My Conversion Story

To read my conversion story, I have posted it in .pdf format available for download.


Monday, November 29, 2010

Life is precious

I spent a couple of hours yesterday holding my newest family member, Jamal. When I look at him, his precious 4-month old cousin, Gabriel, and my 7-year old great niece, Isabel, I can't help but think of all the little children who have been killed through abortion. "Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea. Woe to the world because of things that cause sin! Such things must come, but woe to the one through whom they come!" - Matt 18:6-7


© 2010 The Cathoholic - All Rights Reserved.

Monday, November 8, 2010

The Purity of Mary

One of the primary reasons I left the Catholic Church many years ago was because I didn't understand the role of Mary. I honestly thought that Catholics pay too much attention to her. They claim that they don't worship her, but it seemed that they did, because of the things that they would say, and the things that they would do compared with how little about her is said in the Bible.

Now that I have come back I can't imagine life without her. And I don't understand how I could not see how important she is, and how important it is that she be pure. It's purely logical that she be Immaculate. Please look at this excerpt from Fulton J. Sheen's "The World's First Love, Mary Mother of God" published in 1952. even if you're not a Catholic, look at this with an open mind:

His Mother was not like ours, whom we accepted as something historically fixed, which we could not change; He was born of a mother whom He chose before He was born. It is the only instance in history where both the Son willed the Mother and the Mother willed the Son. And this is what the Creed means when it says "born of the Virgin Mary". She was called by God as Aaron was and our Lord was born not just of her flesh but also by her consent.

Before taking unto Himself a human nature, He consulted with the Woman, to ask her if she would give him a man. The Manhood of Jesus was not stolen from humanity, as Prometheus stole fire from heaven; it was given as a gift.

The first man, Adam, was made from the slime of the earth. The first woman was made from a man in an ecstasy. The new Adam, Christ, comes from the new Eve, Mary, in an ecstasy of prayer and love of God and the fullness of freedom.

We should not be surprised that she is spoken of as a thought by God before the world was made. When Whistler painted the picture of his mother, did he not have the image of her in his mind before he ever gathered his colors on his palette? If you could have preexisted your mother (not artistically, but really), would you not have made her the most perfect woman that ever lived -- one so beautiful she would have been the sweet envy of all women, and one so gentle and so merciful that all other mothers would have sought to imitate her virtues? Why, then, should we think that God would do otherwise? When Whistler was complimented on the portrait of his mother, he said, "You know how it is; one tries to make one’s Mummy just as nice as he can." When God became man, he too, I believe, would make his Mother as nice as he could -- and that would make her a perfect Mother.

God never does anything without exceeding preparation. The two great masterpieces of God are Creation of man and Re-creation or Redemption of man. Creation was made for unfallen men; his Mystical Body, for fallen men. Before making man, God made a Garden of delights -- as God alone knows how to make a garden beautiful. In that Paradise of creation there were celebrated the first nuptials of man and woman. But man willed not have blessings, except according to his lower nature. Not only did he lose his happiness; he even wounded his own mind and will. Then God planned the remaking or redeeming of man. But before doing so, he would make another Garden. This new one would not be of earth but of flesh; it would be a Garden over whose portals the name of sin would never be written -- a Garden in which there would grow no weeds of rebellion to choke the growth of the flowers of grace -- a Garden from which would flow four rivers of redemption to the four corners of the earth -- a Garden so pure that the Heavenly Father would not blush in sending His Own Son into it -- and this "flesh-girt Paradise to be gardened by the Adam new" was our Blessed Mother. As Eden was the Paradise of Creation, Mary is the Paradise of the incarnation, and in her as a Garden were celebrated the first nuptials of God and man. The closer one gets to fire, the greater the heat; the closer one is to God, the greater the purity. But since no one was ever closer to God than the woman whose human portals he threw open to walk this earth, then no one could have been more pure than she.