Journeys Home (10 page)

Clement was teaching the doctrine of apostolic succession! St.
Ignatius of Antioch also wrote on this subject:

You must all follow the bishop as Jesus Christ follows the Father,
and the presbytery [that is, the council of priests] as you would
the Apostles. Reverence the deacons as you would the command of
God. Let no one do anything of concern to the Church without the
bishop. Let that be considered a valid Eucharist which is celebrated
by the bishop, or by one whom he appoints. Wherever the bishop
appears, let the people be there; just as wherever Jesus Christ
is, there is the Catholic Church. (
Smyrneans
8:1 - 2)

Again, St. Irenaeus wrote:

It is possible, then, for everyone in every Church, who may wish
to know the truth, to contemplate the tradition of the Apostles
which has been made known throughout the whole world. And we are
in a position to enumerate those who were instituted bishops by
the Apostles, and their successors to our own times. ... But since
it would be too long to enumerate in such a volume as this the
successions of all the Churches, we shall confound all those who,
in whatever manner, whether through self-satisfaction or vainglory,
or through blindness and wicked opinion, assemble other than where
it is proper, by pointing out here the successions of the bishops
of the greatest and most ancient Church known to all, founded
and organized at Rome by the two most glorious Apostles, Peter
and Paul, that Church which has the tradition and the faith which
comes down to us after having been announced to men by the Apostles.
For with this Church, because of its superior origin, all Churches
must agree, that is, all the faithful in the whole world; and
it is in her that the faithful everywhere have maintained the
Apostolic tradition. (
Against Heresies,
3, 3, 1 - 2)

Concerning the Eucharist, St. Ignatius' letter to the church in
Smyrna recorded: "They [the heretics] abstain from the Eucharist
and from prayer, because they do not confess that the Eucharist
is the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ, flesh which suffered
for our sins and which the Father, in His goodness, raised up
again" (
Smyrneans
7:1).

This letter, written in the summer of a.d. 107, was penned by
a man who had been ordained by St. Peter and was an acquaintance
and student of St. John. And it teaches that the Eucharist is
the Body and Blood of Christ -- not that it merely symbolizes
Him (as the Methodists teach) or contains Him (as the Lutherans
teach).

St. Justin Martyr, writing about a.d. 150, confirmed this reality:

For not as common bread nor common drink do we receive these;
but since Jesus Christ our Savior was made incarnate by the word
of God and had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so too,
as we have been taught, the food which has been made into the
Eucharist by the Eucharistic prayer set down by Him, and by the
change of which our blood and flesh is nourished, is both the
flesh and the blood of that incarnated Jesus. (
First Apology
,
66)

How could these early Fathers have written such things? These
writings were so very Catholic! After all, the Protestant faith
was supposed to be a restoration of the pure, uncorrupted Christianity
of the first centuries.

I could not ignore the fact that Jesus had promised to send the
Holy Spirit to His Church and to protect it: "The Counselor, the
Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, He will teach
you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I have
said to you" (Jn 14:26). "When the Spirit of truth comes, He will
guide you to all the truth" (Jn 16:13). "I will build My Church,
and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it" (Mt 16:18).
"Behold, I am with you always, to the close of the age" (Mt 28:20).

I figured, then, that I was forced to one of two conclusions.
On the one hand, I could conclude that Jesus didn't or couldn't
live up to His promises, and that the Church was corrupted almost
immediately after the last Apostle died.

On the other hand, I could conclude that the Catholic teaching
I was discovering, in the writings of the Fathers, was a valid
development of the Church, guided by the Holy Spirit exactly as
Jesus had promised. If these teachings were true, they demanded
my acceptance in submission to the Lordship of Jesus Christ.

I was discovering, then, that if the Protestant position is true,
Jesus must have failed to fulfill His promises.
An impossibility!

