September 27, 2005 Why Kneel to a Bread Box?

by Jason Shanks
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Thanks for having me. I appreciate you all coming here. This is my first time here at the airport. I can watch the airplanes land while I'm talking. I want to continue the theme on the Eucharist. I would like to talk about my conversion and story.

The Eucharist is a radical display of God's love for us. As such, it sets our hearts on fire. John Paul II said in his most recent encyclical that he wanted to enkindle in each of us a Eucharistic Amazement.

There are two types of amazement.

1. There is Sort of the Ripley's Believe it or Not Amazement. The "How can that be possible?" type of amazement. How can this be? It's that idea that what we say about the Eucharist, that this piece of bread and this wine is actually Jesus really truly present Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity is a radical statement. It's hard for many to understand, they're amazed at this. How can anyone believe such a radical belief?! This is mystifying and confusing.


2. An amazement between either real good friends or a husband and a wife. Those that fall deeply in love with each other where it continues to grow. A love where you don't have to say anything to each other because you are in awe and reverence of one another. It's not the amazement that gets you to kneel, but it's the amazement that makes you wonder if you'll ever get up again. It's the only amazement that only comes in time. It does not come in revelation but it comes in time and grows. This is the amazement that JPII is trying to get at.

For many we have an understanding of the Eucharist. But I wonder how often we have this Eucharistic Amazement? How often when we're kneeling with our knees are we kneeling with our hearts? We should be overwhelmed that our beloved is there on the alter. He wants us to become himself.

• My journey was one of misunderstanding of what the Church Believes.


• Factors/Experiences that contributed to me questioning my faith:
  
  • I found the Marriage Ceremoney, Vows, etc are not in the bible. Protestants do it because it's tradition. What? Bible based Christians having tradition? That is not supposed to happen.
  • During a Trip to Washington, DC. Noticed many churches and I started to think, "Something doesn't make sense."
  • Protestants say, "We are fundamentally similar, and superficially different." but many divisions are fundamentally different.
  • The concept of being 100% totally evil as John Calvin taught. If that is so, there is no reason why I should touch my bible again because anything I interpret from that will be evil.
  • Reading the bible, the Holy Spirit is supposed to reveal the Truth to you. But everyone reads it differently, that's the reason why there are so many churches in Washington, DC. There must be an authority.
  
  
• Started reading why the protestants broke away in the first place.


• Modern Protestant issues are over Mary, Confession, the Mass, the Eucharist.
• The reformers issues were on Faith Alone, Scripture Alone, Grace Alone, Abuses with indulgences.


• Took each issue one by one:


• Bible alone This idea that the bible was the only thing, no tradition. I wanted to find in scripture where it says "Bible alone."


• What is the pillar of Truth? Protestants say it's the bible. But the Bible says it's the Church in 1st Timothy.
• Which came first, bible or the Church? Well, that was easy, the Church.
• Who kept it together, which books belong? If you look into some denominations, it's an open cannon. Why? Because you can decide which books are in and out. How do we know this is the way it should be? If this is privately revealed then anyone can decide. I realized we needed a divine interpreter. A Supreme court that tells me what is in or out.
• In scripture it talks a lot about oral tradition. You should follow the oral traditions that was passed on. So I realized it should be scripture and tradition.


• Faith alone There were four spiritual laws I would share as a Protestant, God loves you, you're a sinner, God died for you, would you like to accept Him as your personal Lord and Savior. This is the protestant conversion tool.
• If I live Faith alone, I'm asking him to do something. To "Accept Jesus" is a minor work but it's still a work. If you are given a gift, you have to take it, unwrap it, etc. You have to do some work to receive it. You cooperate with Grace. I realized that faith alone in that context made no sense. I was asking people to DO something. Martin Luther believed you just sit there and do nothing and let it come.
• I looked in the book of James and it said, "Faith without works is dead." wow. The reformers, they just threw out the book of James, they called it the Epistle of Straw. But I had to wrestle with this statement.


• As I took issues one by one, I saw where the Church fixed the abuses in indulgences. And the reformers had a devotion to Mary, Luther believed in the Eucharist and confession. I asked myself, "Why am I still a protestant because I don't believe the reasons why they broke away?"


• I went back to the early Church without all the ritual and tradition. I went back to find a simple Church before it was corrupted. So I went back and looked at the Church fathers.


• I was shocked. They were talking about Mass, breaking bread, Confession, and things that were very Catholic. This is not what i was looking for!


• I looked at the book of Acts. I saw a few things that were curious.


• When the Holy Spirit descended upon the apostles, Peter spoke out. I expected him to say to "Accept Jesus as your Personal Lord and Savior." but he said, "Repent and be Baptized." Why is this baptism in there? That's not necessary, you just have to believe.
• The Bible says among them that day many were saved, and they went and broke bread in their homes. Why is this so important, to go and have this meal in their homes? This is supposed to be a once a month thing. Why was this so important? They're just going to do something that is symbolic?
• I started to realize how baptism was so important because Paul would baptize whole families in the middle of the night after escaping from jail.


• I was coming to the conclusion that the Catholic Church was the one that Christ founded.


