Brianna Heldt: The Future of Protestantism

I was so fascinated with this article The Future of Protestantism by Brianna Heldt.  What a profound understanding and love for the Church. So here are the best quotes I've taken from her article, hope you'll find time reading the whole (here). Thanks God for these Catholic converts. God bless Brianna and your family!

"It’s hard to ignore the fact that our faith is one of unparalleled beauty, from the Liturgy to the art to the architecture. We are anchored in history and can trace our beginnings back to Jesus and St. Peter, prefigured of course by the nation of Israel we read about in the Old Testament. We have St. Thomas Aquinas and a whole bunch of cool martyrs, and saints like Anthony of Padua–who was actually mentioned by name, in a positive way, at one point. We have custody of most of the holy sites in the Holy Land. We have Mother Teresa!...

"... “What IS the Church?” And what might it look like to submit to her? How do we know what the truth is? Why are Protestants always fighting with each other? ... Protestants don’t want to identify with Catholics because they remain rooted in ideology that is, by definition, in protest of Rome. And Catholics can’t distribute Holy Communion to Protestants because Protestants don’t acknowledge the Real Presence...

"... if you love Jesus, there’s no better place to be than the Catholic Church. They would see pastoral ministry happening, meals being served, prayers being said, children being catechized, Scripture being proclaimed. They would see joy and hope, and the divine intersecting with the human in a profoundly powerful way. They would see love. And, they would see Christ.

"... someone declared that Catholicism is intrinsically exclusive and complicated, too hard for regular ol’ people to “do”... It is the religion of the weak, the vulnerable, the simple, the illiterate, the humble, the poor, the marginalized, the oppressed. It does not require a predetermined level of intellectual rigor, a bookshelf full of systematic theology or, gasp, even a strong understanding of the Bible. Because we are a faith or religion of a PERSON, not a faith of a book. The Bible is our canon of authoritative, inerrant, Sacred Scripture that is read extensively every single Mass. But Jesus is our object of worship and love. And He simply says, Come."

Brianna is a wife, a mother to eight, a writer, and a convert to the Catholic faith.