*The author is publishing this story under a pseudonym. Childhood Rules One of my earliest memories is of waking in the night. After my mother had helped me get to
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Catholicism is not for the faint of heart. It is a commitment, a sacred duty, a responsibility. Serving the Master is the Christian’s priority, which oftentimes puts us at odds
It should have been the happiest day of my life. And, it was — until I made the phone call home. It started with the excitement of, “I am engaged!
When I was 13 years old, I had the adolescent awakening of realizing I had no purpose in life. I didn’t know what my purpose should be, but I knew
My re-conversion to the Catholic Church out of atheism was not a sudden leap but a series of staggers, of years spent hopping across spiritual stepping stones, merely hoping to
I was raised in a religious, Catholic household, at least by my mother’s influence. My mother was raised by two Catholic parents who were lax in the practice of their
From Baptist to Rebel My wife, Angela, and I were raised in Fundamentalist Baptist churches in the Midwest, she in Ohio and I in Indiana. We met at a Fundamentalist
I was raised Episcopalian, in New York, in the 60s and 70s, and went to an Episcopalian school with regular chapel services and weekly Mass. But I received virtually no
I grew up as a nominally practicing Christian in the Methodist tradition. My family would go to church for short periods, then not attend again for a while. I had
My conversion to the Catholic Faith wasn’t a straight line exactly — is it ever? But it also didn’t take me years and years of my life to come to
I was born into a Baptist family, but we didn’t go to church much, except on Christmas, Easter, and a few other times each year. My uncle Vernon, who was
“Our team of elders met, and they decided unanimously to make you an elder.” I had wondered why my pastor wanted to get together with me one-on-one, and now I