Traded Catholic Superstition for a relationship with Jesus
by Tracy at www.Jesus-is-Lord.com
Dear Tracy,I find your website very useful to help find the truth out of life. When I first read your articles on your website especially Hell Is Real, I thought you were very cruel and unloving. I was also amazed at how you could say such hurtful things about other religions.
Let me tell you about myself. I am sixteen years old. When I was around twelve months, I was baptized as a Catholic and grew up in a strict Catholic family. I never enjoyed being a Catholic. My parents divided a wall for us from our other fundamental Christian relatives. My mom always prayed the Rosary for them, thinking that they were deceived and hell-bound for not being in the Catholic Church. She also encouraged us that we also prayed for them.
I was always a curious and interested child when it came to learning something. In religion class in elementary, I would wonder about the faith and ask very "disturbing questions." One example was when I got in a quarrel with my teachers about praying to Mary and the saints. I asked about the difference between worshiping and praying. I questioned why when some people pray to God, they call it worship and why when it comes to Mary and the Saints, it is called honour. It's also like going to the doctor's family members or friends instead of just simply and directly going to the doctor. I then concluded at that time that there was no difference between worshiping someone and praying to someone, and something must be wrong.
One time in grade three in religion class, our class went to our chapel to pray to the monstrance. The teacher told us that when we pray to the Blessed Sacrament, we can sometimes hear Jesus' voice. A few of my classmates reported hearing Jesus talk them. One told us that Jesus had said the word grace to her repeatedly. I had no response thinking that my faith was not strong enough. I had learnt that you can hear Jesus' voice when you pray to Him with strong faith. In grade four, we never knew this but my friends and I started playing occult games. We would try to call dead people from the mirror who were famous like Bloody Mary. We also tried using white magic. After a while we were quit because these games never seemed to work. I ended up being very superstitious. As I began my troubling and confusing teenage years, I began searching for something to hold onto in life. I admired a few good friends of mine because they prayed the Rosary everyday. I told them that they had all the faith and happiness in their lives. The Rosary is said to contain 15 promises including eternal life and having your requests granted. These 15 promises were said to be given by the Marian apparitions at Fatima. It is commented as the best prayer ever by the Pope. I once decided that I'd try to get into the habit of praying the Rosary daily. I thought that it would make my life easier if my requests were granted and my faith in God would grow. In just two days, I abandoned the Rosary because it was very annoying and repetitve for me. I also thought it was too long to say daily. I felt so guilty for having these thoughts against Mary that I continued to argue with God. I searched long and hard for another "special prayer" like the Rosary to substitute it.
The next prayer was called the Pro-life Prayer. I still remember some of it. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, I love you above all things. Here I devote to you the life of my aborted baby I have spiritual adopted in heaven. I will be able someday to see him in heaven with God. I thought that by praying this prayer, I was saving an aborted baby's life to go to heaven. I also picked out the Novena to St. Jude\Prayer to St. Jude. St. Jude, I learnt, had been granting Catholics requests for years. There are two parts of this prayer, the glorification and the Novena. In the St. Jude prayer, you have to pray the prayer nine times per day for nine days! Each time, the glorification would be said three times. I felt that I was worshipping St. Jude, and I kept forgetting to say the the Novena of St. Jude nine times per day. A few days after, I got fed up with it, and I superstitiously hid the paper in a Catholic book, thinking that St. Jude was angry at me.
The next prayer I went onto was the Dolors Of The Virgin. It was a prayer with 25 promises listed by the Marian apparitions including eternal life, happiness on earth, and seeing Mary's face at the moment of death. In this prayer, you had to cry while reciting Marian songs and the Hail Mary's. You also had to meditate and emphasize what Mary had to go through to see Jesus die and to help him suffer the pain on the cross. I couldn't cry because I wasn't concentrating enough so I quit.
My next prayer, the Magnificant Prayers, was this really boring prayer. In this prayer, you have to read 13 different long descriptions on the cross and pray one Our Father and one Hail Mary after each one. This took about 15 minutes to do. I got completely bored of reading these ridiculous stories that I eventually quit. I was so unhappy that I wouldn't be getting the special holy graces from Jesus that the Pope had read out. The Pope declared that there were a few big surprises that he was not allowed to reveal. I felt that I was never going to find God.
I have some cousins who are from a fundamental Christian family. Their parents, my uncle and aunt, homeschool their children because they see as growing their children as true followers of Christ. I used to think that fundamentalists were crazy as I had learnt in school. One time during dinner, they asked me about getting to have a personal relationship with Jesus. They told me that if I wasn't a born-again Christian, I was hellbound and would go to hell. They also picked apart the doctrines of the Catholic Church and compared them with the Bible, trying to point out this Church was a terrible church. I didn't even know what they were talking about and thought they were going nuts. I told them frankly that they were strange bible-freaks. They also enjoyed studying, discussing, and anticipating the biblical end-times prophecies. Whenever people would study biblical prophecies, they would remind me of raving fanatics like David Koresh.
At home after that dinner party, I reflected about what they were teaching me. Born-again, I thought they were just scaring me. I felt broken and wasted for all I worked for. I had attended masses as often as I could, tried to pray to Mary and the saints, and make sacrifieces for God to answer my prayers. I remained for one year finding God through more Catholic prayers.
