NEVER SAY NEVER!

I have learned over the years to "never say never"!  Every time I did...I ate those words!  I said I would never return to the Catholic Church---I returned  in 2006. I said I would not forgive this person or that person....and I did!  I said I would never eat sour cream in salsa...and I eat it like that all the time!  Is this why Jesus said, "let your yea be yea and nay be nay"?  HE KNOWS WE ARE A WORK IN PROGRESS AND HE IS NOT DONE WITH US YET!

I love to tell people my story because I am not a Catholic because someone messed with my head or that it was ingrained in me as a youngster so naturally I would return to it in later years....nope none of that is why I came back!  I am a very inquisitive person, ( wonder if I drove my mother crazy with that word "why")?  My soul is never satisfied, and it is never content to stay in one mode!  The Holy Spirit drives me to seek more and more, because in doing so, I learn and I appreciate my God and my Lord Jesus Christ more deeply.

 The key is to always ask questions, God is very Gracious to answer!  Every question Jesus asks in the Gospels is not for Himself...they are for us to consider something not so obvious...when He said, "when the Son of Man returns will He find faith on the earth"?  Doesn't that sound like He is implying...perhaps there might not be...much?  So why are we surprised so many don't believe in God and want Christians to just shut up now?  He predicted that.  Why did Paul say some were sick and died because they took Communion unworthily?  If its just a symbol....how can it make you sick or die?  Why is it, the men on the Road to Emmaus could not recognize Jesus until after He blessed the bread and gave it to them?  "He was known to them in the breaking of bread"...these kinds of questions stirred my spirit.  No pastors could answer to my satisfaction.  When I kept digging, reading, praying, and seeking...God revealed and spoke to me about the Sacramental Life...or as the early Christians called ...The Way.  He opened my understanding.  God took my by the hand and taught me everything I know....no one in the Church did.  I returned after I learned--I was not brainwashed or coerced or led by anyone but the Spirit.

Of course, not everyone is born Catholic.  Not everyone is afforded to even hear the Gospel...and are born into poverty and Islam or Voodoo or Buddhism or Hinduism or even atheism.  Does God not care about them?  The bible says that our "understanding" needs to be opened.  If "the Cross is hidden to those who are perishing"....is God letting them all die?  So...I did what I always do and went to the Father to ask!
We assume alot as humans or I should say presume.  God loves all mankind.  He can reach anyone anywhere at any time...HE is not bound by time and space or any force.

  The bible speaks of different degrees of reward some 30, some 60 and some 100 fold.  The angels are of differing ranks...Lucifer was one of the Seraphim...highest rank of angels...next to God's Throne....and there are lesser angels....the very temple has an outer court, inner court, and then the Holy of Holies.  These are clues.  God's Word says," to him who knows to do good and does not do it, it is sin".  Well in our society and our world...there are good people who never heard the Gospel that are good souls...God does not forget that.  It also says, "love covers a multitude of sins"....seems the nastiest jerk may do a kind turn for someone (and we'd never know)...but God saw it and does not forget.  God is present all the time and at work drawing men to Himself.  That is why Pope Francis does not presume to judge anyone.  None of us can do that. WE only have guidelines of what God wants and doesn't want...we have a moral compass to give us "light" in a "dark" world in the Scriptures and the Church.

  Someone has to steer the sheep, feed them, protect them, guide them....and that is why Jesus chose 12 men, and had an inner circle of 3 and then appointed Peter....differing degrees based on purposes HE had in mind...then...came Paul! Paul was a "never say never" fellow too!  Perhaps that is why I like him so!  He too was opposed to some things he didn't understand until God knocked down a notch or two...taught him personally and then look what he did!!!  God knocked me down and picked me up and taught me too!  I ain't no saint, and I am not gonna transform the world but I did change alot---I did what I said I wouldn't!! Keep your heart open, your mind thinking, your soul moving, and always keep asking!!