He ended up in the minor leagues with the Twins organization, and made some solid Christian friends along the way, but it was when that dream fell apart — and especially when his world was turned upside down by COVID — that Dan had a major conversion that would make him finally start taking his faith seriously.

Find more about Dan at danvenezia.com.

The post Dan Venezia – Catholic Revert appeared first on The Coming Home Network.

That started for him a quest as a young man to learn not just the facts about Catholicism, but about the person of Jesus Christ. His faith caught fire, and the fruit of that search for a closer relationship with Jesus bore fruit in his discernment of a call to the priesthood.

More information: frkirby.com

The post Fr. Jeffrey Kirby – Former Nominal Catholic appeared first on The Coming Home Network.

The post Phillip Campbell – Revert from Pentecostalism appeared first on The Coming Home Network.

Jennifer Willits grew up in the Worldwide Church of God, and had some troubling experiences that led her to ask a lot of questions about God and her purpose. When she met Greg, a cradle Catholic who wasn’t very well informed about his faith, they started to ask these questions together as a couple, and were not only surprised at the riches they found in the Catholic Faith; they felt inspired to dedicate themselves together to sharing its truth and beauty through media.

Many of you know Greg and Jennifer for their work with the Rosary Army over the years– they have a great story!

The post Greg and Jennifer Willits – Catholic Revert and former Worldwide Church of God appeared first on The Coming Home Network.

From Birth Through High School

I was born Lawrence Michael Alderson to George W. Alderson and Audrey Ann Alderson (née Morin). My mother was in nurse’s training at the beginning of 1948. In those days, the trainees were expected to train in every aspect of nursing, including the operating theater. This turned out to be too much for her to handle. She needed to get away from it all to take stock of her life. (Years later, however, she became an LPN.)

She and my father “went away” for a couple of weeks. When my grandfather found out about it, he insisted that they get married. His oldest daughter was a Sister of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and his oldest son was a Jesuit who had been a POW in a Japanese prison camp. Both were highly regarded in the community. The embarrassment my mother’s situation presented was more than he could handle.

They married in late January of that year. I was born a couple of weeks early, a breech birth, in late November of the same year. The doctor who assisted in the delivery was shocked to discover this. In those days, there were no instant anesthetics, which made for a tricky delivery.

My father, who had been born in 1925, was a former Marine, having served in World War II. I imagine the war experience was a bit much for him, because later he had difficulty holding down a job. In order to make ends meet, my mother also worked.

My brother, Robert, was born in late December of 1952. I have a memory of living with my paternal grandparents during the weeks that my mother was in recovery. There was one day, when I was alone with my brother, and I noticed that he needed his diaper changed. When my mother came home, she was shocked to discover the situation, because I had tried to handle the dilemma, but I was too young to do it correctly. I’m guessing this was the last straw for my overworked and unsupported mother, and my parents separated. Shortly after that incident, my mother, brother, and I moved in with my maternal grandparents.

I was enrolled in kindergarten at St. Eulalia in Maywood, Illinois. In the middle of my fifth year, my mother’s younger sister, Joan, separated from her husband. At that point, my mother and her sister decided (perhaps with some urging from my grandparents) to get an apartment together.

Growing up, I loved to investigate things. One year, around the 4th of July, I bought a road flare. Out of curiosity, I ignited it in the apartment. I wasn’t wise enough to figure out how to put it out in a safe manner, and I ended up burning a hole in the living room rug. The apartment owner was, of course, upset, and we found ourselves moving again.

I remember living in an apartment in Franklin Park, where we lived next door to my future cousins. They told my mother about Elmer John Gearhart, who was shy and unmarried. My mother took it to heart, and shortly after that, the two were married. In 1961, Elmer adopted Bob and me. This is how I came to have the last name of Gearhart. From that point on, we lived in his house in Elmwood Park. At first, I went to St. Cyprian School in River Grove. But after juggling expenses, I was transferred to Elmwood School in the middle of seventh grade. It was there that I began to show unusual ability in mathematics.

The July after our move, my brother John Elmer was born. Around that time, I took entrance exams for Holy Cross High School and Elmwood Park High School. In the latter, I tried to figure out the formula for the volume of a sphere. I ended up also doing well in English and science.

I joined the wrestling team in my freshman year, as well as the freshman boys’ chorus. In a school of about 900 students, I was only 5 feet 2 inches in height and third string in wrestling. In my sophomore year, my voice was changing, so I was not accepted into sophomore chorus. In place of that, I decided to take a typing class. I also set aside wrestling for chess club.

Around this time, my parents’ marriage was failing. My father had a drinking problem, and I was asked by my mother’s lawyer to testify in court. I said I could not say he was an alcoholic, which I understood to mean that he had an addiction. I couldn’t go so far as to say that. Anyway, they divorced in the middle of my junior year.

My mother, brothers, and I moved to Northlake, and I was transferred to Proviso West High School in Hillside, a larger school of about 3,600 students. Around that time, I experienced a growth spurt, and by my senior year I was 6 feet 2 inches tall.

While attending this new school, our college prep English class read Milton’s Paradise Lost. That book challenged me to think about free will. I had taken classes in chemistry and physics, and I could find no reason to believe that free will was a reality, since my understanding seemed to imply that all motion was either determined or random. Life so far seemed to concur, and I could not see how a soul would be an exception, much less a body-soul combination.

From Junior College to Ph.D. and Assistant Professorship

I attended Triton Jr. College, where I studied English Rhetoric, Hans Morgenthau’s Politics Among Nations, Humanities, and Calculus. I financed it all by working summers at the National Tea Potato Packing Plant.

Meanwhile, I decided to stop attending Mass.

At the end of those two years at Triton, I was surprised to receive a tuition scholarship to study math education. I decided to attend the University of Illinois at Chicago (then referred to as the University of Illinois at Chicago Circle). In the last quarter of my senior year, I did student teaching. There, I became frustrated that I could not motivate seniors (who were afflicted with senioritis) to pay attention in calculus class. I was so upset that I didn’t bother to attend graduation ceremonies. I got my B.S. degree but did not apply for certification.

When I graduated, our country was at war. But I drew a high lottery number, and thus avoided being drafted into the Army. Instead, I got a job working for UPS while I tried to sort things out. I have a highly technical background and have had an abiding interest in physics, psychology, philosophy, major literature, and history ever since high school. Later in life, I developed a practical interest in biology, especially as it relates to human welfare, both physical and moral.

As a sort of “renaissance man,” I had developed a great interest in many things, including literature and philosophy. During this time, I became fascinated by Bertrand Russell’s History of Western Philosophy and Why I Am Not a Christian.

Then, in 1971, I took the GRE (Graduate Record Exam) and scored in the 98th percentile in mathematics. In my first year, I was one of the top students. The following year, I became a teaching assistant in the math department, and thanks to that, I was able to finance the remainder of my education through the doctorate level.

