“If being a charismatic Evangelical taught us anything, it’s how we got it right, and how lost Catholics are, living in the shadows of empty cathedrals now serving as museums. Yet here was a very alive, very Catholic group of young people extending their hand in prayer and fellowship while meeting with other energetic, Christ-filled Catholics in Rome (how many of them are there?!), surrounded by unimaginably beautiful art and historic places. For the first time ever, I felt a real connection to those places as a Christian. Also for the first time, I asked myself, ‘If I am a Protestant, then what, exactly, am I protesting?’ Throughout the rest of 2019, I surveyed the Catholic Church, but from a distance.” (Lee Sondeno)
Written Story
At this very moment in our lives a long-time Evangelical friend and pastor announced to us, “Steve, my wife and I have decided to join the Catholic Church.” Janet and I were stunned. I immediately blurted out, “Al, that is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard; you are way too smart to be a Catholic!”
“Learning about Catholicism, after being schooled by Protestants, I felt like I had only been allowed to view little random pieces of incredible artwork. It is only now that I understand the pieces were a single, beautiful masterpiece.” After a rocky childhood, Alicia joined the US Navy, which brought about stability and order in her life. Life in the Navy prepared her for life in an unexpected place: the Catholic Church.
Tania was raised in a devout Seventh-day Adventist home and persevered in her faith through college. She was certain she “knew” her Christianity until her nominally Catholic husband insisted their kids complete the Sacraments in the Catholic Church. Tania was in for a life-changing surprise!
“My longing for truth was a single prayer.” – St. Edith Stein As a thirteen-year-old Evangelical Protestant, I spent a day in a sporting good store asking people, “If you
Father Ray Ryland, Ph.D., J.D., is a former minister of the Episcopal Church. In 1963 he was received with his wife, Ruth, and their five children into the Catholic Church. Twenty years later, he was ordained to the priesthood of the Catholic Church, with a dispensation from the rule of celibacy. Currently, he serves as chaplain for Catholics United for the Faith and on the boards of both that apostolate and The Coming Home Network. He is also a regular columnist for The Catholic Answer Magazine, and he serves as an assistant at St. Peter’s Church in Steubenville, Ohio.
My story began as a cradle Anglican, which means I have been surrounded by beautiful words of prayer my whole life. As long as I can remember I have come into God’s presence on the Lord’s day praying “Almighty God, unto whom all hearts be open, all desires known and from whom no secrets are hid: cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of thy Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love thee, and worthily magnify thy Holy Name.” Each week we approached Holy Communion praying “Grant us therefore, gracious Lord, so to eat the flesh of thy dear Son Jesus Christ, and to drink his Blood, that our sinful bodies may be made clean by his Body and our souls washed through his most precious Blood, and that we may evermore dwell in him, and he in us” (The Book of Common Prayer).
After a life of fulfilling the cultural obligations of a cradle Catholic, Dan Gonzalez encountered a “living Gospel” during his first year at college. After sensing that something was “missing” from the services at a non-Catholic worship service, Gonzalez began a search that lead him back home.
Growing up in a devout Christian family in Germany, Klemens became dissatisfied with the doctrine of sola Scriptura and varying types of worship in Protestant denominations. After a period of seeking, he stumbled upon a Catholic church close to his home.
While Elizabeth enjoyed the blessings of being brought up in a devout Christian environment, she always had a nagging doubt about being “once saved, always saved.” Her desire for the truth and her husband’s Catholic background led her to investigate the teachings of the Catholic Church.
On a blazingly-hot day in August, 2012, at Our Lady of the Holy Rosary Church in Tacoma, I was received into the Holy Catholic Church and my marriage convalidated. It
Reflecting on my life, I recognize God’s hand leading me through the times of joy and sorrow. I can now trace the turns in the road that led me to the best thing that happened to me in my life: coming home to the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church.
“Living with many mutually contradictory doctrines made understanding the faith similar to trying to complete a complex puzzle from a combination of different jigsaw puzzles stirred together.” Evangelical Wesley Vincent noticed that every pastor who preached the Bible seemed to have a different understanding of what it meant to be a follower of Christ.
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