Hello fellow pilgrims,
I go by the pseudonyms, Bartimaeus and B.R.Timeo, for two main reasons.
Bartimaeus receives sight
First of all, since my personal encounter with Jesus I am keenly aware of my own humanness and especially my knack for self-promotion. So I want to be sure that Jesus, and Jesus alone, receives any glory that may come from this web site. Since it was through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit that I began this site and some of the articles presented in this site, I wanted to be sure that my persona did not get in the way.
The second reason is that those people who know me personally and are aware of my weaknesses, faults, and sins would be put off by the testimonies I give and thus close themselves off from what the Lord is trying to tell them through what I place on this site. It is my belief that they will be more open to receive the what the Lord is saying to their hearts if their impressions of me are not in the way.
Briefly, for those who are seeking a closer relationship with the Lord , and want to know something about me, in order to evaluate what they see in this site, I will say something of myself: I am a Catholic Charismatic who felt led of the Lord to make available to the larger internet community a compendium some of the inspirational resources that the Lord has used to draw me to Himself. These resources continue to mold me and transform me as I also walk along the pilgrim’s narrow road to a deeper and transformed spirituality in Christ. My fellow pilgrims, I pray that the Holy Spirit will also work through these resources to impact your spiritual lives as they have done for me.
I am not a religious boat-rocker but my own spiritual boat was rocked when I had a personal encounter with Christ. This encounter and the baptism in the Holy Spirit opened the Word of God to me and permitted me to truly understand the deep spiritual truths that are communicated through His Word and the sacred traditions of the Church. My witness in this site consists mainly of reflections on what happened to me spiritually. Because the Lord has taken me from darkness and brought me into His marvelous light I have typed myself as a “Bartimaeus” who can truly attest that.. “once I was blind but now I see”. As through a glass darkly perhaps but I can at least see!
Although, the resources and the content of this site reflect my catholic upbringing and world-view, I have taken care to present these in an ecumenical, informative, and understanding spirit so that my christian brothers and sisters from other faith traditions can better appreciate the catholic charismatic tradition and so they too may share spiritually in those resources within my tradition that I feel will draw us all closer to the Father and to each other! Blessed be his Holy Name!
Yours in Christ Jesus … Bartimaeus
P.S. I have included selected links to some non-controversial ecumenical resources produced by my brothers and sisters of other denominations which I feel wiil inform and inspire my catholic bretheren to an understanding regarding christian spirituality outside of our own tradition and yet compatible with it.