I investigated several options for connecting with a thesis advisor, including inquiries about their areas of specialization. I finally settled on working with Prof. James Moeller. (Jim was a Lutheran who decided not to challenge my free-will theory. As it happens, he later happily wrote a letter of commendation to Mt. St. Mary’s Seminary, where I applied for entry in 1997.) While working with Jim, I was given the problem of determining the relationship of the spectrum of a unilateral shift operator (also referred to as a translation semigroup) of infinite multiplicity to that of its infinitesimal generator. I derived that result somewhat late in the academic year, yet earlier than had been anticipated, so that I was given a job as a visiting lecturer (the bottom rung of professional titles) at the University of Illinois at Chicago. During that year, I was able to use a theory of harmonic analysis of operators on Hilbert space to discover and prove an important version of what came to be called (at least initially) Gearhart’s spectral mapping theorem.

My first job elsewhere was as a visiting professor at Wright State University in Fairborn, Ohio. There, I was able to submit my first major publication to the Transactions of the American Mathematical Society. That paper has been cited more than 200 times in the mathematical and physical sciences (especially chemistry and physics) literature.

My Conversion Process

It was during that three-year period at Wright State University when I connected with Center Stage in Yellow Springs, Ohio, and participated in a few Gilbert and Sullivan operettas. In 1979, after my three-year term was up, I began working for defense industry contractors. My involvement with Center Stage continued. After one of these productions, I dated a fan who was a few months older than me, and with whom I had an affair lasting several months. She had a teenage son. I proposed marriage to her, but she declined it. After that rejection, I became seriously depressed and attempted to deal with it by using pornography.

Finally, in 1987, the year my maternal grandmother died, I had a major conversion experience one night while I slept. I believe my grandmother’s prayers played a major role in my being given that gift. In the dream, God showed me where my life was headed, the consequences to many souls who would have been adversely affected, and a taste of the result—my separation from God for all eternity. That experience shook me up so much that, when I woke up, I got down on my knees and begged God for forgiveness. The only consolation I got was that I was not yet damned, and recognized that I needed to change.

My first change was to get rid of all the pornography in my possession. I began thinking more responsibly about my life and my job. But I still didn’t have a sense of the truth of the Judeo-Christian tradition.

It was a confusing time, and I tried marriage—which ultimately ended after about seven months. My wife was from Illinois as well, so I applied to Bell Labs in Naperville, a job from which 2,000 engineers, including me, were eventually laid off.

In the months after this fiasco, I sought employment and connected with a lady who was a parishioner at a Catholic church in St. Charles, Illinois. She was in their choir, and I was interested in participating. I heard the pastor speak about the Christ Renews His Parish program (colloquially referred to as “CHiRP”), which was sponsoring a weekend retreat. I consulted him about joining that retreat, and he referred me to Fr. Steve, the pastor at Holy Cross in Batavia, where I lived. I talked to Fr. Steve, who was very busy, but I had an impulse to ask him to hear my confession anyway.

That weekend blew me away. Another retreatant that weekend was a guy my age, whom I knew, who had also attended St. Eulalia’s and lived on the same block as I did in Maywood back in the 50s. At that meeting, I spoke about my recent return to the sacraments, and my newfound conversion. (Another coincidence: I sat at the St. Paul table.) The guys there were all impressed, including one fellow at our table who was entering the seminary the next year. That retreat was an important part of my journey back to the Catholic Church, and ultimately to my vocation.

In the summer of 1992, I moved back to my old home in Elmwood Park and spent the next three years under spiritual direction. Thanks to some local contacts, I managed to find work as an adjunct professor at colleges in the area.

My mother insisted we go to St. Vincent Ferrer parish for Mass, even though we had been going to St. Cyprian years before. After a couple of months there, I heard that Fr. Benjamin Russell, the pastor, was available to provide spiritual direction. It was only later that I recognized the significance of consulting with a man whose first name was the same as that of my maternal grandfather and my Jesuit uncle, and whose last name was the same as my previous intellectual hero, Bertrand Russell.

Fr. Russell helped me to put things into perspective. I had some wild questions to ask him, like: “What if there is intelligent life on other planets?” More importantly, we explored the question of what God was calling me to do. I kept praying about this, and even met with a vocation director at the local priory. The night before I got the news that I wasn’t accepted, I had a dream that I was on a train. The conductor came to me and asked me for my tickets. I only had one. I simply had to figure out what vocation the “ticket” was for.

That three-year period of discernment ended in 1995. I was running out of options to support myself. Out of the blue, I got a call from an old employer in the Dayton area, asking if I was available for work.

Mary, Help of Even This Christian!

I moved back to Fairborn and discovered that I was within the Mary, Help of Christians parish boundaries. I registered as a parishioner and soon joined the Stephen Ministry, which works with people going through difficult times in their lives. I had some hard cases and learned a lot from the experience. When I inquired about whom I might seek as a spiritual director, I was sent to Fr. Joseph Goetz, the pastor of St. Paul Church in Yellow Springs. He suggested I begin to pray the Liturgy of the Hours. He was surprised how determined I was to keep praying the Liturgy of the Hours, as well as consistently receiving spiritual direction.

In my second year there, I served on the parish council. Management was never my strong suit, so I was not involved beyond that. I was, however, knowledgeable in psychology, and I was learning a lot of history and theology. Coming from the Chicago area, I had visited the Cathedral there a few times to pray, and I learned that Joseph Bernardin was the Cardinal Archbishop, and that he had previously been the Archbishop of Cincinnati. I volunteered to give a presentation on him, and when I completed it, the lady who directed the ministry asked me, “When are you going to become a priest?” She urged me to meet with the pastor, Fr. Joe Raudabaugh.

When I met with him, I said I was interested in becoming a deacon. He asked me, “Is there any reason you would not study to become a priest?” I had no answer. Was this the “one ticket” that God had for me?

I attended a ministry weekend at Mount St. Mary’s in Cincinnati. The rector at that time was Fr. Jerry Haemmerle. He found me gazing at a painting outside of the chapel. It’s a picture painted by Benjamin Robert Haydon, entitled “Christ’s Entry into Jerusalem.” Fr. Jerry explained that two of the figures in it were modeled on Isaac Newton (a mathematician and physicist) and Voltaire (an atheist). It seemed like I was being given a life-line by Sir Isaac Newton, mathematician: choose faith over no faith. That clinched my decision to enter the seminary in the fall of 1997.

When I told my brother, Bob, about my decision, he responded, “Whatever floats your boat!” I entered the seminary at Mt. St. Mary’s in Cincinnati in 1997 and was ordained as a priest in 2003.

I was 48 years old, the oldest in my seminary class. The next oldest was John Daniel Schuh (Dan). When people asked me how old I was, I would answer that I was two years older than Grandpa (a humorous reference to Dan). When we were ordained (May 24, 2003, the feast of Mary, Help of Christians), as we were leaving the Cathedral (now a minor basilica), one of his grandchildren spotted him and yelled out “Grandpa!” That’s how he got his nickname.

My mother, brothers, aunts, uncles, and cousins attended the ordination. At the dinner following the ceremony, two of my uncles roasted each other. Everyone had a great time.

The next day, I celebrated Mass at Mary, Help of Christians. A week later, I said Mass at St. Eulalia’s in Maywood. Two ordinands a year ahead of me eventually went on further than I did. One is the current rector of the Seminary, Fr. Anthony Brausch, and the other now leads the diocese of Columbus, Bishop Earl Fernandez.

