The Story of the Intergalactic Travelers

Have you heard the story about the intergalactic space travelers … a family of human beings from another planet similar to Earth but in another galaxy?  Their planet was on the brink of destruction when they decided to be bold and launch their spacecraft into the unknowns of deep space in hopes of starting over. 

They placed their spacecraft in orbit around the Earth, peered through their technologically advanced surveillance system, and discovered a large population of humans all going about their business, most adults having a daily routine that they called their “job” and children mostly in schools.  They were quite intrigued especially about this thing these heretofore unknown humans called their faith.  On their home planet, they never considered that there might be such a thing called “God” and so they never had seen anything like the belief systems they were observing here.

They decided that this planet could serve as their new home and decided to integrate into our society.  As time passed, they found themselves wanting to select a faith from the myriad of opportunities that were available here.  There was atheism; there was Hinduism; there was Buddhism, there was Judaism; there was Islam; there was Christianity, which was split into a large number of separate entities often referred to as denominations; and there was Catholicism, which was Christian, but not a denomination in the strict sense of the word.  They learned all they could about all of them.

First, they first rejected atheism.  They figured that there were just too many complexities in the universe and in humanity that it just wasn’t feasible or realistic to believe that it all came into existence on its own.  They then rejected Hinduism and Buddhism, believing that their concepts of God just weren’t viable and therefore not as credible as this God whom the large percentage of remaining humans believed was “in touch” with humanity like the God of Judaism and Christianity was.  Besides, if this God had “visited his people” and inspired certain individuals to create a written record called “Scripture” starting in ancient times, well, surely this was the best option.

Upon learning that this God had sent his son to Earth with the gift of repentance and forgiveness in order to save as many people as possible from their sins (as had been prophesied throughout these Scriptures), they decided to reject Judaism and concentrate on Christianity.  What was left?  A Christian denomination, and Catholicism, and Islam.

They saw that Catholicism claimed to have been founded by this “Savior.”  All the others were founded by another human.  Islam rejected this Savior and went in a different direction, with a Scripture of its own written some 600 years after the Christian Savior lived on Earth.  That was the final straw.  It would be Catholicism for these travelers.  Despite the fact that they had to have a true faith in this Savior and had to follow a few more “rules” than in all the Christian denominations they studied, they came to believe that it was Catholicism that had the absolute truth.  They came to be baptized into the Catholic faith and lived quite happily ever after in their new home, with their new faith, and, yes, in the afterlife for all eternity.  Amen!