How Should I Go About It
If I wish to investigate the claims of the Catholic Church with a view to entering it, providing I discover it to be the one true Church Christ founded, how shall I go about it? What steps shall I take? Well, the first step you must take in this matter is to pray. As a humble seeker after truth, ask God for light to know His holy Will. Like the beggar in the Gospel, cry out with the loud voice of your soul: "Lord, that I may see." For faith is a gift of God, that God gives to those who ask for it. Christ has promised that whatsoever you shall ask of the Father in His Name, you shall recieve." "Ask and you shall receive; seek and you shall find; knock and it shall be opened unto you."
The great Cardinal Newman, one of the keenest minds of all time, took over twenty years to find his way back into the Church of his fathers. He had been a member of the Anglican Church, and he wished to remain a member of that Church if such were the will of God. Amid the doubts and perplexities that tormented him, he wrote the beautiful lines of the hymn 'Lead Kindly Light.' We too can repeat his words in prayer:
Lead kindly light, amid the encircling gloom,
Lead thou me on.
The night is dark and I am far from home,
Lead thou me on.
God finally answered his humble prayer, giving him not only the light of mind that he begged for, but adding also the strength of soul that would enable him to follow the inspiration of God. From that time forward no sacrifice that he would be called upon to make could deter him from answering Christ's call to return to the Church of Christ.
"Without faith," Scripture tells us, it is impossible to please God." (Heb. 11, 31) But without God's grace, we cannot possess faith. That is why there are many men in the world today who are convinced that the Catholic Church is the one, true Church founded by Jesus Christ, yet who have not entered it because God did not give them the gift of faith. Such a man was Cobbett, author of a history of the Protestant Reformation in England. Though Cobbett was not a Catholic, in his history he gave irrefutable proofs that there was no need of any such reformation in England, that the Catholic faith was literally stolen from the people, that they did not willingly give it up. On one occasion Cobbett was asked by a Catholic: "Why, then, do you not embrace the Catholic faith? You seem to defend it in everything." Cobbett replied: "I am surprised that you, a Catholic, should ask me that question. You certainly should know that there is a great difference between conviction and conversion." In other words Cobbett was intellectually convinced that the Catholic Church was the true Church of Christ, and yet he lacked the grace of God to live up to his convictions. To merit the grace of embracing the Catholic faith means more than just making an intellectual study of it. It means in addition humble prayer that God will give you not only the light of mind that you may see your way but also strength of soul, that you may have the courage to walk therein.
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I did pray today..joyful.
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