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| Joined: | Wed Nov 28th, 2007 |
| Location: | Michigan USA |
| Posts: | 269 |
| First Name: | Jane | | Gender: | Female | | Faith History: | Presbyterian, Gnostic, non-denominational, Catholic |
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Posted: Sat Apr 19th, 2008 01:40 pm |
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During the 1920’s, my grandfather and great-grandfather, as members of the Ku Klux Klan, persecuted Catholics. Not many Jewish families lived in our town in the middle of Michigan’s Lower Peninsula, and perhaps only one family with dark skin lived nearby. That was one explanation for the targeting of Catholics in our area. Another explanation, at least for our family, was that Catholics had persecuted our Amish ancestors in Switzerland, causing them to leave their homeland and come to America in the 1830’s.
Without knowing any of this family history of prejudice, my older brother and I still experienced some of it. Even though we were Presbyterian and not Amish, our parents had required my older brother to break up with his Catholic girlfriend. The two of them were in the 9th grade, and when our grandfather learned that his grandson was dating a Catholic, he called my parents and insisted that they break up the relationship, which they did. My parents were more subtle when a Catholic boy started walking me home from school when I was in the 8th grade. They invited a nice Presbyterian boy and his mother to dinner one evening, and then that boy’s mother invited me to their house the next week. Sure enough, the Presbyterian boy and I liked each other, and I stopped seeing the Catholic boy.
Like many children who were raised in Protestant families, I inculcated negative ideas and attitudes toward Catholics and the Catholic Church without really knowing these prejudices had become a part of my thinking. I do remember that my mother disapproved of the custom of wearing green on St. Patrick’s Day, and made a point of telling us about William of Orange. At least one year, I wore orange to school instead of green. Yet at the same time, my mother did not want to offend Catholics. One time my dad brought home little cubes of white bread that hadn’t been used in the Presbyterian Communion Service and gave them to me to feed to my pet hen. When my mother heard about this over Sunday dinner, she grew pale and solemnly rebuked my dad. Then she instructed me never to tell my Catholic friends that this had taken place, explaining why. That was my first introduction to transubstantiation.
Later, as an adult, I picked up many more misconceptions and untruths about Catholics in books, pamphlets, and in sermons broadcast on radio and TV. There was one thing I was sure I knew, and even said to others: “Catholics understand the law, but they have no conception of grace.” By the grace of God, I now know the truth: that Catholics believe we are saved by grace through faith, and that the very faith that leads a person to seek salvation comes by grace as a gift from God, and not from ourselves.
At the time of my conversion to the Catholic Church, I was attending a non-denominational, Bible-teaching, “word of faith,” independent church that was barren of things Christian, other than the Bible itself. There was no cross, no Lord’s Prayer, no spoken confession of sins, and when communion was served, rarely and irregularly, white grape juice was used so that the carpeting would not become stained should there be a spill. It was a quest for the truth as set forth in the Bible that had led me into this non-denominational church. Both the Presbyterian and Methodist churches I had previously joined strayed far from the narrow path in teaching and practice, with some of the Presbyterian leadership preaching New Age and Gnostic views that I had forsaken when I returned to Christianity. I wanted to be in a church with people who believed what the Bible said, including the miracles, and I found those people in the “word of faith” church. For a time it was where the Lord had called me, and I’m glad for the teachings I received, both those that line up with the Catholic faith and those that don’t. The lack of things Christian, especially communion, was a great impetus for me to keep searching for the fullness of truth, the fullness of faith, and so I praise God for my time in that church.
In September, 2005, about seven months before my conversion, my turn came around to write a teaching piece for the website of the women’s ministry group of the non-denominational church. As I cast about for an idea, I happened to see a line in Mary’s song (the Magnificat) that I’d never seen before. She said “all generations will call me blessed,” and as I read her statement that particular day, my heart was pierced with regret. When had I ever called her “blessed” or when had I ever heard a sermon calling her “blessed”? The answer was “never.” I realized that the Holy Spirit was encouraging me to write about the Blessed Virgin Mary for the website, yet I resisted. The theme was so Catholic! Yet we were a Bible-teaching church, and here it was, right in Luke’s gospel. I wrote the piece entitled “Blessed Virgin Mary” about our Lord’s mother, citing a chapter and verse after nearly every sentence. After much debate among the leadership, the piece was not used. This experience helped me to see that our Bible-teaching church was selective in which scripture verses were taught. One day I went through the gospels and noted the few passages we heard over and over again in sermons, and the many that we never heard at all. And some that we heard, we interpreted in ways that suddenly seemed a stretch to me as I read them more closely. One verse that was especially troubling to me at this time was Acts 2:42, a verse which we had read in church, yet for which we seemed to have a blind spot in our comprehension of it. The verse gives a brief description of the regular activities of the early church. The breaking of bread, or communion, happened at each gathering in the early church, in contrast with the church I was presently attending. A hunger for the bread and grape juice, even if it was white and not red, began to grow in my soul.
