Red-Headed Stepchild

18 May 2010
Red-headed Stepchild

It's possible my skin is a bit thinner than usual these days, due to home life busyness and chaos that's more ramped-up than normal, but I am so sick to death of hearing from Protestants that I'm not a Christian, or I'm not saved, or I'm lost and confused, or blah, blah, blah.

Sheesh. Give me a break already. You'd think the Bible fell out of the sky one day, leather-bound with a concordance, and landed in Luther's or Calvin's hands and prior to that, nobody had heard the word of God before. You'd think that Christian churches simply sprang up out of thin air in the year 1500 or so, and prior to that Christianity was waiting in limbo to be shared with the world.

Catholics are not the red-headed stepchild of Christianity. We are not pagans, heathens, or idolaters.

This kind of petty, ignorant, and pig-headed crap has to stop. I have never in my life presumed to tell a Protestant that they're not going to Heaven, or they don't know Jesus, or they're not saved, or blah, blah, blah. How could I possibly make such a pronouncement? What grief we must inflict on Jesus' heart with our stupid nonsense.

I could never not be Catholic. I have found it to be the fullness of the Christian faith and I will never settle for anything less. I could not live without His body and blood. I believe Jesus built His Church on the Rock of St. Peter and since then, it has continued and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

I'm sad and sorry for the splintered Christianity that exists today, and I pray that we will all be one again soon. In the meantime, I love my brothers and sisters in Christ; I learn from them and take inspiration from them; I am often so amazed and blessed by them. I just wish some of them could stop nailing their personal manifestos to the door already.


*I got this from mychocolatehart.blogspot.com and I am reposting it here because it really hit me especially hard today. I have been involved in several dramatic "Whore of Babylon" discussions in the past week and, folks, I'm weary! Do I believe that being a Catholic gets me into God's Graces more quickly? Heck no! But I would rather chop off a limb than not receive the Eucharist and the Precious Blood - a limb, I tell 'ya!!! I believe, also, in the greatest commandment and that is to love one another as God loves us. I'm no touchy-feely gal but I do believe that the greatest tool of converting someone is to be so stinkin' on fire for God through loving others and Christ above all that people will wonder what the heck you're learning! And, I'll gladly share with them the beauty, the sacredness, the wonder, the history, the miracle that is the Catholic Church!*