CONVERTS, do you have a moment?

[Jacob_Morgan]

I grew up CofC, tried the Baptist church for a bit after college, dabbled in Anglicanisim, went to what was a de facto non-denominational church, then came home to Rome. Growing up I was anti-Catholic to the point I did not think it was even worth thinking about. It was just obviously absurd. For me it was several moments (I suppose I was a hard case).

1. I was used to “normal” denominations, i.e., middle class suburban America. Christmas year 2000 I saw the Christmas special “Charlotte Church in the Holy Land”. (That was before she went a little nutty.) Anyway, it had footage from the church of the Nativity. I saw people, not American, not middle class, not suburban, expressing tremendous devotion paying tribute to the belived birth place of Jesus. It just shook me up. How could I possibly look down on those people who did look very wealthy, who must have taken some difficult pilgrimage to pay tribute to what they considered to be a holy site? There was no way they were part of the “First Century Bible Beliv’n Church” that I had been in.
2. Later on, when exposed to Anglicanisim, the concept that the New Testament was not a set of Popular Mechanics blue prints so anyone could make a church in their graage out of common house hold items, but was instead the history of a Church once made, changed everything. I realized that the premise of Sola Scriptura had resulted in no one being able to agree on anything. If the New Testament was a how-to guide, it was incompetent or was a joke. The alternate hypothesis made sense and changed everything.
3. In the mid 2000’s I was getting used to icons from the WWII generation passing on (Bob Hope, Ronald Regean, etc.) but when Pope John Paul II died, I just felt a saddness that I can not explain. Swimming the Tiber was not on the radar yet, but I just felt like the world had a severe loss.
4. Reading the last chapter of G.K. Chesteron’s biography of St. Thomas Aquinas, where Chesterton compared Aquinas to Luther. Ouch! I re-read that part. A month later I re-read that part. Up until then I thought of Luther as the good guy, this was a different perspective.
5. I was being pulled in but then repulsed by what seemed to be simple minded superstitions. In reading Cardinal Newman’s Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, the part where he laboriously (and endlessly) catalogs the charges of the contemporaries against the Church (that it was superstitous, canabalistic, appealed to dumb people, etc.) Newman finished up the chapter by asking towards what religion today do people still direct those complaints against?
6. Next angles did some sky-writing “are you ready yet?” No not really, but I suppose that would have been the next thing.

 

[Della]

I grew up CofC, tried the Baptist church for a bit after college, dabbled in Anglicanisim, went to what was a de facto non-denominational church, then came home to Rome. Growing up I was anti-Catholic to the point I did not think it was even worth thinking about. It was just obviously absurd. For me it was several moments (I suppose I was a hard case).

It was and still is off the radar of a lot people who live in untentional ignorance. I was one of them, too, like you.

1. I was used to “normal” denominations, i.e., middle class suburban America. Christmas year 2000 I saw the Christmas special “Charlotte Church in the Holy Land”. (That was before she went a little nutty.) Anyway, it had footage from the church of the Nativity. I saw people, not American, not middle class, not suburban, expressing tremendous devotion paying tribute to the belived birth place of Jesus. It just shook me up. How could I possibly look down on those people who did look very wealthy, who must have taken some difficult pilgrimage to pay tribute to what they considered to be a holy site? There was no way they were part of the “First Century Bible Beliv’n Church” that I had been in.

The middle class snobbery came with the territory, didn’t it? As if everyone in heaven came from suburbia. It’s something we Catholics who live such sheltered lives need to guard agains, as well. :yup:

1. Later on, when exposed to Anglicanisim, the concept that the New Testament was not a set of Popular Mechanics blue prints so anyone could make a church in their graage out of common house hold items, but was instead the history of a Church once made, changed everything. I realized that the premise of Sola Scriptura had resulted in no one being able to agree on anything. If the New Testament was a how-to guide, it was incompetent or was a joke. The alternate hypothesis made sense and changed everything.

Even in my Pentecostal days we used to kid and say that anyone with two folding chairs and a Bible could form their own church.

1. In the mid 2000’s I was getting used to icons from the WWII generation passing on (Bob Hope, Ronald Regean, etc.) but when Pope John Paul II died, I just felt a saddness that I can not explain. Swimming the Tiber was not on the radar yet, but I just felt like the world had a severe loss.

For me it was when JPII was shot. I was horrified even though I was far from being Catholic at the time. I wondered why the pope, of all the world’s religious leaders, should be the target of such hatred. Got me thinking, all right.