Soon after the essay was turned down, I received a Christmas letter from a childhood friend, also raised Presbyterian, saying she had been received into the Catholic Church. That was in December of 2005. Her recently deceased husband had been a Catholic, and I assumed she had entered the Church out of a desire to honor him. In January of 2006, I called another friend whom I hadn’t seen in awhile, and he told me he was taking classes to become a Catholic. This was interesting, but not astonishing, as he had been Episcopalian. Then another friend, also a Presbyterian from our childhood church, told me that she was thinking of taking RCIA classes to enter the Catholic Church. I knew she had been leaning in that direction for quite some time, yet with her news coming so soon after the other two friends’ news, it gave me pause.
Meanwhile I had become interested in learning the dates of the New Testament gospels and letters. Using the prefaces in my NIV study Bible, I made myself a timeline. While doing this, I noticed that a Christian author named Eusebius was mentioned in the notes, as well as was the Jewish historian, Josephus. I went on-line and ordered Eusebius’ history of the church, written in the 300’s A.D., and also a volume of Josephus’ works. I needed one more book to get free shipping and for some reason it seemed right to order a paperback copy of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. I believe both this interest in the history of the church and the ordering of the catechism were inspired by the Holy Spirit, and that Mary was interceding for me, even though I didn’t yet know her as my mother or intercessor.
When the books came, I read Eusebius first, struck by the long quotations he gave from other early Christian authors, and amazed that so much writing had taken place and had been preserved, writing that I had never heard about. Even in the adult Sunday school classes at the Presbyterian and Methodist churches I’d attended, no mention had been made of the existence of these letters written by men who had learned the faith directly from the apostles, or one generation removed. And I was amazed that the descriptions given by these earliest Christians, concerning the practices of the early church and its hierarchy, revealed the early church to be ever so Catholic. The descriptions of the first martyrs filled my heart with love for them, and my eyes with tears. To read how the early Christians made every effort to gather up the precious bones of those martyred gave me a better understanding of the Catholic view of relics. And I saw that Mary the mother of Jesus was venerated even in the first three hundred years of the church. Truly, reading Eusebius’ book was life-changing for me, although at the time I didn’t know how radical that change would be.
On my bookshelf was a two-volume set of John Calvin’s work written during the Protestant Reformation, the Institutes of the Christian Religion. Reading it was something I knew I would do some day, and now I see that God prepared my heart before I set out on that task.
After reading Eusebius, I eagerly bought books that contained the writings of Clement of Rome (circa 90 A.D.), Ignatius of Antioch, who was martyred in 110 A.D., and Justin Martyr, who was martyred circa 165 A.D. The experience of reading the words and following the thoughts of men who had lived so soon after “Bible times” gave me a solid connection to the life and times of early Christians, and to the early Church. To know that people had preserved these works down through the dark ages and medieval times, through wars and upheavals until I could read them filled me with deep gratitude. Like many converts to the Catholic Church, I was surprised and puzzled to see how “Catholic” were the beliefs and procedures of the early church, because I thought I had known that the early church should look Protestant. Wasn’t that why the Protestants had broken away from the Catholic Church, to take it back to what it was before Popes and bishops existed, before Mary was venerated, before communion came to be seen as more than symbolic? I was puzzled, yet I chose to overlook this curiosity. Even so, reading the quoted words of these early Christians made it easy to let go of the pillar of Protestantism of “scripture only” as the authority of the faith. These early Christians did not have the collected writings that we have, and relied on what the apostles had been taught by Christ in conjunction with the writings that were available to them during those centuries of the Church.
Next it was time to read the Catechism. I took a pencil in hand ready to make large checkmarks by all concepts and claims that were not cited by Scripture, or that every Protestant Christian knew were wrong (such as the reliance on tradition). It was time to show my friend who had not yet converted why she should remain Protestant.
