Catholics Come Home: God's Extraordinary Plan for Your Life Hardcover - 2013

Excerpt

God's Extraordinary Plan for You

Few souls understand what God would accomplish in them

if they were to abandon themselves unreservedly to Him and

if they were to allow His grace to mold them accordingly.

~ Saint Ignatius of Loyola


God has something extraordinary planned for your life.

Let me say that again slowly because it's really im­portant.

God has something extraordinary planned for your life!

In our fast-paced, highly technological world, this statement might sound a bit lofty, but the lives of mil­lions of souls who have come before us attest to this simple truth:

God has a wonderful plan in store for you.

God wants you to be happy. He wants you to ex­perience His unfailing compassion. He wants you to feel the warmth of mercy and to share His love with others. God wants you to know that you exist for a reason. Discovering God's plan for your life is rather easy, yet, to be honest, somewhat difficult, too. It starts with saying yes to the Holy Spirit and allowing Him to guide you. Living a God-affirming life is ultimately a decision that each of us needs to make. Sometimes it can be a tough decision. Does saying yes to God mean saying no to the secular world? To an extent it does, but let me tell you, the exchange rate is in your favor when you trade in your old life for a new life in Christ! The chaos, noise, and distractions of secular society lure millions of souls away from God. But it doesn't have to be that way. There are heroic role models who exist or have existed in the din of all this craziness, yet have still lived deeply spiritual lives. In fact, their heroic mission in life was to make the lives of those around them more, well, humane.

Let's look at Mother Teresa as one such heroic ex­ample. Mother thrived spiritually even in the squalor and uncertainty of a country where thousands died from malnutrition and hardship every day! She took what some would call the throwaways of life, people few thought of as human, and helped them to regain their human dignity. With trustful surrender to God's Divine providence, Mother Teresa left the security of the Loreto Sisters convent in India with fi ve rupees and wearing a sari to accept a life of poverty, living among the poorest Indians. She took up her mission in the slums of Calcutta not knowing where she would make a home or how she would survive. She put total trust in God that since He gave her the mission, He would take care of her. Interestingly, as recent books have indicated, even Mother Teresa struggled with her faith. But you know what? She knew her purpose in life and trusted the Holy Spirit to lead the way. This isn't to say she didn't have moments when she may have struggled or doubted, yet she consistently maintained a clear vision of what she had to do: love and serve God and others. Each of us, not just Mother Teresa, is also called to love and serve. It is God's will for His children.

 
YOU CAN BECOME A HERO OF THE FAITH

Mother Teresa, granted, is an extreme example of sacri­ficial love and service in a vocational calling. You prob­ably know more people unlike her than you do people like her. You probably know people who are indifferent to the spiritual life, who have generally forgotten God and devoted themselves entirely to the pursuit of what they believe to be success and happiness. This is why I wrote this book-to share with you and the people around you proven ways to enter into a deeper relation­ship with God and His Church, and to help bring your relatives and neighbors home to our universal Catholic family as well.

The fundamental core mission of this book is to help you become a lay witness of the New Evangeli­zation. What does this mean? Being a lay witness of the New Evangelization is about breaking out of your nine-  to-  five routine in order to live a more heroic Catholic life, a destiny designed not just for priests and nuns, nor intended just for deacons and monks, but for you and me, the ordinary folks in the pews. We must be witnesses who attest to the wonders of being in a covenant relationship with the resurrected Christ, and who live as active members of His family, the Holy Catholic Church. By learning and sharing your Catho­lic faith, you too can experience the greatest adventure of your life as you give yourself more completely, more passionately, to the will of God and the promptings of the Holy Spirit. It all boils down to doing one thing: surrendering yourself to Divine Providence, trusting that God will provide you with everything you need.

In order to begin on this path, first learn your faith; after all, you cannot give what you do not have. The Most Reverend David L. Ricken, chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops Committee on Evan­gelization and Catechesis, said, "In order to evangelize, a person must first be evangelized. This is really at the heart of the New Evangelization."

There is more: You must be receptive to being fi lled with Christ's mercy, grace, and love. Once you are im­mersed in the love of Christ, you can better share His love with others.

The time for us to act is now, since the world keeps moving faster, and more and more of our loved ones are being drawn away from the Catholic faith. Many drift away from God altogether. Atheism and agnosti­cism are growing at alarming rates. The Church and the world are in dire need of true Christian witnesses, authentic and dedicated heroes of the faith, modern- day saints who will help lead more souls to heaven. You have been called to be one of these hero-saints!

Leon Bloy, a French novelist and fervent convert to Catholicism, once wrote, "There is only one trag­edy in the end . . .  not to have been a saint." Our Lord's greatest desire for you is to become a saint, to be holy. In 2 Timothy 1:9 Saint Paul says, "[God] saved us and called us with a holy calling, not in virtue of our works but in virtue of his own purpose and the grace which he gave us in Christ Jesus ages ago."

