Chap 6 - Testimonies of Converts

There is a very interesting book called "Through a Hundred Gates." It is published by the Bruce Publishing Company of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. In it is related a short account of the conversions of some forty and more noted men and women of today, and in all parts of the world. The Catholic Church appeals to all men. This is nowhere better proven than in the long list of her illustrious converts from all the corners of the globe―England, Ireland, Scotland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Hungary, Spain, France, Holland, Russia, Hindustan, India, China, Japan, everywhere in fact where the human heart seeks God. Men from all nations and races have not only embraced the faith, but men from all nations have returned to the faith their fathers once lost. I shall quote here the testimony of but a few to emphasize how carefully they examined the claims of the Catholic Church to be the one, true Church of Christ before they came back home.

In the coming into the Church Dr. Erik Peterson of the University of Bonn, Germany, said: "I am now forty years old. I have studied theology circumspectly for twenty years. My action (in embracing the Catholic faith) was prompted by my conscience that I might not be a castaway of God. Whoever judges me, let him know that I shall appeal against his judgment to the judgment seat of God."

Bishop Duane G. Hunt of Salt Lake, Utah diocese tells us why he came into the Church. "It was during a post-graduate course in a law school that I finally made up my mind that I must be and would be honest with myself, and that since logic led me unmistakably to the Catholic Church, I would follow. I could not be a mental coward, I came into the Catholic Church, therefore, because I could not stay out."

Augustine J. Roth, another illustrious convert, gives us his reasons. "The answer to the question, why I became a Catholic, can be summed up in a few words. I became a Catholic because, after an extensive investigation lasting years, I found the Catholic Church to be the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. I became a Catholic for the same reason that nearly half a million souls became Catholics last year, for no man can know the true Church and feel content to remain outside her communion. I hated the Catholic Church so thoroughly that I would have abandoned the inquiry even though it meant staking my salvation and losing what little faith I had left. That I took the step later on is a proof for the mysterious working of God's grace in my life, which took me step by step through the emptiness of other churches and then bestowed upon me the greatest of all gifts, the gift of Faith."

Dr. E. Schmidt, a German scholar, has this to say of his conversion. "The logic of Catholic doctrine, if this expression is permitted, led me into the Catholic Church, just as the lack of logic drove me away from Protestantism. At the time of my conversion I was nineteen, and to this day I have not regretted for a single moment that I then followed the superior logic of Catholic dogma or, shall I say, the superior promptings of God's grace"

Says Hans Carl Wendlant, noted religious writer of Germany: "Next to the grace of God and the intercession of the Blessed Mother, I attribute my conversion to the recognition that Truth and Love have found their highest expression in the Catholic Church."

Professor Dr. Paul Kotaro Tanaka, Professor of Law at the Imperial University of Tokyo writes: I became a Catholic through God's grace eleven years ago. All I would say is God forcibly took hold of me, and I took hold of Him more and more.

Chap 5 - The True Reason For Entering The Church

The fundamental reason then why one should enter the Catholic Church is that it is the Church established by Jesus Christ, in which he intended that all men work out the salvation of the soul entrusted to them. Of course there are many reasons why one might be attracted to the Church, reasons that sometimes impel men to enter the Church. One might be attracted by the splendor and beauty of Catholic worship, by the dignity and learning of her priests, by the staunch way in which the Church upholds the sacredness of the married state or because at times one's friends are Catholics or one's husband or wife. But while all of these are things that might attract us toward the Church, one's motive in entering the Church should be more substantial than the mere beauty of Catholic worship or the fact that my friend or my wife or husband is a Catholic.

Nor should a true conversion ever mean "hitting the sawdust trail" as it is sometimes vulgarly termed. For conversion to God means much more than the sole declaration that you accept Christ after listening to a sermon or two. An emotional sermon that stirs up an emotional response is hardly sufficient ground for the full acceptance of all that Christianity implies. It is true that emotions have their place in religion, but no one should rely on them alone either in his acceptance of religion or in his religious life afterwards. One should enter the Catholic Church after reasonable inquiry into her doctrines, convinced that this is the Church Christ Himself founded, and hence there is a solemn obligation in conscience binding one to enter.

The salvation of one's immortal soul is the most important business man has to transact in this life.
God demands of us that we take it seriously. "Seek ye first the kingdom of God," Christ says to us. On the other hand just as no one should enter the Church unless from solid motives, so no one should remain in a Church unless he is sure that it is the Church established by Christ, and in which Christ meant him to work out the salvation of his soul. To embrace the Catholic faith then a certain amount of reasonable reflection is always necessary, a knowledge of her doctrines and an honest inquiry into her claims of being the One Church divinely instituted by the Savior of mankind.

