Testimony of the former Roman Catholic priest
From childhood I have been constantly searching for what is real and trustworthy. In my opinion as a teenager, through the priesthood I could best experience the truth and save the soul. One teacher once said to me, "A stone can float on water rather than a priest perish."
Therefore, I entered the seminary of priests, where I studied for twelve years. There I oriented my whole life according to the rules of the Roman Catholic Church. I devoted myself to all ascetic skills, and later guided others to an ascetic life when I was a professor of asceticism and mystical theology and rector of the Metropolitan Seminary in Oviedo, Spain. (Asceticism is the art of mastering and bringing under control all your passions, desires, and lusts through harsh self-discipline, abstinence, or self-punishment of the body.)
But I myself have never been able to find the self-control, peace, and security that I wanted to lead other people through in my teaching. My inner uneasiness and agitation, added to the many disappointments I had from the Roman Catholic Church when I compared its teaching to the Bible, led to a growing conflict in me.
While these spiritual struggles roared in me, my attention was drawn to Protestant radio stations abroad. They aroused in me a hunger for the true message of God, and so the Bible became light and food for my soul.
The Bible, the source of truth
My desire to understand exactly what Jesus said made me seek contact with a church I had heard of, one in which the Bible was the only source of guidance for their faith. As I studied the Bible and spoke with these Christians, I saw Jesus Christ in a whole new way as a perfect Savior who must be approached directly and personally by faith alone.
The more I researched the Bible, the more clearly I recognized the deviations and errors of Roman Catholicism and wanted to experience the kind of conversion the Bible was talking about. On the other hand, because I was very close to my Church, I wanted to have this experience without leaving the Roman Catholic Church.
However, I gradually became convinced that the Roman Catholic Church had sidelined Christ through its wrong teachings and complex organization. This conclusion was extremely painful for me.
Jesus is the Truth and the Way
I will never forget the night my conversion took place. Another day of hard inner conflict had passed, and I was seeking refuge in the Lord and in His Word, the Bible. I couldn't sleep.
Not that I tried hard to pray, but suddenly my heart filled with prayer and I couldn't hold it back. More than ever, I have felt the burden and weight of my sins in my life before. I was thinking, “I am a sinner to the core and I cannot free myself. In God's eyes I am useless and useless. " Never before had I felt so incapable of doing any good. Then the thought came to my mind how many times the Lord Jesus Christ had invited those who felt absolutely lost to come to Him in the Bible. I felt strongly drawn to Him, for He offered a free and undeserved forgiveness. Indeed, Christ had been ready to come to this earth and suffer instead of men the punishment for their sins.
Eventually, without any desire to do anything myself, I threw myself into the arms of God, my Father, who had given Jesus Christ for my salvation. I prayed, "Come to Me, Lord Jesus, I surrender to You as my only personal and all-sufficient Savior." The hours flew like the minutes. I had never experienced such full unity with the Lord my God. Deep in my heart I thought, "You are mine, Lord, and I am Yours, Your possession for all eternity." I do not know how this happened, but it is a reality that all my oscillation, hesitation and indecision have disappeared, and my happiness has become complete.
My decision had been made, and in the face of the choice of Christ or the Roman Catholic Church, I chose to follow Christ, whatever the consequences.
I discovered that Christ had taken the lead in my life and united me to Himself simply because I had trusted Him wholeheartedly. The Lord is not only a good man who shows us the way, but He Himself is the Way. The Lord is not only a Teacher of true things, but He Himself is the Truth. The Lord is not a hero who gave his life for a human cause, but is the only Savior who is Life for all who return to Him.
Saved by grace, not by deeds
As a teacher of asceticism, I had researched various methods of self-control and control over human lusts, as well as some that were applied in other religions, such as Buddhist monks. I had soon become an expert in such techniques invented by men in their aspiration for holiness. For a man as thirsty for knowledge as I was, it was of great importance to find the way to God's truth, to His commandments.
When I talk about my experiences, I gladly use the following illustration: When I realized that human nature is completely corrupt, depraved, I felt like a shipwrecked man who sees the illuminated shore in the distance. "If I reached the shore, I would be saved." The coast doesn't seem too far away at all, but this is actually an illusion, because everything seems closer when you look out of the water. The shipwrecked man begins to swim, at first he advances well, but before reaching the shore he is caught by a current, which takes him out to sea again.
He struggles to reach shore a second time; it must overcome the current and the waves, otherwise it will drown. He always tries, but fails. Finally, he must admit: the laws of nature do not allow him to achieve his goal. All he has to do is wait desperately and helplessly for his end. This is what happens to a man when he realizes the futility of his human strength to please God, when he notices that he cannot escape God's judgment on his own. On the coast or shore of eternity dwells a holy God who upholds His holiness and commandments. They are like strong currents and waves that surround the coast of eternity and that man can never overcome by his own efforts, because he is weak and sinful by nature.
To expand the illustration, imagine that a helicopter suddenly takes off from the shore. Will the pilot notice the drowning man? Yes: he is approaching the place where that lonely man is desperately fighting the waves. He pulls him out of the water and takes him safely over the waves and the troubled sea to the much desired shore.
This example illustrates very well what Jesus Christ did. He was from eternity at the right hand of the Father. Then he came into this world to save us. He endured the high waves of God's wrath when He took upon Himself on the cross of Golgotha the punishment for sin. "For Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might be made dreptitudinea [compliance with the divine standard] of God" (2.Corinteni 5:21). He saw countless times sinners struggling with the waves of God's law, and He stretched out His saving hand to them. Every lost man who puts his complete trust in God's Word is taken out of the ocean of perdition and transposed into a new life.
We will never find salvation if we believe on the one hand what Christ did for the forgiveness of our sins and on the other hand we still trust in the sacraments, indulgences [forgiveness of sins] and good works. True salvation occurs only when we trust only in Jesus Christ. Thus, those who are of faith [on the basis of faith] are blessed with the faithful Abraham. For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse: for it is written,
"Cursed is every one that abideth in the book of the law to do them. But the fact that by law no one is justified before God is evident, for the righteous will live by faith. But the law is not of faith: but he that doeth these things shall live by them. Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written, "Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree" (Galatians 3: 9-3).
Celso Muñiz was a professor at the University of Amsterdam for many years, and is now retired. In 1995 his wife died. His zeal for the Lord's work is well known to his fellow believers in the Netherlands.
(Translator: Olimpiu S. Cosma)
[Source: bereanbeacon.org]
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