The Road Once Travelled

According to the 2006 census, in Australia over 5 million people identify themselves as Catholic. That's roughly 1 in 4 people.


Yet only about 14% of those 5 million Catholics go to church regularly, compared to around 60% a generation ago. 


The statistics are indisputable: millions of Catholics, whilst still calling themselves Catholics, have a crisis of faith. According to research done by the Catholic Church they are feeling confused, bored, dissatisfied, disenchanted, frustrated, and guilty. 


Mark Gilbert was one of them.


The road he was travelling as a Catholic—a road that began from the moment he was born—didn't seem to be taking him where he wanted to go. But God intervened, and showed Mark that the answer was not far away from him all the time. And when he gave up his own journey, and put his trust in the journey that the Lord Jesus Christ had already taken on his behalf, Mark's life changed completely for the better.


In The Road Once Travelled, Mark Gilbert invites those who are on the same road as he was to look for and find the answer. More specifically, he invites them to read the Bible for themselves and to discover that Jesus is the perfect answer to boring irrelevant religion; Jesus is the perfect answer to the desire for good, wise and strong leadership; and Jesus is the perfect answer to the problem of guilt.


The Road Once Travelled is a gentle, attractively presented, full-colour booklet (64 pages) which is an ideal evangelistic resource for giving to practicing Catholics or those who have given up any meaningful practise of their Catholic faith.


How is this book different to "Nothing in My Hand I Bring" by Ray Galea?


While sharing a common starting point with Nothing in My Hand I Bring—i.e. the personal experience of an author who is a former Catholic—The Road Once Travelled is a very different type of book. This book is not a discussion of the theological differences between Catholics and Protestants. Rather, author Mark Gilbert draws alongside the reader to ask: "Is your experience of being a Catholic falling short of what you'd like it to be? It was for me, but I've found the answer, and I want to share it with you."