John 8:36 - "So if the Son sets you free, you will be truly free."
Having taken the vows of poverty, chastity and obedience in the Roman Catholic order, my steps were set in the direction in which I grew up. Raised in a Roman Catholic home and educated in Catholic schools for sixteen years and educated for six years in convent life, I lived with a burning desire to serve God as a teacher. This desire did not change when I left the convent in 1969. Two years later, I married a man with a similar background, including four years in seminary and committed to teaching. Despite these roots, God in His inscrutable ways put a new way for me, the ones that brought me face to face with the truth in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ.
The firsts years
Being the ways of God mysteries for me, his incomparable grace, looking back on the 50 years of my life, in 1995. The third in a family of four, I shared in a relatively stable home, my father being an alcoholic. My mother constantly worried about finances and my father's condition between the two or three jobs he had. Masses and communion, rosaries, novenas and other special devotions to Mary. The sacred heart, El Niño de?, San José, San Antonio, San Cristófono and others were the rituals of our daily life. When our home was honored by our church with the statue of Mary, daily we prayed the rosary inked on our knees and other prayers were intense. My mother took church rules very seriously. Fasting and abstinences for the advent, Lent, and on Good Friday, they were carefully observed. The fat from the bacon and the sauce from the meat was carefully rejected during meals during this time. If they made indulgences, and masses were bought for the deceased to shorten their days in purgatory. There was a great heaviness in our home, and yet there was an apparent stability in marriage, church attendance, and associating only with Catholic friends and even acquaintances. The few family members who violated these patterns rarely saw each other and did not speak to each other frequently, and when someone married they did not go to the ceremony. and masses were purchased for the deceased to shorten their days in purgatory. There was a great heaviness in our home, and yet there was an apparent stability in marriage, church attendance, and associating only with Catholic friends and even acquaintances. The few family members who violated these patterns rarely saw each other and did not speak to each other frequently, and when someone married they did not go to the ceremony. and masses were purchased for the deceased to shorten their days in purgatory. There was a great heaviness in our home, and yet there was an apparent stability in marriage, church attendance, and associating only with Catholic friends and even acquaintances. The few family members who violated these patterns rarely saw each other and did not speak to each other frequently, and when someone married they did not go to the ceremony.
Religious Life
Until I was twenty years old, I never attended a church that was not Roman Catholic. Religious and priests were in great esteem, they considered themselves more holy and intelligent than the laity. My cousin, Vin, entered the Marianist Brotherhood at the age of 15, a decision made despite our family's strong marital relationships. vin, influenced our two younger sisters Sue, and Peg, who later entered the Ursuline convent.
Two years after the youngest sister, Vin, entered the convent, I made the same decision, to the liking of my family. The diocesan order known as the Congregation of the Sisters of Saint Joseph, who taught me from elementary school to higher, enabled me to achieve my dream of going to school and becoming a teacher.
This decision to become a nun was supported by my mother. This was a reason of pride and honor for the family. By the time I walked into 1963, the rules were that I would never go home. Communication with my family was controlled, all the letters received from my house and those that I sent were read first, there were very strict rules at the time of training. After the first year, the wedding ceremony was cutting my hair and wearing a habit to enter the novitiate. Now I was Sr. Maria Dolora. I spent a year out of school for a more formal training.
During this year, I was indoctrinated in the way of thinking, speaking and behavior for a dedicated religious. I had to be silent, I had to see who he was talking to and when, by not letting me attend my sister Carol's wedding, why there were those restrictions began to emerge in me. Learning obedience involved such practices as kneeling to apologize to the laws. On one occasion, I personally struggled when this humiliating practice was imposed on me, when I spoke to an elderly nun while nursing. During the end of the third year, massive changes were taking place in the Roman Catholic Church and some of them came to our small diocesian order. The year before my classes began, personal flourishing began as a means of achieving a greater spiritual life. The practice of this was discontinued. In the second year of my novitiate, even my class was motivated to design a less conservative uniform.
The rules were examined in a special congregation of all superiors. Soon, hate? visiting homes was suspended.
Arbitrary Changes
With all the changes, questions about arbitrary rules started to worry me. How could these rules be so important one day, and be removed the next? There was abuse in the changes that had imposed discipline and the older nuns in authority saw greater problems develop. An example occurred in my first year of teaching in a chapel. Words "friendly" parties involving priests and nuns, which included dancing and frivolities, reached the house of the mother nun, or superior, and our local convent chapel was criticized and persecuted.