1. Reading the last chapter of G.K. Chesteron’s biography of St. Thomas Aquinas, where Chesterton compared Aquinas to Luther. Ouch! I re-read that part. A month later I re-read that part. Up until then I thought of Luther as the good guy, this was a different perspective.

I had made a hero out of Queen Elizabeth I, almost idolizing her. Reading a bit of unbiased history and the Catholic perspective on her shook me up. I had thought her so tolerant, a true hero of Protestant goodwill, but she was just the opposite.

1. I was being pulled in but then repulsed by what seemed to be simple minded superstitions. In reading Cardinal Newman’s Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, the part where he laboriously (and endlessly) catalogs the charges of the contemporaries against the Church (that it was superstitous, canabalistic, appealed to dumb people, etc.) Newman finished up the chapter by asking towards what religion today do people still direct those complaints against?

For me it was a book by a priest, Fr. John O’Brien, called “The Faith of Millions” in which he answered all my objections to Catholicism in such plain terms and so well I threw it away in fear he could be right! The same with “The Song of Bernadette” although it’s a fictoinalized account, it still skewered my assumptions and opened my eyes to a lot of things.

1. Next angles did some sky-writing “are you ready yet?” No not really, but I suppose that would have been the next thing.

Yes, that last step is the doozy. I struggled for a few years over that idea. But here I am–by the grace of God alone.

 

[Jacob_Morgan]

A note of clarification: the book by Newman was refering to the Early Church in that particular part. I had always heard that one was supposed to be just like the Early Church, and here were the early contemporaries of the Early Church (mainly government authorities reporting on the new cult) describing the Early Church in the same terms that people use to slander it today.

The way he built up the chapter, I was thinking “yeah, sure, Newman this is not new, I’ve heard this before, what is the point?” then he dropped the bomb by making a point so obvious I had never thought of it: that people outside of the Church today are describing it the same way people outside of it nearly 2,000 years ago described it.

 

[Della]

A note of clarification: the book by Newman was refering to the Early Church in that particular part. I had always heard that one was supposed to be just like the Early Church, and here were the early contemporaries of the Early Church (mainly government authorities reporting on the new cult) describing the Early Church in the same terms that people use to slander it today.

The way he built up the chapter, I was thinking “yeah, sure, Newman this is not new, I’ve heard this before, what is the point?” then he dropped the bomb by making a point so obvious I had never thought of it: that people outside of the Church today are describing it the same way people outside of it nearly 2,000 years ago described it.

Yeah, I love those types of “bombs” that the truth dropped on me, too, such as the fact that the Church preceded the NT, its members wrote it, and that there was no canon of the Bible for nearly 400 years until the Church decided one was needed. All I ever heard in my Pentecostal church was sola scriptura. It’s no wonder they were so fuzzy about real Early Church history.

 

[GraceSofia]

1. I was used to “normal” denominations, i.e., middle class suburban America. Christmas year 2000 I saw the Christmas special “Charlotte Church in the Holy Land”. (That was before she went a little nutty.) Anyway, it had footage from the church of the Nativity. I saw people, not American, not middle class, not suburban, expressing tremendous devotion paying tribute to the belived birth place of Jesus. It just shook me up. How could I possibly look down on those people who did look very wealthy, who must have taken some difficult pilgrimage to pay tribute to what they considered to be a holy site? There was no way they were part of the “First Century Bible Beliv’n Church” that I had been in.

If people visit the Middle East, they should notice that Protestantism is … nowhere to be seen really. Alas, they don’t always. I wish these non-denom type Protestants could see how the ancient Coptic, Catholic, and Orthodox Christians view their missionary activities, but that’s a whole nuther thread.

1. Later on, when exposed to Anglicanisim, the concept that the New Testament was not a set of Popular Mechanics blue prints so anyone could make a church in their graage out of common house hold items, but was instead the history of a Church once made, changed everything.

Very well said. I love it!

I realized that the premise of Sola Scriptura had resulted in no one being able to agree on anything. If the New Testament was a how-to guide, it was incompetent or was a joke. The alternate hypothesis made sense and changed everything.

1. In the mid 2000’s I was getting used to icons from the WWII generation passing on (Bob Hope, Ronald Regean, etc.) but when Pope John Paul II died, I just felt a saddness that I can not explain. Swimming the Tiber was not on the radar yet, but I just felt like the world had a severe loss.

I also had not even considered Catholicism at that point, but I too felt a sadness and a strange tug on my heart. Another moment came because of this. I was at a (Protestant) Bible study group and the people were making disparaging remarks about Catholics and the funeral of JPII. I was stunned by their arrogance and contempt. Who were they to be making pronouncements about his eternal destination? I asked them, “Are you seriously saying that John Paul II and Mother Teresa are in Hell?” Nobody answered me, but it was definitely a road-sign moment.

