There was a man named Brian who had walked faithfully with Christ for many years. He spent time in Calvary Chapel, singing the songs, opening the Scriptures, and listening with eagerness as sermons were preached. His love for Jesus was real, and those around him could see his devotion.

And heaven itself saw it too. Voices not heard with the ear but known in the soul seemed to whisper: “We know you love Jesus; we know you cherish His Word; we see your devotion.” It was the voice of the Church in glory—the great cloud of witnesses who surround the throne of God—gazing with compassion upon those who longed for more.

Yet even as Brian prayed and worshipped, something in him felt unfinished. The sermons confused his mind and left him hungering. The music stirred his feelings, but the moments quickly faded. When the communion trays were set out using small cups of grape juice and fragments of crackers, he never participated in it because he had retained the belief that it really is the Body and Blood of Christ. The elements were treated as disposable, and when the service ended, the leftovers were cast aside as if they were common things. Then, stored in a cabinet on the bottom shelf, or under the table.

The words of Scripture pierced his conscience: “Whosoever shall eat this bread, and drink this cup of the Lord, unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord” (1 Corinthians 11:27). How could anyone be guilty of Christ’s Body and Blood if nothing holy was truly present? If it was only a “representation” as they claimed. The thought struck him like a hammer: to reduce the Lord’s Supper to mere symbolism was to desecrate what Christ had given. In that moment Brian sensed not only his own grief, but the grief of God Himself.

He pondered the matter for weeks and came up with a seriously revealing, thought-provoking question that no one in Calvary Chapel was able to answer. The question was, “If the communion only ‘represented’ Christ’s body and blood, here’s the conundrum surrounding that. Because if one who takes the cup unworthily is guilty of the body and blood of the Lord, if it was truly only a representation how could someone be guilty of the body and the blood? That would be akin to saying I am guilty of murder for destroying a photograph of someone.”

Yet even as conviction fell upon him, mercy came rushing close. The Lord who had said, “This is my body” (Luke 22:19) was the same who had said, “Come unto me… and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). What he had experienced was a father’s correction, not a stranger’s wrath. Discipline gave way to forgiveness, and sorrow gave way to hope.

It was then that his path led him once more through the doors of a Catholic church he had attended and served in years before, though at that time his heart had not been ready to receive all of what was there.

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Now, returning with new eyes, he discovered something entirely different—no rush, no plastic cups, no discarding of what was sacred. He remembered what he saw 30 years earlier. He was watching the Mass taking place at the altar in front of the congregation and thought to himself back then, “I feel like I’m watching heaven!” He remembered that when he went back.

There was an altar, consecrated and reverent. There were words spoken with gravity and devotion. And those words—prayers, confessions, doxologies—were alive. “The words have become so real to me,” Brian thought, “that if you say them and mean them, you touch heaven itself. How could I have gone so long without this?” It was as though he had discovered a treasure that had always been waiting for him.

He remembered the screens at Calvary Chapel—flashing lyrics, announcements, colors, and constant motion. They had often pulled his eyes from prayer. Here, however, his eyes were drawn to one place: the Eucharist lifted high, the body of Christ, radiant in the monstrance. No screen could compete with this light, for this was not a projection but a Presence. He heard the words of John the Baptist echo in his heart: “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29).

In time he came to see that just as Calvary Chapel had always taught him Jesus fulfilled the prophecies of the Old Testament, so now he could see that the Catholic Church fulfilled Jesus’ mission in this age. What had been partial was completed; what had been a foretaste was now a banquet. He no longer felt like a man eating crumbs from the floor, for Christ had invited him to the table itself.

Practices once dismissed as unnecessary or superstitious now unfolded in splendor. Holy water was no mere ritual but a remembrance of baptism. Incense was not a distraction but the visible sign of prayers rising to God’s throne, as the psalmist sang: “Let my prayer be set forth before thee as incense” (Psalm 141:2). The liturgical year was not a man’s sermon series but a journey through the mysteries of Christ Himself. Fasting, pilgrimages, relics, blessings—all of them carried him deeper into the reality of the Incarnation, the truth that God sanctifies matter and pours grace into the very fabric of life.