In addition, a permit that I had received to visit a large family in the chapel was suspended. I found this problematic because I knew the wife, she had grown up on my street with her husband George, she had multiple sclerosis that paralyzed him from the neck down. I was able to share many things with them and their three children, more importantly listening to them, prayers and tears. The testimony of this family made a great impression on me. Not being able to visit them made no sense. Later that year, one of my 6th gradersgrade, Jeff, who had suffered a serious head injury, I tutored him at the hospital at his mother's reluctance, in his long recovery. At no point was there any reason for arbitrary rule changes, only the fear of serious infractions. It was the grace of God that allowed me to learn and move with the George and Jeff situation. The rules for producing holiness through behavior control were superficial in dealing with the true fronts of life.
A Pass To Visit
In 1969, near the end of my first year of teaching in the chapel, I seriously considered withdrawing from religious life. Before this year, leaving the convent after taking the vows meant failure and misfortune. However, the request to take a year to evaluate the vocation was acceptable. Not being the only one who thought this way, I was the first in my class of nine to request an appointment with the Mother Superior.
I know that my family was disappointed but I did not compare myself in their decision. I was determined to move forward from this life of confinement in the convent to a normal life. It was June 1969, I just had my clothes on my back and a small savings from high school that my parents kept in my name.
After two weeks in the house, I frequented Ohio State University with another nun from the convent and then accepted a teaching position in Chicago, moving to a larger home with a civil rights leader, Margaret Ellen Traxler, who was also a nun. I shared a room with a colleague from the convent and we lived in that house with other nuns who worked with Margaret Ellen. After a sheltered life, that summer of '69 and the year that followed my eyes were opened to the taste of the 60s, war protests, racial tensions, alcohol, drugs, free sex, hours without discipline, discussions of the mystical philosophies of the East, in a volatile city. The moral standards learned in my home and the grace of God, which I did not recognize until later, both protected me physically and spiritually.
After 7 months, I moved into an apartment near the University of Chicago. At the Newman Center, I met many nuns and priests, many leaving their orders in large numbers, some remained but primarily studied various interpretations of the "truth." Mass and communion were taken during coffee time, the social gospel was prevalent, human rights were one? People who were clear about their beliefs and where they were going were not there. The causes were there, the moral was absent. Through all of this, I knew that I would never go back to the convent. I made my final decision of my votes and order.
Marriage
When I look back on the years I spent in Chicago, I marvel at the protective hand of God. Their cities for me included living in Hyde Park, a community with high tension racial problems, and parties at the University of Chicago where there was free sex, drugs,? to be drugged-minded, and living as one wished generally abounded.
After dating relatively stable men in this environment, I met my husband, Bernie, a former seminarian. It was in the 70's and I was 25 years old. With our common background, we dated for several weeks before talking about getting married. We had a whole year to meet our relatives in Ohio and Wisconsin and make careful plans for our wedding.
For our ceremony I chose the church where I taught last year in the convent rather than my family's chapel. My superior and George's widow and others I met when I was teaching. Bernie and I were very family oriented and decided to stay in Michigan, one day away from our parents. Here we started our family and were active in St. Peter's Parish for five and a half years.
Test Time
Our children were 2 years and 4 months old when my mother was diagnosed with an inoperable cancerous tumor. Frequent trips from Michigan to Ohio were given due to gravity and arrangements and my husband's work multiplied. She died 6 months after the tumor was diagnosed. A year later I was 6 weeks pregnant when I received a call from my husband. She had found my father dead in bed. He had not come to eat at home. During this difficult time, Bernie was the gentleman who provided for the needs. Six months after my father died, we moved to Milwaukee and for the next six months, Bernie's mother had open heart surgery, during this time she had a seizure (?) Our third daughter was born and Bernie went through for two job changes, Our lives seemed to be in constant turmoil. Among my jobs was a position of director of religion in a large chapel in the suburbs of our community. It was here that I was introduced to the values of clarification, a move away from the clear moral traditions and doctrines of Roman Catholicism, and the reduction of the use of the sacraments of confession. These practices and the introduction of increasing liberal teachings from men like Daniel Maguire of Marquette University and Archbishop Rembert Weakland produced confusion in growth. a move away from the clear moral traditions and doctrines of Roman Catholicism, and the reduction of the use of the sacraments of confession. These practices and the introduction of increasing liberal teachings from men like Daniel Maguire of Marquette University and Archbishop Rembert Weakland produced confusion in growth. a move away from the clear moral traditions and doctrines of Roman Catholicism, and the reduction of the use of the sacraments of confession. These practices and the introduction of increasing liberal teachings from men like Daniel Maguire of Marquette University and Archbishop Rembert Weakland produced confusion in growth.