I did make large checkmarks in the margins, yet I was truly astonished at the Scripture citations given in the footnotes on nearly every page. And I found myself underlining passages that were beautiful or clear explanations of difficult concepts, and usually both. My intellect was fed and well as my heart. I found it gratifying to see that no scripture was neglected. Verses that seemed contradictory were both addressed and a resultant whole was achieved. Without yet defining it, I was experiencing the Catholic “both/and” way of thinking, and found an intellectual freedom in it that the “either/or” way of thinking followed by the world and the Protestant denominations had curtailed.
Reading, underlining and checking were not all that was happening, though. As I read, the Holy Spirit was doing a work in my heart. One day I was overcome with regret and sorrow, and confessed the sin of prejudice I had held against Catholics and the Catholic faith. The Holy Spirit brought to mind pictures and voices from my family’s past, giving me specific things to confess so that I might ask forgiveness for the sins of my family members as well.
At the church I was attending, I had introduced and was teaching a well-known healing and deliverance ministry that I would still recommend Protestants use, since they do not have available to them the sacrament of reconciliation with absolution from Christ through a sacramentally ordained priest. Even though I was the facilitator of the ministry, I was a participant, too. I read the books, used the workbook, and attended the retreats. At the first retreat, among other things, I had worked through and been delivered of a spirit of rebellion. At the second retreat, when the topic of rebellion came up, I didn’t know how to respond, since I had been truly and thoroughly delivered of that spirit at the prior retreat. Then the Holy Spirit reminded me in pictures and voices of stories that had come down through my family about ancestors. Every one of these stories we found humorous, yet the family members in them were acting in a rebellious manner. I knew that I was to lift up those family members, and my whole family, to be delivered from the spirit of rebellion. I did that, and I believe that by doing that I was more thoroughly cleansed myself, in preparation for the next reading I was to embark upon.
Now it was time to read Calvin. I had read many quotations from his Institutes and had been impressed with his skillful use of language. None of the quotations I had read, however, prepared me for his bad attitude. The editor of the work I was reading tried to warn me in his introduction about Calvin’s often emotionally charged language, and at times abusive disparagement of others. As I read, any admiration for Calvin’s writing skill became buried beneath the vituperation that flowed with the ink. His verbal abuse disgusted me. There were days when picking him up to read seemed oppressive. Early on I was aware of a spirit of rebellion governing Calvin’s writing, and it repulsed me mightily. I’ve seen people who have finally quit smoking cigarettes who absolutely cannot tolerate the bad habit in others. That’s how I felt. I’d been freed of the spirit of rebellion, and now, seeing it manifest itself in Calvin’s writing, struck me as intolerable. I also detested Calvin’s unfair use of quotations from the early fathers of the church. When their writings added to his ideas, Calvin extolled their wisdom and quoted them. When they made statements that detracted from his ideas, he claimed they didn’t know the truth, and that he was right and they were wrong. In the midst of reading the 1500 pages, I went back to the introduction to see how old a man John Calvin was when he wrote the book. He had been a young man, about 26 as I recall. That could account for his attitude and word choice. Yet I learned he had revised the book more than once up into his mid 50’s. To know that he’d not availed himself of the opportunity to edit his writing and tone it down, verified for me that it wasn’t only brash youth that had bent Calvin’s attitude.
I also read portions of Martin Luther’s writings at this time, including his letter in which he admits adding the word “alone” to his translation of Romans 3:28, making it say, erroneously, that we are saved by faith alone. Luther seemed to be both flippant and arrogant about his addition to the Apostle Paul’s letter. I think his tone troubled me more at that time than learning that one of the pillars of the Protestant Reformation had been manufactured by him. Nonetheless, for me the false pillar of Protestantism, sola fidei, crumbled into dust at that time.
Both Calvin and Luther disappointed me greatly. Both were driven by a spirit of rebellion, in my view. Even so, their beliefs and practices fit much more closely to the Catholic Church than do the beliefs of the thousands of Protestant denominations that have emerged from their teachings. Every new Protestant church seems to lose more and more of the beliefs and practices of the early church as they break off again and again one from another, with the “word of faith” church I was in being a good example.