Prior to my serving as parochial vicar for the Springfield Deanery (beginning in July of 2017), I was the pastor of the four small Catholic parishes in Champaign County, Ohio: St. Michael in Mechanicsburg and Immaculate Conception in North Lewisburg (since July 1, 2006) and, more recently (since July 1, 2013), St. Mary in Urbana and Sacred Heart in St. Paris. St. Mary’s is small by U.S. Catholic standards, and each of the other three parishes is small enough to be considered “small faith communities” by biblical standards. Accordingly, they have been able to live something close to the ideal of small faith communities. Everyone knows everyone else and feels comfortable engaging in serious conversation.

Since November of 2020, I have been a priest living in retirement. Today, I am a retired priest in residence at St. Teresa of the Child Jesus parish in Springfield, Ohio. My duties include daily Mass, hearing confessions, responding to sick calls (anointings, hearing confessions and general pastoral care), and presiding at baptisms, weddings, and funerals. As previously, I remain a “circuit rider” in the sense that I may be called upon to substitute for a priest on vacation or some other form of leave. I have come to realize that God is more loving, forgiving, and (as Einstein said) subtle than I ever imagined. His grace is often like a soft flute, leading the soul onward. That subtlety certainly played out in surprising ways in my own journey home and into the priesthood. Indeed, it led me all the way back home, to where my vocation and Jesus Christ were waiting.

The post From Cradle Catholic to Agnostic to the Priesthood appeared first on The Coming Home Network.

I was born into a Catholic family in May of 1953, baptized as a baby, went on to do my confession, received my first Holy Communion, and was confirmed by Bishop Buswell at Our Lady of Guadalupe church, the oldest parish in Colorado. I loved everything about God and the Church. I even saw myself serving as a priest one day, but would eventually dismiss the thought because I wanted to be married and have children. My mother would have us pray the Rosary whenever there was a need, and made sure we went to Mass; but my father was sporadic in attending church and never prayed the Rosary with us, although I knew he loved God.

I grew up in Conejos, a small community in southern Colorado, where my ancestors were some of the first settlers to make their homes there. The story is told that, when my great, great grandfather brought the first settlers to the valley, one of the burros refused to go on, and they discovered a statue of Our Lady of Guadalupe at the site, so they began their settlement in that area and built a church to honor her. In another community, one of my great grandfathers donated land to the Catholic Church so that a church and a cemetery could be built. I was told that another ancestor would spend time by the river praying and reading the Scriptures. Looking back, I am thankful for their faithfulness.

In my teens, I slowly began to drift away from the Church by not receiving Communion and eventually not attending Mass at all. I always seemed to find an excuse for not going. I did manage to go to Christmas Midnight Mass and Easter, along with all the other “C&E Christians.” After high school, I entered the United States Navy in November of 1971, and my church attendance eroded even more, but I always felt that God was somehow with me. I do remember going to a Catholic Church once, when I was stationed in Hawaii, and I felt God’s presence and experienced the beauty of the Mass with the local people. But I never went to Confession or Communion. At this time, my older brother was getting involved with a United Pentecostal Church (UPC), and I saw a change in his life. He would talk to us about God whenever we were around him.

While in the Navy, I had a friend who was with a Christian youth group. He talked to me about giving my heart to God. I remember going to bed that night and talking to the Lord, telling him that I was not ready to give my heart to Him. I felt that doing so would make me “miss out on life” at the time, but my plan was that, at some point later on, when I was ready, I would wholeheartedly give my life to God.

Getting into Pentecostal Ministry

When I was discharged from the Navy, in the fall of 1975, I attended college at Adams State in Alamosa, CO, but didn’t attend Mass. By this time, my brother, Tom, had moved to Denver and had invited me to a revival at a new UPC church that he and his wife were helping to start. I drove up to visit a service there and was taken with the music and emotional preaching. In the spring of 1976, having finished my college fall semester, I moved to Denver, where I got involved with the UPC. The services had music and a lot of emotion, and since I was somewhat of an emotional person, I was drawn to them.

I had an experience with the Holy Spirit and felt that God was real. I wanted more of Him. Remembering my prayer in Hawaii, this time felt similar. I wanted to sell out completely to God. The UPC preached a “One God” message and that baptism had to be performed using the phrase “in Jesus’ name.” From what I could see with my limited Bible knowledge and church background, I felt they were preaching the truth. I earnestly began to study the Bible and the Oneness doctrine, trying very hard to justify to myself that what I was being taught was the truth. Prayer became a big part of my life, and I became active for the congregation, knocking on doors and inviting people to church.

After a couple of years, I felt a call to preach, and I approached my pastor about going to Bible school, but he felt it was better for me to sit under his leadership and learn from him. I was soon getting invitations to preach at some of the local churches.

Our denomination held a camp meeting once a year, usually in the mountains close to Denver. The tradition behind this meeting dated back to the time when the various Pentecostal organizations would meet in the summer to have fellowship and discuss administrative matters.

It was at one of these camp meetings, in July of 1978, that I met my wife, Susanne, who was from Albuquerque, NM and was a recent convert to Pentecostalism. Her whole family was Catholic, and her father’s favorite saint was St. Ann, so all eight of his girls had an Ann in their names. Susanne was in Craig, Colorado, helping her sister with her children, when she joined the Pentecostal Church. I had an opportunity to preach at her church, and there was an instant connection. Within six months, we were married.

We were married on January 1st of 1979 because we wanted to start the year together. Looking back, I can certainly say that bringing us together was by the hand of God. She has been a wonderful partner in this journey of life that we share. We had been in Denver for about a month and half when we took on pastoring a Home Missions church, with about eight individuals, in Walsenburg, Colorado. It was a struggle financially and spiritually. Since it was difficult to find employment, we literally prayed for our food, rent, and gas money, and God always supplied.

I remember going to a community church fellowship, where all the churches had been invited to participate. I was asked to be the master of ceremonies. The local Catholic priest was invited to speak, and I remember him speaking about the division in the Church in general, and how Protestants kept building new walls to divide the Christian community. It didn’t go over well with the attendees, but it left an indelible mark in my memory. But it was only later that I came to realize just how many new church organizations had sprung up over doctrinal and other issues.

While working with this Home Missions church, I studied all I could about our church’s beliefs. One study that I enjoyed immensely, was on the Tabernacle in the wilderness, and how God instructed Moses to build an Ark that would contain the two tablets of stone with the Ten Commandments, the pot containing the manna from heaven, and Aaron’s rod. To house the Ark and to initiate the worship of the one true God, the Israelites were to build a tabernacle that contained a Holy of Holies, where the Ark was kept. Instructions were given as to how the Levitical priests would perform their duties and minister to the people and how the High Priest would enter the Holy of Holies to make atonement for the people. Eventually this type of worship was transferred over to Solomon’s temple. My study of the Tabernacle would eventually help me to better understand the Catholic Church.

Continuing in Ministry

After about a year and a half, we returned to Denver and our home church, where I assisted the pastor and got involved with the Spanish language ministry. We were in church literally all the time. There was Sunday morning service, Sunday night service, Tuesday night Spanish service, Wednesday night midweek service, Thursday night prayer, Saturday morning visitation and Saturday night Spanish service. The Spanish-speaking folk were a wonderful group of people, and we experienced some powerful services.

