From the moment that I said the words out loud for the first time my life has changed. All of my life I have had night terrors that would wake me up many times a night. This would happen no less then 6 time every night. I would wake up screaming, or choking. The first time I told Father Olson that I want to become a Priest, was the first time I had a full nights sleep. It was like the words put an end to what every battle was raging inside of me. For the first time in 30 years I feel at peace with my life.
I have always had thoughts about becoming a Priest, but I had never talked about it with any one. I knew that my family would have some problems after such a revelation. My family is a prime example of what a religious feud could do to a family infrastructure. I have seen it before with in my family already. I may never know what gave me the strength to talk to Father Olson, but I did, and I have never been more sure about any thing in my life.
The one common denominator that I have found with in the Priest Hood is that no matter what walk of life he may have come from, something dramatic must happen with in their life to get them to see their calling. A priest a human just as you are and is not born into their position. It takes devotion and faith, along with a lot of hard work to be ordained. My point is that he had a life before he found his calling, and it is not always one of a saint.
The conflict between the Catholic Church and most of the Protestant churches stems from one line in the Bible. {Thou shell have no gods before me.} But I fear that it goes deeper than that. The issue about not worshiping graven images has come up a lot in my investigation on this subject. We do have figures of stone looking over us through out the mass, but I feel that they serve as a reminder to us as to where we came from. {They serve as a visual reminder of the churches history.}
Our protestant brothers don’t seem to for get that they make the same practices. When they place more importance on to the word of God rather then what the words mean. It seems to me that we are all guilty of the in one way or the other. We might place money, or our jobs before god’s wishes. We may even put more importance in the execution of the Mass over the message that is being re-laid. {Even traditions and cultural needs can tend to take a front seat to what God is calling us to do.}
Man has always needed to put a form to things that they don’t under stand. Even the most respected Protestant church will use the symbol of the cross to help bring people to Jesus. In many cases, you would do well to assume that our stone saints have just been replaced with the bare cross. So has the cross become another idol to put before God? In many cases it has.
Faith has nothing to do with stone carvings; leather bound books, or empty crosses. Your faith is summoned by the Holy Spirit, you see with your hart not with your eyes. God finds his ways into all aspects of our life. All we have to do is invite him in. He wants to be with us so let go of your Cell phones, Laptops, and fine cares, and put them aside for they can become Idols as will. If you take the time to listen to the wind you may be able to hear, and even feel what God wants for your life.
With the risk of rambling on, my uncle is a Protestant minister. He dose not no that I have taken this path in my life. If he was to know that I wanted to be a Catholic Priest our family would be ripped a part. We all follow the same God, but closed minds on both sides would start fighting. I know that is the right path, but others will get very angry.
I come from an Irish family that came out of Belfast and Cork of Northern Ireland, my grand father grew up as an American, and he served in WW2 in the USMC in the South Pacific. He was a good man but he did grow up with some of the malice’s toward the Protestant movement. I know that he was indeed religious but as his son became a Pastor in a Protestant Church he began to loose touch with his son. Why is so important to people that the inconsequential differences in their religious faith become such an issue? Wars have been fought for less.
God has went by many names, and each of them the cultures, and faiths that use them all agree that there is only one God. Some of these cultures might place lesser Gods or minions beneath him or her depending on the from that god wishes to take for the people of that culture. My point is that we all believe in one god. Our perception of that god is formed be our cultural, and geographic surroundings.
Man as a hole has never questioned the reality of a higher power. It is arrogant to think that we had just evolved out of primordial ooze so many millenniums a go. How ever change is a fundamental function of life. If life cannot evolve or adapt to the environment, life will no longer exist. I am not an advocate of the evolution theory, but if God created life why is it so hard to consider that he gave life the means to adapt, this is in a loose term, the meaning of evolution.
But perception is often used as a way to explain away misdeeds. You have herd the term that says “It is all in ones perception”. That is just not true! There is only one right way to do things. I cut down trees for a living, if a knot is not tide correctly that could mean some one get hurt or dies. There is no room for mistakes. The same goes for life, there is no Gray, it is all Black in White. {You can’t kind of commit a sin.} You can’t kind of shoot some one in the head, you did or you did not there is no middle ground. In battle you move or you die. The man that freezes will most likely get cut down. So you charge or retreat, never just stand there waiting for a bayonet to run you through. The same goes for you’re the battle for a soul. Every one has to face their diamonds. I was no exception. Now it is time to answer my calling.