Chap 4. Why All Men Should Practice Religion

There are many people in this world who, though they practice religion to some extent, are not much concerned whether the religion they practice is the true religion or not. There are others who have strayed so far from the notion of religion or the practice of religion that they will ask: "Why should I embrace any particular faith or practice any religion? What's the good of it? Why is it necessary?" In answering these questions I shall be forced to make this chapter a little longer than those preceding.

"The proper study of man," says the great Grecian philosopher Aristotle, "is man." In other words after the study of God Himself, there is no study so usful, so important as the study of man. It is useful to try to understand the nature of trees, of rocks, of animals and of the forces of nature, but it is more useful and far more necessary for man to understand man himself. And in the study of man there is no consideration more profitable than the study of man's eternal destiny. From the beginning of the world, nothing has occupied man's attention more than this. Where did I come from? Why am I here on this earth? Whither am I going? These three questions have troubled the minds of men since the very beginning of human history. Taken together they form the mighty problem of what is called the riddle of existence. That riddle must be solved if man's life upon this earth is to have a solid, worthwhile purpose, if man's religion is to be reasonable.

Let us suppose that instead of the millions of men that live upon earth, there were but one. Suppose that that one, upon being ushered into existence, should as it were, find himself in a small rowboat in the middle of a vast ocean with nothing but water all around him stretching to the horizon. The rowboat seems to be headed in some direction, but East, West, North or South, the rower knows not. If you were that man, sooner or later, probably sooner, you would ask yourself these questions: from what port did I set out? Why am I traveling at all? To what port am I headed? If you could give yourself no answer, you would most likely quit rowing. If I do not know for what port, if any, I am headed, why row? If I don't know, why I am rowing, why row? The oars seem to have been given to me for a purpose the boat seems to be made to carry me somewhere: the water itself seems to have been intended to sustain the boat. But if with all this I am going nowhere in particular, I am embarked upon a ridiculous journey.

Yet that is your position and the position of every man that ever lived upon this earth. Out of the womb of eternity when you existed not, you came and, with the speed of the fastest airplane that ever winged its way across the sky, you are traveling forward toward another eternity. What am I supposed to do while I am on this momentous journey? Is the journey after all worth taking seriously? Should I try to direct my way or should I just let myself drift? Storms will come in this journey through life as they would come to the rower upon the ocean. Storms will come in the shape of trials and disappointments, sickness, and, at times, the loss of fortune and friends and in the end, death. If there is no purpose in life other than to live, why should I try to bear up under such disappointments and trials? Why should I endeavor to rein in my passions or curb my selfish interests? Or is there possibly a port toward which I am headed, for which it would be worth while steering a straight course and suffering the buffets of this life to reach?

There is such a port. Its existence gives awful significance to this life. The rower was given a pair of oars to row with; you were given your reason to find out the direction in which you should steer your boat, the port toward which you should tend, in other words to know the grand purpose of life. For unless you were put here by God, to live a short time on probation, to prove yourself amid the trials and temptations of this life as worthy of the life to come, then your lot is sand indeed. All through this life your heart will be yearning for happiness. You will go through life so wistfully enjoying a bit of it here, a bit of it there. In the end your heart will still be yearning. It will never be completely satisfied. This is the testimony of every man that ever lived. Solomon, supposed to be the wisest and the richest of the kings of earth, surrounded with all the honors and the pleasures of life, in the end testified that it was all in vain. "Vanity of vanities," he exclaimed, "and all is vanity." Useless, worthless, dissatisfying, empty.

And at the moment of death, you will be unwilling to die. You will want more life. Your whole being will be crying out for eternal life. Yet you with your human heart, your wonderful intellect, your magnificent will, your marvelous imagination, you, the masterpiece of creation will be the greatest disappointment, the saddest wreck, the one great blunder in all the universe unless you honestly admit what your reason tells you: I was created by God, I am destined for God, and only the possession of God can one day fill my heart to overflowing with all happiness. Riches and honors and earthly enjoyments all pass away. Only God and eternal life remain forever. The great St. Augustine was a man who in his life tasted most of the pleasures that this life affords. In the end however like Solomon, he turns away from them with emptiness in his heart, exclaiming: "Thou has made me for Thyself, O Lord, and my heart will not rest unless it rest in Thee."

