hello my name is Nicola Chris ik and you're listening to Catholic versus Catholic tell the listeners a little bit about yourself if you would please who you are what you believe and how you came to believe what you believe I grew up a Catholic and they didn't know nothing even about it so it was weird how my journey was God had led me away from the church to bring me back because now I'm back by choice knowing what the Church teaches and absolutely loving it and choosing to be a Catholic over it just I inherited it from my family you know so it was an amazing journey but the hardest thing for me lately is I'm trying to just find out how to live in this world and not be of it that's really hard to do because all I think of is heaven in God and I can't wait to see him as he is I cannot wait for this to be over with and and they could get discouraging sometimes because the two reasons is one is I don't know exactly what he has for me to do and I asked him that every day I wish I just knew but I do trust him so it's okay even if I die not knowing well then you know maybe it's okay you know I'm coming to that but I just wish I knew you know and the other is with my wife's family there's a lot of them that are just agnostic or atheist and so I should I'll try to have a conversation with them sometimes and it kind of just fails and flops and then I'm like okay this was pointless you know yeah yeah that's tough so what is your ethnic background if you don't mind my asking yeah I was born here but my family is I'm Albanian and my family was born over there my two sisters and my brother were born over there they came here and then me and my other sister were born here in America so is it an orthodox country or a Muslim country or what it's well um after the war um it became a Muslim country now Albanians in Albania are seventy something percent Muslim by force though but we originally a Christian country and you know it's cool we have this hero that we grew up hearing about and I didn't know much of Jorge Castillo T and for whatever reason he was shipped to a Muslim country and grew up there and they made him the Sultan made him a because he was a big strong guy or something they made him a leader of the army or whatever and then he ended up finding out exactly like who he is why we're in something called him to go back and fight for Christianity and he he gathered army and he conquered a bunch of the Turks and a bunch of the and this was in the 1400s right before the Crusades to where when you look in history the Pope was reaching out to him too and then I think the Pope ended up dying or Jiggs ended up dying and then after that the Crusades came England and that was it for him so he's kind of like a underdog hero a a unnoticed you know just before because he he conquered so many you know he saved so many cities and and I'm forgetting specifically which countries but his story is like really amazing after I looked in so I was like okay now I know why they look at him as a hero you know and mother Teresa was Albanian oh yes she was Albania she's also a big thing we always have the statues at our churches and enter its jose castillo the--and and mother teresa that are they definitely yes she's a big thing for us and she was yeah she's big for everyone man I mean that's that's huge yeah yes I mean if Christopher Hitchens didn't like her too much but that's to be expected you know isn't it funny how much hate these atheists dare say there's no God what the world what are they so mad at him for then is he you know if you don't you can like clearly see that they're so mad at him and they hate him it's like if something don't exist how could you hate him so much you know so who and your family is the most devout Catholic other than yourself like your grandparents or who I mean no it's me and for the last years been me but before and no my mom my dad passed away when I was seven years old so I grew up without a dad and then my mom was really she was only 32 years old when he died so she was just like a depressed woman you know so it's like I didn't learn nothing from you know no family or my have I learned I had to learn everything on my own almost you know because also what she actually knew was only the Albanian ways and we're in America and everything she tried to teach me I'm like that on even makes sense here like you know all her goals it was just so different so so everything I learned it was kind of like on my own slowly and whatever you know but she would take us to church on Christmas and Easter and and she would say it's good to go to church and that was it and that's all she knew you know so I do appreciate that she did at least I knew I was Catholic and at least we went for those couple times a year and that was it but I didn't know no more the bad thing was in our Albanian church back then when I was young we had a priest that fought God with Albanian so all he is it there the time he would take to preach he would literally all he said Albanian you guys we must stick together you must marry your own kind you must miss you must that's all he cared about so so I got no truth of God even growing up in in Catholicism you know I believe that's why the Lord brought me out to learn because he well what brought me out was I heard the Protestant message and I fell in love with it because I had this I had this experience that you know again maybe I'll share one day but I had this experience that I you know it was unbelievable right then I said okay I'm see I'm Lord I'll do whatever you want me to that's it you know I'm going to do whatever you want me to so then I started hearing the Protestant message and what comes with the Protestant messages the