From Tradition to Truth

KATE PLOURDE & MIKE SZEKELY

Kate Plourde

My name is Kate and I was Roman Catholic until the age of 25. It was at that time of my life that I knew there had to be more to religion. My religion was dead – I did everything by rote because that is what I was taught to do.  There was nothing intimate between God and I.  I was working at religion and it was not giving me peace at all.

I was invited to tag along to a Bible study club at work. We would meet once a week at lunch time. The ladies there had such a wonderful peace about them and they actually loved reading the Bible and talking about God. This was so foreign to me, especially the Bible reading part. I had taught catholic catechism at CCD and had been such a good and faithful catholic all my life.  Everything I wanted to know was taught to me by my priest and in my catechism.  What was it that they had that I did not, I asked myself.

I didn’t pursue those thoughts too much and went about living my life. My marriage was failing and I knew that I was stuck. Suicide entered my mind and I began planning the day. The Lord had it all under control for He sent a dear friend of mine to visit me during her vacation. Vicky had been born again six months prior and wanted to witness to me about what the Saviour had done in her life.  She had a prayer chain going at her church and people were praying around the clock for my salvation. She led me to the Lord on April 1st, 1980.

I was determined that I could be born again and remain catholic so I would not have to be alienated from my family. Vicky left me with a Bible and one thought, “Read your Bible as much as you can!” I was like a sponge. I could not get enough Bible reading. I finally understood what I read – that was something that never happened to me before I was born again!  My husband worked evenings so I was able to read four to five hours a day. The Holy Spirit was faithful to me. He showed me things in the Word that totally amazed me. It is there that I found Christ was the Rock and not Peter. It was there that I found that “whosoever” meant me in John 3:16! It was there that I found that God is a personal God and wants to fellowship with us in Matthew 11:28-30. The more I read my Bible, the more I discovered that catholicism is not based on Scriptures at all.

A month after my salvation and about 140 hours of Bible reading, I came to the conclusion that I could not continue being catholic. The Bible was simple and uncomplicated. The dogmas and rules of the catholic church were not. They stemmed from sacred tradition and magisterium – they were man made. I broke from the catholic church and found a church to attend that used the Bible as their source for direction.

~Psa 119:105 NUN. Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.

Mike Szekely

I was born in McKeesport, PA (nigh unto Pittsburgh) into a Catholic family. Our family had a form of godliness in our home…there was the Bible on the table and other religious articles set up around the house. My parents would send us kids to catechism and to St. Perpetua Catholic Church, even though they would never go. Still, as a child I remember being fascinated by the robes, the rituals, and the rigid structure.

I followed that fascination until the age of 22. At this time in my life I came to a real knowledge of me as a sinner before a Holy and Righteous God. I became so convicted over my sin, and all the rituals I performed did not cleanse me from my unrighteousness. My works and traditions would not suffice and give me relief. There had to be something else – something I was missing – Christianity had to be more than a ritual!

Thankfully, someone showed me from God’s Holy Word, the Bible, that Christianity was a relationship…and one that began and would be sustained by faith! The works I did could never save me from sin’s penalty. In repentance, I had to trust the work of the Lord Jesus Christ to be THE payment for my sin debt before God.

This was so much different than I heard before! I never had my eternity secured…I never had assurance that I was a child of God until I turned from the robes, the rituals, and the rigidity to rest in the work of Christ and His work alone – by faith!

As you read this blog, please be open-minded. As a catholic I never studied the Bible, let alone read it much or at all! We didn’t believe it was the Only Authority on God, our Only Rule of Faith and Practice. But the Bible IS God’s Holy, Inspired, Inerrent, and Only Word to man. It is our prayer that we would be a help to you and that you would have saving faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, trusting Him alone for who He is and for what He says He can do about your sin-debt before the Father. Without the Bible, one cannot know this saving faith and the Gospel: “So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God” Romans 10:17.