 

[CatholicofAgora]

To the OP:

Yes. For me it was the Biblical discovery of the Real Presence. I remember one Good Friday my Baptist pastor, before “communion” said, “This cracker… Is only a cracker!!” Sitting in that pew, I thought it strange that he emphasized this so strongly. I was researching Catholicism at the time and read my Bible very often. When I read 1 Corinthians 11:26-29 for the first time, what my pastor said, so blatantly contrary to the Scriptures, rang through my head like a cursed bell-chime.

 

[andrewstx]

I grew up CofC, tried the Baptist church for a bit after college, dabbled in Anglicanisim, went to what was a de facto non-denominational church, then came home to Rome. Growing up I was anti-Catholic to the point I did not think it was even worth thinking about. It was just obviously absurd. For me it was several moments (I suppose I was a hard case).

1. Later on, when exposed to Anglicanisim, the concept that the New Testament was not a set of Popular Mechanics blue prints so anyone could make a church in their graage out of common house hold items, but was instead the history of a Church once made, changed everything. I realized that the premise of Sola Scriptura had resulted in no one being able to agree on anything. If the New Testament was a how-to guide, it was incompetent or was a joke. The alternate hypothesis made sense and changed everything.

.

I too was raised in the campbellites (church of Christ) and the blueprint analogy is them to the T.

They think that anyone can pick up a bible and by following exactly it’s teachings they have the 1st century “new testament church”, but it’s just not so simple. First the church made the bible and not the bible made the church.

 

[dal61]

I also had not even considered Catholicism at that point, but I too felt a sadness and a strange tug on my heart. Another moment came because of this. I was at a (Protestant) Bible study group and the people were making disparaging remarks about Catholics and the funeral of JPII. I was stunned by their arrogance and contempt. Who were they to be making pronouncements about his eternal destination? I asked them, “Are you seriously saying that John Paul II and Mother Teresa are in Hell?” Nobody answered me, but it was definitely a road-sign moment.

I can remember being part of a Bible study group (protestant) that would make comments about the eternal destination of Catholics in general…and I could not make sense of that. All of these suposed negative traits of the Catholic faith being pointed out …and then seeing (at least for me) the faces of the Catholic Church (JPII and Mother Teresa) living their lifes as such a positive example of love and grace…It never made sense to me. And just like your situation, when brought up at Bible study, nobody could explain it…Looking back, it was a roadsign moment for me, too…I just didn’t realize it yet. Things make sense to me now…

 

[vz71]

I can remember being part of a Bible study group (protestant) that would make comments about the eternal destination of Catholics in general…and I could not make sense of that. All of these suposed negative traits of the Catholic faith being pointed out …and then seeing (at least for me) the faces of the Catholic Church (JPII and Mother Teresa) living their lifes as such a positive example of love and grace…It never made sense to me.

The church my inlaws are into seems to have found their answer for that.
All of these are the exception and not the rule.

These individuals have individually sought and found God. Not in the chruch they are in, but in the pages of the bible.



My wife is slowly seeing this to be incorrect. But every cafeteria style catholic she meets reinforces the teaching of that particular part of protestantism.

 

[CleverUserName]

I love this thread. Thank you Sadie.

Totally off topic.

My very favorite dog was named Sadie. She was a Dalmatian and had the sweetest nature of any dog I have ever had the pleasure to house.

Glad you do! I love it, too.

Yes with my name I do hear that a lot. Everyone either had a dog named Sadie, or an Aunt named Sadie, or an Aunt who had a dog named Sadie lol

 

[CleverUserName]

I was in a similar situation as you were. I grew up in the Church of Christ. Grandfather was a minister in that denomination and I had a uncle and cousin who are ministers in the same denomination (my family no longer communicate with them due to differences once my grandfather passed away). So to me I grew up with that form of Protestant theology.

Once I got into college, I started going to Baptist Churches because I was going to a Baptist University and thought it would be cool to hang around other students I go to school with. It was ‘cool’ for a while, but then that ‘moment’ ended and I started going to different other Protestant Churches then gave up all together because I got stuck at jobs that made me work on Sundays and never gave me time off to actually go to church or I procrastinated in going and just sat down with a bowl of popcorn and a soda and watched some mega-church service on TV from either Houston or Dallas.

