Catholic Online Forum

I would like to invite those of you who once drifted away from the Church to share your stories of what, or who, helped you come home.

For those among us who are converts, please share your faith journey as well.

Each of us has a story to tell. Who would like to go first?



Effie

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“The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of Conservatives is to prevent mistakes from being corrected.” –G.K Chesterton

Well, I’ve never been accused of looking before leaping so I’ll go first.

I am a convert rather than a revert. Back in 1958, while home on leave during a tour of active duty with the Marine Corps, I became reacquainted with the cute little neighbor girl, who had grown into a beautiful young woman!

I hadn’t known she was Catholic. When we started dating, the first thing she asked of me was to attend Mass with her.

Now you have to understand that I came from a Midwest, conservative, protestant, virulent anti-Catholic family.

When I told my parents I was going to marry a Catholic, my dad said “If you ever become a Catholic, you will not be welcome in my house!”

Well, the holiness and charm of my bride won him over. Though he never converted, before he and mom died, they attend Mass with us on several occasions.

As the years past, I became more and more active in the Church. I have been a cantor, lector, extraordinary Eucharist minister, parish council member and longtime daily Mass attendant.

Now that I have grown long of tooth, I have slowed down a bit but I still attend an occasional daily Mass and see Sunday and Holy Day Masses not as obligatory so much as opportunities.

And for all this, I have Cheroni, the Retired Nurse, my bride of over 53 years now, to thank!

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In Christ,

Jim B

I will consider your position if stated with firm, well-thought-out, quiet reasoning. Hateful diatribe, ad hominem attacks and shouted rhetoric don't impress.

Jim,
What a beautiful love story! God bless you and your bride.

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Pax et bonum,
Marie

JMJ

I tried once to share the little daily things that made me uneasy, things like silly bumper stickers and sayings and was made to feel foolish by a couple on this forum so I won't be doing that again.

I will say the Rosary several times a week, attending Mass as often as I could and an elderly Monsignor who had no patience for the "rules" for bringing back a stray are what got me back. I made several attempts to return but the church I found was not the church I left; it was full of silliness and hootenanny Masses, communion in hand and dipping the Host in wine by the recipients; it seemed countless prayers were unanswered until I sat down with the Monsignor. Once I did come back I still felt uncomfortable with the "New" Mass and finally rediscovered the TLM which I still regard as my stabilizing reference although I have made my peace with the "New" Mass mainly because it is finding the way back from much of the nonsense of the seventies.

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BobA

Effie,

I started to tell my story but it has never been entirely clear to me exactly why I left for so long but I'll come back to this thread and at least tell you how I came back and how important COL was in that process.

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Valerie Garcia
vals1990@yahoo.com

"Listen, O my son, to the precepts of thy master, and incline the ear of thy heart, and cheerfully receive and faithfully execute the admonitions of thy loving Father, that by the toil of obedience thou mayest return to Him ....." St. Benedict

I was baptized Catholic as a baby but that's pretty much where my religious formation ended. Finally, when I was in my 20s I made my First Communion and was Confirmed.

Unfortunately I grew up during the 70s and my thinking was tainted by feminism. Even though I went to Mass every weekend and belonged to various ministries I did not have a clue what obedience meant or who Jesus was. I thought there should be female priests, contraception and that abortion was OK in some cases. Eventually I stopped going to Mass.

Occasionally I would go back to Mass during Advent or when there was a crisis in my life. However, these reversions would never last long.

As I got older I started wondering how dreary or pathetic a non-religious funeral could be and I began to think about going back to church. I thought about going to different protestant churches in my city but it seemed the liturgical types (Anglican, Lutheran) were missing something (the Real Presence) or they were too over the top emotionally (Pentecostal, Baptist). Other churches seemed too bland or uninspired.

During this time the sex abuse scandals hit the news and I decided I was finished with the Catholic church. But a short time later a series of events occurred that led me to deciding to go to Mass one Sunday.

I contacted the priest shortly after that and he explained what I needed to do to be reconciled with the Church. He was very supportive and non-judgemental.

