



And it was like a lightbulb went off in my head. I want to live an authentic life for Christ, in all the richness of what He has for us here... and I don't have to find a family integrated church or a relational church or an emergent church or a liturgical church or a mega church or a mission or a home church or a ministry to do that--- God had already provide all of these things in a totally authentic form in the structure of the Roman Catholic Church. I had gone as far as I could from home as a pilgrim, and I realized that home was what I had been running from all this time---- where Jesus lives on earth, in the Body Of Christ-- the visible church on earth.

Of course, I had to examine all the teachings of the church one by one to make sure that I was on target and that they lined up with scripture and that I wasn't just following my emotions back to the church. I did, by reading the Catechism of the Catholic Church ( a compendium of it's teachings) and comparing it to scripture. In it's pages I found a theology more vast and intricate than any theology i had ever studied as a protestant--- it really was like meat vs milk to me.
Once I discovered that the Bible really does teach the REAL presence of Christ in the Eucharist (at communion,) I didn't want to ever take communion any where else.
And that's how I got here.
More in love with Jesus today than I've ever been before. And for the first time in my adult life, I dont feel like I'm in a fog about God. I feel like I'm right where I'm supposed to be, finally able to stop constantly seeking for the right answer.
Home.

I love you, and I hope that explains it better than I did on the phone. Call me soon. I miss talking to you!

Love
Barbie