“Father, you must start a campaign against the Protestants. They are increasing more and more, ”said Sister Dolores, a nun in a cloister where I went on Sundays to say mass and preach.
I was a young priest and teacher in a school in Spain where the church asked me Sunday after Sunday to do something against the Protestants.
"They are deceiving simple people, and with material gifts they are winning many good people to their heretical group," said the nun.
Wanting to defend the Gospel of Christ, I decided to fight the Protestants. The only thing I knew about them was that they were bad and their doctrines were full of errors and heresies.
Days later a student came to my class carrying a thick book in his hands. “Father,” he said, “This is a Bible. A woman gave it to my mother. She has read it and says it is a good book. But now he is afraid to have it at home because someone has told him that it is a sin to have a Protestant Bible at home and he does not know what to do with it. "You don't know what to do with it?" I replied - “Well, break it immediately. We need to put an end to all this Protestant propaganda in this city, ”I told my students. And in the presence of everyone I began to tear the pages of that Bible.
After I had torn some of the first pages I changed my mind, thinking that since I needed to preach against the Protestants and did not know their errors, I could read that Bible and discover its main heresies.
I read some portions of the New Testament and compared the text with my Catholic Bible. When I discovered that both Bibles said practically the same thing, I was surprised and confused. I asked myself, "Why these differences between Catholics and Protestants if both apparently possess the same Word of God?" And I came to the conclusion that Protestants did not read their Bible, or if they did, they surely did not practice its teachings.
A family and a shepherd
Thinking that the best way to find out who the Protestants were would be to observe their lives and customs, I went to visit a Protestant family. I explained to them that in addition to being a priest, he was a teacher at a school, and that I wanted to know about its doctrines so that I could better teach my students what Protestantism was.
I was surprised that they received me with great courtesy. I was amazed to discover that they knew the Bible better than I did. I was ashamed when I heard them talking to me about Christ with a conviction that I, who was a priest, had never felt.
They explained some questions to me and invited me to speak with their Baptist pastor. I met him the next day, but my first words were: “Please don't try to convince me, you will waste your time if you try. I believe that the Catholic Church is the only true church. I just want to know why you are not a Catholic. "
He invited me to meet each week to study the New Testament, to discuss in a friendly way our different points of view. And so we did.
The pastor answered all my questions with New Testament texts. My arguments were always the sayings of the popes and the definitions of the councils. Although outwardly I did not accept their arguments, in my own mind I realized that the words of the gospels had more value than the decisions of the councils, and that what Peter and Paul said was of more authority than the teachings of the Popes.
As a result of our conversations, I began to read the New Testament assiduously in order to find some arguments against Protestant doctrine. He not only wanted to show the pastor that he was wrong, but even win him over to the Catholic Church. But after each of our interviews, I returned to my school feeling that he had defeated me in the argument.
For a long time I was very worried, reading the New Testament and praying to God asking him to increase my faith and dispel my doubts so that I did not make a mistake. But the more I read and prayed, the more confused I became. Could it be that the Catholic Church is not the Church of Christ? Could I be wrong in my faith? And if so, what did he have to do?
I learned that other priests and monks had become Protestant from reading the Bible, but I couldn't imagine that I would do the same. Being a Protestant?
Being a heretic? Be an apostate of my faith? Never! What would my parents, my students, and my friends say? My eleven years of study would be worthless. What would I do for a living?
These thoughts disturbed me greatly. I preferred not to change my faith. He wished he had never spoken to that pastor. I tried to convince myself that he was wrong. I continued to read the New Testament more and more, looking for an answer that would confirm my position as a Catholic priest. As I read more, I saw more clearly my wrong situation, but I was so afraid to leave the Catholic Church that I decided to continue as a priest even though I could no longer believe in Catholic doctrine.
Light in the darkness
One Sunday, Sister Dolores told me: “Father, you have not preached against the Protestants as you promised you would. They continue to increase every day and are winning a lot of people to their church.
“Sister,” I said, “I have been studying Protestant doctrine all this time, but I have found that they are not as bad as we think. They base their doctrine on the Bible and we cannot preach against the Word of God ”.
"You are wrong, Father," replied the nun. "They are very bad. They are like wolves in sheep's clothing. They are enemies of our country. They hate Maria. They are undermining our faith in the Pope. We must start a campaign against them ”.
I told him about how some priests who wanted to preach against the Protestants had been converted and became Protestant when they studied their doctrines without prejudice and in light of the Scriptures.
The nun interrupted me, “Don't tell me this, Father; they are not converted, but perverted. They went to Protestantism because they were insane or because they wanted to get married. You can study their doctrines without fear, "she continued," And I am sure that you would never go to Protestantism, because you are not insane, nor would you sell Christ for a woman.
"I think the same, sister," I replied. “I promise to seriously study this question. If I am convinced that the Protestants are wrong, I will campaign against them. If I find out they are right, I will become one of them. "
"Don't worry, Father" said the nun, smiling, and very satisfied with my decision. "You will never become a Protestant."
I read my New Testament over and over again, and prayed to God with all my heart, asking for wisdom and guidance in order to come to a clear and correct decision. He knew that he could never be happy otherwise.
God's grace
Three months later I left the Catholic Church because I couldn't keep doing things and pretending to believe doctrines that deep in my heart I knew were wrong. I thought of all the possible difficulties, but decided to follow Jesus despite them.
The most important thing that could have happened to me was my personal encounter with Jesus Christ, and when I came to know him as a personal Savior.
It is not enough to be a good Catholic; the thing that is important and necessary is to be born again in Christ. This has been my experience. When Christ came into my life, I experienced that he not only freed me from my sins, but also from the heavy burden that I had carried by being in a monastic order. "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ ... in whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of his grace" (Ephesians 1: 3 , 7).
Thank God for the many who have sought and found that rest. The same God who transformed the life of Saul the persecutor on the road to Damascus,
and transformed the life of Father Borrás in the cell of a monastery, he can also transform his life wherever he is.
“I will rejoice greatly in Jehovah, my soul will rejoice in my God; because he clothed me with the garments of salvation, he surrounded me with a robe of righteousness ” (Isaiah 61:10).
José Borrás was born, and also became in Spain. For 30 years he was the principal and a professor at the Spanish Baptist Theological Seminary in Alcobendas (Madrid). During that time his preaching was also highly evangelical in his visits to 27 countries.
Translated by Dante Rosso
[Source: https://bereanbeacon.org/es/del-monasterio-al-ministerio/]
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