Still, above all these stood the Eucharist. The Bread of Life Himself, who said, “Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you” (John 6:53). Here was not a symbol, but the very Body and Blood of Christ. Here was not memory alone, but Presence. Here heaven touched earth, and earth lifted into heaven.

The voices of heaven came once more, quiet yet insistent: “We see your devotion, but come higher. Do not remain at the foothills. The summit awaits.” And Brian understood. Calvary Chapel had not been wasted years. It had been a seed, a beginning, a place where his love for Christ was born. But now the Lord was calling him to fullness, to the banquet, to the summit.

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And so one evening he knelt in Adoration before the monstrance, the host shining as a sunburst. His heart poured out a prayer not only for himself but for those he had left behind:

“O Lord, I thank Thee that Thou hast brought me here, to the table of Thy Son. And I pray for my brothers and sisters, still wandering, still hungry. Forgive them for what they know not. Woo their hearts. Draw them, O God, from the foretaste to the feast, from the beginning to the fullness. Amen.”

And heaven, as if in reply, whispered once more: “We see your devotion. Come home.”

When Brian realized he had been eating crumbs off the floor under Jesus’ table, and thought that was what humility was, Jesus reminded him that he didn’t need to do that. That he can behave like a real person and come to the table and eat.

A new day came in Brian’s journey, though the air was still heavy with questions. He had already tasted the difference between plastic cups and the chalice, between LCD screens and a life-size Crucifix, but now his thoughts turned to the practices that had always stirred him.

At Calvary Chapel, there were times when the whole staff would join in fasting. It was genuine, and Brian remembered it with affection. They hungered for God, they set aside food for prayer, and there was no doubt the Spirit honored it. Yet the more he walked in the Catholic Church, the more he discovered a rhythm older than any program or schedule. The Church had fasted with one heart for centuries. It wasn’t an occasional choice but a shared discipline, a family hunger. And that unity gave it a weight and power he had never seen before.

But one memory burned more than the others. The day he brought the Book of Enoch into Calvary Chapel. He had read it with curiosity, wanting to understand a text quoted in the New Testament itself: “Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these” (Jude 14). But when he carried it in, he was told sharply that it was forbidden. Worse—that it was demonic. His heart sank. Demonic? How could a book that Scripture itself referenced be treated with fear and contempt? “They didn’t even read it,” he thought to himself, which was true.

The Catholic Church had no such fear. Here, texts like Enoch were not canonized, but they were read with reverence, studied with discernment, understood as windows into the ancient world of faith. There was no trembling suspicion, no quick dismissal. It was as though the Church said, “All truth belongs to God, and no word need be feared when held up to His light.” That realization alone brought Brian a profound relief. He felt as though he had been swimming in a dirty pond with dead catfish, and now he was swimming in the clean Pacific Ocean.

And so his journey, once clouded with questions, found its resting place in the wide ocean of God’s truth. What had been fragments became fullness, what had been shadows became light. 

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The table of Christ was no longer distant—it was set before him, and the Lord Himself invited him to eat.

This same invitation now reaches every heart that longs for more. To those still faithful in prayer, still hungry for righteousness, still searching for the beauty of holiness, the voice of Christ is calling: Come home. Come to the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church. Come to the table where the Bread of Life is waiting. Come to the fullness that was prepared for you from the beginning of the world.

God bless you.

P.S.: I was just looking at the pictures on the Calvary Chapel Oceanside website, and it felt like needles and swords piercing my heart. Because I know you. I have prayed with you, sung with you, and walked beside you. And yet as I looked at your faces, I realized—you are not there yet.

The Catholic Church is the one, holy, true Church of Christ. Every other church, no matter how sincere, falls short of the fullness. That truth cuts me deeply, because I love you. I don’t want you to stay outside of what Christ Himself established.

Please, I beg you, understand my heart. Come home. Come to the Catholic Church—the table is waiting. Or if you cannot yet believe me, then at least come and see. Come if only to check on me, to see why I would give everything for this.

God bless you.