Eventually I got tired of not going to church and didn’t want to go back to the church my family went to because they recently had a shift in staff and I didn’t want to feel awkward being around people I don’t know, I decided to go to a Sunday Mass at the main Catholic Church in my home town. To be honest when I sat down before services started I literally started crying cause I had a feeling that the Holy Ghost was present and welcomed me back to the faith. After mass I went online, did some research, went to facebook and found out several of my friends were Catholics as well and started digging into what Catholics really do believe in. Later on I went to RCIA and one of the people in class was a student at the same university I went to so we connected really well and we had several funny stories about what some Protestants thought of concerning Catholics.

WOW that is amazing. I agree it feels the Holy Spirit is palpable in the Catholic Church. Many are overwhelmed by that coming in. I know I was! Thanks for sharing!

 

[CleverUserName]

I never had a moment. I just studied it and took the steps, I still doubt my decision but here I am.

What made you decision to study and take the steps?

 

[CleverUserName]

Today is my 25th birthday! :dancing: :extrahappy: :bounce:

I grew up Evangelical and had almost no knowledge or understanding of the Catholic faith growing up. I just assumed that it was sort of a cultish thing that started in Mexico. The religious education I received in private Christian school dealt with the apostles of the New Testament, and then skipped about 1500 years and went to the puritans. That was the extent of my knowledge about the history of Christianity.

I became an agnostic in college and had stopped going to church. When I was 21, I was reading Wikipedia articles about the Bosnian war, and came across a link about Serbian Orthodoxy, which linked to Eastern Orthodoxy, which linked to apostolic Christianity. I think my “moment” was when I realized that Catholicism was apostolic, that is, was passed down to us from the apostles. This completely and utterly changed the way I looked at Christianity forever. I had always assumed that the different denominations had always been there. I was also intrigued by sacramental spirituality; although at the same time this set off red flags because it was kind of the exact opposite of what I was brought up believing. But I think the sacraments were what drew me back to Christianity; I felt as though I were missing something, I knew that God existed but didn’t know Him. I was drawn to Catholicism as a way of knowing God and being in communion with Him. I studied Catholicism constantly for the next two years and came into the Church April 2011.

Welcome Home and Happy Birthday!!!

Apostolic Succession… this is something often not given the weight it deserves. Really interesting, the impact it had on you.

 

[CleverUserName]

Happy Birthday CompSciGuy! How blessed you are to share the day with the holy parents of Our Blessed Lady, Sts. Joachim and Anne. God bless you on your special day!

Even though I was brought up in the Episcopal Church before we migrated to the Assemblies of God, I knew very little about Church history, either. I knew something about the Apostles and that the ECUSA claimed to apostolic, but I never made the connection until I was nearly 35. I suppose 20 years in a Pentecostal body that denied most of the realities of Church history didn’t help matters. I even took a course in Church history in an AoG Bible college, but it was quite skewed, skipping over most history from Apostolic times until the Reformation, just like many other Protestant bodies do. Isn’t it amazing how we just let that slide? As members of our individual denominations we never questioned what happened in all the time between the end of the Apostolic Era and the Reformation. We actually believed that God let his Church fail. We never wondered why the Catholic Church was so prominent if God was not with it. We were caught up in what our parents believed and a subculture in which ignorance was bliss, I guess.

Yes that struck me when I was reading his post as well. I really hadn’t thought about how much history had been skipped! It’s alarming, isn’t it.

 

[CleverUserName]

I grew up CofC, tried the Baptist church for a bit after college, dabbled in Anglicanisim, went to what was a de facto non-denominational church, then came home to Rome. Growing up I was anti-Catholic to the point I did not think it was even worth thinking about. It was just obviously absurd. For me it was several moments (I suppose I was a hard case).

1. I was used to “normal” denominations, i.e., middle class suburban America. Christmas year 2000 I saw the Christmas special “Charlotte Church in the Holy Land”. (That was before she went a little nutty.) Anyway, it had footage from the church of the Nativity. I saw people, not American, not middle class, not suburban, expressing tremendous devotion paying tribute to the belived birth place of Jesus. It just shook me up. How could I possibly look down on those people who did look very wealthy, who must have taken some difficult pilgrimage to pay tribute to what they considered to be a holy site? There was no way they were part of the “First Century Bible Beliv’n Church” that I had been in.
2. Later on, when exposed to Anglicanisim, the concept that the New Testament was not a set of Popular Mechanics blue prints so anyone could make a church in their graage out of common house hold items, but was instead the history of a Church once made, changed everything. I realized that the premise of Sola Scriptura had resulted in no one being able to agree on anything. If the New Testament was a how-to guide, it was incompetent or was a joke. The alternate hypothesis made sense and changed everything.
3. In the mid 2000’s I was getting used to icons from the WWII generation passing on (Bob Hope, Ronald Regean, etc.) but when Pope John Paul II died, I just felt a saddness that I can not explain. Swimming the Tiber was not on the radar yet, but I just felt like the world had a severe loss.
4. Reading the last chapter of G.K. Chesteron’s biography of St. Thomas Aquinas, where Chesterton compared Aquinas to Luther. Ouch! I re-read that part. A month later I re-read that part. Up until then I thought of Luther as the good guy, this was a different perspective.
5. I was being pulled in but then repulsed by what seemed to be simple minded superstitions. In reading Cardinal Newman’s Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, the part where he laboriously (and endlessly) catalogs the charges of the contemporaries against the Church (that it was superstitous, canabalistic, appealed to dumb people, etc.) Newman finished up the chapter by asking towards what religion today do people still direct those complaints against?
6. Next angles did some sky-writing “are you ready yet?” No not really, but I suppose that would have been the next thing.