During the time I was coming to terms with the Church Fathers,
I was also becoming increasingly alarmed at an accelerated abandonment
of Christian truth by Protestant leaders I knew. The local Episcopal
priest, for example, denied both Christ's deity and resurrection.
I heard a sermon by a philosophy professor in my Lutheran parish
who declared that belief in the resurrection is only pious insurance.
He stated that the concept of the resurrection was an accretion
from the ancient Persian religion of Zoroastrianism, adopted by
the Jews during the Babylonian captivity. It is not, he insisted,
an essential element of the Christian faith. During the sermon,
the pastor sat beaming his approval.

My friend John, who was attending a Methodist seminary at that
time, had encountered a similar lack of faith in church leaders
he knew. He complained to me that of his theology professors,
only a third accepted the deity of Christ, only a quarter believed
in His bodily resurrection, and only one, a Catholic priest, subscribed
to Jesus' virgin birth.

I felt extremely anxious being under the authority of a Protestant
bishop who didn't believe. Although I knew there were many faithful
Protestants in the pews, I found that their leaders were rapidly
abandoning Christianity. In the Catholic Church, however, I saw
the hierarchy holding firm to the truth of the faith of Christ
and the Apostles.

I was painfully aware, of course, that there are many flaky Catholics
who hold to a lot of off-the-wall ideas. But I knew that if I
became a Catholic, I would be submitting to the authority of the
pope and bishops, whom I saw as powerfully faithful -- not to
the trendy priests, nuns, and laity.

While reading
Lutherans and Catholics in Dialogue,
the official
documents of the Catholic-Lutheran ecumenical dialogues, I became
even more disenchanted with Lutheranism. I kept finding myself
on the Catholic side in the conversations. Often the Lutherans
would say that they agreed with the Catholic teaching but were
uncomfortable with the terminology because they believed it had
been misused five hundred years ago.

All in all, I was having increasing discomfort in remaining a
Lutheran.

By December 8, 1978, my convictions had developed to the point
that I could write in my journal:

In the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist Christ, true God and true
man, is present wholly and entirely, in His Body and Blood, under
the signs of bread and wine. The presence of Christ does not come
about through the faith of the believers, nor through human power,
but the power of the Holy Spirit through the Word. ... The Eucharist
is also the sacrifice of the Church. In it, the Church makes its
sacrifice of praise to the Father. At the Eucharist, Christ is
re-presented to His Church, and the act of the Cross is brought
to the present. ... Since the Roman Catholic Church has the longest
history, with its roots in the Apostles, and all other Christian
denominations have their final origin in it, total unity will
not come until all are in full communion with it.

Clearly, the Catholic understanding of the Eucharist had by this
time become my own.

The last doctrinal difficulty for me to overcome was Mary. I had
no problem accepting her perpetual virginity; I could see how
that truth could be deduced from the Gospels. Nor did I have any
problem with asking her to pray for us.

My problem was centered on the dogmas of the Immaculate Conception
and the bodily Assumption of the Blessed Virgin. I just couldn't
understand the need for these doctrines.

Then it dawned on me: I was being inconsistent. Long before, I
had come to believe that the Holy Spirit had given the Church
the gift of infallibility in matters of faith and morals. I accepted
the infallibility of the teaching authority of the pope.

If I accepted the Church's authority, I also must trust God's
guidance in all that she teaches. St. Augustine said that faith
comes first and then understanding. So I submitted my prideful
intellect, and in time God did grant me the gift of understanding.

In July, 1979, I was privileged to spend a month in Europe. I
was overjoyed at the possibility of visiting St. Peter's Basilica
in Rome, the church of the newly elected Pope John Paul II, the
white knight of orthodoxy. When I knelt to pray in the Blessed
Sacrament chapel, I felt that this was home.

I was in the presence of my Lord in the Church of His vicar on
earth! I belonged here. But why did I remain outside my Father's
house?

I considered myself Catholic, but I had not yet built up the courage
actually to convert because I knew my family would be scandalized.
I also was hesitant to approach a priest to tell him I wanted
to become a Catholic. The priests I had met had an extremely distant
aura about them. They seemed unapproachable to me. So I put off
what I knew I had to do if I was to be faithful to the will of
God for my life.