This then is the sole purpose of life, so to live as to prove ourselves worthy of God. It answers the question what is the good of religion, why it is necessary for me to embrace any religion and to enter any church. God creates the soul of each man who enters this world. He infuses that soul into the body. Because of that soul man becomes a human personality with the dignity of having been created by the hand of God and in God's own image. Man then possesses this dignity but he also possesses a destiny equal to his dignity. That destiny is one day to possess God and to live happily with God throughout all eternity. But to merit eternal life with God, man must fulfill certain conditions. Man in this life then is on a short probation. For God intends that man shall obtain his salvation by living up to God's commandments with the divine assistance. This present life is but a sojourn upon earth. We have not here a lasting dwelling place, for heaven is man's true home. The great purpose of life then, and the great good and necessity of worshipping God in the true religion is to achieve the salvation of one's immortal soul. This is the fundamental reason for entering the Catholic Church, the only Church established by Jesus Christ. Why then should you be concerned about religion? Why Because God demands it of you and because the salvation of your immortal soul is at stake. The greatest evil that can ever befall you is the loss of your immortal soul. The late World War, or a war a hundred times more destructive, is of no consequence compared to the loss of your soul. "What doth it profit a man," says Holy Writ, "if he gain the whole world, yet suffer the loss of his soul."

 

Chapter 3 - On Whether there can be More Than One True Religion

But why change one's religion? Why re-enter the Catholic Church? Isn't one religion as good as another? The plain answer to this important question is an emphatic, No. This saying for the most part is the work of those who in reality are indifferent to all religion, and make this an excuse for their indifference. A little reasoning should suffice to prove that one religion is not as good as another religion. If it were there would have been no need of Christianity in the first place. For there were other religions existing upon earth at the time Christ established His Church. There were Confucianism and Buddhism and Judaism and Paganism. Were one religion as good as another, it would have been sufficient for God to have allowed these religions to function without establishing another. Christ, however, did establish another.

In His dealings with man, God has always been definite and exact. After the fall of Adam, God promised that in due time He would send a Redeemer to satisfy for man's sin. But in order to keep the knowledge of the one, true God among men until that time, God called Abraham to be the father of His chosen people. Hence he established the Jewish people as the one true and divinely appointed guardian of His law until He should send the promised Messiah. The Jewish Church, then, was the one, true religion up to the time of Christ. God Himself then gives the answer to the question, "Is not one religion as good as another?" He Himself established one religion as the true religion up to the coming of Christ. Christ in His turn established but one Church, and He proclaimed that that Church would last to the end of time. "Thou art Peter," He says, "and upon this rock I will build my Church and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it." (Matt. 16, 18.) Christ said "Church" not "Churches", and He meant church, not churches. And again He says: "And there shall be one Fold and one Shepherd."

It is evident from many other considerations that there can be but one, true religion. As there is only one God, there can be but one, true worship of God. Truth itself is one, and it cannot be contradictory. At one and the same time, two and two cannot be four and six and nine. If it were, what confusion would result in the field of mathematics. In the field of morality, what terrible evils would result if it were equally good and true to murder one's parents and to protect their lives. Likewise were it equally true that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and not the Son of God, if it were equally true that Baptism is a Sacrament and absolutely necessary for salvation and neither a Sacrament nor necessary for salvation, what doubt, uncertainty and confusion would arise in the minds of Christians. The disastrous state of division and disunion that exists in the Christian sects outside the Catholic Church today is partly the result of following the theory that one religion is as good as another. Christ manifestly would not come upon earth to found fifty-seven different churches teaching different doctrines to confuse men's minds. He came upon earth to found the one true Church that would be the one sure and safe path to salvation.

Chap 2 The Beauty Within

Scripture tells us that the beauty of the king's daughter is within. It is hidden from the eyes of those who gaze upon it only from without. In like manner the beauty of Catholic worship, the truth of Catholic doctrine, the peace and security of Catholic life are beauty and peace and security and truth that are within. They cannot be rightly known or fully appreciated by anyone not a Catholic.

We live in a world today in which Christianity is a divided Christianity. A hundred and one, if not a thousand and one, different churches represent themselves as being Christian. But this was not always so. Some four hundred years ago all the nations of the Western world presented a united front; all of the English people, all of the German people, the French, the Swedish, the Danish, all Europe in a word was staunchly Catholic. These were, in all likelihood, your own ancestors. They understood and appreciated the beauty and the truth of their Catholic faith. They had practiced this faith for centuries. Since that time, however, in what is known as the Protestant Reformation, great numbers fell away and great numbers were led away from the Catholic Church. Having withdrawn from the Church of their fathers, they have by now strayed so far from home that things, that once were so familiar that they loved so deeply, have now become utterly strange and badly misunderstood. But there should be nothing strange to a Protestant returning to the Catholic Church, just as there should be nothing strange to a Jewish person entering it.