It was during this time that my daughter, Kristina, and son, Michael, were born. I was ordained into the UPC at a church camp meeting in the summer of 1984 and continued to minister in the Spanish speaking church and would preach for outside groups whenever invited. We had some (as they say in Pentecostal circles) “mighty moves of God,” and there were times when we had awesome deliverance services. We were even involved in a Spanish language radio ministry, called “El Camino de Amor.” In 1985, we were told about a church in Alamosa, Colorado that had been started, but the pastor had left. Leaving our home church, the Spanish church and all our friends to pursue that opportunity was indeed difficult, but I felt that we needed to move on from that comfortable situation.

For an entire year, we traveled every weekend from our home in Aurora, Colorado about 250 miles to minister to a small group of people in that assembly. Some of the congregation were former members of a Oneness Apostolic organization that had closed their church. We also had a wonderful opportunity to spend nearly every weekend with my parents, who lived about 30 miles from our new church assignment. However, the traveling back and forth eventually took its toll on me, and we decided to move back to Denver and start a UPC church in one of the suburbs where we lived and worked. Unfortunately, the organization thought it best for us not to start another church, and I began to question my future in the organization. In 1987, we decided to leave the UPC and take some time to think about our journey.

A friend of mine told me about a Oneness Apostolic family church in Denver and arranged for me to speak there. The elder who had started the church requested that I pastor it, and in 1990 I was elected pastor. The congregation had a nice building with a parsonage, whose basement was used for Sunday School. The church had never really participated in communion services, so I took the opportunity to introduce them to the Lord’s Supper. When I lifted up the bread to mention the words of the Lord over the bread, I felt a supernatural touch on my head and shoulders, and later on in life I would realize how sacred that moment was.

I remember talking to one of the ministers about how, in the Apostolic church, there was no progression of faith for members. It made me think about the seven sacraments of the Catholic Church and how one must prepare for each of them.

After pastoring a couple of years there, I felt that I had done enough, and resigned. We attended an Assembly of God church for a time. They had an early morning prayer time that I enjoyed. We soon left the Assembly of God, and since the Oneness doctrine that we were involved in was unique and different from mainstream Christianity, we started a Non-denominational church named Christ Church in August of 1993. Our intent was to minister to folks that were coming out of the Oneness organizations and had nowhere to go. We found an office complex where there were other churches that had rented space, and we were fortunate to meet a gentleman by the name of Mark, who owned the building. He was very kind and never raised our rates. I found out about a couple of other churches that were Oneness Apostolic, and we would get together with them for camp meetings and fellowship.

A friend of mine hosted a live television show in the morning, where he would pray for people on the air, and there were times when he was not available, so he would ask me to sit in for him. I really enjoyed praying for the callers’ needs. As a result, we were able to start a half hour program that would broadcast at five in the morning. Needless to say, we did not get much of an audience, and it didn’t last long, but it was an experience.

 We had a great group of people, but after a number of years, I began to question the validity and futility of pastoring while also working a full time job. The fatigue finally got to me. We closed our church in 2007 and began to attend a large Vineyard church that was near our home, with lively music and positive sermons. My time in the Navy had provided me with a background in computers that opened opportunities for me in computer operations and software engineering, so I always had a career and an income. I worked for various government entities and finally started working for the Federal Government, retiring after thirty years of service.

Moving and Church Shopping

In 2009, my wife and I moved to Indianapolis when my job was transferred there. While in Indianapolis, we visited a number of churches — Reformed, Mennonite, Methodist, and a Pentecostal Assemblies of the World (PAW) — but we finally settled into a megachurch that was part of the Reformed movement. They had three morning services: one for the more traditional folks, that had hymns and a choir, while the other two were more rock and roll oriented.

 We attended the early morning traditional service so we could hear the choir and sing the hymns. We were gone a lot on weekends, so we weren’t there all the time, but the pastor there took a paid sabbatical, then eventually left. From what I heard, some members of the congregation were not too happy with him, anyway. As a Protestant minister, you are evaluated on your ability to preach a good sermon, and if you don’t connect with the people, you can find yourself looking for another job.

Turning Towards Catholicism

While living in Indiana, we took a cruise to Europe, visiting Barcelona, Rome, Athens, Istanbul, Ephesus and Malta. Seeing the Vatican and St. Peter’s Basilica was amazing. Walking into that great building and viewing all of the history before us was so captivating that it made me want to become a Catholic right then and there.

In 2012, when I retired, Susanne and I made our way back to Colorado and settled in Pueblo West. We began to attend an Assembly of God church, but searching for something more, we moved to a Church of God fellowship — again finding a great group of people, beautiful music and worship. But still, something was missing in my life.

Years earlier, my wife and I had attended some funerals of our family members who were Catholic, and every time we would leave the church, we both felt something special. One weekend, we took a drive to the Santuario de Chimayo, a Catholic shrine in Chimayo, New Mexico. It is one of the most popular pilgrimage places in the United States. When we entered the chapel, we could feel the beautiful presence of the Holy Spirit. Many miracles have been attributed to the Lord through the Santuario. The visit left a huge impression on us.

Every time we went to a Catholic Mass, I was envious of the people receiving Communion. I began to study about the Catholic Church, and soon I could no longer attend services at the Protestant church we had chosen. Poor Susanne! She loved the worship there, but I could not bring myself to attend. I explained to her what was taking place in my life, and I think she must have thought to herself, “What is going on with this guy?”

Finally, I asked her to go to Mass with me at a Catholic church, and she accepted. When we went to Mass, I was soaking it all in. From the moment the priest entered the sanctuary until the last benediction was given, I was seeing things in a different light than when I was younger and attending Mass just to satisfy my mom. By this point in my journey, every part of the Mass had taken on a new meaning for me.

 I became fascinated with how the early Church formed after the Apostles passed away, and who took over the mantle of St. Peter and kept it moving forward. Reading about the early Church fathers, like Clement, Polycarp, Ignatius and others, made me realize how God used holy men to develop a Church that would last two thousand years. Reading about the heresies that were often unfortunately created by clergy members who were Catholic, and how the Church had to call councils to discuss these various new doctrines and determine what was true and what was false, led me to believe that these men of God were led by the Holy Spirit. Some of these heresies still exist in some form today, but the Church has stood strong against them all.

What I loved about the early Church is that it was not just one man coming up with a doctrine for the Church, but it was a collaborative effort, with bishops from the various regions getting together to discuss and approve the teachings according to what had been handed down to them from the beginning. Also, seeing that the early Church was liturgical in practice, and that we got the Bible from the Catholic Church, completely changed the way I thought about Christianity.

For years, I could not let go of the Oneness doctrine and struggled to fit in, because in the UPC we didn’t believe in the Trinity, while nearly every Christian denomination outside of the Oneness movement does believe in the Trinity. I began to immerse myself in studying the doctrine of the Trinity, and the more I studied, the more sense it made to me. After reading about the early Church, how they believed in the Trinity, and the importance of the Eucharist, I was ready to make the change. I earnestly prayed that God would lead me and Susanne to the True Church. I remember reading about a professor named Mark McNeil, who was a former UPC minister, and how he managed to study his way into the Catholic Church. I found his story through the Coming Home Network, an apostolate formed by a former Presbyterian minister, Marcus Grodi, who had converted to the Catholic faith. His testimony and that of others helped me to see that it was possible to return to the Church. At this point, Susanne was not quite on board yet, although she would attend Mass with me at various churches.