Around this time I began to struggle with some of the Church teachings (male only ordination, contraception, abortion, homosexuality). I went to my local library to check out the religious books section. The 'catholic' books were atrocious - one book was about a priest that left religious life, got married and joined the Episcopal church. However there were 2 protestant authors that got me on the right track - Corrie ten Boom and Catherine Marshall. After reading those books I knew I needed something more. Somehow I found this forum and got the answers I had been looking for.

I read voraciously during my initial reversion. While I was excited to learn what Catholicism was really about I was also angry. I kept asking - why didn't anyone ever tell me this before? I know I wasn't ready to listen in my younger years but none of this information was ever presented to me either.

It's been over 10 years since my reversion. The honeymoon period is long over and sometimes I miss the heady excitement of constant discovery. That is not to say that I am not learning new things about the faith now though. I've had some difficult experiences the last 10 years and the odd paradox is that while my faith helped me through them, some of these experiences would not have hurt me so bad if I wasn't 'so Catholic'. That's OK though - Catholicism is the Truth and in the end Truth always triumphs over evil.

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Daisy Martin

Ouch, ain't that the truth! "Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life."

Thank you for your inspiring and courageous story, Daisy. God bless you.

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Pax et bonum,
Marie

JMJ

Many years ago, someone named Effie suggested that I should write down parts of my 'story' .... and many years ago, I wrote a lot down. It started like this ...


What's in a name?

Every elk has a name. My name is Squirt. Squirt the Wonder Elk.

It's funny how you can wander through life for years and not even know that you're an elk. You'd think that, at the very least, you'd notice the antlers. But some things are harder to see than others.

It was my big brother who pointed out to me that I have antlers. Well, he's not really my big brother. In fact, we're not even related. At least not through bloodlines.

But he saw something that I didn't. He knew I was an elk. And that I was married to an elk. And that the world is full of elks.

It's not as if I'd never seen an elk before. Watching a herd of elks cross a river is quite an experience. Not that I've ever seen elks cross a single river. I have seen them crossing at the confluence of two rivers, though. I don't remember how big the herd was. Maybe 20.

The adults had no problem crossing, but some of the younger elks would make it part way and then turn back. So, some of the adults kept swimming back and forth trying to get the younger ones to complete the swim across to the other side. Back and forth over and over again. They didn't stop until the last young elk made it all the way across.

When I told my big brother about watching elks, he started to refer to us as elks. Sometimes you're the elk who is afraid to make the crossing. Sometimes you're the elk that comes back to help. Either way, elks stick together and help each other.

There are a lot of elks in my life. My husband is one. My big brother is one. Fr P is one.

Each elk has a story. One that is interwoven with many other stories. This is the story of Squirt the Wonder Elk. Squirt is just a nickname that my big brother uses, seeing as he is older and wiser than I. Well, definitely older. Maybe wiser. He was wise enough to introduce his little sister to the 4th psalm: "upon your beds ponder in silence." This was long before she noticed something else she had been oblivious to before: God, the Great Silent One.

Like many elks, Squirt spends a lot of time pondering. Sometimes happily, sometimes reluctantly. Maybe my full name should be Squirt the Ponder Elk, but that doesn't have much of a ring to it. So instead, it's Squirt the Wonder Elk.

A half an inch of water

Swimming to the other shore ain't easy for some elks. Even stepping into the water at all can seem to be more than you can handle.

As John Prine says in one of his songs: "It's a half an inch of water and you think you're gonna drown."

Stepping into a church wasn't easy. I'd done it many times before. Every Sunday when I was growing up, we'd go to Mass. I went because I was expected to go. I didn't believe in God. A lot of people assumed that I did. But I didn't.

I don't remember much about my high school religion class, except for one assignment. We were supposed to write a short paper on the things around us that make us aware of God. I struggled over what to write. I didn't really want to let the cat out of the bag and say that I was an atheist. But I didn't want to lie, either. Eventually, I just wrote one word: nothing. When I brought the assignment to class the next week, the teacher decided to have a few of us read their assignments to the class. I was one of the ones he pointed to. It didn't take long for me to read mine. He liked what I had written. He started talking about how we believe in God even though we don't actually see Him. I wasn't about to argue with him about what that one word - nothing - meant to me. I was happy to let him believe that I was a good Catholic thinking deep thoughts. Whatever.