• I started to wrestle with that. From Purgatory to the saints. I noticed that many things I believed but didn't actually know I believed. For instance


• Saints, in our tradition, we talk of heros of the Faith. Men and women we would model, we'd read their books and listen to talks if available. We'd pattern our lives after these. Same thing but named different.
• Purgatory, it made a lot of sense to me. In Corinthians you have to present the talents to God and you are going to pass through fire where all the bad stuff and what would be left was our talents. It sounds a lot like purgatory.
• I had a lot of straw-man issues that I thought Catholics believed and found they didn't believe that at all.


• To my surprise the Catholic Church was where I should be.


• The icing on the cake: I opened the Scripture and read John Chapter 6. The Bread of Life Discourse. As a protestant I read them many times and never got it. But this time I read it. I asked a fundamental question to myself. What did the people think Jesus was saying there? He basically says, "You must eat my flesh and drink my blood to have eternal life." There are all these people there as well as the apostles. Well as a protestant, I thought this was symbolic, figurative language. But I noticed this time the Jewish leaders were outraged. "How can he say this?" but He says it again and they say, "This is cannibalism, how can He give us His flesh to eat." He says it again. And at this point, the people who were just fed in the feeding of the 5,000 they say, "That is hard teaching." He says it again. With the Scholars and the disciples you'd think perhaps He wasn't close enough to them to try to explain it further as a symbol. But you'd think with the apostles He would explain it, but instead He says, after the others leave, "Will you go too?" Peter says, "Lord, where else shall we go? We believe you're the Messiah, we don't get this but we'll follow you", they accept this on Faith. What did the people think He was saying? They really believed He was saying what He was saying literally.

• One bible the translation for the Our Father I read said, "Give us our dinner as usual" As a Protestant I thought that made no sense. It seems they missed the point. After the bread of life discourse, it is clearly saying to give me this bread, this Eucharistic life-saving bread and let's do it daily.


• It was on the Eucharist where I decided I had to join the Catholic Church. I now understood that it was much more than kneeling to a bread box. It was an act of humility. Saying, "You are God and I am not."


• I did not go through RCIA until after College. I went to mass and I would kneel in Mass and I would yearn for the day I could receive.


• I waited and waited and I would call that an engagement of two years. It was in the waiting that the amazement was growing. That two-year period where not only would I bow with my knee but with my heart too.


• When i got back here to Columbus, I went through RCIA. I was so excited on that day I was brought in, when you receive communion for the first time, it was moving.


• We can come to take the Eucharist for granted. We can get too used to it.


• We need to rekindle that Eucharistic Amazement. Go to mass frequently, go to adoration. If we kneel to God himself, can we ever get up again?


• What if there was only one tabernacle in the entire world? More than that, if there was only one mass that we could go to in our entire life. One time to receive the Eucharist. I guarantee, we would fly to these areas where the tabernacle was. And receive that one time in our life, it would mean something. We'd want pictures, we'd want to remember that moment. If we paid all that money to get to the place, we'd never want to leave.


• We have been gifted so much that God comes to us where we're at. He loves us so much to be there for us.

Question: I was having a conversation with a protestant and she brought up the issue of Divorce and remarriage and some say why should it be okay if I get annulled, why does that make it okay? What is the answer for that?

It's a difficult answer to give. There are a lot of misunderstandings on annulment. An annulment goes back to the day of the wedding and it analyzes the issues surrounding that to determine whether the marriage was ever valid from the beginning. So, this idea is going back and saying the marriage never existed. You will need some scripture passages.

Some Protestants would say, "We only accept divorce in the case of adultery" and that's a misreading of Matthew. And a Catholic has a good response to that.

When you talk, you want to speak to them in love. You want to listen to what they want to say. There could be hurt there. But ultimately I'll answer the question but I want to draw people back to the source and summit and that's the Eucharist.

Question: How did you know... who turned you on to the early Church Fathers? How did you know you could trust them?

That is an excellent question. Trust issues, I'll talk about first. If you're just Bible alone nowhere in the bible does it mention the Trinity. So, how can I accept some ecumenical council that defined the Trinity? There is an inconsistency there. There is a lot that is not in the Bible.

The larger part is my friend, he was a knowledgeable Catholic. There are a lot of people who would not be Catholic without someone like him. It was either trust the councils or believe there is a larger structure of a Church. And at that time I had already figured out Matthew 16.

Question: How did you family take it?

Not to well at first. My Dad was a fallen away Catholic. My mother was a methodist. They were surprised and wanted to challenge me but I could explain myself and they became quite supportive. My Dad actually returned to the Church. My mother... It been great. I've seen a lot of progress over the years. My sister and Father are in my Catholic Bible study. Years of prayer.

My friends that I was involved with as a protestant. A lot of my friends had a lot of problems. But still today we're working through those issues. Another thing I noticed that these jokes that were always there, I would notice that, "oh, that's against me" and I was calling them on it.

I do believe it was the Protestants that brought me into the Church. They taught me how to read scripture and defend my Faith. This was the fullness of what it meant to be a protestant.

Question: So reading the Church Fathers, what did you think to find?

I was expecting to find a bible-based Church, not the Catholic Church. Which now sounds a little silly but that was my thought. That at some point when the Church came "above ground" it was corrupted. There was an Early Church that was a simple church. It was a little bit of a shock for me because I was not expecting it.