Let’s Start at the Very Beginning
For those who love film and music, this line should be quite familiar. In the iconic song, “Do, Re, Mi” that Maria sang in The Sound of Music, she instructs the listener that all things have a beginning. The implication is that to understand the whole of something, it is beneficial to learn what in the past led to the present. And so, I will attempt to give you, the reader, a glimpse into my history so that you might better know how and why I am Catholic.
To be accurate, mine is the story of a revert. A convert comes from a place outside of Catholicism, not having been part of the Church in the past; a revert is one who began as a Catholic, received the necessary Sacraments of Initiation, strayed away, then one day returns home. That is the bare bones of my story.
I was born in San Jose, California, in 1952 to parents of Italian descent. My father was 1st generation born in the United States, and my mother 2nd generation. Both came from families that embraced their new land with a fervor; assimilation was very important. My father and his siblings learned English at school and lived the social life of most other Americans. Italians brought both their culture and their religion to add to the “melting pot,” and so the children practiced their faith along with their parents. Yet, somewhere along the way there was a straying away from regular attendance at Mass—especially in the young men. It’s not that they no longer considered themselves Catholic; instead, they did not understand the faith as well as they should have.
As such, my father always considered himself Catholic, but seldom went to Mass. I was so concerned about this in my Protestant years that I even asked him once if he believed in Jesus. He assured me that he did. Still, I was missing an evidential example. I do have a few early memories of going to Mass as a family on Easter and a few other scattered days. Even with our sporadic Mass attendance, my dad and mom made sure my brother and I were in catechism classes for both our First Holy Communion and Confirmation. One caveat is that even though my father seldom attended himself, he never failed to take my mother (who didn’t drive) to Mass when she asked him to do so.
Dad’s views on religion were interesting; he had a less-than-perfect male role model in his own father on how a man approaches his faith. Even so, dad was a believer; he simply wasn’t informed how that should play out in real life. He attended Saturday Catechism as a boy under the tutelage of Sister Mary Calasanctius. Ironically, the elderly sister would become my catechism teacher for First Holy Communion. “She was old when she taught me!” my father once joked. But as I said, my father set aside any need for formal involvement in spiritual disciplines as he grew older.
During my childhood, Dad gave me a couple of interesting examples in how he viewed his faith with respect to input from others. To him, it was personal; he did not require or welcome others giving him advice on his religious beliefs and practices. The first example involved some door-knocking Jehovah’s Witnesses. After several uninvited visits, Dad scrawled a note on cardboard and placed it on the door: NO JEHOVAHS. Problem solved. Not exactly a model of charity, but he didn’t appreciate outsiders bashing his Catholic upbringing, even though he wasn’t an active, practicing Catholic.
The second incident was when I was around twelve or thirteen and centered around how our parish was implementing the directives after the Second Vatican Council. The changes were not appreciated by many, including Dad. One big change our pastor, Fr. John Cooke, implemented was to have everyone dust off their Bibles and read them. Imagine that! So, one Saturday morning, two parishioners knocked on our door. They probably read the “No Jehovahs” sign and thought they were in the clear. Foolish assumption. Dad was on the couch watching a baseball game, so I answered the door and informed him who was there. “What do they want?” he asked. When he heard the reason for their visit, he let them know that he didn’t need them or Fr. Cooke telling him how to be a Catholic. Again, not the most charitable of moments.
In the case of my mother, she was a somewhat shy, 1950’s stay-at-home wife who rarely rocked the boat. She was a wonderful wife and mother, but did not follow any spiritual disciplines that I remember or saw. And though Mom was not overtly practicing her faith, she lived her life as one who knew how to love others the way Jesus did. That example would serve me well as an adult.
I write all this to show that my childhood didn’t include much in the way of modeling for my faith to grow. There was, however, one exception: Nana.
My paternal grandmother was steeped in her faith. I spent many days in the summer with her, and through her examples of walking with me fourteen blocks to St. Joseph’s in San Jose for daily Mass, and her praying the Rosary in Italian every night in her oversized chair, I began to gravitate toward faith. It was so much so, that in the 4th grade, I told a teacher that I wanted to be a nun. Unfortunately, this teacher knew my comic side and simply laughed. “Oh, Karen, you’ll never be a nun!” Laughter burst out among my friends, along with the burst bubble of my vocational possibility.
