I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself.
Former Baptist Pastor (John Thompson) Explains His Conversion to Catholicism
https://www.ncregister.com/blog/john-thompson-former-baptist-pastor-becomes-catholic
I went back and looked at worship in the early Church. I expected to find the Baptist Church with preaching and worship that reflected Baptist beliefs. Yet I found that the earliest post-Scriptural documents that we have speak of liturgy from the very beginning. You don’t find the free worship of the Baptist or the Evangelical tradition. You find the liturgy, forms of worship and set prayers from very early in the Church.
And, most importantly, you find not just the Liturgy of the Word, the proclaimed or preached Word of God, but you have the Liturgy of the Eucharist. You discover the two-fold action of hearing the Word of God and responding by offering up the Sacrifice through which you receive the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Christ in the Eucharist. As I began to see this, I was touched. This is what I was missing in worship, the two-fold action of hearing and receiving.
Anglican Bishop and the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham
In a statement confirming his conversion to the Catholic Church, Michael Nazir-Ali said:
‘I believe that the Anglican desire to adhere to apostolic, patristic and conciliar teaching can now best be maintained in the Ordinariate. Provisions there to safeguard legitimate Anglican patrimony are very encouraging and, I believe, that such patrimony in its Liturgy, approaches to Biblical study, pastoral commitment to the community, methods of moral theology and much else besides has a great deal to offer the wider church.
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/ex-c-of-e-bishop-michael-nazir-ali-converts-to-catholicism
Ebbsfleet too!
In a statement, (Jonathan) Goodall said: “I have arrived at the decision to step down as (Anglican) Bishop of Ebbsfleet, in order to be received into full communion with the Roman Catholic Church, only after a long period of prayer, which has been among the most testing periods of my life.
“Life in the communion of the Church of England has shaped and nourished my discipleship as a Catholic Christian for many decades … I shall always treasure this and be thankful for it.
“I trust you all to believe that I have made my decision as a way of saying yes to God’s present call and invitation, and not of saying no to what I have known and experienced in the Church of England, to which I owe such a deep debt.”
... and Gavin Ashenden
It is not just peace that Ashenden feels since becoming Catholic, however, but relief, too.
“Life as an Anglican Protestant always involved a series of contested variables,” he explains, “which went to the heart of what constituted authenticity in the Church [of England], often made worse by trying to judge things by how much the laity, as consumers, liked them.” He sees the “wonderful settled continuity” of the Catholic Church, with regard to religious orders and the sacraments “as opposed to a Protestant incoherence and consequent turmoil,” as both “a relief and a constant delight.”
The final push which Ashenden needed came from Bishop Mark Davies, who is ordinary of the Catholic diocese within whose territory Ashenden has been living, who is one of his country’s most outspoken defenders of Catholic orthodoxy and who one day told Ashenden ‘Well, look you know you’re coming over sometime… Don’t delay! Come now, we need you.’ I couldn’t agree more.
Fr. Bart Stevens, Former Assemblies of God and Episcopal Priest
https://chnetwork.org/journey-home/fr-bart-stevens-former-assemblies-of-god-and-episcopal-priest/
Fr. Bart Stevens grew up in Montana, and had a radical conversion to Christ as a teenager attending an Assemblies of God youth group. When he was exposed to the Christian intellectual tradition at Wheaton College, he became a 5-point Calvinist, and when he went on to seminary studies at Gordon-Conwell, he fell in love with liturgy. After being ordained as an Episcopal priest, he finally realized that his love for personal prayer, intellectual rigor, and meaningful liturgy could all be fulfilled in the Catholic Church. Fr. Bart was eventually ordained a Catholic priest under the Pastoral Provision.
READ ALSO: https://www.crisismagazine.com/2021/where-else-are-we-to-go-if-not-to-rome
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