Authors: Marcus Grodi
Tags: #Catholics -- Biography; Coming Home Network International; Conversion, #Catholics -- Biography, #Coming Home Network International, #Conversion
former Charismatic Episcopal minister
"THE WAY, THE TRUTH, AND THE LIFE"
"ALL SCRIPTURE IS INSPIRED BY GOD"
My heart was pounding as I walked into the small cafe to meet
with my bishop in the Charismatic Episcopal Church (CEC). In this
meeting, in February 1999, I planned to inform him of my intention
to come into full communion with the Roman Catholic Church. I
was nervous and concerned about how he might take my news.
I knew that making this announcement would produce in me a certain
sense of finality. But I did not fully understand the depth of
emotion this action would touch. Welling up and overflowing inside
me was the excitement that after all these years of searching
for truth, I had found a great treasure. I was certain I was ready
to become Catholic, and this certainty brought a profound peace
that carried me through the variety of emotions connected to such
a drastic conversion.
Mike was a great friend during elementary and middle school. We
were unbeatable in neighborhood football, had sleepovers, and
got into a lot of mischief. Mike was a Baptist preacher's son.
It was through our friendship, in the early seventies, that I
began to question my faith in a good way. I was Presbyterian,
but I liked visiting Mike's church as a boy because the singing
was more upbeat, the preaching was more energetic, and they had
altar calls. People would walk to the front of the church to give
their life to Jesus. (I still do this at every Mass!)
When I was fourteen, I prayed that Jesus would come into my heart
and life, and I gave myself to Him. When I was sixteen, I received
the baptism in the Holy Spirit in a dynamic, unquestionable way.
My faith and hunger for the Scriptures came alive as never before.
While this experience brought a power to live a more vibrant faith,
another experience led me to fine-tune my faith.
Like so many before me, when I was sixteen, I thought I really
knew it all. And being newly filled with the Spirit, I was eager
to talk about it. In a disagreement with me about the Bible one
evening, Ray, a wonderful elder of our church, said something
that became a driving force in my faith walk and will for the
rest of my life. In the middle of our debate, he paused and said,
"Steve, don't ever be afraid of the truth."
I find it fascinating how something that simple stayed with me.
But it was like a word from God. From that day on, I was committed
to pursue the truth, even if it meant moving in a direction that
made me uncomfortable.
The Holy Spirit has been the dynamic in my life -- the power or
dunamis
(the New Testament Greek term). My journey was always
for truth, and the Holy Spirit would lead me into all truth, as
I studied the Bible and the writings of the early Church Fathers.
I imagine that if I could see in the spiritual world, I would
see tracks in the ground where my heels had been dug in for twenty-something
years. But the Holy Spirit would consistently challenge me to
believe every truth in the Bible.
Beginning with my spiritual rebirth of faith at sixteen, I experienced
an insatiable desire to read the Bible. After two years with a
steady diet of Spirit-filled prayer, Bible study, tape series,
and retreats, I discerned that God was calling me to be a pastor
in the church. So in 1977, I transferred to Oral Roberts University
to study the Bible and prepare to be a pastor.
I was determined to guide God's people into truth, not "dead religion."
And with the Spirit's help, I would find that truth in the Bible.
I focused my studies on the Bible. I especially enjoyed learning
Hebrew and Greek because they would be important tools for my
quest. I remember my excitement when I reached the level where
I could take classes that actually read books of the Bible in
these original languages.
One part of being scholarly was to research all the great Bible
scholars and theologians through the ages, listen to their interpretations
of a Bible passage or topic, determine the strengths and weaknesses
of each argument, and then write my conclusions. This was like
an intense and exciting mission to sift through the great mysteries
of the Bible, to discover once and for all the truth of the Holy
Scriptures.
As with all great human missions, however, I encountered a problem.
My determination in the Spirit remained strong, but my excitement
was checked by what I discovered in my pursuit of truth.
The first thing I realized was that I was not the first to attempt
this noble task. Great men of faith before me had learned Greek
and Hebrew and studied the Scriptures in detail. The problem,
however -- their great scholarship notwithstanding -- was that
they came up with different opinions, even those from the same
theological or denominational backgrounds.
It became apparent to me how each scholar's theology, experience,
agenda, and culture influenced his or her interpretation of the
biblical text. As a result, I gradually realized that my search
for truth was a more complex struggle than I ever expected, and
overcoming my own biases would make this an even harder quest.
Pursuing truth in the Bible is a great endeavor. But for me as
a Protestant, the Bible itself raised many concerns, verses we
would refer to as "hard passages." All too often these were passages
that taught things contrary to what we believed based on other
Scriptures.
We would set these aside, up on the shelf so to speak, until we
came across a definitive answer -- or, lacking that, we would
simply wait until we "could get to heaven." In heaven, we planned
to ask Jesus what these verses truly meant. What I didn't expect
to discover was how clear the Bible would become once seen through
the eyes of Catholic Sacred Tradition. This discovery began twenty
years later, at a private dinner with a Protestant brother.
Dave was a preacher in a Bible-believing denomination. He seemed
genuinely troubled that I would become Catholic after believing
in the Bible alone as the source of my faith and in faith alone
as the key to eternal life. So we agreed to meet for dinner at
a local Big Boy restaurant for a friendly discussion. I let Dave
set the agenda for our discussion by asking if he could tell me
his most pressing concern about the Catholic Church. That was
easy: The Catholic Church, he said, undermined the Word of God
by its manmade tradition. Jesus had rebuked the Pharisees for
this same thing. We agreed to discuss this particular issue at
dinner.
