Why can my sins be forgiven by just kissing those wooden idols?

On a particular Good Friday, I made a confession to the parish priest. In order for my sins to be forgiven, he gave me an instruction to kiss the wooden idol in front of the altar. I was shocked and my mind started to challenge the Catholic doctrines.

By Anthony Lopos

I grew up in a family of Catholics. Since my childhood days, I regularly attended masses every Sunday, especially the Simbang Gabi, the nine consecutive dawn masses before Christmas celebration.

When I reached high school, my family joined the group of Mike Velarde’s El Shaddai, which made me more active in Catholic Church activities. I spent many nights in the PICC grounds in heavy rains and flood with umbrella turned upside down. We had considered the words of Mike Velarde prophetic, that we would receive more blessings from heaven by collecting rain water. Numerous times I raised three fresh eggs when Velarde performs his “pray over” ceremonies. I never questioned anything that this man told us to do; jumping three times, writing prayer request (with money of course) and attaching it to balloons so that it would reach heaven faster.

I was also an active youth participant during Word Youth Day in 1995 when John Paul II visited Manila. I remember when I was tirelessly waiting for the bullet-proof Pope Mobile to pass-by just to take picture of that man whom the Catholics consider the representative of Christ on earth.

During Lenten seasons, I regularly participated in visita iglesia and processions especially on Good Friday, the overnight walk to Grotto in San Jose Del Monte Bulacan.
Despite all these, there was an incident that triggered my mind into questioning the veracity of catholic doctrines. On a particular Good Friday, I made a confession to the parish priest. In order for my sins to be forgiven, he gave me an instruction to kiss the wooden idol in front of the altar. I was shocked and my mind started to challenge the catholic doctrine of worshipping idols: Why my sins can be forgiven by just kissing those wooden idols!

I started then looking for a new belief, a new religion. I tried to listen to Jehovah’s Witnesses when they regularly visited me in our house. I listened to doctrines of Iglesia Ni Cristo of Manalo; I attended several “Pamamahayag” through my uncle and aunt who were loyal deacon and deaconess of Iglesia Ni Cristo of Manalo. I attended several gatherings of Born Again Groups, MMCC, and the Pentecostal Church. I asked some of my friends who were members of the Seventh Day Adventist Church about their doctrines. I read articles of Islam.

I did all of these because of one thing: I was looking for the true religion after my disappointment to catholic doctrines. Since I was never convinced by any of these religious groups, in despair I decided to convince myself that maybe there is no God.

So I became an atheist at one point of my life. I studied science, the theory of evolution and other stuff the atheist people believe in order to convince myself that maybe there is really no God.

But deep inside, I knew there is a supernatural being that created all things. I read the Bible but I couldn’t find any group that would perfectly match what I read in the verses of the Holy Scriptures.

One day, a classmate of mine in engineering asked me a question that triggered my dying curiosity in religion. “Napapagod ba ang Dios”? was the question. (Does God get weary?) I answered “No.” He took the Bible in the library and read Isaiah 1:14 where God says he gets weary. He asked me again the same question and I answered back, “Of course, yes!” and cited the verse he read. But then he read Isaiah 40:28 where the Bible says God does not get weary.

He kept on asking question after question and giving answers directly from the verses of the Bible. Suddenly I felt my classmate (a member of Church of God International) knew something about religion. He knew something that I never heard from other religions.

I asked him, “From whom did you learn all these things”? He told me to watch on that night on SBN 21 the program “Ang Dating Daan”. There I saw the man who was teaching things I have never heard before.

That night was the first time I heard Bro. Eli Soriano on TV. There was something inside of me that I could not explain… a feeling of joy, the first time I felt in my life. I can still remember the moment when I finally told myself, “This is it, I found it!”

I finally found the true religion, the true Church of God in the Bible in 2001, so I immediately decided to join. There I learned that in order to be a member, I needed to fully understand and accept the doctrines of Christ in the Bible being taught to every aspiring members of the Church. I was enthusiastic then that I immediately joined the indoctrination sessions. I felt so much joy when I started learning one by one the fundamentals of Christian doctrines: to whom we should listen as our teacher when it comes to religion, how we should pray so that we can be assured that God our Father will listen to our prayers, and other topics that I never heard from any priests nor preachers of different religious groups.

But since I grew up in a religion that is very lax in following the commandments of our Lord Jesus, I was totally stunned when I started listening to the do’s and don’ts for a true Christian; discovering that this congregation truly and faithfully follows the teachings of Christ written in the Holy Scriptures.

That time I discovered that the first hindrance on my desire to follow our Lord Jesus Christ is my own self. Self-preservation and the idea that I might not be able to obey the doctrines of Christ prompted me to discontinue listening to the indoctrination.

Because of what I have learned previously from Bro. Eli’s preaching, I did not like listening to other religious preachers anymore. I could now easily determine the errors in their teachings. Although I was truly convinced that this is the true Church of God written in the Bible, I was being discouraged by my own self to serve God and follow His commandments. And so, for one year, I wandered spiritually.

Then the idea that one day Christ will judge all men on Judgment Day really scared me. I already committed many sins in the past. I realized that I was not ready that time to face my Creator if the Lord Jesus Christ would arrive on that very moment. I realized then that the divine fear that I felt was the driving force that brought me back to ADD Coordinating Center in order to listen, once again, to the most sensible preacher in our times, Bro. Eli Soriano, and learn the doctrines of Christ.

Barely a month after, I finished the indoctrination sessions on a cool Wednesday inside ADD Convention Center in Apalit, Pampanga. At 1:04 in the afternoon, December 18, 2002, Bro. Pablo Angue immersed me in the water of baptism. I cried for repentance of my sins, as I promised to God our Father that I will faithfully serve Him as a Christian for the rest of my life in the true Church of God. Thanks be to God, my entire being was totally changed thereafter.