Bread From Heaven Unlimited is an apostolate for educating the public about the Truths of the Catholic Faith using modern media-print and internet. It is our tiny effort to counteract the bad press about the Catholic Church and supplement the catechesis in many modern parishes. This apostolate is dedicated to Holy Mary. And our other patrons are St. Francis de Sales, St. Ignatius of Loyola, St. Josemaria Escriva, and John Paul II,
I am a Convert to the Catholic Church (1999) from a zealous Protestantism. I have been married for 32 years and we have seven children. The youngest was six when I converted. There are no Catholics in my family line as far as I know. My husband attends church with us but has not entered the Catholic Church, yet.
“There are not over a hundred people in the United States who hate the Catholic Church. There are millions, however, who hate what they wrongly believe to be the Catholic Church – which is, of course, quite a different thing.”
-Archbishop Fulton Sheen
I like your blog site so far. I will check back often.
How does a Catholic get to heaven? Is it true that you have to do good works, worship Mary and the Saints and do pilgrimages to be saved? What about grace? Is’nt that the whole purpose of Jesus coming to earth? He came to pay for our sins!
Dear Sam,
Catholics get to Heaven by the power and grace of God. We do not worship Mary that would be an abomination since she is merely a creature like ourselves. The good works that we do are in in obedience to Christ and in order to purify ourselves so that we can become holy as He is holy. But it is all of Grace. We cannot do anything worth while on our own.
Nice blog! I am a Catholic currently attending a Baptist Church. I’m not sure if that makes me a former Catholic but I believe my children will consider themselves Baptists. I believe God has led me down this path for a reason. After 35 years of Catholicism, I could not answer the question of how or if I am going to Heaven. Even when I ask friends and family now that same question (current practicing Catholics), I get answers like “I’m working on it”, “I think so”, “I hope so”, or “no, I’m probably going to hell”. Not ALL Catholic Churches are doing this, but the ones that I and these people have gone to have not delivered the message, the Good News. It took going to another Church and Bible study for me to realize that through faith in Christ and repentance from sin, Heaven is assured. I disagree completely with one of the comments on the blog here, that you can lose your salvation, but we can discuss that another day. I believe that this is the Catholic belief as well (that faith in Christ and God’s grace get you to Heaven), but somewhere that message is being overshadowed by side issues like Purgatory, Mary, Saints, etc. That may be an outcome of the attacks that the Catholic Church has withstood and continues to withstand over the years, I don’t know. I will always consider myself Catholic (although I wonder if they still accept me now that I go to another Church) and have a deep respect for the Pope and the hierarchy. I must, as you seem to be, and we all should, follow the path which God directs for us and allow him to give us a good whack whenever we stray from his path. All of us who believe Christ died for our sins to bridge the gap between God and man so that we can be together with him again in eternity are Christian brothers and sisters. I look forward to the day when we all come together, despite our differences, and worship in spirit in truth, whether that be in this world or the next. Take care and keep blogging!Peace.
Excellent blog. Thank you!
Hi,
I didn’t know how to ask a question on a new subject, so I am doing it here.
What is the Catholic churches teaching on demons or evil spirits in regards to them giving us grief in our lives. I have a friend who is clairavoyant and she sees ghosts all the time. She has even seen small creatures that she says are demons, and they cause mischief. I’ve know her since childhood, and while she’s had the ability to see ghosts at an early age, her ability to see them (and demons) has increased with age (39 yrs old). She has seen a demon touch her husband while he was sleeping once, but she didn’t know what it was doing to him. I had gone to a Pentacostal church for a year, and they spoke of evil spirits attaching themselves to you to cause depression, fear, etc. I have also heard of spirits causing things to go wrong in your house. Are these evil spirits and demons one in the same? Does the Catholic church believe such things exist to cause us problems? I would think so since we believe in the need for exorcism. Thanks for your time and your resource.
Hi Cecilia,
I certainly don’t pretend to be any sort of authority on this issue, but I am acquainted with some. A couple married friends of mine were having similar challenges to this friend of yours. They first sought help through our archdiocesan ‘expert’, and when he determined that an exorcism was not necessary, they subsequently went many other places. I don’t necessarily deny that she saw the evil spirits, or had issues with them, but I’m pretty sure the first priest was right in his diagnosis. We discovered later that she had been using drugs and being unfaithful to her husband the whole time. What she really needed was to accept the grace of repentance.