attack on the Catholic Church right so I started adopting that really quick and then being like all it's a cult all look at all this there yeah look it says you know the Bible says call no man your father in the priest or walk they want to be called father and all of their right until I learned what the Catholic Church really teaches you know and then I started falling in love with it and he just he led me right back to the church it was amazing you know I listened to Catholic answers al are you familiar with them yeah yeah yeah do you agree with most of everything of what they mostly yeah okay yes oh do I totally you know I don't 100% trust anyone but I mean I trust the church the church is one with Jesus Christ so it's protected from teaching error concerning faith immoral so I have complete trust in the church but the people in the church you know I take everything they say with a grain of salt until I can check it against the infallible teachings of the church but we have so much freedom in the church that I don't lay awake at night worrying about if I listen to someone and I got some wrong information I'm really not worried because I see the church like a mother and she tells me what's essential for my salvation and for the rest I don't need to worry there's a teaching from the Vatican the Second Vatican Council it's in essentials unity but in non essentials healthy and wholesome diversity and in all things charity so that's sort of the approach I take with Catholic education in the media it's like I just take everything with a grain of salt but yeah it's we can relax and we can take information and Catholic answers you know obviously I disagree with them on some things like I'm a young earth creationist and a lot of people there or not I've never heard a young earth creationist on Catholic Answers but there's no explicit dogma that says that evolution is false and that young Earth Creationism is the case so I'm not going to beat someone over the head with it you know what I mean it's just my opinion for now and it is so everyone is allowed to have their own an opinion and and the church gives us that freedom correct yeah that's right which is actually I see the blessings in that now because you know let's say a kid girl right the Catholic kid growing up becomes a scientist he has room to still come in the church and believe what he believes and have his job you know so that's that's what I've noticed now because I also am a younger creationist believer and all the evidence says men that this world is only thousands of years old and that Noah's Flood was real and you know you could dig anywhere and find fossils like it's like what's the reason at that because this world was all underwater you know so I do believe that is well but I I realize what we're up against you know we're up against mainstream science and the moment you try to go up against them you're gonna lose you know you get laughed at you get ridiculed or whatever so I actually enjoy that they're accepting both views for now because I I had a moment where I was trying to fight against it and and nobody would take me serious then you know really of course yeah of course it's okay you know yeah no big deal but um I had a few questions I'm really quickly journaling okay and it's all these are all about the faith and in the church and I had wrote down a few questions I'm like whenever I'm talking to someone let's say that knows anything about the church these are questions I would ask and stuff so I wrote them down but um a few is like how do we reconcile when Peter did not accept worship is it true that maybe we should not bow down to the statue of Mary are we crossing the line because when I'm in church and I'm on my knees I'm praying to God and then I pray the Hail Mary and I love it and believe it you know but then I hear the Bible story for example Peter didn't accept worship the guy went on his knees and Peter picked him up and said no that worship only belongs to God how would you reconcile them I would just ask what the Church teaches what does the church teach today does the church allow us to give hiper Dhulia to marry and Dhulia to the saints and what are the limits of that what are the limits of the expression of our worship because we do worship Mary and the Saints but the word worship is technically different and distinct from adoration the adoration that's due to God alone so we have these three Latin words latria which is adoration which is due to God alone Dhulia which is worship strictly speaking which means we see the Worth of and we venerate and that's due to the Saints and then Mary is in a special class where she gets hyper Dhulia because it's a type of veneration and worship which is above all of the other Saints because she is in a way she's entered into the hypostatic union of the Godman Jesus Christ where it God became man there's a hypostatic union between the human and divine natures Mary somehow participates in that in a very mysterious way so she is in a class of her own when it comes to worship no we do shy away from the word worship because in Protestant circles the word worship is synonymous with adoration which is due to God alone so there's some confusion there and we need to be very cautious especially if we're talking with someone that doesn't understand the distinctions that we're making we need to be very cautious about that but you and I can pray to the Saints and we can pray on bended knee and we're not offending God we know that why we know it on the authority of the holy roman catholic church which is one with jesus christ they are one flesh it is the mystical bride of Jesus Christ we have nothing to worry about through him with him