By the grace of God I had read deep, thoughtful and beautiful writings to nudge me closer to the Catholic Church before reading Calvin’s work. I finished reading the Institutes in June, 2006. Then I turned back to a second reading of the Catechism to see if it really was as deep, thoughtful and beautiful as I had remembered. Yes, it was. One day I heard myself sigh, and the words that came out of my soul were these: “I’m tired of being a protestor” with my thoughts going to the days of the Viet Nam war. Then came a jarring emotional recognition of what I’d just said in terms of the Protestant faith – protestor/Protestant. Yes, I was tired of being a protestor, yet that did not translate immediately into a desire to become Catholic. I knew that I had to move on from the church I was attending to one that was not ashamed of the cross, or the Lord’s prayer, or Holy Communion, but where could I go? I kept saying to myself and occasionally to friends that I needed to be in a sacramental church. I can’t say I knew exactly what I meant, but the friends knew even less, since the word “sacrament”, sad to say, was completely unfamiliar to most of them in connection with Christianity. During this time I attended a few services at other churches (Church of God, Nazarene, Methodist), enjoying looking at the crosses on altars, windows, light fixtures, and carved into the ends of the pews. Having been without the communion elements so long, I felt a deep hunger for them. I found out when two churches offered communion during the month, and I would attend each one on that Sunday. It felt furtive, though, and it didn’t satisfy my hunger, either. My friend who was thinking of converting to the Catholic faith invited me to attend Mass a time or two, and I went without enthusiasm. The mass surprisingly contained extensive readings of Scripture. Not long before one of the students in the healing/deliverance class I taught, a former Catholic, had told me that only a handful of Scripture passages are read, and the same ones over and over. How she could have been so wrong, I’m not sure. Almost the entire Bible is read out loud over the course of three years in Catholic masses. At Mass, I was surprised at how the worshipers were comfortable with silences, not needing an orchestrated program with people entering on cue. And I was surprised at how my hunger for the communion elements mounted inside me when I saw the parishioners go forward to receive Christ’s Body and Blood in the bread and wine.
During this time, in the late summer and fall of 2006, I was teaching another round of the healing/deliverance class at the “word of faith” church. I found myself teaching over and over about how God, knowing that we are human, gave us ways to understand his intentions by combining the spiritual with the physical. I avoided the word “sacrament” as the participants would not have known what I was talking about. I described baptism and communion as examples of how God united the physical and spiritual in deference to our combined spiritual and physical union as human beings. The word “incarnation” was one I understood only in terms of the Word being made flesh and being born fully human yet fully divine from the womb of Mary. Yet, through my teaching, God was teaching me about the incarnate quality of sacraments, although I didn’t perceive it at that time. One of the books in the course talked about “applying the blood” of Jesus, using the description from Exodus about the Hebrews applying the blood of the slain lambs to their lintels and doorposts. I taught that God had given us in the New Testament a way to apply the blood, and that was through communion. I turned to the passage in Exodus and showed them that the Hebrews not only applied the blood to their lintels and doorposts, but they ate the lamb, and now we are to eat the lamb in communion. The expressions on the faces were blank or puzzled. They could not hear or understand. Yet I was hearing and understanding, and I both understood their deafness and blindness, as it had been my experience, too, for so long, and I understood that the truth I was teaching was not taught within the boundaries of modern Protestant belief, even though the Bible teaches it. For reasons known only to God, they could not receive this truth. During this time I felt great tension, as I taught what I knew to be true in a setting that did not include this truth. I taught the class on Monday nights. On Tuesdays, I immersed myself in the readings of the early church fathers and modern Catholic writings. I realized that Tuesdays were my day “to be Catholic” and what a relief those days were to me.
We must eat the lamb. I thank and praise God that he had given me this truth many years before, even though it had remained a buried seed of knowledge within me until now. Thanks to my mother’s explanation, the concept of transubstantiation was not unfamiliar to me. Moreover, as an adult, I had gone to God with the issue soon after I’d returned to Christianity, after having left New Age paganism, and a modern Gnostic heresy I was caught up in. As I read the Bible with new eyes, the Bread of Life chapter (John 6) struck me as being of utmost importance. Yet in listening to many Protestant sermons in church and on TV and radio, I had never heard this long passage addressed. One day I went to God in prayer and asked to know the truth about communion: Are we to understand it symbolically or as the real thing? He took me back to the Old Testament where I read about how “the life is in the blood,” and how the Jewish tribes were to never eat blood, and that they were to kill animals in such a way that the blood was drained out of the meat (no strangled animals). God showed me that he did not want his people taking into themselves the animal nature, the life that is in animal blood. Then he took me to the New Testament. With Christ, things are different. Believers are now to receive Christ into themselves. Now we are to receive into ourselves the very nature of Christ, the life that is in his blood, because we are to become a part of the very body of Christ. I saw clearly and absolutely that the communion elements become the real body and blood of Jesus Christ. For me, that settled it, and nothing could persuade me differently. After that encounter with God, I, by faith, received the glorified body and blood of my Lord and Savior every time I received communion in a Protestant church, and I thought that by mixing my faith with the truth, it would make it so. And I believe God, by his grace, communicated to me a measure of the life of Christ during that time.