In some cases I seriously questioned these new styles and in other things I accepted them as a positive direction. It was good to be a part of new ideas. Our three daughters were baptized, made their first communion, and were taught reconciliation (formally the sacrament of confession) although it was not practiced in our chapel. During the eleven years that we spent in this chapel I taught and wrote an educational curriculum for CCD classes and / or religious programs.
Uprooting
For the last year and a half, Bernie and I taught upper confirmation classes in our home. Ironically God used this program and the man who ran it to complete the work that would draw out our deep roots in Roman Catholicism. When the principal gave us and each of the students a Catholic Bible, he did not know that he had provided us with a source of information but rather a vehicle of deliverance. This was the beginning of our study of the Word of God.
The confirmation text delivered with the Bible did not contain doctrines, but the social gospel, a system of works that were to sanctify the Christian process. The ? they weren't better. Talking to our pastor about this matter was getting us nowhere. Serious moral situations that culminated in discussions with our students made it clear that there was no spiritual foundation for making decisions. Again by the grace of God, we were directed to the Bible. An unpleasant growth of what seemed like a course pointing to destruction sparked a desire in me for a more conservative position. Strong family values and the moral foundations that we hoped to pass on to our students, as well as to our daughters, were no longer supported by our church parish.
Our oldest daughter, Laura, was in confirmation classes that year, with another couple. She also had difficulty with the material, particularly the way the students ignored the tradition of moral standing. At the same time, the public schools where 3 of our daughters attended, proposed the liberal curriculum of sex education. The concern of this teaching material introduced me to a new circle of friends who were confident in their beliefs and what they wanted for their children. Lowering the "standards" to accommodate the times was not in his mind. Working with this group of people in a difficult fight for the well-being of our children brought Bernie and me, and more and more, into contact with God's Word.
The Unchanging Truth
We were invited to join Bible classes and prayer groups and Bernie and I were convinced by the authority of God's Word. Bernie proposed lessons based on the Bible and the Nicene Creed for the confirmation group and was approved by the director. We offered the Bible-based curriculum to replace confused thinking and fruitless discussion using God's unchanging principles. When questions arose that we could not deal with, we found ourselves experts among our new Christian friends. One spoke on the authority of God's Word and another addressed issues concerning the occult and Satanism. These were not priests or religious but lay people who knew the scriptural truth.
Although I cannot pinpoint a specific day that I recognized and accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as my Savior, the truth of His Word was taking root in my life by the summer of 1989. In June, guided by the wise counsel of man who would be our first local pastor in the church, (I Peter 3: 1). I asked Bernie for permission to attend a prayer service at a bible-center church and "He said yes!"
Conviction
Our daughters were fifteen, thirteen, and eleven years old at this time. I knew there would be questions and I was concerned about the affection in the family union. We frequented the Christian and Roman Catholic churches most of the summer. Bernie, at my request, went to Christian church on my birthday in July. His permission to me and his agreeing to go with me was an indication that God was involved in the circumstances of our lives.
Another dramatic example was a Sunday early in the summer when I suddenly did not receive communion at Catholic Mass. The realization that I did not believe this may have been "real" body and blood as taught by the Catholic Church, but it was a beginning of a conviction of deep faith. To have gone ahead would have been hypocrisy. I realized that eating the body and blood according to the Bible meant much more, an identification with the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. It didn't make sense for Him to be present with me during communion and then not be. There was no mystery or magic there. The priest's words that he had the power to transform bread and wine were a denial of the sufficiency of the work on the curz. Jesus said, "it is finished" (John 19:30). Communion is a memorial of what He accomplished. His command was that this be done in memory of Him. And he took bread and gave thanks, and broke it and gave it to them, saying: This is my body, which is given for you; Do this in remembrance of me". (Luke 22:19).
The prayers for Mass stuck in my throat. What was the sacrifice necessary for? "For this reason he can also perpetually save those who draw near to God through him, always living to intercede for them." “That he does not need every day, like those high priests, to offer sacrifices first for his own sins, and then for those of the people; because this he did once and for all, offering himself ”. (Hebrews 7: 25,27). The “bloodless sacrifice”, as the Mass defined it, contradicted what the Old and New Covenants said. “And almost everything is purified, according to the law, with blood; and without the shedding of blood there is no remission ”. (Hebrews 9:22).
(Hebrews 12 and 14) The veil of the Holy of Holies had been torn in two. Man has access to the throne of God.