and in him that's why exactly yep and I love how they say that at the beginning of mass it's like through him it's a reminder of what we're all here for what is this all about what is the church all about it's through him with him and in him and I absolutely love that that's always a reminder of everything but um do you think the apart because every time we picture the Apostles going around we for some reason we always picture them they were going around preaching preaching right preaching do you think the Apostles said Mass as they were going out at that time do you believe the Apostles went around and did similar to what the maths we have today like whether if it was outside or inside but they did right yeah the essentials of the mass are very very few so it would have been more simple maybe gathering in someone's home or outdoors like you said and that a central component is that bread that's made of wheat and that wine that's made out of grapes and then the words uttered by the priest this is my body this is my blood so that's it's very simple the essential components are there so I believe that it's an essential ongoing daily thing we cannot live without just like we cannot live without the religious praying for us we cannot live without the Eucharist there are many things in Catholicism that we look down our nose at if we're not Catholic but without which the very world itself could not be sustained so this is the mystical Catholic way of looking at prayer and the sacraments and if you read the lives of the saints you'll see this emphasized time and time again it's a mystical reality that we cannot survive without the Eucharist even if we're not Catholic because Christ is everything um what do you like most about the seat of the contest position I like their enthusiasm I like that they are in love with tradition I don't like that they use private judgment to decide which parts of tradition they're going to cling to but right right there's a maturity to say their tradition is defeated yes because Jesus said the gates of Hell will not prevail against the church exactly and their position is that the gates of hell did prevail against the church that they had to pull out of the church and away from the Eucharist within the church isn't that yeah like doesn't it end right there don't you think yeah oh yeah they have a baseless position because the the church has Authority infallibility and end affect ability so if they're missing that one attribute of end affect ability and the church has defected it's not the real Catholic Church so if I were them I would just abandon Jesus Christ and go back to a generic monotheism but they want to have their cake and eat it too so it's a completely absurd position and I really don't have much respect for the philosophy of course I respect the human beings who are led astray by Satan and his minions and their believing a bunch of Lies but there's a lot of good stuff in sedima can't ISM too obviously because every truth is Catholic truth just like the Protestants there's a lot of good there's a lot of Catholic truth in Protestantism but it's not the sort of thing that we can encourage because it's full of lies it's full of errors so we can't encourage the lies and the errors I'm missing an old one yeah they're missing a whole bunch of stuff yeah I called him a spoke once with one of the guys there he answered at the Vatican Catholic the diamond brothers and the whole problem is the authority I guess and they enjoy their authority right now and not having to give authority to the Pope and it's but that's one of the devil's tricks I guess but um I've heard a few of his debates what he does is poke poke this and pulled that and poke this he said this but he did that in the he contradict he starts pulling up all the history on proving that the Pope's were sinners and that's all he's proven and right and then I'm like okay it's kind of like saying Peter denied Jesus this once Peter denied Jesus twice Peter denied Jesus three times so how could you follow right for all his arguments are the whole time these are single purpose I believe he's he's blinded by all these facts of what they said and did and said and did and it's like yes you forgot we're all sinners you know I don't get it but yeah I feel like all he all he did was it's like if you look in the law of a police officer when he when he signs when he becomes a police officer I'm sure it says on there I will be honest as a police officer and serve and then when you see a police officer you catch him he wasn't honest you can't say he see he's not a police officer now I'm not gonna obey Him when he tries to pull me over you can't do that he's still a police officer you know and that's what they're trying to take away from the Pope see he said this so he's not a pope well you know what ask anybody who the Pope is they'll tell you it's Francis so I don't know what you see you know what do you think about the alleged apparitions I met you Gloria what's your opinion on that okay the few that I know of they seem special they seem something but then I heard that they're turning out not to be true or not accepted yeah I'm very cautious about magic Oriya but I'm a big fan of some of the approved ones like Lourdes and Fatima and Our Lady of Guadalupe those are my two favorite I would say Guadalupe and in Fatima are amazing they really are and I don't know it's some special I guess about being able to believe when we don't see you know there is an it it I guess I guess people can believe something that's not true but but when you believe something and it is true that it's really special I do not explain it you know I don't know I could go to Mass and confession I'll