Media reviews

“We are in the midst of a New Evangelization; and I believe this book is a signal moment in its success. It is also a sign that will lead many folks back home to the family of God, which is Catholic Church.”
—Dr. Scott W. Hahn, author of The Lamb’s Supper and Signs of Life
 
This book’s powerful message contains both a heartfelt invitation — “Catholics, come home!” — and an encouraging statement of an often overlooked fact — “Catholics come home!” With enthusiasm, humility, and wisdom born of his own lived experience Tom Peterson lays out the salient reasons for both.
—Patrick Madrid, host of the “Right Here, Right Now” show on EWTN’s Global Radio Network, author of Envoy for Christ: 25 Years as a Catholic Apologist
 
“Catholics Come Home is a powerful sacramental, a means of grace. It is a willing, waiting taxi to take us home, to our home away from Home, the Catholic Church, the Mystical Body of Christ.”
—Dr. Peter Kreeft, author of Handbook of Christian Apologetics
 
“The mission of Tom Peterson and Catholics Come Home to bring souls home to Jesus and the church is critically important during this challenging time in our history. I fully support this new evangelization project.”
—Rick Warren, author of The Purpose Driven Life
 
"Catholics Come Home inspires each of us to share God's love with others, in order to help change the world for the better, for eternity!"
- Roma Downey, actress and co-producer of the History Channel series The Bible
 
“[Tom Peterson] has a statistically verifiable program of bringing people back to the Church.”
– Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan, Archbishop of New York

“I highly recommend Catholics Come Home, no matter what your faith background or where you are on your spiritual journey.  This book is destined to be a classic.   What Tom and Catholics Come Home have done for Catholicism is far above and beyond the call of duty.  You can’t take your money to heaven with you, but you can take your children!” 
-Coach Lou Holtz
 
“This is an important book at an important time. Readers need to come home to Catholics Come Home.”
-Michael Coren, Author & broadcaster
 
Reader of Catholics Come Home book, below.  His amazing testimonial:
First, I want to say thank you for putting pen to paper in a way that was beyond compression! I literally could not stop reading your book until it was over, and even then I was wanting more!  Well done sir!
 
I lost my Faith roughly 25 years ago. Father Stan was comforting me about losing my high school sweetheart. I was suddenly alone.  Father Stan said to me, "It was God's will."  I couldn't understand that, I couldn't accept it. I got mad and said to hell with God and my family and moved to Vancouver never to look back.
 
5 years ago, I was hit by a car as I crossed the street on my way to work. I didn't know it, but that day, my life changed. I was okay, no broken bones, nothing damaged internally. However, what I didn't know until several months later was while in the hospital, I managed to contract MSRA, an infection in my legs that left me quarantined from almost all of society. My only companions during this time were nurses covered from head to toe in plastic and face masks. My friends, gone. My work, gone. Honestly, I felt very much alone in this world. Then the infection turned for the worse, the pain was unbearable that I ended up on Morphine in order to just move my legs. Honestly, I lay in a hospital or in bed, and I cursed and swore at God and hated every moment of being alive. I blamed God for not just killing me; instead he had to torture me. I spent nights in tears cursing God and my heritage; I was raised as a traditional Italian Catholic. I remember those nights, cursing God and Jesus like they were yesterday. I remember I was in so much pain and being all alone I was sad and upset. Even today I still teary eyed thinking that I could have been full of so much hate for God and Jesus. Fifteen months later, my legs healed, and I was finally able to start looking for work again. I still felt bitter towards God for leaving me all alone in this world.
 
What changed? In the fall of 2012, I started to see the Catholics Come Home commercials on TV. At first I was not interested or the least bit curious about getting back to my Faith. Then at Christmas something "snapped." I don't know what it was, but I knew, I knew that I had to come back to God. I saw several of these ads on TV and inside something was stirring in my soul. In February I managed the courage to purchase the Catholics Come Home digital book, and since then, I have not been able to put the Gospel down. First thing I did, I prayed for forgiveness at my foolishness for what happened after the car accident. I begged for mercy, I cried I was so ashamed and so sorry for bringing so much pain to God and Jesus.  I pray every morning and every night, and when I can remember, mid-day as well.  I have read the book Catholics Come Home, then I read "Trustful Surrender to Divine Providence" and that's when everything lit up. I understood what Father Stan was trying to tell me all those years ago. I understood what and why the car accident. The pain and suffering. I will admit, I cried. I cried and begged for forgiveness for not understanding and being so foolish. I have been a hermit for over 5 years, meeting new people is something of a challenge for me. But I am thankful, that one day very soon; I will be in mass again. (Hopefully very very soon!)
 
Now you know my story. I think if Catholics Come Home had not been there, I probably would have continued to drift and disappear.