And, of course, this good Catholic kid continued to go to Mass. It was an hour out of my week where I'd go, think about whatever I wanted to think about and then head back home. Even as an adult, I'd go to church once in a while if I was invited. I went with friends to Christmas Mass, I went to weddings, funerals, even a friends's ordination. And once in a while, I tried to keep an open mind and attempt to catch a glimpse of a God I didn't believe in.

For those types of things, going into a church was easy.

But one day, I went into a church because I had been wondering about whether or not maybe there really was a God after all.

My big brother believed in God. And he talked to me about Him. I would tell him about the way I saw the world, and he would tell me about the way that he saw the world. He wouldn't argue with me about whether or not God existed. He would just say: "Hey, little sister, that's not the way I see things." And he would describe his faith in God. And told me about how he had ended back up in the Catholic Church after many ups and downs in his life.

My husband believed in God. Neither of us believed in God when we got married. But he changed his mind long before I did. He's not Catholic, and he doesn't go to church. But he takes time out of his day every morning and every night to pray.

Lots of people around me believed in God. And lots of people didn't.

The ones who did said that there was something wonderful about God. And that wonderful something was real. That definitely had a certain attraction. You'd think I'd have noticed such a wonderful God. But, then again, I had never even noticed my own antlers.

Eventually, on a summer's day in 2001, for the first time in my life, I went into a church because I wanted to. I walked across campus. I had been in the building before. Many times. I used to go to a martial arts class in the gym below the chapel. Not once had I ventured upstairs instead of downstairs, though. And on that day, it wasn't easy to go inside. I wasn't sure whether or not I would prefer to find God there or to not find Him.

After hesitating for a while, I went in. There was a window open at the back. And I sat down. I read the caption under the stained-glass window. Creation.

Through the window I could see tree branches and I could hear a bird singing. From a window on the other side of the chapel, I could hear the sounds of man-made buses going by.

As I was sitting there,well, something happened ... it wasn't really a voice I heard ... more of a thought that didn't seem to belong to me. Very brief. Just 4 words. Four rather vague words. "You can come closer."

For some reason, I went over to the other side of the building, by the tabernacle. This was a Catholic church. One I'd never been to before in my life. And the tabernacle is actually in a slightly unusual place for a Catholic church. Anyway, that's where I went.

Did I start believing in God right away? No.

But I did come back to the chapel again the next day. And the day after that. And sometimes it seemed like maybe I believed for a minute here or two minutes there.

There was so much about this supposed God that didn't make any sense to me. One day, though, I was sitting by the tabernacle and it dawned on me that it didn't have to make sense. I didn't have to understand how someone could be both completely divine and completely human: true God and true man. I didn't have to understand how one man's death 2000 years ago meant anything in my life. I did have to be honest with myself and admit that maybe it was all true.

That day that I realized that I didn't have to understand everything in order to believe was September 10, 2001. An easy date to remember, because the next day was 9-11.

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squirt
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Jamais le mal n’aura le dernier mot. La foi et l’amour déplacent les montagnes de la haine.
- Marguerite (Maggy) Barankitse

Daisy and Squirt,

It's been awhile since I've been able to get back to this. Thank you for sharing your journeys, thank you for sharing such an important part of yourselves.

Squirt, I knew parts of your story but didn't know that that happened on Sept. 10th. I knew it was close but thought it was a lot earlier than that. That makes it even more powerful.

Daisy, so many people need to hear that they are not alone in their doubts, in their struggles and you have given them that.

You both have. Thank you.

It is so important that we share our stories, listen to each others journeys. Especially in a society where world where Christianity is being increasingly viewed as irrelevant, and even dangerous.

This forum has endless pages of posts on threads dealing with the rubrics. Yet threads like this get little attention. Is it because we don't know our stories?

Each of us has been called by God. If you don't think you have I encourage you to ask the Holy Spirit to show you the people, events, words, that have helped lead you to Him. We each have a story, it would be great to hear more of them.

I'll return at a later date with mine.


Effie

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“The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of Conservatives is to prevent mistakes from being corrected.” –G.K Chesterton