Returning to the Church

I got in touch with Ken Hensley, a former Baptist minister who is in charge of Pastoral Care at the Coming Home Network (CHNetwork). We talked on the phone, and I signed up to receive their monthly newsletter describing different issues and conversions. Honestly, these testimonies were such an inspiration to me that I couldn’t help but want to become a Catholic. Ken arranged for a Zoom meeting with folks from different parts of the country. Susanne was impressed with the folks on the meeting. We planned on going to one of the retreats sponsored by CHNetwork, but COVID struck. We then started doing daily devotionals at home, using materials from the Catholic Church.

During this time, I prayed for my wife, knowing that this transition was difficult for her. As the pandemic began to wind down, we still had not attended any church, but just continued to do our private devotionals. I was aching to get back to Mass, but I knew that Susanne needed time to process everything.

One night, we were at dinner with one of Susanne’s sisters, who asked where we were going to church. Susanne replied by saying that we were interested in going back to the Catholic Church. It took everyone by surprise — including me — but I realized that she had been trying to be open to the Lord, and He was showing her the way back.

I immediately signed us up for the CHNetwork retreat that was being held in Milford, Ohio in March of 2023. We made a road trip of it and were graciously greeted by some wonderful people at the retreat. Meeting people that were on the same journey as us, along with others who were a few steps ahead of us along the journey, was inspiring. Protestant ministers who had given up their livelihood by leaving their pastorates and joining the Catholic Church made us realize how difficult it was for them, but it was encouraging to us to see that they were willing to do it because of their love for God and the Church. We enjoyed visiting with them and sharing our story. Susanne and I were a bit concerned about Confession, but we had a very wonderful Monsignor, Jeffrey Steenson, who helped navigate that process for us. We were prayed for by the group before our confession, and the next day, after a lapse of almost fifty years, Susanne and I had the wonderful opportunity to receive the Eucharist. I can’t describe the feeling that I had when I realized that I was actually taking the precious Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. We both looked at each other and shed tears of joy. We felt that we were honoring the words of Jesus in John 6:53–58.

That evening, we attended our first Eucharistic Adoration, and it was beautiful. Sitting in silence and meditating on the Eucharist before us provided us a new perspective on being Catholic. The retreat was informative, and just listening to the walks of faith that people were taking was exciting. We made a lot of new friends, people who will always be a part of our lives. Heading home from Milford, Ohio, we located our parish church, St. Paul the Apostle, in Pueblo West. We began attending there and had our marriage blessed by our priest, Father Edmundo Valera.

Leaving the Pentecostal/Apostolic organizations was difficult because of the wonderful people we came to know, love, and appreciate. On the other hand, there is no more searching for truth, no more looking for a church, no more debating various doctrines, no more wandering in the wilderness of confusing beliefs. I am thankful for the opportunity to learn more about the history of the Church — the one that was started by our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

I am grateful for my beautiful wife and best friend, Susanne. She is my true north and is at my side in this journey. Our daughter and son were brought up in the Oneness movement but are no longer associated with it. Our prayers are that, one day, our son and daughter, along with their spouses, our grandchildren, family and friends, will come to understand that our move to the Catholic Church was done with much prayer, study, research, meditation, and sincerity. I feel that we have joined the ranks of a lot of other ministers and lay people who felt the tug of the Holy Spirit and studied their way into the Church. I know that it will be difficult for some of our family and friends to accept our journey. But it is our journey, and we will continue to explore the depth and richness of our Catholic faith.

The post A Oneness Pentecostal Minister Becomes Catholic appeared first on The Coming Home Network.

The post Sharon Ripley – Former African Methodist Episcopal appeared first on The Coming Home Network.

The post Jon Sorensen – Catholic revert, former atheist appeared first on The Coming Home Network.

A Good Beginning

I was a cradle Catholic whose cradle was well insulated with love and devotion to the faith. My family went to Mass every Sunday and on every holy day of obligation. Like many Catholics, then and today, the Lamberts had a preferred pew. Ours was in the center section, second pew from the altar. I can still recall my dad’s tendency to lean forward and back every three seconds. I am convinced he was unaware of this habit, or of me mimicking it.

I loved and looked up to both of my parents, especially to their unwavering sense of service, evident in their willingness to help others. They were both very involved in the parish and would often invite the sisters who ran the church’s school, along with the priests, to our home whenever we had a significant gathering. It was in that grade school and church, St Joseph’s, in Round Lake, Illinois, that my siblings and I received our grammar school education and celebrated the sacraments. A generation later, my own two children followed suit, attending the same grade school, and receiving their sacraments within the same parish church.

My Catholic education continued at Carmel High School in Mundelein, Illinois. It was here that two life-changing events occurred during my junior year. The first was meeting my wife, Debbie. The second involved me taking an initial, yet deep, interest in my faith. I would like to say that this interest sprang forth from an inward Christ-like awakening, but in reality, about 90 percent of my motivation was fueled by intellectual curiosity inspired by the teaching of a Carmelite priest named Father Tom Drolet. I found his religion classes fascinating and couldn’t get enough. His method of teaching Scripture and theology was both rational and relatable. Who wrote what gospel, and when? Who was the audience for each gospel? How does Judaism connect with Christianity?

From those classes on, I became hooked on the academics of Christianity. To this day, I can fondly recall Fr. Tom’s enthusiasm in explaining what “brood of vipers” meant in the context of Jesus’ criticism of the Pharisees. Imagine my excitement when I learned that Fr. Tom would also be teaching religion my senior year.

Learning from My Mistakes

I lived at home during my initial college years so that I could save money and keep the job I had. But more importantly, I remained local so that I could stay close to Debbie. It was during either my freshman or sophomore year that I began to develop many questions about Catholic teachings, which led to all sorts of problems, including internal conflict regarding my Catholic faith. These issues became so numerous and contentious that I began to wonder why I still professed to be a Catholic, and it was at this crossroads that I made a crucial error.

During this time, I began taking bass guitar lessons from Bill, a guy who was a few years older than me. At some point, Bill invited me to play softball on his Nondenominational Evangelical church team. I accepted. As I got to know more of the guys on the team, I saw in them a particular goodness. And, unlike most Catholics I had known, they had a real willingness to talk about faith and the Bible, both of which I found appealing.

So rather than going to a Catholic spiritual director with my mounting questions of faith, I went to these men and their families, to their Bible studies, and to individual meetings with their pastor. Of course, they had answers to my questions. I found this small Evangelical community to be staunchly anti-Catholic and eager to have a chance to save me from the clutches of what they perceived to be an evil institution. Even more impressive to me at the time was how they used Scripture to back up all of their answers.

As the parable of the sower of seeds, initially, I sprang up like the heartiest of plants. I had seemingly not only found answers to my questions, but also real, authentic faith! Thankfully, in this instance, I was like the seed thrown on rocky ground, and those Evangelical roots began to wither. After two years, I came to discover numerous ambiguities and flaws in their answers and assertions.