I asked Dave whether he would be comfortable preaching in his
church that "a man is justified by works and not by faith alone"
(Jas 2:24). We discussed how this was the only place in the Bible
where the words "faith alone" appeared together. I was surprised
when he said he would never preach this teaching in his church.
I challenged him to consider that the doctrine of "faith alone"
is a manmade tradition from the Reformation and is refuted in
the Bible. I also challenged him to consider that his tradition
undermined this Bible verse.
Dave began to question me concerning important verses he thought
Catholics did not believe. He asked if I believed Ephesians 2:8 - 9, which says: "For by grace you have been saved through faith;
and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God -- not because
of works, lest any man may boast."
Yes, I certainly believe that. Catholics fully believe that "it
is by grace that we are saved, and again it is by grace that our
works can bear fruit for eternal life" (
Catechism of the Catholic
Church,
1697). We thank the Holy Spirit in us for bringing us
to faith, and we thank Jesus, who lives in us, for continuing
to do good works through us. To God be the glory! Many of my Protestant
friends did not know the official Catholic teaching about grace
and good works.
We followed this pattern of discussion through many different
places in the Bible. The verses I shared showed how the Catholic
teaching on Baptism, Tradition, and the Eucharist come directly
from the Bible.
Baptism
"Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you" (1
Pt 3:21). "He saved us ... by the washing of regeneration and
renewal in the Holy Spirit" (Ti 3:5).
Tradition
"So then, brethren, stand firm and hold to the traditions
which you were taught by us, either by word of mouth or by letter"
(2 Thes 2:15). "I commend you because you remember me in everything
and maintain the traditions even as I have delivered them to you"
(1 Cor 11:2).
Eucharist
"The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not a participation
in the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not a
participation in the body of Christ?" (1 Cor 10:16).
"'I am the living bread which came down from heaven; if anyone
eats this bread, he will live for ever; and the bread which I
will give for the life of the world is my flesh.'
"The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, 'How can this
man give us his flesh to eat?' So Jesus said to them, 'Truly,
truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man
and drink His blood, you have no life in you; he who eats my flesh
and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up
at the last day. For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is
drink indeed. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides
in me, and I in him. As the living Father sent me, and I live
because of the Father, so he who eats me will live because of
me. This is the bread which came down from heaven' ...
"Many of His disciples, when they heard it, said, 'This is a hard
saying; who can listen to it?' ... After this many of His disciples
drew back and no longer walked with Him" (Jn 6:51 -58, 60, 66).
Dave admitted that he did not believe what these Bible verses
were plainly saying. His tradition of faith alone and the Bible
alone would, in the end, undermine his desire to believe every
truth written in the Word of God.
I know, because I was once there. Where does it say in the Bible
that if we simply label a verse a "hard passage" we can ignore
it and we do not have to believe it? Dave continued to raise some
verses he thought Catholics do not believe. But every verse he
introduced is believed within the Catholic tradition.
I was almost surprised by the outcome: Protestant tradition, not
Catholic tradition, would sometimes undermine the Word of God.
I no longer struggled with hard passages. The Bible, which came
alive for me by the Holy Spirit, truly is a Catholic book. My
Catholic faith was strengthened. I was able to believe all that
the Bible teaches.
At Oral Roberts University, my excitement was growing about a
class that was coming up. Being raised Presbyterian (Reformed)
and having become Charismatic, I had a class coming up that was
taught by a man who was both Reformed and Charismatic. The class
was devoted to integrating these two parts of my spiritual formation.
When that professor became ill, another scholar who was as Eastern
Orthodox convert took the class. But he changed the area of focus.
Instead of studying Reformed and Charismatic theology, we got
a steady dose of early Church Fathers with an Eastern Orthodox
twist.
Many of us were quietly outraged. This professor seemed to convert
two or three seminarians each year to the Eastern Orthodox Church.
We had the Bible. We had the Spirit. Why were we learning our
faith from a man who valued a religion of dead ritual?
One of the Church Fathers we read was Justin Martyr, who wrote
around the year a.d. 140. Justin was interesting because his writing
includes the earliest description of a church service. This was
great! This would be my proof in writing that the Church was a
simple Bible-believing, Spirit-filled worshipping community.
I dived into the reading with tremendous anticipation. What would
it say? I was shocked. I remember hearing myself saying, "Look
how fast they fell away from the faith!"
But then I sensed the Holy Spirit warning me: "No, Steve, it is
you who are two thousand years removed from the Apostles." I read
it again with an open mind. The first recorded church service
had all the elements of the Catholic Mass.
This was difficult to accept, but I still had a way out. The Episcopal
liturgy resembles the Catholic Mass. My prejudice against the
Catholic faith ultimately meant that I would become Episcopal
first.
A second Church Father would also change my life. Irenaeus was
bishop of Lyons, Gaul (now France), from a.d. 180 to 202. He was
the disciple of Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna, who was the disciple
of the Apostle John. The historians I read were somewhat uninterested
in Irenaeus, because they said he added nothing new to the development
of Christian theology.
Aha! My interest was piqued. A bishop in the second century who
taught nothing new, but authentically passed on the apostolic
faith. Irenaeus himself contends that his teaching is the very
teaching of the Apostles. One of his books was even titled
Proof
of the Apostolic Preaching.
But Irenaeus wrote the most fascinating thing. In another of his
books,
Against Heresies,
he challenged his readers not to take
his word alone but to go to any of the bishops of any of the churches
in his day because
they were all teaching the same thing.
Tears
came to my eyes.
I said, "Not anymore, Irenaeus; today we all tend to teach our
own thing." I began reading everything this faithful bishop had
written, looking for the true faith that was held with one mind
at the beginning of the Church.