Umm…if you can cram 100years of history into each year of those twenty years, you’d still fall short! And that’s just the history; nevermind the theology!I feel like I could spend 20 years in the religion and still be learning.
You actually brought tears to my eyes. I am looking through them as I type this response. What glorious testimony this is. Oh my goodness…
Certainly! I hope we can be that support.
Boy, could I relate to your post. I could have bolded the whole thing haha. But your descriptions really resonated with me. I felt the same way.I had two moments, though I couldn’t really call the second a “conversion”. I was baptised, but not really raised in the Catholic life. My stepmother was divorced and married to my divorced father. They lived together for many years before being married, and mass was a “Christmas and Easter” thing rather imposed on us. I came to Faith with a brush of the Spirit in a Southern Baptist church, and immediately began to feel the strength of the newly converted. But after a few years, the same message every single sunday was wearing on me. The megachurch that I was attending was beautiful, but in the way that a well-made theatre can be beautiful. When, at college, a friend invited me to the small but very traditional St. Patrick’s, I went on a whim.
Stepping through the door **I saw, felt, heard and smelled the weight of history and faith. Nowhere to be found was the blank spaces of protestism, all replaced by doves, sheep, and all sorts of reminders of God. **I couldn’t escape from theology even if I’d wanted to. So I started attending and finally found the real “meat” of faith that I’d been looking for. I began researching, asking questions and learning more about the faith that I’d been baptised into. As the years went I saw more and more of the liturgical abuses that we’re all familiar with. I had a problem with the way some churches seemed to be losing the strength of tradition that had been a very real reason that I’d connected in the first place. It wasn’t until I enlisted that I’d heard about Eastern Catholicism (From my Knights of Colombus agent). I got a bit lost on my way to my first service, as I thought the church was a mosque. When I crept in, **I was again flooded by the weight of history, of tradition, and of the unbroken line of faith. **
Now, my biggest problem is that I’ve found one of the smaller Churches here in the States, and it’s hard to find one that hasn’t been closed down! I’m looking at YOU, Buffalo, NY!
No need to apologize- I enjoyed every line! Thanks for sharing your story with us!
Thanks a million Sadie…I need all the help I can get.
. Are my parents secretly Jewish…?AMEN!
Wow, quite a journey!When I was younger, I was raised like a lot of other Protestant children whose parents don’t go to church. Sure, I knew stories like Creation, the Deluge, Moses…
Now that I think about it… God and the Old Testament were mentioned quite a bit, but Jesus wasn’t
Anyway, because of this non-exposure to Christianity, I grew up not knowing what Christianity was. Even at school, unless you declare otherwise, (and, of course, whispering something to someone at school is the equivalent to shouting into the intercom system) everyone simply assumes you to be the same as them: an Evangelical Protestant, usually of the Baptist persuasion.
**It is worth noting here that I did hear about Catholics once, after the Blessed Pope John Paul II died, but I thought Catholic was an Italian thing (like Hinduism is to Indians, Shinto to the Japanese).
As I got older, and everyone started attaching themselves to one church group or another, I was out of place. It felt strange to see lines drawn where they hadn’t been before. I then asked the question of a lifetime, ‘what is Christianity?’.
Shortly after, however, my parents divorced and I took to the whole teenaged-Atheist-angry-with-the-world thing. That lasted a few months, when the question came to me again, ‘what is Christianity?’.
Sure, as an Atheist I could argue against ‘Christianity’… of the Evangelical Protestant, Baptist Persuasion. Being a teenager of the modern age, I consulted the great, seemingly omniscient Google. The answer I found was astounding. I learned of Benedict, Ambrose, John of Chrysostom, Basil, Cyril, Methodius, and a load of other people of whom I’d never heard.
As one can deduce from the saints mentioned, my encounter was with Byzantine Christianity, and it set the stage for the next great question: ‘Orthodox or Catholic?’. By becoming Orthodox, I would be able to keep my (as far as I’m concerned) native Byzantine status. But the word… Catholic … resonated deeply within me. After hearing an interview on EWTN’s Journey Home, I had accepted that the Bishop of Rome is the Papa of the Church Universal.
Of course, I still wanted my precious Byzantine spirituality, the faith of Basil, John of Chrysostom, Justianian, and every other Byzantine who ever lived. And then I learned of the Eastern Rite Churches.
My greatest illuminated moment, however, came when I learned that the word ‘Byzantine’ put in front of the word ‘Catholic’ effectively neutralises all anti-Catholicism… since it’s not the ‘Roman’ (as far as they know) Church, and opens up a path for discussion. Living in the Deep South, that can be a metaphorical life-saver.
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.
I never had a moment. I just studied it and took the steps, I still doubt my decision but here I am.
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!