Yet now that I had read the Catechism which demonstrated from Scripture the concept of apostolic succession, I began to hunger for bread and wine consecrated by the successors of the apostles as is available in the Catholic Church. The next time my friend asked me to attend Mass with her, I told her I didn’t want to go. I couldn’t see the point. If I couldn’t eat the Eucharistic meal, I didn’t even want to be there. I began to watch Catholic Masses on TV, holding out a small glass of grape juice and small bite of bread to the priest on television in hopes that my offerings could be consecrated by him even as he consecrated the bread and wine before him on the altar.
During this time I was searching out answers to questions about the Catholic Church, using the Catechism as a guide, and also using on-line information sources. The question that troubled me most was that of sacrifice. The passage in Hebrews 9:25-28 stated plainly that we could not offer Christ as a sacrifice over and over, and yet that seemed to be what Catholics were doing, even though they said they were not. I asked my friend, who was talking with a priest by now, to bring back an explanation. She came back with something about Christ being outside of time and space, and I recognized the truth of that, but it didn’t seem to help much. One of the on-line writers said something about how sacrifice does not have to involve death – that the word “sacrifice” was sometimes used as another word for “offering.” In the Catechism I looked up the word “offering,” and turned to a description of the order of service in a Mass. I thought I knew what a church offering was – it was the money collected by the ushers from the people in the pews. Yet in this passage, I was not reading about money, but bread and wine. In the Catholic Church the communion elements themselves were called the offering. Yes, they collect money from the people in the pews, and that, too, is offered to God, and it is termed the “collection.”
Seeing the beauty of offering the bread and wine to God took my breath away. And seeing the rightness of this practice led me into a reverie in which I saw both Old Testament offerings of first fruits and the New Testament offering of Christ. It’s difficult to recreate my line of thinking, because understanding came to me in picture form and all at once. I saw Jewish believers climbing the steps to the altar of sacrifice, carrying their offerings of wheat, grapes, figs, and vegetables. I could sense their gratitude toward God and their eagerness to share the first-fruits of the gifts he had bestowed on them. At the same time that I was seeing this moving picture, my heart welled up in gratitude for every gift God had given me, for every morsel of food, every breath breathed, every smile smiled upon me. Out of this sense of gratitude, a question shaped itself: What is the greatest gift of all? And I knew it was not a what, but a who. As the answer came, my eyes welled up with tears of gratitude. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, was the greatest gift given to me, and the greatest gift received by any human in any age. At the same time as I saw the Jewish faithful approaching the altar with their first fruits, I also saw myself approaching the altar, offering the very food and drink that by the sacramental work of the Holy Spirit becomes Jesus Christ himself – Jesus Christ, the best gift of all to offer back to God the Father.
This is what I saw, and through this vision, I knew the truth of the sacrifice of the Mass, and the question was settled for me. I don’t expect this description to help anyone else, as it was so personal to me. In fact, to this day I cannot seem to understand the sacrifice of the mass with my intellect. When I read others’ explanations of it, even then I cannot grasp it with my intellect. Yet my heart knows the truth.
Realizing the truth of the sacrifice of the Mass still did not tip me into the Catholic Church. That moment came after working through the concept of apostolic succession and the reality of the supremacy of Peter.
Apostolic succession was an entirely new concept for me, and I could grasp this concept with my intellect. Again the rightness of the concept clicked into place, as I visualized each of the apostles of Christ laying his hands on other men, bestowing not only the office but the power of the Holy Spirit to carry out the duties of that office, and then those men laying hands on the next generation of men called to the duties and imbued with the power. And I understood that the break that had occurred at the time of the rise of Protestantism broke the line of succession, meaning that present-day Protestant ministers did not rightfully hold the office nor did they have the power bestowed on them because it was not given to them by the successors of the apostles. Perhaps that’s why the Protestant denominations have drifted further and further away from ministering at the communion table, and have become essentially ministers only of the word of God. With chagrin, I realized that many passages in the gospels that refer to the apostles having power to do something, such as binding and loosing, I had assumed applied to me. As I read back through the gospels, I could now clearly see that in many passages Jesus was addressing himself to the apostles and their successors, and not to every believer in all of history. When he instituted Holy Communion, it was the apostles who received the instruction and the command. Only the apostles and their successors had received the power to preside over the bread and wine and through them only would the elements become the body and blood of the risen Christ.A
Also, some passages that had remained obscure to me, such as when the risen Christ breathed on the apostles (John 20:21-23), now made sense. I now could see that he was giving them the power to forgive or not forgive the sins of others. Yes, I know the passage says that, but with my Protestant eyes, I could not see it. Here was the Sacrament of Reconciliation, and once again, only the successors of the apostles were singled out to use this power.