I remember the case of a Jewish lady who had become a Catholic. Someone asked her how it felt to become a Catholic. It was at a festival breakfast just after her Baptism. She answered that in reality she didn't know. She had always been a Catholic, she said, only at last she had found the Messiah. Everything else was what she had always wanted and, in a way, lived up to. For the Protestant it would not mean finding the Messiah. It would mean simply finding one's way back home to the bosom of the Church the Messiah founded. Hence I have entitled this little work, "Simple Chapters to be read On The Way Back Home." Becoming a convert to a new religion could mean a turning to embrace something new. In this case, however, the something new is in reality something very old, something that all your forefathers believed in and prized before you. It means turning away from the uncertainty, the doubt, and the confusion in which men live today, back to the security and peace that exists in the Church Christ established.

The first Christians were all converts. Peter, upon whom Christ established His Church, was a convert, together with all the other Apostles. And they were so inflamed with zeal for the new religion Christ taught them, that they set out gladly over the whole world to give their lives to the task of converting the world to that to which Christ had converted them. Since that time many Jewish people have entered the Church, pagans in all parts of the world have entered the Church, and many Christians, who for one reason or another had lost the light of that faith, re-entered her Fold to place their feet once more on the true path to salvation. This is the path Christ Himself pointed out, He who declared: "I am the Way, the Truth, the Life."

Chap 1 - On the Way Back Home

Today there are hundreds of thousands of men and women who, though they claim to be Christians, belong to no particular church. They are living in practical indifference to God and are risking the salvation of their immortal souls. They will have much to answer for when they stand before the judgment seat of the Almighty. For if Christ founded a Church upon earth, he meant that men should enter it. If He commanded that all men receive Baptism, He meant that they should become members of His Church. If He commanded that all men listen and accept the teaching of His Apostles, He meant that all men should be docile members of that Church He would build upon Peter, the head of the Apostles. To such men this little book makes its appeal. The invitation which God gives you now, you must not put off too lightly. As the Scripture warns us: "The night cometh when no man can work." And again: "Now is the acceptable time; now is the day of salvation." The invitation, which God gives you now, may not be given again.


As you read these pages however, it may seem to you that what is written here is Catholic propaganda. As a matter of fact, in the good sense of the word, it is. Propaganda in it's original sense means anything that is written or spoken or depicted in order to encourage and promote a movement, an idea, a faith. This is the honest and true type of propaganda the Church practices at the command of Christ Himself. Upon establishing His Church He gave the clear command to the Apostles: "Go forth and teach all nations."

In the sense in which the word propaganda is often used today, it signifies anything said, written or done in a partly false manner to influence people into accepting some belief or some idea not entirely true. The Catholic Church does not employ this false type of propaganda. It realized that no true conversion will ever be made by force, by deceit, or by trickery. It presents its claims honestly and openly to your reason and to your conscience. It invites your full investigation into its history, its dogmas and its practices. Only then when the truth prevails under the impulse of God's assistance can a true conversion be made.

If the Catholic Church fulfills the duty given it by Christ, she must never cease teaching the doctrines of Christ to all men. Catholic missionaries have in fact carried the message of Christ to all parts of the world. All parts of the world have responded to their appeal. On the other hand, there could be more effort made at times by the ordinary lay Catholic at home, and even by the priest at times, to restate Catholic doctrine to their Protestant brethren. Secure in his faith, content with his faith and not wishing to impose his faith upon the unwilling, the Catholic layman usually makes little effort to propagate it. The ordinary priest, moreover, is so immersed in the duties of taking care of his congregation that he has little energy and time left over for the work of reconverting those who have strayed. Christ Himself, however, gave us the injunction to work for the conversion of those not as yet in His fold. "Other sheep I have," He says, "that are not of this fold; them also must I bring, and they shall hear my voice, and there shall be one fold and one shepherd."

It is strange and yet it is true, that the Catholic Church, although two thousand years old, remains largely unknown to a large part of the modern world. A certain convert in Alaska once remarked: "What kind of a church do you people run? Is it a closed corporation? It seems as difficult to enter it as it is to pry open the door of a bank vault. I have been coming to your church now for the past six weeks, assisting at the services on Sundays, and I have not as yet met the priest in charge." In some cases then the approach to the Church is difficult. To make it less difficult, is the purpose for which this book is written.

 

  

Chapter 38

GOD CALLS YOU TO COME HOME

This little book is finished now.  It was written to let you know that, whatever the cause that took you away from home, your home is still waiting to receive you back.  In that home God has furnished two things of which you will always stand in need.  The first is a sure guide for you, that on this earthly pilgrimage you may make your way back to God.  The Church is the guide God established. For you and for all men, it is the voice of God, a voice that you can listen to in all security in matters that pertain to the salvation of your soul.

The second thing that He furnished for you in the Church is spiritual food, His own Body and Blood.  He knew that you would need the comfort of His divine presence upon earth;  He knew that you would need spiritual food whereby you might live unto God.  The Voice of God and the living Body and Blood of your divine Savior are waiting for you to return home.