An Explanation of "Backsliding"
"I've heard people say you've been having a good deal of trouble with your faith commitment."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean I hear you're fellowshiping with the Church of Rome again."
"Yes, that's right."
"You know, this backsliding is something you need to pray to overcome."
"It isn't backsliding. I used to call it that myself, when I first became a born-again Christian and saw some people return to the Catholic Church. I used to be so on fire with my new faith, and I suspected that anybody who had doubts about it didn't really have faith at all."
"That's what I was getting at."
"Yeah, but it's wrong. I know. I've come full circle. I left the Catholic Church for good reasons, and I'm returning for good reasons."
"To me, it looks like you're abandoning Christianity. I know about the lures of Romanism. I know how priest make it look like authentic Christianity, but it's not. They brainwash you and you're powerless to stop them. Once you're in it, you can't leave.
"Then how did I get away in the first place? Nobody stopped
me. Nobody even tried to stop me. I grew up in a Catholic family. I went
to catechism class. On Sundays I went to Mass. When I was young we had family
prayers-- mainly the rosary--but that stopped as I got older. I even went to
Catholic schools. I knew as much about the Catholic Church as the next guy.
When I was a teenager I pretty much stopped going to Mass, and I didn't believe much of
anything. Then I went away to college, where I believed mostly just in myself.
There I was invited to a Bible study class, and I found the Lord, I committed myself to
him. I became a born-again Christian. I just drifted away from the Catholic
Church, and nobody tried to bring me back, so don't
tell me about being brainwashed."
"Okay, but I still don't think you could have had a real born-again experience if you're now thinking about becoming a Catholic again. Maybe it's once a Catholic always a Catholic."
"Maybe so. Maybe that's precisely it, and maybe I never appreciated it. In any case, I was - am - as born-again as you are. You should know that. You're the one who helped me along, remember? You didn't say, `Oh, you're not really born-again." You were as convinced as I was, because I had the same kind of experience you had. It's just that my new church wasn't enough."
"What do you mean? Was there something wrong with the preaching? Didn't you find enough fellowship? You can always go to another Bible-believing church, you know"
"No, the preaching was good--better, anyway, that what I remember hearing at the Catholic Church I used to attend--and I had no complaints about the fellowship. Everyone made me feel welcome. No, the problem for me was that it wasn't enough. Something was missing. Eventually I found out it was someone."
"Someone?"
"Well, you might not understand this, but I felt Good Book Baptist was an empty church, even when it was full of people for services, But when, after a long time, I went inside a Catholic church again, even though I was the only one there, I felt it was full. I felt Someone was there. I mean Jesus, of course. I couldn't explain it."
"I know what you're going to say. You're going to say Jesus was really there in the form of a cookie Christ, right?"
"Call the Eucharist whatever you want. All I can say is that I
felt an emptiness or incompleteness at Good Book Baptist and the opposite at St.
Miscellaneous's. At first I thought it was just habit. After all, I had been
brought up a Catholic, even if I hadn't acted as one for years and even if I didn't
believe Catholic teachings any longer. But it wasn't habit precisely because I
didn't believe in that stuff. So it had to be something else. It just nagged
me."
"Why didn't you ask for guidance from Pastor Smithereens?"
"I did. He knew I used to be a Catholic, and I told him a little about what I was feeling, without getting too explicit. Then one night we sat down and carefully went through Scripture. He was showing me how the Catholic belief in the Eucharist just isn't biblical."
"See what I mean."
"Hold on. He was showing me all this, and we went through the New Testament from back to back, but then I noticed he skipped something. We didn't look at John 6 at all. We looked at everything else that might have anything to do with the Eucharist, but not John 6. He just skipped it, never glanced at the chapter. So I asked him about it, and we went through it verse by verse, and by the time we were done I was convinced."
"See, so why did you rejoin to the Catholic Church?"
"No, you misunderstood. I mean that, when we finished John 6, I was convinced the Catholic Church is right. Pastor Smithereens couldn't give me any solid reasons why that chapter shouldn't be taken literally. What got me was that the Jews understood Christ to be saying that they'd have to eat his actual body and blood. They understood him in the most literal way possible, yet he didn't correct them. And when some of his followers left him because they couldn't accept what he was saying, he didn't call after them and say, "Hey, come on back. You misunderstood.' Why was that? Because they must have understood correctly when they understood him to mean his actual body and blood would have to be eaten, Rev. Smithereens wasn't able to explain that to my satisfaction. He didn't even come close. Then I realized that he wasn't able to do it became the Catholic position happened to be true."
"What about all the other inventions of Romanism?"
"I'm not so sure they're inventions at all. I mean here is a chief doctrine, the Eucharist, and I'm convinced it's not an invention. Maybe the rest aren't either. At any rate, I'm going to find out. I never really knew much about the Catholic faith as a kid. It's amazing how little you can learn even when you go to catechism classes for twelve years. I'm having to start from scratch. I'm going to Mass again, even though I feel a little uncomfortable doing so."
"That's because you know it's wrong."
"No, it's because I don't understand it. I mean I understand it as much as I did before, but back then that's all the understanding I wanted. Now I know what I want--and need--much more, and my understanding today isn't deep enough."
"I just don't see what could attract you to Romanism. It's so obviously wrong. It piled up so much man-made stuff on top of real Christianity that it isn't Christianity at all any longer."
"I don't expect you to see. I didn't see either, and even now I see like a man who misplaced his glasses. There's lots out there, but it's too fuzzy to make out. I'll let you know what shows up as my vision clears."
from THIS ROCK MAGAZINE Catholic Answers, P.O. Box 17490, San Diego, CA 92177