“As I hear some people described as “converts” or “reverts,” I’m perplexed because neither of these terms apply to me. I’ve always belonged to the Church. I never left. But I didn’t know I was in the Church, or what that even meant. I was like the person who sits at a table, but doesn’t know the menu, and doesn’t even know they’re hungry. I didn’t have to come to the table later on, because I’d never been anywhere else. I never went looking elsewhere to be fed — I just didn’t know I was already at the table, and was supposed to be eating… All of this was smooth sailing, of course, until something shook the table.”
Written Story
On January 24, 1997, the feast of St. Francis de Sales, I was received back into the arms of the Holy Catholic Church. Since I had made a profession of faith in the Presbyterian Church, I now made a renewed profession of faith in all that the Catholic Church teaches. For this I chose to read the profession of the Council of Trent, because it spoke the truth concerning specific errors I had embraced. Then I received the sacraments of Penance, Confirmation, and Holy Eucharist.
I was raised in a Jewish home, one that celebrated many of the Jewish traditions, at least in our younger years. I remember having a special sense that the one God was our God and that we were His people. Yet as we grew and went out on our own, much was left behind. Eventually my brother, David, became an atheist, and I, perhaps, an agnostic.
My father is a retired Assemblies of God pastor. My parents had a deep and abiding love for Jesus Christ. Their lives expressed who Christ was. I vividly remember being awakened in the middle of the night by the sound of their praying — praying for each of the people in their congregation.
Taking dramatic steps of faith runs in the family. In the eighteenth century, my ancestors left Switzerland for the new colony of Pennsylvania to find religious freedom. The two Longenecker brothers were Mennonites — members of an Anabaptist sect so strict that it had been persecuted by John Calvin.
As an active Protestant Christian in my mid-twenties, I began to feel that I might have a vocation to become a minister. The more I studied, the more perplexed I became. At one stage my elder sister, a very committed Evangelical Protestant with somewhat flexible denominational affiliations, chided me with becoming “obsessed” with trying to find a “true Church.” “Does it really matter?” she would ask.
The thirteen years my husband, Ray, served as an Episcopal priest were exciting, fulfilling years. We had both come from a Disciples of Christ background, and we found the intellectual and liturgical ethos of the Episcopal Church very satisfying. But questions arose: Who was right? Which were the teachings faithful to the Gospel? Who was to say which teachings were true or false? Where was the locus of authority?
Last year, Francka Povsic, my special friend and co-leader of our prayer group gave me a copy of the above inspirational audio cassette. These words from St. Francis De Sales powerfully describe the Truth that I have learned about God’s infinite love for me. Our Lady gently called me to peace through reported messages of Mary and eventually to the Roman Catholic Church.
A former Presbyterian minister, Fr. Slider Steuernol entered into the Catholic Church and became a married, Catholic priest in 1996.
“The Episcopal Church’s endorsement of abortion in 1967 signaled the beginning of my journey towards the Roman Catholic Church. Up until this point, I was quite content as a married Episcopalian clergyman who, since my ordination in 1958.”
“If someone offered me a $10 million contract today to play major league baseball and give up the priesthood, I would not do it. There is no price tag I could place on the peace and joy I feel in my heart being a priest for Jesus Christ.”
In 1978, I was ordained a Presbyterian minister (Presbyterian Church in America) and served two churches while I also obtained a doctoral degree in biblical linguistics. Shortly after my ordination, I was preaching a homily on the unity of the Church and stated that the only justification for the Reformation was that the Catholic Church had left the Gospel.
Always a Bible-Christian (with a bout of agnosticism), John Hollmen was led to the Episcopal church because of it’s traditional nature, which eventually brought him home.
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Help us share the truth and beauty of the Church.
