The Original Church

By Joe Sullivan, MJ • Phoenix, AZ

“We need to take the 202 and then go onto the 101 south,” I told Juan as he got into my car for the half hour ride home from his appointment. “But look!” Juan pointed to the giant ominous dark cloud hanging over the direction we were headed. “Yeah. It looks bad!” I cringed. “But don’t worry, we have Our Lady to protect us.” I gently tapped the image of Our Lady of Sorrows on my visor. 

“Oh! You are Catholic?” Juan asked. “Yes! Don’t worry. She is Our Mother and is here for us.” “She is the mother of Jesus? No?” he asked. “Yes! The Mother of God”. “I grew up Evangelical but my grandmother was Catholic. I know a little something,” he explained. I could tell Juan was intrigued. “I even went to a Catholic service one time,” he told me. “How did you like it?” I asked as I drove onto the on ramp. The huge dark cloud was right in front of us and the first drops sounded like a drum beat. 

“It was different, but I thought it was cool.” OK. Holy Mass is cool, I thought. “I was expecting it to be like most denominations,” Juan quipped. Here was my “IN”. “That’s because the Catholic Church is not a denomination. It is the Original. It was founded by Christ himself. All the protestant and evangelical denominations had human founders like Martin Luther, or John Calvin, or Henry VIII.” Now we were flying down the Interstate and being pummeled by very heavy rain. I could hardly see the car right in front of us.

“For 1500 years it was only the Catholic Church, then all of a sudden, there were all these other churches.”, I continued. “Yeah, that’s true. I never thought about that,” pondered Juan. “Jesus had Apostles, most of whom were martyrs giving witness to Christ. Don’t you think the Apostles had apostles?”, I asked him. “That makes sense,” he replied. “Yeah, and many were martyrs too, giving witness to Christ and the testimony of the Apostles. These are the Fathers of the Church – men like Polycarp, a student of John the Apostle, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, and Augustine. There are so many. Look them up. They will blow you away. Then you will really understand what it means to be Catholic.” 

We arrived at Juan’s house. I think he was more affected by the conversation than the enormous hailstones that hit the car on the way home.