What I Have Gained by Faith

The last two posts I wrote were pointing out logical errors. I decided that this one should be more positive.
I love the scriptures. The Bible is wonderful to me. The more I read, the more I understand, the more I want to know. My love for the scriptures started on my father's knee. He would put my sister on one side of his lap, me on the other, and read tales from our big story Bible before he sent us to bed. I cherished those times, and loved wrapping myself up in the artwork and imagining being present for the events of the stories. When I was in 3rd grade, I went to a tiny country church and had Sunday School classes with a lovely elderly teacher named Mrs. White. Mrs White spoke of the Bible with a gleam in her eye that told us how dear it was to her. She was a wonderful woman. She cared for her ailing husband, gardened, canned things and gave food to her neighbors and the poor and needy from her produce. She always had something handy to feed guests who dropped in to talk to her because she was an excellent listener. I wanted to grow up to be like Mrs White. As I got older, I never stopped loving the Bible or wanting to know more. I read my parents' Bible study books when they weren't looking and when my mom took a Church History course, I read her textbook.
I always had a basic faith. In my late teens and 20's, I started to do whatever I felt like doing and I rationalized that it was okay. I got a huge wake-up call toward the end of my 20's. I realized then that I had been fooling myself into thinking I could be a Christian and do what I wanted without consequences. Once saved, always saved, right? WRONG! I changed my way of living completely and I wanted to live right.
When my husband and I married, we started looking for a church that we felt we could grow in. We found a medium sized Southern Baptist Church that seemed to fit the bill. For a long time, we were happy there. Then there were some major changes in the staffing. Initially we thought it would be good, but we began to see favoritism and poor judgement, especially from the children's pastor. At the same time, I was struggling because I felt there was no real call to live a righteous life coming from the leadership. I knew that there was more to it than assenting intellectually and then waiting for the trip to the great beyond. My husband began teaching Church History, then a detailed class on the scriptures. He spent a great deal of time researching the context and culture of the scriptures so that he could give his class an accurate sense of what they meant. That led him to the Church Fathers, which led him to desire a return to the Catholic Church, something he did after many conversations with a patient priest and with the pastors of our church. During the process, I became alarmed, having been misinformed about what the Catholic Church teaches. I prayed and I studied scripture. There I found the truth about Communion. I realized that the Catholic Church was the only place I could truly receive Jesus in communion and I wanted to. That Fall, we signed ourselves up for adult initiation into the church and our children into catechism classes and began attending mass every week.
I learned so much that year. The scriptures were opened to me in a new and exciting way. I felt great elation to realize that I was being asked to engage my reason in learning the faith rather than suspending reality. I began to see the interconnection between the testaments of the Bible. It was thrilling.
During Lent, I said my first confession. As I prepared for it, the Holy Spirit revealed to me things I needed to let go of to be healed. When I came out of the confessional, I was full of joy and thanksgiving. God is so very merciful! I finally believed in the deepest part of my soul that I was forgiven.
When I received the Eucharist for the first time, it was an amazing experience. I realized more than ever that Christ had come to live in me. I desired to live rightly because I loved Him more than ever. I found that as I went to confession on a regular basis, I had less and less to confess. In fact, I very rarely get further than thinking as I should not anymore. That isn't because I am something special. It's because I recognize God's grace in my life and I expect Him to help me fight temptation. He always does.
My prayer life changed dramatically since becoming a Catholic. I have a more regular and stronger prayer life than ever before. I don't need to know what to pray about, I can begin with a contemplative prayer like the Rosary and pray about what is on my heart from there. I also read the Bible more and contemplate the scriptures more. I read books that help me understand deeper truths. When I was a Protestant, Bible Study books were pretty shallow. The books written by Catholics like Fulton Sheen, Pope Benedict, Thomas A Kempis and Therese of Liseux are full of incredible depth. I find myself continually amazed as I learn more about Jesus. Every single thing He did and said was significant.
I have gained a new perspective on suffering as well. When I was going to the Baptist Church, I was made to feel as if something must be wrong with my spirituality because I had chronic pain. I knew it wasn't true, and yet it made me doubt and I became very depressed. When I started formation classes in the Catholic Church, my godmother sent me materials to help me in my spiritual growth. Two things she sent to me had a profound impact on me. One was a pamphlet that showed how to pray the Divine Mercy Chaplet. I came to love that prayer. It touched me deeply and I prayed for everyone I could think of as I worked my way through my rosary beads. The second thing was a magazine. The magazine contained an article about a quadriplegic woman who offered up her sufferings for others with miraculous results. I began to pray for others, offering up my suffering for them as I prayed the Divine Mercy Chaplet. As I did so, my pain eased and my depression lifted. I could do things I had been physically incapable of before. I began to play music and sing more. I began to enjoy things more.
Soon, I was asked to help with things at the Church. I began teaching children's classes on Sunday mornings. I coordinated the parish picnic. I became a cantor.
Being a cantor was such an amazing thing for me. Singing in the Cathedral is a wonderful experience, and I have had the honor of being accompanied by the concert pianist who was my piano professor in college. That was something I had hoped to one day do twenty years earlier. I have become my true self again. I feel so free to live. I have no desire to do things that are wrong and I desire to be a better person every day.
I truly believe that every prayer I ask of God will be answered. Virtually everything I ask of God in prayer is given to me.
I share what I have learned and what I have gained every chance I get. I am truly content and happy. Faith in Jesus Christ has given me all of this.
I have passed from despair and depression to joy and hope!