Two years after my subtle schism from the Church, I scheduled a meeting with a priest at my parish to discuss my long-held questions and “problems” with the Church. As grace would have it, the priest I was scheduled to meet with was a new associate pastor for my parish. His name was… Fr. Tom Drolet!

I walked out of that meeting feeling like a giant. Having received the grace of the sacrament of Confession certainly played a big part in that feeling, but having my questions answered with such depth, logic, and love undoubtedly contributed, as well. A lesson for all Catholics: if you have questions about your faith, be sure to go first to a Catholic source to discuss them.

Returning to the Eucharist

I remember my first Mass after two years of separation. It was a Sunday. As I passed through the nave of St. Joseph’s Church, there, second row center, sat my parents. The walk down the aisle was surreal. I was home. But there was one more emotional, familial pardon that I needed to receive to solidify my return. I quietly entered the pew behind my parents, leaned over, placed a hand on my dad’s shoulder and whispered in his ear, “I’m back.” He turned slowly, put his hand on mine, and said, “I was just praying, at this very moment, for you to return to the Church.” (Insert tears of joy here!)

Approximately two years after that meeting, it was, once again, Fr. Tom Drolet who witnessed Debbie and me celebrate the Sacrament of Matrimony.

As I look back, I understand that my Evangelical friends had the best of intentions. They taught me things that are still important to my faith today, namely love for the Bible and the importance of having a personal relationship with Christ. Suffice it to say that my two-year detour has ultimately served me well, especially when I have occasion to interact with, or minister to, any of our Protestant brothers and sisters.

Still, the experience outside the Church had residual negative effects on me that lasted several years. Even though I was — with great excitement — back in the Church, I found many of the hardline anti-Catholic Evangelical positions I had gathered during my absence difficult to shed. The importance and reverence due to Our Lady was one of them; it’s something I continually ask her forgiveness for. The other was clinging to the Protestant view of the symbolic nature of the Eucharist. In fact, the thing that, more than anything, impelled me to write the book of my story was the discovery of my children’s communion banners.

As mentioned, my children attended the same Catholic grade school I did. Being three years apart in age, they shared pretty much the same practices in preparing to celebrate their first Communion. Part of the catechesis involved parental participation to create a first Communion banner. The content was determined by the family, with the only stipulation being that it relate to the Sacrament of Holy Communion. These banners were placed on the outside of the pew during the First Communion Mass, reserving that pew for the new communicant’s family.

It was presumed that the parents would have a conversation with their child about the meaning and purpose of the sacrament. While my wife took the lead on the actual artwork of the banner, I oversaw the language, as well as the subsequent sacramental conversation with our kids. Both of my children’s banners contained the same two words, my creation: “I Remember.”

While, on the surface, there isn’t anything wrong with remembering the Passion of Our Lord, beginning with the Last Supper. However, those words — my words — were intentional; they focused on the memory, because at the time, that was the extent of my belief regarding the Eucharist. There had been zero thought given to putting in childlike terms anything about Christ’s Real Presence in the Eucharist, according to our doctrine. I purposely held back from my sweet, beautiful, innocent children that, when they receive their first holy Communion, and every time thereafter, they receive a physical part of our saving Lord. Absent as well was any explanation of the profound grace they would be receiving. For me, at that time, it was a symbol of a greater reality, but not a greater reality unto itself.

I stumbled on those banners, about a year ago, in a dresser drawer. I remember clutching those two banners in my hands — one navy blue, the other teal — and crying. I could not believe what I had done. With much thanks, and by God’s grace, somewhere during my spiritual journey, I began reading the likes of Catholic apologist Scott Hahn. These writings instilled within me a herculean desire to understand more fully the mystery of the Eucharist as more than a mere remembrance. And thanks be to God, my understanding of the Eucharist has indeed changed. To say that I fully understand and accept all the teaching of the Church regarding it would be an understatement. Like a redeemed Thomas, I kneel before his Eucharistic Presence and declare, “My Lord and my God.”

Recently, the Church called us to enter into a Eucharistic Revival — the very thing that happened in my own life. I had walked away from the Catholic Church and spent my early adulthood believing the Eucharist to be a mere symbol. I know many cradle Catholics have, sadly, done the same. My hope, my prayer, and my mission, is that my personal story serve as an encouragement to them. I pray in earnest that non-believers in the Real Presence would take the opportunity to look at the Eucharist with new eyes, as I did, and be open to having God transform them through their encounter with him in the Blessed Sacrament.

Coming back to the Eucharist has changed my life in ways I could never imagine. This is the power of his love and the reality of the Eucharist. If you are away from this truth, come back… our Lord awaits you with untold love and abounding grace.

The post Rediscovering the Eucharist appeared first on The Coming Home Network.

I was born in 1961 and raised in a rural area. Dad was an atheist, but not the militant type. He was also a World War II veteran, a real no-nonsense type of fellow. Even without religion, he had high moral values. You didn’t lie; you didn’t cheat; you didn’t steal. You worked hard to earn what you had. He taught me how to shoot guns, catch fish and grow food in a garden before I turned 10. Mom was Catholic. She believed, but was not overly devout. She taught us kids our bedtime prayers and we went to weekly catechism classes.

Dad’s parents were religious. His father’s ancestors were German Evangelical Lutherans, coming from what is today known as Alsace and Saarland, the region along the border of Germany and France near Luxembourg. My Dad’s mother was Methodist, with ancestors from the British Isles, while on Mom’s side, Grandpa was from a long line of Catholics. He came from the Flemish-speaking region of Belgium in 1924, at age 16.

Grandma was from a long line of German Lutherans. When she was young, German was still spoken in their church in central Illinois, and the Bibles and hymnals were in Low German. Grandma converted to marry Grandpa, and as some converts do, she became a very zealous and devout Catholic.

Religion was never debated at family gatherings. Considering my ancestors’ diverse backgrounds, this made sense. I was taught at an early age that other denominations were also Christian  , and we shouldn’t consider ourselves better because we were Catholic. This was probably a way to keep peace. However, I misinterpreted this as meaning that all denominations were basically the same, and that it didn’t really matter where you attended. Sort of like the different states in the USA: you could live in Illinois or Missouri and still be American. You could be Lutheran or Methodist and still be a Christian. Changing denominations, to me, was no different than moving from Iowa to Kentucky. Many years later, I learned that I had stumbled into an theological ideology known as Indifferentism. I sincerely believed that all Christian denominations were essentially the same, and it didn’t matter where you chose to go to church.

One example of the religious attitude in my family happened when I made my first communion in 1969. My Lutheran Grandpa and Methodist Grandma (Dad’s side of the family) gave me a Catholic bible. They respected that my Mom was raising her children Catholic. They apparently knew the difference, because they bought a Bible that said Catholic Edition right on it. They even signed it inside the front on the presentation page.

I became an altar boy — that was great! I got to light the candles before mass! Back then, we still had an altar rail, and people received communion on the tongue while kneeling at the altar rail.

One of my tasks was to follow the priest along the rail and hold a gold paten (looks like a saucer with a handle) under each chin so the Eucharist would not accidentally land on the floor. This was very important, and I took the job seriously.

