Chapter 1 - Journey to Christendom (Third Edition)
I found the courage to write a book.
Despite the challenges, I found the courage to write a book on the God-inspired purpose of my life. If you continue reading this chapter, or even just the next few paragraphs, you’ll understand why it has been challenging. In today’s relativistic culture, people rarely make the religious statements that follow, at least not beyond the privacy of their family dinner table.
The modern world often promotes philosophies that encourage unrestricted personal affirmation. This only leads along a continuum toward chaos. Yet, this same world often expects Catholics to be restrained and relativistic in their beliefs. It curtails religious discussions, insisting on radical individual rights of expression while denying religious beliefs the same force of certainty. The prevailing mindset suggests that the only objective truth is that there is no objective truth, except the one that forbids contradicting the modern spirit.
In this book, I share my spiritual journey through Catholicism, demonstrating the opposite. By defying the world’s spirit, I uncovered the flaws in the modern world and confirmed the truth of the ancient Catholic Religion. This realization has revitalized my spirit, mind, and body. Before I delve into my story, I want to explain in the next few chapters my purpose in writing, why I am doing it now, and the recent events that inspired me. This front section aims to help you understand my conversion story and gain more from it.
My motivation, in summary, is to declare to you what I have received from Jesus.
This book is a testimony to a universal authority beyond us all. My goal is to persuade you of its authenticity. This work might be challenging, but like Joan of Arc persuading the English of Charles VII’s legitimacy as King of France, I feel compelled to speak my truth despite the dangers. I am determined to confront the spirit of the world and proclaim that my religion is right, providing proof through the life-giving fruits it produces.
Now, let us lay the foundation for what I am writing in this book.
Despite abundant gifts from God, I have struggled with the courage to speak from the heart, resulting in misery. For years, I felt I was missing my calling to share my life’s journey for the benefit of others whom God is calling. This journey has brought me freedom, joy, and the hope of salvation. The triune God freely gave me these gifts. These gifts showed God has a will for our world. The Roman Catholic Church has safeguarded this treasure through the ages, which reveals the total revelation of the triune God in the Church’s Dogma, Creed, Scriptures, and Sacred Tradition. The Church’s Magisterium has preserved Jesus Christ’s teachings, offering eternal life.
This is the God, the Creator of all, who founded not a religion but the Holy Roman Catholic Church. Through it, he walks with humanity through each generation. God’s blessings of new life through the Church are what I write about. These gifts are objective, universal, and supernatural realities shared with the communion of saints, not products of subjective natural conditioning.
These gifts include miraculous healings through the intercession of the saints. The Virgin Mary, St. Joan of Arc, and St. Therese of Lisieux have been notable intercessors for these gifts. God has intervened in my life, saving me from conditions considered predetermined by scientific minds.
The greatest gift is transformation through suffering. This means dying to oneself, and being reborn through the merits of Jesus Christ. Reach for the heavens, yearn for eternal life - concepts dismissed by the world, but which are God’s power. By humbling myself, like God did on the cross, and becoming nothing to be all in God, I achieve my ultimate aspiration. Many today follow self-gratifying beliefs leading to a precipice, but I have faced these precipices and found a genuine hope of salvation through suffering.
You might find my assertions challenging. Through the Holy Roman Catholic Church, God has granted me graces that oppose every major heresy and misguided philosophy today. My life contradicts modern philosophies, demonstrating the Truth in communion with His saints and showing God has a will and purpose for us.
If He has done this for me, imagine what God can do for you. In my soul, the Dogma of the Roman Catholic Church burns alive, as I reject superficial religious relativity, atheistic determinism, and New Age darkness. If anything I write contradicts the Church’s teachings, let me discard it, and may I repent. My life story is what my book is about.