Fallacies easily identified

I recently ran into a very interesting fallacy. I think that it is somewhat common, yet it begs several logical questions. A particular group makes the following claims 1) the Bible refers to the 66 books beginning with Genesis and ending with Revelation, as they were originally written. 2) That the 1611 authorized King James Version is the only completely correct version of the Bible. 3) that the Bible is the complete and final word on how to live life.
The fallacy I first noticed was in looking at the first two of those points together. You see, the 1611 version of the King James Bible contained 81 books. This included the Deuterocanonical books (therein titled the Apochrypha). Which books are divinely inspired? 66 of them or all 81?
The next fallacy is the issue of authority. What makes King James worthy of making scripture authoritative? Where did the scriptures that were translated into English in 1611 come from? Where did the idea that certain books belonged in scripture and were the inspired word of God come from? Historically, the Catholic Church preserved, translated and disseminated Holy scripture.  For many centuries, copies of scripture had to be done by hand and they were rare and valuable. When Catholic missionaries translated the scriptures into local tongues, it took time to copy them and receive authorization from the Church to use them in the churches. With the invention of the printing press, every guy and his brother wanted to produce a copy of the Bible. Numerous mistakes cropped up in the plethera of unauthorized versions of the Bible that cropped up. The King James itself had problems where obvious errors made it into the published books.  Can the 1611 version of the KJV be trusted as containing the scriptures perfectly translated from the original words and maintaining the original sense of the words written by the authors of thousands of years prior? I would say no.

Contrary to what most have been led to believe, there were English Bibles which were authorized by the Church prior to the reformation and prior to the flood of unauthorized Bibles which came onto the market in the 14 th and 15 th centuries. Many felt that the Catholic Church had been too slow to produce a printed version of the Bible in English, but one must keep in mind how very seriously the Catholic Church takes Holy Scriptures and orthodox Christian teaching. The version which finally came out, the Douay-Rheims was a very accurate and carefully done translation. It also had as source material more ancient extant copies of scripture than other versions of its time. From the time of the Ascension forward, Peter was the recognized leader of the Christian Church, and his descendants ( that is those who studied under Peter himself and those he had taught directly) continue to fill this important function of protecting the faith that Jesus taught to Peter and the restof the Apostles. The gospel tells us that Jesus established a Church, a living body of believerswho would carry out His Work. Should we trust the authority of an organization which kept the scriptures inviolate for 1500 years before it was questioned, or should we trust the Johnny-come-lately English King who was known for displaying homosexual tendencies

By the way, this group completely condemns homosexuality in any form, yet somehow givethe arguably homosexual king who authorized their version of scripture a pass.
If my heart were not broken for these dear, misinformed people, I could find it laughable.
I think that any group that expects you to turn your brain off and stop thinking for yourself is a cult. One thing I love about my church is that I am invited to apply faith and reason. Things have been carefully studied over the course of centuries and given expression in ways that many can connect with.
I hope that those involved in these groups will pray the Holy Spirit open their eyes to truth as they read scriptures. Even the flawed KJV contains enough of the truth to inform one seeking Christ earnestly.
The unbiased, Spirit led, reading of scripture taught me truths I had previously denied and I experience a fullness of faith I never did before I came full circle to the faith of my childhood, the Catholic Church. I don'T