Then came the biggest blow to my faith journey. When I was fourteen, Nana died from cancer. She had been my rock, my best friend, my example — and she was taken from me at a time when I would need that compass most, as I moved toward tumultuous young adulthood. It was devastating, and though I couldn’t put my finger on it at the time, that single event was the most critical one in my spiraling away from my Catholic faith.
It is said that we are born with a God-sized hole in our hearts that yearns for Him, and if we fail to fill it with God, we will seek something else. For a sad, young girl dealing with loss and a need for love and acceptance, it is often found in the opposite sex. In my case, at the age of sixteen I found love (or so I thought) in a witty, intellectual classmate. He was the only one I dated, and I became emotionally attached quickly. With a flurry of hormones added to the mix, some extremely poor personal choices were made which ended in a marriage to someone I would later discover to be an unbeliever, bordering on atheism. Sadly, poor catechesis prevented me from proper discernment prior to the marriage.
Into Young Adulthood and Parenthood
Even in our worst situations, God wills for us to seek Him out. I was blessed with two children, who would later be instrumental in my return to faith and subsequently to the Catholic Church.
When my fiancé and I attended the Pre-Cana Conference as part of our marriage preparation in the 70s, he promised to have any of our children baptized Catholic. Fortunately, each of our boys was baptized at my Nana’s church, St. Joseph’s of San Jose. But sadly, the open marriage culture of the 1970’s invaded our married life, and it ended in divorce after only four years.
With two toddlers in tow, I was thrust into the murky waters of single motherhood in 1974. I was fortunate to have two wonderful parents to help me along, but my strong spiritual compass of Nana was no longer in my life. Consequently, my faith journey stood still. The breakthrough came when my oldest boy came home from school one day and announced that his friends go to ‘Sunday School’ and he wanted to go, too. As a lapsed Catholic, Sunday School was a foreign term to me. But he was insistent. In retrospect, I recognize this as the first providential revelation geared to turn me toward Home. That moment was how my oldest boy set the wheels in motion.
The biggest hurdle I had to overcome was deciding what church to attend? At the time of my divorce, I heard that going back to Catholicism was a no-go. What I had been told was that divorced people were not allowed to receive Communion. Being poorly catechized at the time, I just assumed that information was correct. It never even occurred to me to see a priest to find out if that was true. It seemed ludicrous to go back to a place where the sacraments would be withheld, so I sought out a Protestant denomination. And so it was that I began my journey back to faith, with the boys as my companions.
We eventually ended up in a Reformed Church. It was semi-liturgical, so there was some familiarity. They even considered infant baptism and marriage sacraments — this is not so in all denominations. As I grew there, I began working in various ministries. One was working with youth. It was there that I grew in my music skills. A musician I enjoyed was Keith Green, but unfortunately, it was his ministry that pulled me further away from any remaining positive ideas I had about Catholicism. Keith and his wife published an evangelization newsletter. In one issue, he detailed how the Catholic Church re-sacrifices Jesus at every Mass. His explanation was very logical. I remembered my method of simply going through the motions as a young Catholic, not knowing the reason for any of the beliefs and practices. So, what Keith described sounded on the surface a lot like re-sacrificing. He also erroneously covered how Catholics ‘worship’ Mary by praying to her. He said we should only pray directly to Jesus. Again, to my poorly catechized mind, it all sounded correct.
It was later in my research into Catholicism that I discovered the error of Keith Green’s interpretation of the Catholic Church:
- The Catholic Church does not re-sacrifice Jesus at the Mass. Instead, it is a re-presenting of the One Sacrifice in an unbloody manner: “The Eucharist is the memorial of Christ’s Passover, the making present and the sacramental offering of his unique sacrifice, in the liturgy of the Church which is his Body. In all the Eucharistic Prayers we find after the words of institution a prayer called the anamnesis* or memorial.” (CCC 1362, Part 2, Section 2, Chapter 1, Article 3).
