On The Way Back Home - Chapter 26

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What Converts Have to Say of The Church

In the fourth century after Christ, one of the greatest minds in history embraced the Catholic faith. He had led a remarkably full life. He had plumbed the depths of the philosophies of Greece and Rome. He had tasted of their religions. The prayers of his saintly mother, however, finally led him to see the light of Christianity which meant then, as it should now, the Catholic Church. What were his feelings once he had come home. He expresses them in one poignant sentence. "Too late have I known thee, O Beauty ever ancient and ever new; too late have I loved thee."

The words of Augustine are echoed centuries later by the great Cardinal Newman. "O long sought after, tardily found desire of the heart, the truth after many shadows, the fullness after many fore-tastes, the home after many storms. Come to her, poor wanderers, for she is it, and she alone, who can unfold the secret of your being and the meaning of your destiny."

The convert Carl Ernst Jarcke, formerly Professor of Jurisprudence in Berlin and Rome, stated on his death-bed: "When I am dead, say to all who will hear, that I found my supreme happiness in the infallible Roman Catholic Church."

John L. Stoddard, celebrated American, has this to say of his experience after entering the Church. "When I am asked what I have found within the Catholic Church superior to all that Protestantism gave me, I found that language is unable to express it. One must enter it to understand its sanctity and charm. It is the bread of life and the wine of the soul, instead of the unsatisfying husks; the father's welcome instead of the weary exile in the wilderness of doubt. It is true, the prodigal must retrace the homeward road, and even enter the doorway of the mansion on his knees; but within, what a recompense!"

Ralph H. Metcalfe, famous negro sprinter of a few years ago, expresses his feelings thus on becoming a Catholic. "I have found a new happiness in my religion, an undreamed of consolation in my prayers. Catholicity has opened my eyes. It has consoled me and heartened me. My plea to heaven at this moment is that I may ever remain faithful to the Church."

Dr. Samuel Atkinson says: "In the Catholic Church I have found how little I am, but how wonderfully great our Savior is."

The Reverend Owen Francis Dudley, a convert from the Anglican Church, has this to say of his conversion. "Well," he asks himself "and what have I found?" "I will tell you. I was told that the Catholic Church always places the Church before Christ. I have found, on the contrary, that she places me in a personal relationship with Christ that can never be attained outside. I was told that if I become a Catholic my mind would be fettered, my reason stifled. I have found, on the contrary, that the Catholic Church placed me on a platform of truth, from which even a poor mind can rise to fathomless heights. I was told that that in the Catholic Church, it was all decay and stagnation. I have found, however, the very life of God Himself pulsing through every vein of His Mystical Body. It was like coming out of a small, stuffy room with all the windows closed, and striding up to the top of some great hill with all the winds of heaven roaring round. I have found life."

A. R. Burgess Bayly, an English convert says: "And now, after twenty-three years have passed, I am able to look back and thank Almighty God from the bottom of my heart, for having bestowed upon me the greatest of all blessings, that of being a member, although an unworthy one, of the true Church of Jesus Christ."

Dr. Edward Schaeffner tells us: "For seventeen years my wife and I have been enjoying the blessing of being members of the all-embracing Church. Would to God that all our brethren might find the way from banishment into the Church."

Dr. Robert Braun declares: "As time passed, I discovered more and more the hidden treasures of my Faith, which is such an inestimable blessing for our miserable existence that there remains really nothing else to do than to thank God unceasingly for this great gift."

These are but a few of the millions of sincere souls who have found their way back to the Church where dwells Christ in His fullness, where they have found the fullness of Spiritual life, the satisfaction of the soul's desire. For the sincere human soul yearns for God. It seizes with gladness upon everything that will bring it into closer union with God. Like a child crying for food, it hungers and thirsts after the very things the Catholic Church has to offer, the Sacraments of the Church that Christ instituted in order that the thirst of the soul might be quenched, the hunger of the soul for God satisfied. Hence it is that the galling spiritual hunger, which results from abandoning the Sacraments Christ instituted, has led many an earnest soul back into the Church.

Let the following incident bear this out. In the first world war, there was a certain Anglican minister acting as Chaplain for the English forces. But when the war was over he made haste to resign his ministry and join the Catholic Church. "I felt so useless," he said. "in the presence of death, I, an Anglican minister, could do so little. And yet I saw the Catholic Chaplains administering the Sacraments of Extreme Unction right on the battlefield and under fire. I saw them hear the confessions of the soldiers on the eve of battle. I saw the soldiers in the most incredible situations reverently and solemnly and joyfully receive the Holy Eucharist. Yet when my soldiers were dying, I had little more to offer them than pious, comforting words. I then realized that my faith has so little to offer; theirs so much."