"For by grace are ye saved by faith and that not of yourselves; it the gift of God" (Ephesians 2:8)
I continued praying to St. Michael for guidance. I hadn't prayed to him since a few years ago. As I saw people praying the prayers that I had quit praying already, I became utterly depressed and jealous. I thought to myself that God didn't want me, He didn't care, and I was too lazy to follow him. I thought that these people were going to get all the graces and blessings from God that these prayers had promised. 'And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light." (2 Corinthians 11:14) "The only thing I've got to show to God," I thought," is that I have had my baptism, communion, and confirmation.
I expressed my sadness among my friends about how much of a failure I was. They said nothing except told me to try hard, and God will understand. My faith never seemed to grow. I didn't realize that it was Satan was one I was praying to rather than Mary and the saints. Thank, God, put some situations in my life to search for Him.
In September 1997, I started grade eight. In religion class, we learnt that the creationism was just a tale. Our teacher told us that it was written in 900 B.C. by prophets. We were indoctrinated about the Big Bang Theory. In April 1998, our grade eight class was learning about the sacraments and being changed into a new person with them. That evening, I was watching a special documentary on the biography of Karla Faye Tucker who was executed in Texas. There were some interviews with her where she talked about her life before becoming a born-again Christian and after becoming one. I thought her crime was very brutal and found her new change unbelievable. She didn't have a sacramental Baptism, confirmation or even the Eucharist! I then remembered what my cousins had told me. After the show, I continued to ponder about her new life after she called on Jesus personally. This was pretty mysterious and strange to me which prompted me to wonder if there was any real truth out there. Maybe some of what the Catholic Church says is false. Maybe it was true that there was such a thing as becoming a born-again Christian. I thought the Pope was supposed to know everything about this. I forgot about this for a nearly a year, continuing with working towards salvation until I landed on some websites about being born-again to enter heaven. One of them was your's and it was on Hell. I ignored these websites thinking that this born-again stuff scared me. I put this in the back of my mind, thinking that someday when I'm dying, Jesus will be my Lord and Savior.
One day, our priest was talking about letting Jesus possess you and running your life. All you had to do was go to mass often, sacrifice your pleasures, and pray often and hard. He told us to also ask Jesus to be the king of your heart in prayer. I did this a few times but it never worked. I never gave up. I searched books about this topic. One really good book I read approached the subject on being born-again. A few months ago, one night, I gave life to Jesus. He is now my Lord and Savior. I am proud to say that my name is written down in the Book Of Life! He has cured my superstition after all these years, and has changed my life forever. I will never be the same again.
I've been trying to approach my family about my new found faith and my new life. I try to warn them about the dangers of the Catholic faith. None of them seem to listen or even notice that I am a new person in Christ. It is only my friends who notice the change. Some of them don't hang around me any more since I'm very different. My mom accuses me of heresy, and my dad says I will go to Hell. She has tried to stop me from going to fundamental Christian bookstores, churches, friends, and buying the King James Version Bible [Tracy's note: I counselled this dear sister to honour her parents and obey them. The Lord will work all of this out.]. I'm still attending Mass which I find very boring and dead. Maybe some of the music is good, but not the rest of the Mass. I hope I can go to a bible-believing church (KJV) soon.
Your website provides great material for Bible study. It is frank, simple, and forth-right. It has opened my eyes to the Catholic cult and false angels of light such Mother Theresa...
For Jesus' sake
E
This young lady wrote a poem to share--
I Am Saved
I was a prisoner of sin and death before He cleansed me from all sin in his own pure and precious blood
I was the child of the devil before He called me His own child
I was bound for Hell before He provided a way to heaven by paying for my sins on Calvary's cross
I was open to Satan and his devices before He became my protection and beacon of truth
I felt unwanted and unloved before He showed no greater love by dying for me on an old rugged cross
I felt worthless before He bought me with a price
I suffered from a low self-esteem before He made me God-centered
I filled my mind with thoughts of hate and anger before He put His love in my heart
I was hardened by wickedness and deceit before He poured out his abundant mercy on Calvary's cross for me
I was walking in the darkness before He showed me the light
I was trusting in dead works and sacraments to save me before He, through his blood, purged my conscience from dead works to serve the living God.
I bowed before a wafer god and the things of this world before I bowed to worship before the Holiest of Holies.
I was hungering for meaning and purpose in my life before He fed me water from the fountain of eternal life so that I would no longer thirst!
I was depressed and confused before He gave me real joy and peace that surpasses all understanding
I was filled with unstoppable habits before He cleaned me up from them FOREVER
I was wretched with fear and anxiety before He set me free
I was a house built on an unstable foundation of sand before He built me upon the solid rock of His Holy word
I feared the fact of having to die someday before He died and rose from the dead into heaven!
I was helpless in the storms of life before He became my omnipotent rock and refuge
I was giving up on life before He poured down His grace and mercy
I was lonely without anybody to hear me before He was there to hear and comfort me
I looked upon the cross of Christ as foolishness before He saved me and now for me it is the power of God
I was ruled by this world before He purchased me ONCE and for all by shedding His blood on Calvary's cross
Jesus says, "I am the way, the truth, and the life, no man cometh unto the Father but by me." John 14:6
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