I entered Ashland Theological Seminary in Ashland, Ohio, in the
fall of 1980. My reason for picking Ashland Seminary was that,
though it was run by an evangelical Anabaptist denomination, the
Brethren Church, it was actually the most ecumenical seminary
in Ohio. More than fifty-five denominations were represented in
the student body, every group from Quakers to Greek Orthodox.

I was interested in being involved in ecumenical dialogue to further
Church unity. The Christian cross-section at Ashland would be
good preparation for me.

At seminary, I at last came to the conclusion that I had no choice
but to join the Catholic Church. Looking at my many and varied
fellow students, I realized that Protestantism was like so many
boats adrift on the sea without oars or rudders, each claiming
theirs to be the only vessel on the proper course.

When I returned to Ashland for the summer, I finally told my Catholic
friends Andy and Karen that I had to talk to the priest about
joining the Church. I met with the pastor of Christ the King Catholic
Church during June and July. The big day finally came on July
25, 1981, the Feast of St. James.

I made my profession of faith in Jesus Christ and His Catholic
Church. Then I received the Sacrament of Confirmation. Immediately
after my confirmation, I received the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity
of my Lord Jesus Christ for the very first time as a full member
of His Mystical Body, the Catholic Church.

I had arrived home in the Church, but the journey of grace continued.
The Lord Jesus had more surprises in store. I continued my studies
in Church history at Ashland Seminary. During my senior year,
I met Lynn, a Baptist girl from West Virginia, who would soon
become my lovely wife. Within a year, she would become the second
Protestant student to become Catholic while attending Ashland
Theological Seminary ... but that's another story.

Jim Anderson is Director of Pastoral Care for The Coming Home
Network International, with the primary responsibility of assisting
non-Catholic clergy on their journeys home to the Catholic Church.
He can be reached via email at [email protected].

former Presbyterian minister and seminary professor

EUCHARIST AND WORSHIP

ENCOUNTERING THE CATHOLIC CHURCH

ENCOUNTER WITH SUFFERING

Summarizing my journey to the Catholic Church is a bit like attempting
to put the Internal Revenue Code on a postcard. But I will venture
to sketch the highlights of this journey.

My knowledge of Catholicism in childhood was limited to my father's
side of the family, some of whom were devout, but most of whom
were Catholic in name only. I can remember at times being impressed
with the aesthetic appeal of the Catholic Church and having a
sense of something greater. But I was completely at a loss to
know what that was.

In my late teens (college years), I had a deep sense of the grace
of God in my life and loved to read the Sacred Scriptures. I read
spiritual literature that stressed the importance of a daily communion
with God in the Spirit and found at times an unusual degree of
closeness to God, which I can only describe as a gift.

During the late seventies, I attended Westminster Theological
Seminary in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where I learned the art
of biblical interpretation and other theological disciplines.
Although I had no interest in the Catholic Church at that time,
I do remember being repulsed by the anti-Catholic attitudes of
some of my conservative Presbyterian friends. To me, Catholics
were misguided, but they were Christian.

In my seminary days, I remember formulating a theological issue
that was to play a crucial role in my journey later on. I realized
that the only way to justify the splitting of Western Christianity
that occurred in the Reformation was to see the Protestant Reformers
as bringing the Church back to its original purity from which
it had fallen. This meant that the Protestants were the true Catholics.

In 1978, I was ordained a Presbyterian minister (Presbyterian
Church in America) and served two churches while I also obtained
a doctoral degree in biblical linguistics. Shortly after my ordination,
I was preaching a homily on the unity of the Church and stated
that the only justification for the Reformation was that the Catholic
Church had left the Gospel. I further said that the demands of
unity in the Church, for which our Lord prayed in John 17, required
us to do this: If the Catholic Church ever comes back to the Gospel,
we must go back to it.