…from the pen of Augustine Joseph Roth
converted to Catholicism from Baptist Ministry
” Shall I ever forget the time when I stood before the Blessed Sacrament for the first time? I knew nothing of the Catholic doctrine on the Real Presence of Christ, yet I felt that Presence. There was a calm and peace that I did not feel in my own church. More than a score of men and women were in this church at that time. The quiet calm that pervaded the atmosphere, assured me that they were at peace with God. Here, the words, “My peace I leave you” were not without meaning. I had never before seen the inside of a Catholic church, and I was surprised to see so many people there, for it was neither Sunday nor Wednesday evening…. In the Catholic Church I found a Bible that was untampered with and with that, tradition, for the Catholic Church has been witness since the day when Christ walked on earth; she was present at the Last Supper, when the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist was instituted; she was present when Christ stood before Pilate; she was present at the Crucifixion and again at the Resurrection; she was with the first Christians in the Catacombs; in their prisons of shame; in the arenas of torture. Through nearly two thousand years she has steered a straight course through the cold and barren peaks of bigotry and prejudice. She has seen nations rise to the peak of power and then fall into decay. Countless thousands have come forth, like the leaves of a forest, to hurl their grain of sand against the solid rock on which her Divine Founder placed her, and like the leaves of a forest they have withered and fallen. She has lived to see those who persecuted her strut their brief moment and then perish, and she will live on and on, the greatest civilizing force the world has even known, for she has the promise of Christ ” And lo, I am with you, all days, even unto the consummation of the world. . . .”