The revelation regarding communion started one of many spiritual discussions in our family during this time. This was completely out of the ordinary, but now I know that the power of the Word of God was effecting a spiritual revolution in our lives in relation to the Roman Catholic teachings concerning the person and power of the Lord Jesus Christ.
By August we were no longer attending mass, because we saw it as a denial of the work completed on Calvary. We leave the liturgical rituals, the weekly communion participations and family contacts.
None of our family members or Catholic friends understood what we were doing; but we were doomed. To our surprise, when we told the director of Christian education about our new chapel, he asked us to continue teaching the confirmation group in its second year, because “good teachers were hard to find,” and our class had responded very positively.
At Christmas we write to our family and friends regarding our conversion. This caused disturbance, anger, and painful detachment. The meaning of Matthew 19:29, which has been mentioned many times in relation to the spiritual life, seemed clear to us for the moment. "And anyone who has left houses, or brothers, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my name, will receive a hundred times more, and will inherit eternal life."
In my inability to say in my own words what it meant to be saved, I invited a Christian woman to explain to our daughters what salvation was. Our daughter Allison was the first to be exposed to the gospel. Laura, our oldest daughter, let me see a comment she made about the day she accepted the Lord as her savior; a year before. She had a circle of Christian friends at school and they were studying the Bible regularly. Our second daughter, Sarah, later confessed that two years ago she had met the Lord at summer camp. She believed what Christ had done for her, there was less impact on her life because she did not have training in God's Word when she finished camp.
God's intervention leading the five of us out of Roman Catholicism is nothing short of a miracle; the miracle of conversion in the life of every believer. I have to realize that in the forty years that I spent in the Catholic Church faithfully attending rituals and going through extensive religious practices, I was not brought to a knowledge of the Gospel. I was a hopeless sinner, lost without God's perfect provision. (I Cor. 15: 3-4). This and only this saved me. Nothing can be added to the Word of God nor can His work be redone to bring repentance and grace. God prepares us and brings us to Him with His Word, the Bible, not through religious traditions and institutions.
The Baptism of Believers
The continuous transformation of our family led you to seek baptism by immersion in May 1993. Knowing that baptism is not effective in washing away our sins and establishing a relationship with God, as we were taught in Catholicism, at first we did not believe it necessary be baptized. The first church we went to, infants were baptized in the context of the covenant of "family relationships." We questioned these practices because they were not related to Scripture. In 1993 Bernie and I met a North Carolina Pastor who showed us in Scripture that baptism was a very important witness to the public and a matter of obedience. Again, the Lord was teaching us outside of the local church, establishing for us the authority of His Word."And these were nobler than those in Thessalonica, for they received the word with all solicitude, searching the Scriptures every day to see if these things were so . " (Acts 17:11).
After presenting what we had learned to our daughters, we discovered that our oldest daughter, Laura, who was in college in Pennsylvania, wanted to be baptized and had been praying since her mission trip in the summer. Our youngest daughters, Sarah and Allison, after studying and praying, also thought about baptism. We prepare as a family to give the first testimony at the ceremony. Our family agreed that baptism was an important public confession of our conversion and call from the Lord.
Walking by Faith
And our story continues until the Lord calls us to dwell with Him. God's impact on my life and on our family began from our commitment to pray, study the Word, share as a believer, and His daily direction in our lives. Meanwhile, the issue of eternal salvation was asserted. In this certainty there is peace, hope and joy. The time of loneliness and estrangement after leaving the Catholic Church has diminished over time, but it has not gone away, especially since our relatives are still Catholic. Knowing the truth, we desire salvation for those we love. Sharing with relatives and others is often sad because they are exempt from the eternal perspective.
After we left our first Christian church, we again began to walk through a period of wilderness, disappointment in relationship, and concern about differences in scriptural interpretation and application among believers. The Lord never left us without His peace. Answers were available. We understood that membership in the true church was possible only with a new birth, "Jesus answered: Truly, truly , I tell you, whoever does not have water and the Spirit, cannot enter the kingdom of God."(John 3: 5). Finding a local church where we could equip ourselves to serve the Lord would be accomplished in the Lord's time and finding a Pastor who had the commitment to preach the full counsel of Scripture. The Bible was given by God to be read and understood, hampered only by our laziness or inability to allow the Holy Spirit to teach us all things . "But the Comforter, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things, and will remind you of everything that I have said to you" (John 14:26).
Believers and pastors have been placed to motivate and sustain us, and when they are removed Christ will always suffice.
