Raised in a very strict Roman Catholic family where the emphasis was on God's punishment for sins, I was very afraid of Him. From my childhood years, it was instilled in me that the Lord Jesus Christ had founded the Roman Catholic Church, and that only in that church He was present (body and blood) in Holy Communion and that "outside the Roman Church there was no salvation." I felt privileged to have been born into the Catholic religion and asked myself, "Why would anyone want to be something else since all other religions were founded by mere men?" In order not to contaminate or stain myself, I would never set foot in the Protestant church.
God is love
As I matured, I began to have a worldly mind, I tried very legally to keep the commandments and to attend Mass on Sundays regularly and on holy days. He also did numerous novenas. A novena consisted of taking the sacraments on nine consecutive Fridays of the month and that would help me go to heaven. I was also into astrology and learned a great deal about reading my horoscope concerning the days most suitable for my social activities. After all, I considered myself better than regular Catholics.
One day, while reading an autobiography of a convert to Catholicism, I was struck by the biblical references to God's love for us. God, whom I feared so much, was described as very loving, and caring. I fell in love with Him. I didn't want to know anything, nothing more about Him. Tied to the knowledge of God's love for me, it made me aware of my sins. I had a different sense that Jesus could rescue me from the road to hell. I was horrified to think that I was on the road to hell and didn't know it.
So in awe was I with this revelation of God's love and forgiveness that I had no desire to continue in the style of my old life.
The things of the world lost their appeal; now I just wanted to know more about God and His Word. Anyway, Bible classes in the Roman Catholic church did not exist, reading only the Bible was a disappointment. The only place where I thought I could take those classes was in the convent. Thinking of this idea disgusted me.
Religious life
After a few months, when my never-ending desire to get to know God better through the bible had not been kept, I decided to leave. Perhaps this was the medium that God used to call me to religious life. I consoled myself with the idea that I could be with others who shared my aspirations and that I could teach others through the Bible instead of the catechism in which I was taught.
In my search to know in the hundreds of religious orders to choose, I had a dream that dispelled all doubts. It is my dream I was in a simply furnished room with the infant Jesus in a crib next to my bed. The windows were open too and snow had fallen. I woke up thinking that this dream was very significant. Later I looked at some brochures on the religious ivda and I noticed that the missionaries of the Blessed Trinity would come in August 5 at the Feast of the Lady of the Snow. I felt that God was answering my prayers directing me to the exact place of His predilection. Exactly the next day, I was boarding a train for Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Although I was not very aware of the work they did, it was not important. It was God's plan! If He wanted me in that place, nothing else mattered. When the Reverend Mother who interviewed me and confirmed the interpretation of my dream. I didn't need to know anything else. Arrangements were made for my entrance. The conviction that life with the Missionary Servants of the Most Blessed of the Trinity was precisely God's will for me sustained me during the thirty-one years I spent there. now my faith was interwoven with my vocation.
After a month in the community, I began to realize that my desires to study the Bible did not materialize.
We had Scripture reading in our prayers, but no Bible studies. Although very disappointed, I couldn't leave. When I was tempted to do so, I could remember the dream and the thought that confronted me was, "What did I come for, to please myself or God?" There, there was a kind of peace that I thought was God's will for me.
My first mission
During my first mission, it seemed that God was trying to tell me something, but I was too prejudiced to hear or understand. While taking the census of the chapel, I met a few Protestants who lived in the area. Contrary to what I had been taught to believe I found that they were exceptionally praying and God's people. What impressed them most was their love for Christ and their knowledge and love for the Bible. When I said this to the nuns, they made fun of me. "Who is going to convert who?"
Among these people, I met a minister who had been a Roman Catholic. He tried to explain to me what the life of him and his family had been like before he became a Christian, how despite the daily Mass and sacraments, they did not know anything about God and the Bible. He also tried to explain to me that Jesus is symbolically present in Holy Communion, but I didn't listen to him. Although deeply moved by his prayer for me before I left, I felt that he had made a grave mistake in leaving the Roman Catholic Church which had been founded by Christ himself. After reading a pamphlet he gave me on the Gospel of John, I returned to him to teach him my belief in chapter six. In my ignorance of the Bible, I insisted that the Lord had promised to give us His flesh to eat. In precise time,
On another occasion, a Protestant patient whom I visited in a tuberculosis sanatorium asked me, "Sister, are you saved?" My reaction was, "Poor thing, nobody knows for sure if he is Dalvian until we die." According to Roman Catholic teaching, it is a sin of presumption to say that you know you are saved. However, I couldn't help it, but I thought, "What tremendous Catholics these Protestants could be. They know their Bible and seem to be close to God, so different from the Roman Catholic population that they contemptuously regard sin as something they can confess the next day.
Being one of my foolish entering religious life to teach the Bible I was hoping that the CCD class of children could use a book with Bible stories. The priest did not agree with the suggestion. He was convinced that giving the children the answers directly from the catechism, that was the only way.
Useless efforts
In due course, despite my staunch belief in the Roman Catholic Church in the Real Presence of Holy Communion, I began to wonder if one can really know the Lord Jesus Christ better by taking communion frequently. Year after year I saw no change in myself, nor in the sisters who lived with me or in the children we taught in the CCD classes. A priest tried to assure me that the Lord Jesus Christ in Holy Communion could teach me everything I wanted to know about Him.
In my effort to grow spiritually in my attempt to address one fault at a time, I only managed to get depressed and needed professional help. A Roman Catholic psychologist told me that I was a perfectionist with a scrupulous conscience and suggested that I read Romans chapter 7. Without knowing the Scriptures properly, I knew that I was probably struggling with something unattainable. The crux of the message, which only Jesus can accomplish in me as I tried to do my own thing, eluded me.
Over the years, a question characterized my thought, "something is missing." However, I didn't even dare to think about quitting. That would have been equivalent to turning my back on my God.
The Word of Truth
Much of my dissatisfaction was alleviated when in 1972 I was introduced to the charismatic movement. Where there was a lot of emotionalism, I met many people who enjoyed the Bible and the Lord. Listening to their stories, this made me realize that the calling of God in my life was evident in the year 1951. Later that call would find fruit in his Word and I will be motivated by the Holy Spirit. In these meetings I learned the need to be born again and that when we are saved, not only the past is forgiven, but the present and the future. As it says in Romans 8: 1, "There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit." This is wonderful to think that I will never be on trial for my sins!
Through our Christian friends, I learned about family radio programs and television stations that have Christ-centered music and biblical messages 24 hours a day; seven days a week. This season has been a great blessing, I never change the program. I learned very early about the Bible than it was twenty years ago. Now I am hungrier to know the basics of God's Word. I want more and more to hear these shows. I'd be more willing to do all the work in the world if I could just listen to these shows continuously. I began to envy the laity who "on the surface" seem to have more opportunities for Bible studies and sharing that I have within me.
[Source: https://bereanbeacon.org/es/la-verdad-me-hizo-libre/]
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