One Lord One Faith - A book review

I've just finished reading One Lord One Faith by Vernon Johnson, an Anglo-Catholic convert to the Catholicism. The book is the story of his conversion after his experience of the supernatural at Lisieux, his reading of the autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux and his subsequent searching through the Scriptures in order to fully investigate the claims of the Roman Catholic Church.



He writes:

The expression which the supernatural had taken and through which it had made itself real to me was the life of St Therese of Lisieux , a life of love for Our Blessed Lord so absolute, so complete and so consuming that it defied all human analysis and exceeded all human understanding. So stern int it's renunciation that it made one afraid, yet so simple and so human in it's homeliness that one was utterly unable to resist it. It seemed to vanquish time and transcend all human ties. Earth and earthly things only counted insofar as they were in tune with Our Lord's love for her and with her absorbing love for Him.

It was the quality of love which one had read of in the Lives of Saints, and which one had wistfully regarded as a thing of the past. It took one straight back to the Colosseum in Rome. Here it was today, the same invincible supernatural love of the early martyrs, the same heroic sanctity - in our own time, in the midst of this most material age. A supernatural love which revealed with an intensity which I had never met before, the true relation of the individual to Our Blessed Lord; the relation to the creature to it's Creator, the soul to its God. That is, a relationship of utter adoration and worship, and yet at the same time of perfect union of the soul with its Saviour. Any question and doubt as to the Godhead of Our Lord Jesus Christ was impossible at Lisieux. All the wearying discussion in which Our Lord is regarded as the Great Example Who encourages us to develop the God within us were unthinkable. The Deity of Christ was flashed before my soul at Lisieux with blinding splendour. My soul drank at the pure stream of the undiluted truth of the Godhead of My Lord.

While this is the story of the conversion of the author, it is also a book of apologetics. It guides the reader through common objections to the Catholic faith, a defence the faith through Holy Scriptures, and an explanation of what Protestants fail to grasp about the Church. As it was written in the 1920s, it also gives a snapshot of the English faith at the time and how an Englishman formed his faith.

I really enjoyed reading it and would recommend it to any Catholic who would like to better understand the Catholic faith, or to any Protestant who would like to learn more.

Related Link: One Lord, One Faith ~ Amazon