As the concept of apostolic succession became clear to me, I drew a diagram of lines and circles in my Bible showing the Twelve Apostles, leading to the bishops, with power shared with the priests. As I finished the sketch, I heard myself sigh, and with the next breath I said out loud in resignation, “I’m going to have to become a Catholic.” What the Holy Spirit brought to my mind at that moment were three people to whom I had stated untruths about the Catholic faith and who I needed to approach and ask their forgiveness. I wrote down their names, and began to find ways to confess my misunderstandings and misconceptions to them, and to ask their forgiveness. As I followed through on this task, I knew the preparation to become Catholic had begun.
Even though I was heeding the call of Jesus Christ to enter his church, one big question was not yet answered: What about the Pope? I’d left him until last. With the study of many scripture passages, I’d settled the questions of purgatory, the visible Church (having known only the concept of the invisible church), the communion of saints, the traditions of men versus Sacred Tradition, and I had converted from thinking of the rosary prayers as “vain repetitions” to understanding that they gave me an intimate way to pray the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And I had finally opened my arms to the Blessed Virgin Mary, after great hesitancy, and was now full of joy and confidence to have her as my Mother and “prayer partner.”
But what about the Pope? Our faithful God linked this question to another unanswered question that had lingered for some months. Several months prior to this time, the John 21:15-19 passage had been discussed in a Protestant Bible study in which I was participating. The leader of the group explained the passage as a time of restoration for Peter. As Jesus asks Peter “Do you love me” three times, it restores Peter from his guilt of denying Jesus three times. I’d heard this explanation before, and I could see that it fit and that it rang true. I remember remarking during the Bible study class that I thought the passage was saying something else as well, but I could not see what it was. As the months passed, and as the passage came to mind, I still could not see in it what I felt sure was something profound.
One day I was looking up scripture passages that were often quoted in the church I was presently attending, noting how they were taken out of context, or misquoted. One of those passages was in John 10. In order to understand the context, I read the whole chapter. The passage is about sheep, shepherds, sheep pens and false shepherds. In the midst of studying it, the Lord brought to my mind the unanswered question about John 21, with Jesus commanding Peter to feed his lambs, to care for his sheep, to feed his sheep. I turned to that passage, and immediately I could see that Jesus was asking Peter if he were willing to be the shepherd of Christ’s flock on earth. I flipped back and forth between the two chapters, recognizing that in John 10, when Jesus is declaring himself the shepherd of the sheep, his passion, death and resurrection have not yet taken place. In John 21, the resurrected Jesus, who is nearing the time of his ascension, is both restoring Peter, and asking him if he is willing to take over the earthly care of his sheep. Here was clear Biblical evidence that Jesus had chosen Peter as the shepherd on earth of his flock, the shepherd of his sheep pen. For his one earthly sheep pen – the Catholic Church – Jesus appointed one earthly shepherd to serve in his place – the Vicar of Christ on earth – the Pope.
Either that day, or the day after, I received what I recognized as a confirmation of my understanding of Peter as the first Pope. A well-known Baptist preacher on TV, who I respect still, was preaching on quite a different topic, and somehow he jumped into saying that obviously Jesus would not choose Peter as the head of his church, since Peter had denied him three times. I’m sure this same preacher has many times preached about how God chooses the least likely through whom to work his will in the earth. Any saved Christian knows that to be true, or why else would he have saved “a wretch like me?” Yet at that moment, the preacher was blinded by his misconceptions and prejudices about the Catholic Church which allowed him to say what he did. This confirmed for me the obvious reality that of course Jesus would have chosen Peter as the first Pope, even as he was absolving him for having denied him three times. Of course he chooses the weak and the sinner. It also reminded me how far I had come in a very few months. Not so long ago, I might have said the same thing that preacher said, out of my prejudice against the Catholic Church.