- The Church does not teach the worship of the Blessed Mother, but appeals to her as Mother of the Church to intercede on our behalf, as we pray in the Hail Mary: “Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death.”
Don’t get me wrong. My years in the Reformed Church were a blessing. It was there that I learned to love the Sacred Scriptures. The church I attended warmly encouraged me in all my ministries to youth and in music. Fellowship and unconditional love were present. But most of all, a divorced woman was welcomed and able to fully participate. True, my understanding of how the Catholic Church feels about the place of the divorced in the Church was based on misinformation. But not knowing that at the time, I felt I was in a good place.
Wandering the Desert Toward Home
However, when there was an uncomfortable change in the leadership at that church, I thought I ought to check another denomination (this was the beginning of church-hopping through the denominations.) I landed at United Church of Christ in San José where I met my husband, Roger. He and I immediately connected, both having endured marriages that ended due to unfaithfulness. We were married in 1989 and settled into blended family life.
Faith was a huge part of our lives from the beginning — and it’s a good thing! Being a blended family with five children, there were many hurdles and struggles. Divorce is always hardest on children, and our situation reflected that fact. In the midst of these challenges, we were thankful that God remained the glue that held us together. We eventually also wanted to share our love further, and adopted a little girl from Uzbekistan. Then a bit later in 1997, we became guardians for our oldest grandchild, who we raised all the way through college and grad school at Dominican in Berkeley. Through it all, it was God through Christ who sustained and strengthened us.
As we continued to be faithful to God, we found it difficult to be faithful to the churches we would attend. Often, it was due to poor treatment of our grandson, who had a slight auditory issue. But many times, it was due to what we saw as a straying from what we perceived to be sound theologically. One issue was female clergy. For me, I suppose it was due to my early Catholic memories of the male priesthood, even though I did not fully understand why it was so.
However, the final straw was during communion (which only occurred once per month.) The pastor was saying the words of the Last Supper and said, “Jesus said this represents my Body.” I turned to Roger and said that there was no way I would have communion at that church. The pastor had changed the very words of Christ at the Last Supper. Even as a poorly catechized Catholic, I knew that was wrong.
Through all of our years wandering in the spiritual desert of non-denominationalism, my younger son and his wife walked alongside and listened. This son married a Catholic, and he had converted. Neither of them was pushy, but just listened. Then one day, they handed us a book. It was Rome, Sweet Home by Scott and Kimberly Hahn. [Ironically, Kimberly later endorsed my book Confessions of a Catholic Homeschool Mom!] Our son thought the Hahns’ journey into Catholicism might resonate with some of what we were experiencing. This is how my younger son was the second influence in my faith journey. He and his wife planted the seeds that grew into a deep desire to come back to the faith of my childhood. Children are a blessing in so many ways.
We began reading the Hahns’ book. Roger was not impressed initially. However, for me it was an epiphany. All the misconceptions I had about the faith of my childhood were dispelled, and I immediately wanted to come home. It wasn’t until I returned that I realized how much I was missing and needed Jesus in the Eucharist. Through my Protestant years, the symbolism of communion always seemed lacking, although I couldn’t quite explain it. But my first time back to Confession and subsequent reception of the Holy Eucharist filled me with the completeness that was missing in cubes of bread and grape juice that had not been consecrated by holy apostolic hands.
Although I was primed and ready to cross back over the Tiber, it took Roger some time — and a particular statement in the Hahns’ book — before he was ready to move to the next step. But when he did become Catholic, an adversarial situation developed at his work in an evangelical Protestant university, which prompted him to research into Martin Luther’s 95 Theses. Little did we know that it would develop into a theology book (95 Questions for Protestants), which we wrote together. It was during the research for the book that he and I became more convinced of Church Doctrines and Dogmas. In learning about the depth of our newly embraced faith, both of us became stronger.