When I made my first communion, I was given a rosary and a Bible and a Miraculous Medal. Almost immediately, I started to read something from the Bible each evening (a habit that, by the grace of God, I never gave up). I still have that old Bible. It is now the Duct Tape Version due to various repairs. Actually, it is a Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition. This indeed shows the respect my Methodist Grandma had for my Catholic faith.

I didn’t really know much about the rosary or the medal. I considered them to be Catholic jewelry, and they went into a desk drawer. I was almost 40 years old before I learned there were mysteries to be meditated on when using the rosary. Perhaps I was told about these when I was young, but didn’t pay attention. I don’t remember ever hearing anyone praying a rosary when I was young.

There was no internet in the 1960s and 70s. My parents did, however, subscribe to several magazines. My favorites were Popular Mechanics, Reader’s Digest, and National Geographic. Through the pages of the latter, I traveled around the world and saw many religions. I recall seeing a boy about my age who was attending the wedding of his older sister. They were dressed very differently from my family. Their food and culture were different; their religion, too, was very different. This gave me the impression that my religion was just another one of many. I knew that the reason that boy was Hindu or Buddhist or whatever was because of his family. I knew I was Catholic because Mom and her family were Catholic. Neither that boy nor I had chosen our religion.

In college, I was busy with study and part time jobs (plus dorm parties and dating girls). I didn’t reject religion, but I did drift away from regular practice. At college, there were atheists who were very anti-religion, and vocal about it. One was a history professor whose class I needed to pass. But there was also a group on campus called BASIC (Brothers and Sisters in Christ). They were non-denominational, and although they were led by two local Pentecostal preachers, they did not promote any one denomination over another. We met once a week to sing, pray, study the Bible, and talk about life. I was one of two Catholics in the group. That gave me the impression, once again, that the Catholic Church was just one of many equal denominations.

My history professor blamed religion for all sorts of evil that had been done throughout the ages. When students tried to defend religion, the professor made them look silly by tossing out lots of historical events. Soon everyone just shut up and learned what was required to pass the tests. Meanwhile, in the BASIC group, we started listening to tapes of debates between a fellow named Josh McDowell and college professors on various campuses. Josh had answers that held up to the attacks of the atheists. I had never heard of Christian apologetics before, but Mr. McDowell impressed me so much that I went to the local Christian bookstore and bought a copy of his book, Evidence That Demands a Verdict. In my small home town, there had been no bookstores, just a magazine stand at the drug store. Now I was in a city, and bookstores were an amazing wonderland to me. There was even a Christian bookstore, with shelves for different topics and denominations. Every denomination I had ever heard of had a space. This reinforced my impression that I was a member of a small branch of Christianity.

While in college, I had also discovered Christian radio and listened to it regularly. It was very Evangelical, although I didn’t know it at the time. In fact, I wasn’t even familiar with the word “Evangelical.” But I did like to listen to the Bible study programs. I never heard the words “sacrament” or “Eucharist” on that station, but I didn’t think to question that; what they did talk about was good.

While in college, I met a young lady who would later become my wife. She was from a Baptist background, and we got married within a year of my college graduation. Her mother had some very strange misconceptions about the Catholic Church. Because of these notions, my future wife was very uncomfortable when I took her to Mass. I found her church to be different than mine, but it didn’t bother me. I became a Baptist, and we raised our children in the Baptist church.

I was busy trying to get my career going, having studied electronics and working in the field of automation. Electronics had been a continually changing field during my lifetime, so I was constantly learning in order to stay competent in my chosen field. Plus, I was raising a family. I didn’t have time to investigate the claims of various denominations. The folks at the Baptist church were friendly, trusting in Jesus for salvation, singing hymns, and studying the Bible; that was good enough for me.

Baptist to Searcher

Work brought us to a large metropolitan area. We started attending a Southern Baptist Church (SBC). I later learned that the SBC was very conservative, even considered fundamentalist by some. However, we were not in the South, and our church felt more Evangelical. We made friends and were very active. I loved my Southern Baptist church and our friends there, and I liked the music and the Bible studies. At first, there was no direct criticism of the Catholic Church there, but in our final few years there, that changed. When somebody would repeat a misconception about the Catholic Church during a Bible study class, I would correct him. I would tell him that I had been Catholic for 20 years and was never taught that. That would be the end of it. Secondhand information can’t really argue with direct experience. Most would accept my testimony about my experience, and the topic would change. But such occurrences were very rare. We raised our children in the SBC.

Along the way I bought into the idea that a personal relationship with Jesus was all that really mattered. This fit in with my belief that all churches are basically the same, and where you attended on Sunday didn’t matter.

We loved our Baptist faith in the 80s. But halfway through the 90s, things began to change. There was a battle at the national level between conservatives and moderates. Those on one side called it the Conservative Resurgence; those on the other side called it the Fundamentalist Takeover. Our local church was growing, attracting some folks who were very much into the controversies of the time, especially the controversies that drew the attention of the Christian talk radio programs. Some of these new folks WERE anti-Catholic. In fact, some were against any group that wasn’t like our group, or what they thought our group should be like. Our church started to drift from Evangelical to Fundamentalist. Conservatives at the national level claimed they were going to take back the SBC from the Liberals. They won elections for important leadership positions.

I would defend other denominations, such as Lutherans or Methodists, as being Christian. This was my sincere belief. I also defended Catholics as being Christians. This put me in the “liberal” camp. This became an issue with our community outreach. I had been active in outreach, knocking on doors, telling people about Jesus and the Gospel, and inviting them to our church. When we talked to someone in another denomination, I was always happy to meet another Christian. We would have a nice visit.

This changed. We were told that Lutherans had it all wrong because they baptized babies, so we need to save the Lutherans. Other denominations had problems, too, and we needed to save them. I didn’t think we should try to “convert” Christians from other denominations; they were already Christians. This eventually got me removed from the outreach team.

Evolution became a big issue. The people in power in our denomination (and increasingly in our local church) thought this was a crucial issue. They thought evolution was just an attempt to prove that God didn’t exist. I had no problem with whatever process God used to create bodies for Adam and Eve, and I believed that He also created their souls. Some members were labeling me a troublemaker with very wrong ideas. We had classes that focused on how to “prove” evolution never happened. A few times in these classes I pointed out blatant errors in their logic.

Baptists knew the Bible; that impressed me. They could quote verses from memory. As a Baptist, I memorized about 35 verses. But I also read through the entire Bible. Over the years I read through six different versions. I slowly realized that my 35 verses, while good, weren’t the whole picture. I also caught on to the technique of “proof texting”: unconnected verses taken out of context and strung together to prove a point. Sometimes the verses really did lead to the desired conclusion, but often the conclusion was reached first, then verses were found to back it up. It reminded me of the ransom notes in old movies that were made by cutting out words from magazines and newspapers, then pasting them together.

The Rapture started getting a lot of attention during that time because of the series of Left Behind books that started coming out in 1995. Almost everybody at our church was reading them and talking about them. But it didn’t take long for me to recognize the very anti-Catholic bias of the books, and I did not finish the series. My friends, not having my Catholic background, didn’t seem to notice the obvious references to the Church in the books.