LOL skywriting would have been the next step for a lot of hard cases as you put it. You are very well studied Pulled in and repulsed…I bet many can relate to that.

 

[CleverUserName]

It was and still is off the radar of a lot people who live in untentional ignorance. I was one of them, too, like you.

The middle class snobbery came with the territory, didn’t it? As if everyone in heaven came from suburbia. It’s something we Catholics who live such sheltered lives need to guard agains, as well. :yup:

Even in my Pentecostal days we used to kid and say that anyone with two folding chairs and a Bible could form their own church.

For me it was when JPII was shot. I was horrified even though I was far from being Catholic at the time. I wondered why the pope, of all the world’s religious leaders, should be the target of such hatred. Got me thinking, all right.

I had made a hero out of Queen Elizabeth I, almost idolizing her. Reading a bit of unbiased history and the Catholic perspective on her shook me up. I had thought her so tolerant, a true hero of Protestant goodwill, but she was just the opposite.

For me it was a book by a priest, Fr. John O’Brien, called “The Faith of Millions” in which he answered all my objections to Catholicism in such plain terms and so well I threw it away in fear he could be right! The same with “The Song of Bernadette” although it’s a fictoinalized account, it still skewered my assumptions and opened my eyes to a lot of things.

Yes, that last step is the doozy. I struggled for a few years over that idea. But here I am–by the grace of God alone.

Love your commentary! Thanks for sharing
I need to check out “the Faith of Millions”

 

[CleverUserName]

To the OP:

Yes. For me it was the Biblical discovery of the Real Presence. I remember one Good Friday my Baptist pastor, before “communion” said, “This cracker… Is only a cracker!!” Sitting in that pew, I thought it strange that he emphasized this so strongly. I was researching Catholicism at the time and read my Bible very often. When I read 1 Corinthians 11:26-29 for the first time, what my pastor said, so blatantly contrary to the Scriptures, rang through my head like a cursed bell-chime.

POWERFUL and beautiful!!!

“This cracker…is only a cracker!”

 

[CleverUserName]

I can remember being part of a Bible study group (protestant) that would make comments about the eternal destination of Catholics in general…and I could not make sense of that. All of these suposed negative traits of the Catholic faith being pointed out …and then seeing (at least for me) the faces of the Catholic Church (JPII and Mother Teresa) living their lifes as such a positive example of love and grace…It never made sense to me. And just like your situation, when brought up at Bible study, nobody could explain it…Looking back, it was a roadsign moment for me, too…I just didn’t realize it yet. Things make sense to me now…

I understand this. Before I was Catholic, I at least had the greatest respect for what you called “The Faces of the Catholic Church”. I eventually started thinking “how could they sacrifice so much for a so called false Church?”…

 

[LisaA]

To the OP:

Yes. For me it was the Biblical discovery of the Real Presence. I remember one Good Friday my Baptist pastor, before “communion” said, “This cracker… Is only a cracker!!” Sitting in that pew, I thought it strange that he emphasized this so strongly. I was researching Catholicism at the time and read my Bible very often. When I read 1 Corinthians 11:26-29 for the first time, what my pastor said, so blatantly contrary to the Scriptures, rang through my head like a cursed bell-chime.

I had the same experience at the Methodist church. Communion was only once a month and very casual. You’d walk up the aisle, chatting to friends and then take a square of Wonder Bread and a thimblefull of grape juice, toss it back and return to your pew. I don’t think much was said, maybe “God bless you” as the communion was handed over.

I remember thinking “what’s the big deal” with Catholics and Communion. Now I know.

Lisa

 

[cath4alltime]

What made you decision to study and take the steps?

An extra credit assignment in my NT Class when I was in college and then from there I visited a parish and was utterly amazed at how it looked like the stained glass, candles, incense, etc.