One of the huge eye-openers for me was something my younger son said. Long before he became Catholic, he raised a question on the concept of authority. He wondered how all the varying denominations could possibly be correct, when on some of the most critical points of faith, they disagreed. As research for the book we were writing proceeded, I recalled this very question. I’ve rephrased it as this: If the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Truth, how is it that each denomination (or even each individual church pastor) would be given revelation on the meaning of the salvation process, justification, doctrine, etc. that greatly differs from another denomination or pastor’s interpretation? Would the Holy Spirit deliberately deceive believers?
Pondering this concept helped solidify my reason to be Catholic. I found that each key doctrine could be traced back to the early Church, either in Sacred Scripture, Sacred Tradition from the Apostles, or the writings of the Church Fathers and Doctors of the Church. It became evident that authority resides in Catholicism. Authority is at the heart of the discovery of all objective Truth, and it was comforting to know how God has guided the Catholic Church away from error. I knew this was where I needed to be.
Fairly early in my return to the Church, Roger and I had a wonderful experience. My son and his family were going on a pilgrimage to Central Italy, from Rome to the Adriatic Sea. It was with a parish in Oakland, California, associated with the Institute of Christ the King, and led by a wonderful Polish priest who has since passed (God rest the soul of Fr. Stanislaw Zak.) Among the many holy sites there, we saw the Holy Face of Manoppello (believed to be the facial burial cloth of Christ, with His image that matches digitally and in blood type to the Shroud of Turin), the House of Mary (thought to be where she received the Annunciation, mysteriously transported from the Holy Land during the Crusades), the church of Padre Pio (along with his partially incorrupt body), St. Benedict’s Monastery, the Catacombs (where early Catholics celebrated Mass in secret, with depictions of Doctrines of the Faith on the walls), one of the earliest Eucharistic Miracles in Lanciano (which was lab researched and found to have physical details that point to Christ), the Pantheon (originally a Roman temple to all gods, rededicated as a Christian place of worship by the Catholic Church,) and the Cave of St. Michael (originally a place of pagan worship, where St. Michael asked a bishop to make it a house of God.) This trip made the faith come to life in a new way, and I highly recommend such a pilgrimage to all Catholics.
Learning to Be the Hands and Feet of Jesus in the Church
Coming back to the Church gave me new things to ponder. How could I best serve Christ now? I found a few areas of ministry, both within parishes and in some personal endeavors.
When I re-entered the Church, we lived in Lincoln, California. I found myself gravitating toward an issue I’d supported even as a Protestant: pro-life advocacy. First, I became active in sidewalk ministry alongside seasoned Catholic workers. Then, my husband and I joined the pro-life group at the parish. When the leader stepped down, we offered to lead. We were active there for several years until we moved to Modesto in 2019. In Modesto, we took on roles of pro-life leadership for several years. Then as we were getting older and long hours at the sidewalk were physically challenging, we stepped down.
Roger and I love doing ministry together, so we began working at the pantry in our parish. Every week we work for a few hours filling bags with food, which are given to those in need the next day. We also work with the group at Christmas time during a gifts and food give away. Helping behind the scenes to bring light to some of the poorest families in our community has been fulfilling.
Recently, there was a need in the Senior’s Group, and Roger became President. There was also no one coming forward to fill the Secretary position, so I agreed to take that on as a pro tempore, which may not be so temporary, as it turns out.
Finally, I expanded my love for writing. I have enjoyed writing all my life, and in my pre-Catholic years, I wrote many faith-based songs as a singer-songwriter. Although I haven’t pursued this avenue as a Catholic, I began a blog several years ago, where I address topics of faith, and more recently, I have written articles for Catholic365 online.
Finally, I Am Home
After so many years of wandering, it is wonderful to know I am back in the Church that Christ established in this fallen world. As I look back, the long path I took was paved with many steps and stops along the way that prepared me to come back to the fullness of truth in Catholicism. I thank God for how He found a way to bring me home. As I continue in this earthly pilgrimage, I have the hope it will ultimately lead to my final destination with Jesus, the Blessed Mother, and all the great saints who have gone before us.
I encourage all people of faith to remember that God desires to lead us to His objective Truth. It is one journey in life that has an eternal promise. May God bless you on your own journey of faith.