In the passage in John 10, Jesus says that he has other sheep that are not of his sheep pen, and that he must bring them also into his one flock, under the one shepherd. I thank and praise God that, as one of those sheep from another pen, he called me. I thank and praise God that I was able to hear his voice and to know it was him. Many past events helped me to recognize his voice. I thank and praise God that my parents had me baptized at age six months; that I was brought up in a church that taught me Bible stories and which practiced two of the seven sacraments; that even when I fell away from Christianity into the world, believing the lies of the father of lies, I was able recognize that I had lost something valuable, namely the blessed voice of our Savior; and that I was converted to Jesus Christ in a dramatic born-again experience as an adult with the restoration of our Savior’s voice ringing loud and clear in my soul. My first dramatic conversion was to Christ himself. It was glorious, and I thank and praise God for my many friends who have also been converted to Christ. My second dramatic conversion was to Christ’s Church, the visible Church built not on sand, but on the rock. I pray that my friends and family will also experience this glorious conversion soon, and that we will be that much closer to fulfilling Christ’s words that “there shall be one flock and one shepherd.”
Something else happened as I re-read the Catechism, the Scriptures and the Early Church Fathers during this time. Once again I heard myself give a sigh. This time it was not a sigh of resignation, but of relief. I felt a weight lift from me as I realized that I didn’t have to do it all by myself. Unconsciously I had believed I must search out every detail of the faith on my own and come to an understanding of it under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Certainly God had been faithful to me in the years that I had operated in this way, yet now, things were different. I was flooded with relief that others had gone before me – popes, bishops, scholars and saints. These people had carefully thought through scripture passages, aided by a more direct knowledge of what the apostles had handed on to their successors than I would ever have, and they had committed their thoughts to paper for those of us in this age to benefit from. For centuries, people had been thinking, inquiring, and praying on the same issues I had pored over as a Christian. In the womb of the Church, with the guidance of the Holy Spirit, they had built on one another’s findings, both deepening and heightening the understanding of the kingdom of God. It wasn’t all up to me; I could rely on the interpretations of the Church, the one visible, holy, Catholic and apostolic Church established by Jesus himself and shepherded by his Vicar of Christ on earth, the successor of Peter. To know this truth deep in my soul was a tremendous relief, and I wondered if this was part of what Jesus meant when he said in Matt.11:29 “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me…” After all, it is his Body, the Church, who is willing and able to teach those who desire to learn.
By this time both my heart and mind were Catholic, and I knew that Jesus was calling me by name into his sheep pen – to abide bodily in his visible Church on earth. From the time of reading Eusebius to this point in time, seven months had passed. I called my friend to announce that I’d be taking the RCIA class with her. After seven months of classes, we were both received into the Church at the Easter Vigil, April 7, 2007. Fourteen of my Protestant friends attended. At the present writing, I’ve received Christ through the Eucharist eight weeks in a row, and even though my desperate hunger for the consecrated bread and wine is assuaged, I pray that my hunger never ceases.
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BillK
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| Joined: | Sun Jan 6th, 2008 |
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| Posts: | 28 |
| First Name: | Bill | | Gender: | Male | | Faith History: | Revert to Catholicism (dabled in Lutheran, Methodist, Baptist, Evangelical, Messianic ... |
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Posted: Sat Apr 19th, 2008 04:29 pm |
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Jane – this is one of the most beautiful conversion stories I’ve read in a long time. Your story is inspirational to us all and for me, a revert to Catholicism just 4 years ago, it was especially meaningful.
Reflecting on the deepest mysteries of the Sacrifice of the Mass, as you’ve had in your visions and studies, was and continues to be one of my greatest blessings since my reversion. If only I’d learned this growing up as a Catholic I would never have left!!! Understanding the Jewish sacrificial system and the Passover and seeing it PERFECTLY fulfilled in Jesus Christ and the Eucharist is beyond description.
When I sought to understand this sacrifice, I learned some interesting things about the ancient Jewish “todah” (the Hebrew word for “thanksgiving” which is “eucharistae” in Greek) sacrifice of bread and wine (the very one offered by Meclchezedic (sp??)) and about how Jewish rabbis believed that in the Messianic age, this would be the only remaining sacrifice. I also learned that Jews do not consider the Passover to be merely a memorial but that somehow they mysteriously transcend the boundaries of time and actually enter in to the original Passover celebration. How awesome it is that we too can mysteriously enter in to the life, death, and resurrection of our Savior through this offering of thanksgiving!!!!