We had a communion service once a month on a Sunday evening, which I took very seriously. Not everyone attended, and that bothered me. Bible verses about the Last Supper were read, and we had small crackers and grape juice. After one such service, I was making my way around the seats to the next aisle to greet people and shake some hands. As I approached my friends, I saw one of the crackers had fallen on the floor and had been stepped on. We had carpeting, so it was not only crushed, but also mashed into the carpet. The old altar boy in me suddenly came to life. I was horrified and changed direction toward the remains of the cracker. I was wondering how we would recover all the pieces. Then I looked around and noticed that nobody cared. It would be vacuumed up later. I suddenly realized that we did not have a tabernacle! The leftover crackers and grape juice were headed for the trash.

Now, Baptists love Jesus; they would never dump Him into the trash or step on Him on the floor. I then understood that Baptists did not really believe this was Jesus. To them, IT WAS JUST A SYMBOL! So all Christian denominations were NOT the same. But I soon filed it away in my memory and continued on as a good Baptist. Several years later, this event would become very meaningful to me.

As our children grew into adults, they stopped attending. My wife stopped attending. They no longer felt comfortable with that Baptist congregation. I could see that I was not going to change the direction of the entire denomination. The movement toward fundamentalism was much bigger than my local church. Reluctantly, I decided it was time to find a new church home. Wanting to attend church as a family was a part of that decision. So I became a searcher.

From Searching for a Church to Searching for Truth

In my search for a new church home, the first stop was the local Assemblies of God congregation, since I had met some nice people years before who went there. I liked the preaching and the music and the people, and after a few visits they started talking about me joining. That is when I was told I needed to speak in tongues to be a member. I had been a Christian all my life and had never had that experience, even though I was OK with others who had such a gift. They told me that I just had to do it once, and I was in. By then, we had the internet, so I looked up information on the Assemblies of God and on speaking in tongues and decided I didn’t belong there, because I didn’t have that spiritual gift.

A lot of information can be found quickly on the internet; I didn’t actually need to attend each prospective congregation. So my search went online. This new method allowed me to narrow the search before I started visiting churches. Reading about denominations and their histories really opened my eyes. As it turns out, I was ignorant about the history of Protestantism and denominations. I knew how Catholics and Baptists worshipped and prayed, but that was the extent of it.

One of the first things that surprised me was that there are more Catholics than all of the Protestant denominations combined. Of course, mere numbers do not equal truth. I also noticed the history of Protestant denominations splitting to form even more denominations, destroying the biblical idea of unity.

An acquaintance learned of my search. He was Catholic and sent me an email that had a list of denominations, the year they were founded and by whom. At the end of the list was the Catholic Church, founded by Jesus. I got angry about that email and told him not to send any more. I told him that I had just left a denomination that believed they were right and everybody else was wrong. I wasn’t looking to join another group like that.

That email reminded me of the experience I had years ago when the cracker for the Lord’s Supper had landed on the floor and been stepped on. I recalled again how that made me realize that the Catholics and the Baptists believed very different things about communion. An internet search soon made me realize that the Catholics stood apart in their view of the Eucharist. This unique claim, and the fact that the Catholic Church had been around far longer than any of the Protestant denominations I was learning about, made me realize that I needed to know if the claims of the Catholic Church were true. If not, then I could continue my search. I went from searching for a church home to searching to know if the Catholic Church was the true, original Church. This new search was actually to prove that the Catholic Church was just another denomination. In other words, I wanted to prove what I had believed my entire life. Then I could go back to searching for my future church home.

Back to the Catholic Church

The Eucharist set the Catholic Church apart from all others in my eyes. If the Catholic Church was correct about the Eucharist being the Body of Christ, then I needed to be Catholic. If not, then my search would continue.

Bible verses about this were interpreted in different ways by different denominations.

Deciding on my own interpretation would not be wise. Deciding for myself which denomination’s interpretation I preferred would be no different. Those who were closest to the Apostles, who were either taught by the Apostles or by their students, or the students of their students, would logically have the best interpretation. After much reading, I came to the conclusion that the early Church really believed what the Catholic Church today teaches about the Eucharist. This alone would be reason enough to return to the Catholic Church. However, God is very good. He graciously gave me three reasons while I was looking for just one.

The second thing that convinced me was the history of the Bible. I had never wondered about it. I had just always accepted it as the Word of God. My Southern Baptist denomination had been founded on the Bible, which was their sole authority. On the other hand, I learned that the Catholic Church had decided which early Christian writings would become part of the New Testament, and that Catholic monks had hand copied the Scriptures century after century. The original copies were no longer extant. Any Christian who rejects the Catholic Church is also basing his beliefs on a book that he got from the Catholic Church. How can you trust a book when you don’t trust the people who provided it to you?

The third thing that convinced me of the truth of the Catholic Church was the Church’s teaching on suffering. The Catholic Church teaches that suffering has meaning. It has value. We can offer it up. It isn’t merely bad luck, a just punishment, or meaningless. The Catechism of the Catholic Church says in paragraph 307 that people can enter into God’s divine plan through their actions, their prayers, and their suffering. Pope St. John Paul II wrote about the Christian meaning of suffering in Salvifici Doloris. The Church teaches that God can use suffering to bring about good. We can join our sufferings to the suffering of Christ and He can use them for good. For the first time in my life, I was reading answers about suffering that made sense and brought hope.

These three — the truth of Eucharist, the history of the Bible, and the Church’s teachings about suffering — all came into focus at the same time. The Eucharist was enough, but God was generous and gave me three good reasons to trust the Church. So in the Spring of 2001, at the age of 40 and after two years of study, I returned to the Catholic Church. A year later, my wife became Catholic — her idea, not mine. One day, when I was getting ready for church, she was also putting on nice clothes. I asked her where she was going. She surprised me by saying she was going to church with me.

Not all of my questions were answered. However, I could now trust that the Catholic Church could provide those answers. I still had questions about Mary. The Church gave her a lot of attention. Some people were very critical of that. Also, I did not understand the Rosary. All the repeated prayers seemed strange to me. Just as the old Catholic part of me had an adverse reaction to seeing the communion cracker crushed on the floor, the old Baptist part of me was having an adverse reaction to the rosary.

In November of 2001, after months of study about Mary and the Rosary, I became a member of the Rosary Confraternity. The Dominican religious order, who are in charge of the Rosary Confraternity, taught me to love Mary and the Rosary. I take my membership in the Confraternity seriously, praying long distance novenas with the Dominicans, reading their educational newsletters, buying books from them and supporting their ministry financially and with prayers. I have given away several hundreds of instructions on how to pray the Rosary and also passing out rosary beads at the bus stop in downtown St. Louis when I worked there.

I write this in 2023, 22 years after returning to the Catholic Church. The Bible study and worship of God that I found in the Baptist church were a great blessing to me and my family. I still consider Baptists brothers and sisters in Christ. However, I have found that returning to the Sacraments, the Eucharist and Confession, has helped me to walk closer to Christ. I have also found much inspiration from the Dominicans and the Benedictines, another religious order. Every five years, I spend a few days on retreat with the Benedictines at St. Meinrad Archabbey in Indiana. While my vocation as a married man is different from their monastic life, there is much to learn from them about walking with our Lord. Life still has trials as a Catholic, but I have not once regretted or doubted my decision to return.

The post Catholic to Baptist and Back appeared first on The Coming Home Network.