Hi Cecilia,
Though I might be a late to respond to this since I just found this blog very helpful. ESP are part of Preternatural gifts endowed by God + Supernatural Gifts at the time Adam & Eve did not commit sin. It is when they committed the sin, these gifts are lost (not totally) because preternatural gift has been closed. Demons are fallen angels and from what I read from a book of Fr. Syquia (Philippines – Exorcism) they have this preternatural gifts and since they are spirit they are not bind by time or space. Indeed, demons doesn’t have supernatural gifts.
What I can say here is that, exorcism in the Catholic Church do exist. I believe the Bishop in your place should decide who will be the Exorcist to assist them in this case.
Hope you would find this useful.
Thanks,
Mike
I don’t really have a comment as much as a question. Why do we celebrate Christmas when we do? Since no one really knows when Christ was born (biblical scholars seem to beleive it was in the spring), why Dec. 25th?
Tim,
There are two views but I believe that God has allowed His Church to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ on the right day or very close to it. This is not mandatory or a matter of faith, but why doubt it without very good reason?
Argument for a late December Birth
The argument for assigning late December as the rightful date of the birth of Yeshua is based on the time Zacharias was told that Elizabeth would conceive a child.
1. Jesus’ cousin, John the Baptist, was conceived just after Yom Kippur and born 40 weeks later in (June/July).
* John’s father (Zacharias) was a Levite who was assigned to serve in the temple during the 8th and 34 weeks of the year. If the Angel’s announcement to Zechariah was the 34th week that would have been during the High Holiday of Yom Kippur.
* It is written that John was conceived shortly after this tour of duty (Luke 1:23-4), and Yom Kippur. Thus, John would have been born around (June/July).
2. Jesus was conceived in (Mar/Apr), six months after John the Baptist (Luke 1:24-27, 36) near Passover, and born 40 weeks later during late December.
3. Circumstantial Evidences:
o Church history since the time of the late first century has attested to a late December birth. Hippolytus, in the second century AD, argued that this was Christ’s birthday. In the fourth century,
John Chrysostom (347-407) argued that December 25th was the correct date. Chrysostom taught that Zechariah received the message about John’s birth on the Day of Atonement and John the Baptist was born sometime in June or July, and the birth of Jesus took place six months later, in late December (or early January). There was never a question about the period of Jesus’ birth either in the East or in the West; only in the recent years this date was challenged.
Early Jewish sources suggest that the sheep around Bethlehem were outside year-round. In the normal traffic of shepherds they move around and come near Bethlehem from November to March of the year. But then these were a special class of Levitical shepherds who kept the sacrificial lambs. They do not move around because they supply the lambs for daily sacrifice from whom people bought their approved lambs, which are blemishless. The fact that the Angels announced the arrival of the perfect sacrificial lamb to these shepherds indicates this. The climate near Bethlehem is more like Southern California, it is after all Mediterranian. It is not a Canadian or Russian climate.
Alfred Edersheim, a Messianic Jew, wrote, “There is no adequate reason for questioning the historical accuracy of this date. The objections generally made rest on grounds which seem to me historically untenable.”
Edersheim notes that Megillot Taanit states that the 9th of Tevet is considered the day of Christ’s birth, and that puts the birth of Yeshua sometime during late December.
Summary:
If Zacharias served during Yom Kippur and Elizabeth conceived shortly thereafter, we can place the date of Jesus’ birth during the month of Tevet, in late December.
Both views can be seen HERE
Hello Sweet Friend,
Thought you might enjoy this(I put it on TBC, too so you may have already seen it!)
It is amazing and I pray it blesses you today!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmm-0-Rdxo8
Hi,
I’ve read about your story of conversion and I hope you’ve had a fruitful decade of being a Catholic. Would just like to say that it’s odd for me to hear/read of people converting into Catholicism as opposed to those who choose to leave. I came about your blog during a time of personal trials. I thank God that I’ve stumbled upon your works and I must say, they answered some of my own questions. I was born a Catholic, studied in a Catholic school for 12 years and have still become doubtful at times. But somehow I cannot see myself shifting to another denomination.
Keep up the good work and may God bless you always.
I’m so happy I found your blog. I had to search Catholic to find it as Catholics don’t seem to be in the religion section-just angry atheists..which…really drain a person.
Nice blog:)
Thanks Caroline.
God Bless Pam Forrester bfhu.wordpress.com