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit ……
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Christine Ann
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| Joined: | Mon Oct 9th, 2006 |
| Location: | An Hours' Drive From Cincinnati, Ohio USA |
| Posts: | 156 |
| First Name: | Christine Ann | | Gender: | Female | | Faith History: | former Lutheran, Baptist, now Catholic. |
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Posted: Sat Apr 19th, 2008 08:19 pm |
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Dear Jane,
I have just finished reading your conversion story. I am to be received into the Catholic Church tomorrow, April 20. Before I sat down at my pc I had had the thought that perhaps converting to Catholicism was just another of many bad decisions I have made in my life. Perhaps I should wait.
Then I came upon your story first thing when I logged on. I have sat in amazement as you detailed your journey. As I read, every doubt I've had just disapated from my mind. I appreciate that you took the time to be so detailed in explaining the entire process you have experienced. I found myself saying, "yes, yes yes!" What reassurance you've given me. The Holy Spirit has definately been in this. I just wanted you to know...
In His Love,
Christine Ann
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Steven Barrett
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| Joined: | Tue Nov 14th, 2006 |
| Location: | Hadley, Massachusetts USA |
| Posts: | 1185 |
| First Name: | Steven | | Gender: | Male | | Faith History: | Catholic, Episcopal communicant, Baptist, Catholic |
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Posted: Sun Apr 20th, 2008 01:03 am |
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Yes, yes, yes and a million more yesses!
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"This Old House's" motto is "Measure twice, cut once." My new motto is THINK at least twice or thrice, then you only have to write once, and maybe apologize nonce.
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Free
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| Joined: | Wed Nov 28th, 2007 |
| Location: | Michigan USA |
| Posts: | 269 |
| First Name: | Jane | | Gender: | Female | | Faith History: | Presbyterian, Gnostic, non-denominational, Catholic |
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Posted: Sun Apr 20th, 2008 02:10 am |
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Bill, thank you for your generous compliment, and for your insights on the "todah."
Christine, I'm honored to know my story has helped you, and hurray that you are being confirmed tomorrow!
Steve, thanks for your million yeses.
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Dave Armstrong
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| Joined: | Fri Nov 2nd, 2007 |
| Location: | Melvindale, Michigan USA |
| Posts: | 1869 |
| First Name: | Dave | | Gender: | Male | | Faith History: | Evangelical (1977): Diverse Protestant Influences / Catholic in 1990 |
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Posted: Mon Apr 21st, 2008 09:31 pm |
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Wonderful story, Jane. Thanks so much for sharing. I would expect no less from a Michigander! 
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I'm happy to offer whatever theological & personal assistance I can. My blog, Biblical Evidence for Catholicism, contains 2000+ papers & web pages (absolutely free) & 16 apologetic books (for sale):
http://www.biblicalcatholic.com/
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Credo Catholic
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| Joined: | Sat May 5th, 2007 |
| Location: | Greenville, South Carolina USA |
| Posts: | 1479 |
| First Name: | Marsha | | Gender: | Female | | Faith History: | Baptist, Catholic |
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Posted: Mon Apr 21st, 2008 11:26 pm |
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Jane, thank you for sharing your story with us. I can see how you moved closer and closer to the truth, doubting it at first, but later realizing you could doubt it no longer. Isn't that a thrilling moment, when that lightbulb clicks on over our heads, and we begin to "see" the truth! It was so sweet that you would watch mass on TV, and hold out your bread and grape juice during the consecration, wanting it to be the body of Christ.
I am happy your journey to the catholic church was completed when you joined in 2007. Welcome home! God bless
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| Joined: | Wed Nov 28th, 2007 |
| Location: | Michigan USA |
| Posts: | 269 |
| First Name: | Jane | | Gender: | Female | | Faith History: | Presbyterian, Gnostic, non-denominational, Catholic |
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Posted: Tue Apr 22nd, 2008 08:34 pm |
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Thanks, Dave. And I love our peninsulas and the lakes surrounding us.
Marsha, I appreciated your kind words about what seemed silly or pathetic to me -- holding out my juice and cracker to the TV! I'm glad you mentioned that I came into the Catholic sheepfold in 2007 -- a year ago. The ending of my story makes it sound more recent, but that's because when I wrote it, it WAS more recent!
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