Distinguishing between the Word of God and the traditions of man has come to be a means of life. Recognizing that God's standards do not change over time and that His truth is completely reliable this does not alter the challenge of our time. But it provides stability, direction, and hope. Jesus Christ is the Word of God and the Word is the Truth. If I do not live the victorious life of a Christian, it is due to my failure to live depending on the resources that are continually provided to me in the Lord Jesus Christ>
In summary
The testimony of any Christian, the work completed by Christ in His death, burial and resurrection accepted by faith as the only thing necessary for salvation. Each story, by the way, is as unique as it is individual, because it is always God looking for the individual, exactly where each one is. I am grateful for the deep roots of Roman Catholicism in my life through my parents who gave me physical life and home and the teachings that formed strong moral foundations in me. However, it is God in His infinite wisdom, "And we know that to those who love God, all things work together for good, that is, to those who are called according to his purpose" (Romans 8:28), and his purpose is to choose, call, justify and sanctify. Conform to the image of His Son,“For those whom he knew before, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, so that he would be the first-born among many brothers. And those whom he predestined, these he also called; and whom he called, these he also justified, them he also glorified ” (Romans 8: 29-30).
I marvel at the way our God was able to transform the first 44 years of my life as a Roman Catholic, freeing me from the bonds of the religious system founded on the traditions of men, and bringing me the freedom to know the Lord Jesus Christ. We can only say that it was by the grace of God because it was his servant who was saved through faith and not by me, it is the gift of God, not the result of works, no one can boast of this. Because I am His exquisite work, created in Christ, for good works, which God prepared beforehand, so that I would walk in them, (Ephesians 2: 8-10).
An addition
Two years have passed since this will was written. God's faithfulness and the need to live diligently according to the word of Truth is the fear of life in relation to the Lord Jesus Christ. being freed from the punishment of sin the moment we believe and are accepted by the Father in Christ in his perfect purity, we do not free ourselves from daily problems (Galatians 5:16), “I say then: walk in the Spirit, and do not satisfy the desires of the flesh ”. In times of temptation and trial, the Holy Ghost brings to mind the scriptures we have learned. God's grace and his full provision in every circumstance enables us by the power of the Holy Spirit, to live according to His commandments and to grow in holiness. His grace is always sufficient to direct us to what is impossible outside of Him, (II Timothy 2:15) "Be diligent to face God approved, as a worker who does not have to be ashamed, who uses the word of truth well."
Personal study of the Word continues to be a part of the life of each member of the family. It is a blessing of unity and strength when challenges increase. Our daughters are now 24, 22 and 19 years old. They have stability because the truth of God is unchangeable, while many in society are lost in the delusion of looking at themselves and progress nothing.
My husband, Bernie, is the spiritual guide of your home, seeking to direct us in wisdom through the Bible. He leads a men's Bible group and coordinates weekend Bible studies with pastors, teachers, and reaches out to the Duluth church Bible ministry. More and more decisions are made daily due to the growth in understanding of God's purposes and the believer's need to do everything for His glory.
In my own life I have learned the work of women in the home, to be a help to her husband, providing a place of hospitality and times of fellowship with believers and equal opportunity to share with non-believers. Just as our girls have grown up, jobs outside the home take second place to the noble work God has given women.
As I grow in the knowledge of God's Word, opportunities to disciple others, and very recently participated in the Berean Beacon ministry to Roman Catholics has been a great blessing. There is a balance in the life of the believer that reflects joy, peace, and fruit, the "natural" way to live according to God's purposes. Knowing God's purpose and living according to it is a daily challenge. To be faithful is to continually depend on His truth all the way (Prov. 3: 5-6), “Trust in Jehovah with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight ”. As my family and I have grown, times of failure have been clear. Failures and simple opportunities have been part of our lives. God's provision is confession that puts us immediately in the joy of worship and ready again to start over. (I John 1: 9), "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
It is my prayer that everyone who reads this testimony will come to know the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the truth that frees all people to live abundantly here on earth and for all eternity. (John 10:10), “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come so that they have life, and that they have it in abundance ”.
"Not that we are competent of ourselves to think something as of ourselves, but that our competence comes from God" (II Corinthians 3: 5).
"And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that, always having all sufficient in all things, you may abound for every good work" (II Corinthians 9: 8).
And to him who is able to keep you from falling, and a blameless presenter before his glory with great joy, to the only wise God, our Savior, be glory and majesty, empire and power, now and for all ages. Amen". (Jude 24,25).
[Source: https://bereanbeacon.org/es/los-inescrutables-caminos-de-dios/]
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