This year marks the 11th anniversary of my conversion to Catholicism, the most significant decision of my life. One of the most profound influences on my conversion was the impact of various individual Catholics living the faith. Their witness helped me become open to one of the most challengong aspects of my journey: the Rosary.
Growing up in a Lutheran (Missouri Synod) household, I was taught to be wary of the Catholic Church. Our chapel services often emphasized that the Church had turned the grace of God into something that could be bought or earned. I believed that Catholics were, at best, misguided and, at worst, outright heretics.
As a high school student, I began to encounter God personally as a living and active force in my life. My faith became my own and central to who I was. However, I was being discipled by men who held strongly anti-Catholic views. They cautioned me against Catholicism, describing it as diabolical and deeply problematic. We would read books on the dangers of Catholicism and distribute Bible tracts, some by Jack Chick, who often harshly condemned Catholics.
Despite this, the lives and faith of the Catholics I knew caused me to doubt some of what I was hearing. Many of the most thoughtful and faith-oriented people I knew were Catholics. I told myself that they were Christians in spite of their Catholicism, yet I found myself curious.
It was during this time that I also encountered Catholic street evangelists. Living in Ann Arbor, Michigan, I attended the annual Art Fair, which included booths where organizations could share their missions and beliefs. One day, I came across a big white table covered in rosaries. I had seen rosaries before, and they always made me uncomfortable. I didn’t know much about them, but I had heard people praying them and believed it was the very definition of vain, repetitious prayer and idolatry since people were praying to Mary, not to God. Yet, I was curious.
An older man at the table offered me a rosary for free, which I took and put in my pocket. Later that day, I threw away most of the items I had been given at the Art Fair, but I couldn’t bring myself to throw away the rosary. I wasn’t sure what to do with it. I knew it was a prayer tool, but I didn’t feel comfortable praying the Hail Mary. I thought perhaps I could try just praying with the beads in my hands. I would go on prayer walks and simply hold the beads as I prayed. I liked it because it gave me a physical reality to the action of praying.
After months of this, I finally decided to try praying a real Rosary with the Hail Marys and everything. I found a pamphlet on how to pray the Rosary and went through it. I began to realize that the Rosary was not prayer to Mary, but prayer with Mary about Jesus. As I reflected on each of the mysteries, the prayers reminded me of Mary’s great love for Jesus and her role in His life. I began to see Mary as an example of someone who loved Jesus deeply. I started asking Jesus to make me more like Mary, and eventually believed that Mary could pray for me to become more like Jesus too.
This experience with the Rosary was a crack in the armor of suspicion I had built against Catholicism. It helped me become willing to try the things Catholics did instead of fearing them. In the end, it was my experience of the depth and beauty of Catholic spirituality that made my conversion to the Catholic Church a leap I was ready to take — a beauty opened up to me through the witness of both friends and strangers, willing to live their faith in an open and invitational way.