cry after confession in the foyer why am i crying well I guess because I feel the Lord's grace for real I feel that he wiped away my sins for real you know what I mean it's because it's real that's why I'm crying but it's like you know and then I try to share that and it's kind of lame then when I try to share that with someone that really like let's say they don't believe or they'll just accuse me of saying you know well you just feel that um but you know but you don't know if it's true or whatever so but since God brought me back to the church I've been doing a lot of crying so I don't know um you actually pulled out the word I never knew the word what was it when you feel all the Lord's graces and you know they're real and you feel inside nation yes consolation that's what the moment you said that word and I never heard it before and you defined it I said I am full of consolation that's all and this whole year it's been like that and it's just amazing so I'm impatient about wanting to know what the Lord wants me to do for him so I can do it that's all I've been impatient about other than that it's been wonderful and I keep having to remind myself that just it's okay you know and as long as it I do do things for the Lord I love it but it's like I just want to do more I just want to do more and I and I wish I knew what and my dream would be to live for him to get paid enough money to live just to eat and pay my house bill that's like my dream like I can care less about money it's like let me Lord let me live and work for you so so I have a roof and food and that's it that that would be my dream yeah just keep praying just keep praying and frequenting the sacraments worthily and everything will come so it's only been one year since you're really on fire for Catholic faith yeah yeah because um uh when I got pulled out as a Protestant when I heard that was a buddy two years ago um I was a Protestant for maybe nine months and then he pulls me right back to the church so I've been a Catholic again for a year and I've been on fire the whole year I am keeping a balance I keep finding something to do for him all the time I'll go to the Catholic store and get these cheap dollar rosaries you know the plastic one sell about ten of them I go get them blessed and then I go around and I'll pass them out to people like are the any bums I see or anything and I say this is your ticket you know or or just pray you know have this remind you to pray I'm God could lead us out of anything and I'll do stuff like that or you know but I I enjoy stuff like that but I was like I just wish I knew why he wants me that business I can do it confidently and I have a wife and child and I love them you know to death like I would die for them and whatever and it's like this love the God gave me that I felt in my soul and he filled my heart I can't explain it to you it was times 100 of anything I felt any time I would meant to try to mention his name for those two weeks I would bust out in tears and and it took me a whole minute one day to say the Almighty you know that so whatever you did for me whatever happened then you know that was when I said I want to follow you Lord um and then the devil attacked me for three days I said plastic is killing me I could feel because I felt this choking in my throat so as I was grabbing all the plastic throwing it out and then the next one was like um when I would go outside there was a certain bug in the trees that was after me right and I would hear a click and tick and click and tick and it was after me you know so I would stay away from the trees in there ok and then the last the third day was I decided to grab the Bible and sleep with the Bible those couple nights and then I woke up on the third day and I went outside and my brother started talking to me and I looked and I removed my hand off the Bible and I seen my fingertips read as if the Bible was bleeding and then that was then when I was like okay I said okay all right this ain't real this all of this thing real I said I know what's going on here I said the devil can't stand that I chose the Lord he hates it he wants me back I was like okay and then and then everything everything went away then and it was cool so but I definitely do prayer and I'm definitely trying to live by example you know that's I think that's one that I'm not realizing lately that is HUGE when we live by example when we can hug and kiss family members with smiles on our face and we are representing the Lord in that way and doing unselfish things and that's very attractive and then the moment they say was been up with Nick lately he's so sweet so giving all he's been going to church and he's been following the Lord and that's why and then I guess it could be that could have a big impact with family members I think but yeah but again it's all a mystery man that's odd that's the stuff I can't wait to understand the mysterious the everything is God I look up at the stars and the Sun and I'm like I just can't wait Lord till I understand everything and know you as you are and just yeah amazing amazing so um you know how it goes at the end of my interviews I always ask the guests to give the closing thought just a little positive message for the listener just to wrap up what do you think you might be able to say to anyone that's out there listening though um I advise everyone to just seek the truth because the truth is the Lord so if you seek truth unbias ly and with all your heart um you'll find the Lord will be there so um seek truth and seek love and the Lord will be the waiting for you so he is a mystery so except mysteries and except the things you can't see but at the end we will all see him so god bless