CONVERTS: Who brought you to the faith?

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Conversion to the Catholic Church is often a very long and involved process with many people having influence in one’s decision to convert. Who were the key people in your conversion? What did they do or say to help you in that process? I guess what I’m looking for is illustrations of effective ways of evanglisation.

Turning point person my family’s converstion: a teenager, young enough to be my daughter, converted from our church to Catholicism and decided to enter religious life. We asked her why and listened to her story of faith. She very humbly, but very thoroughly answered our objections to her conversion. That encounter led us to search out the truth of what she was saying. Catholic Answers, Journey Home, EWTN, and local Catholic clergy took it from there.

Deep background Catholics who did the prep work on us: Both dh and I were blessed to each have a strong catholic family in our diverse neighborhoods growing up whose devotion to their many kids and their family spirituality together was a witness.

Who led you to the Catholic Church?
 
I always say it was at the urging of the Holy Spirit that we became Catholic. We prayed intently on it and this was the answer.
However, over my lifetime I can see how I was helped along (via the Holy Spirit) by friends and family.
There was my very protestant mom who had pictures of our Blessed Mother all thru our house and who stopped attending the Church of Christ when my Sunday School teacher told me my Catholic friends were all going to hell.
There was the Catholic girl who prayed the rosary over me for healing when I was terribly ill and living in a yoga ashram in Kansas City. She gave me my first miraculous medal.
There was the Catholic lady and her baby who encouraged me when I lived in a tent by an irrigation ditch in New mexico.
There was the Catholic lady who visited the protestant book store where I was manager so that I would special order Catholic statues, pictures and books for her. Because of her I studied catholic doctrine for 8 years.
And there was my spiritual director in the protestant church who told me I was really a Catholic but I didn’t know it. And gave me a blessing when he heard I had converted.
God works in mysterious ways. You betcha!
 
I must say I sat and thought about my response for about 10 minutes, realized I have a lengthy conversion story, so I will cut to the chase and just share one individual that peaked my interest into examining the doctrinal teachings of the Catholic Church…Mother Angelica! I still recall after viewing her program several times, commenting to my husband, “you know I think Mother Angelica is a born again Christian”! Submission to the Holy Spirit and prayer plus three years of reading and learning about our Holy Mother Church and here I am Catholic and feeling deeply blessed spiritually.

In the hearts of Jesus and Mary
 
i am not a convert but i can say i am a revert. i am a catholic since birth but didnt know the faith. i was brought back to RCC by EWTN, by St. Francis of Assisi, and by the death of Pope John Paul 2.
 
I was a Methodist. I married a Catholic and agreed our daughter would be brought up in the Cathoilc Faith. I attended Mass with my wife for 10 years (probably went to Mass more often than many Catholics). My wife is devout and had a great influence on me. Its strange but I woke up one Saturday morning, sat up in bed, and knew the Catholic Church was the true Church. I had been given the grace to know that. I hightailed to the Church and the priest put me into an RCIA program. I became a Catholic on April 18, 1992.
 
Several things:
  1. The example of holy Catholics, especially John Paul II and Mother Teresa and Catholics I knew personally who impressed me with their deep faith
  2. The knowledge of other evangelical Protestants who converted to the Catholic faith (especially Thomas Howard), and also my mother-in-law’s conversion. I talked with her and learned more about the Catholic faith (reading *Surprised by Truth *by Patrick Madrid and *Rome Sweet Home *by Scott and Kimberly Hahn made a huge impact on me)
  3. Meeting a cradle Catholic who was very well-informed and enthusiastic about her faith and willing to share it with me by answering my questions and pointing me to resources that would help me learn more
    I don’t think there’s anything better than a convinced Catholic who loves the Lord and loves others enough to share His truth with them. Most Catholics I meet don’t seem quite convinced themselves the Catholic faith is true or completely true and don’t seem to see the need to share it with others
 
Honestly, I am a cradle Catholic and will give you my reasons for reversion/wake up call.

1st off I am a Medjugorje revert. (I don’t have much interest in Medj now and acutally leaning towards the skepticism side). But the whole Medjugorje thing lit my fire so to speak.

But what really played a part in my reversion is CONVERTS!!!

A devout friend of mine and I were discussing the potential fruits of the Reformation. here we are 500 years later and the fruits are starting to shine. Protestant Converts are the greatest thing to happen to the Catholic CHurch for a very long time. The following reasons played a big part of My wake up call.
  1. Scott and Kimberly
    2)Tom Howard
    3)Bob Sungenis
    4)Steve Ray
    5)Bob Fishman (jew who becaome a protestant)
    6)Marcus Grodi
    7)Rosalind Moss (same as bob fish)
    8)Ken Guindian (sp the kings highway author)
    9)Peter Kreft
    10)David Moss (same as Rosalind and bob fish)
    11)Jeff Cavins
    12)Jimmy Akin
    13)Alex Jones
  2. Paul the Apostle (never was a protestant but his name carries some weight)
    etc. etc. etc. etc.
 
If reverts can join in, I was brought back to the faith by my wife (in particular, the music of the choir she formed), and by the writings of C.S. Lewis, starting with “Surprised by Joy”. There is something overwhelmingly wonderful in having God use one’s own spouse to lead one to the Bridegroom. :love:
 
Another revert here! 😃

I am a cradle Catholic, and went to a college that was heavily protestant. I had already become very lax in my faith at the time, and though “an outwardly practicing Catholic”, my heart was not truly into the faith and I had only a superfical relationship with God. 😦

One night my roomate and his friend who were evangelical were pretty aggresively attempting to “evangelize” me. I heard it all – I was in “a cult”, “worshipped Mary”, “idolotry”, the whole works. :mad: And they were really starting to convince me I had been worshipping statues all my life and had been wrong to pray to Mary. I underwent a “spiritual crisis” for about a week in which I wondered whether everything I had ever beleived was wrong. :confused:

I was pretty internet sauvy at the time, so I thought “why not do some research for myself and decide for myself, instead of listening to all these people around me?”

So, to make a long story short, I did a search on the internet and came across Catholic.com, EWTN.com, scripturecatholic.com, etc. and fell in love with Jesus, the Church, the Holy Father, Mary 🙂 , the Saints, and the Eucharist.

I thank God for the influence of my Protestant roomate or I may not be such a strong Catholic today! 👍

Francisco
 
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VociMike:
If reverts can join in, I was brought back to the faith by my wife…
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If it’s reverts, too, then I was also brought back to the faith by my wife…an obedient and humble Baptist! She asked me (more or less) why I believed in Catholicism - I had to look up the answer! Now, well, to use the phrase - “Here I stand and I can do no other.”

I have a hunch that “the New Evangelization” is a little different than most expect…

God Bless,
RyanL
 
Well, I would have to say the “Key Person” would be the Late Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen.
I had always been attached to the Catholic Church. My mom not being religous sheilded me from relgion and the only Church I had ever heard of till I was 13 was the Catholic Church (I though Baptispts were Buddisht was Methodist Moslems {Childs logic, It sounds/ resembles so it must be, Which also had to Catholic/Christ connection but anyway yeah small childrens reasoning huh}).
I ran across a rerun of his old Series “Life is Worth Living”, Where he showed a remarkable amount of warmth and love and charm in presenting his “sermon”.
Later I went and bought his book Your Life is Worth Living: A Christian Philosphey of Life which gave further depth into Catholicism with the same warmth.
Karl Keating was instumental as well. His book Fundamentalism and Catholicism… was good, though I got the since that was a bit imbittered over something, Proboly he had dealt with a protestant that had slandered the Catholic Church and is still a bit angery over it, but whatever the reason he seemed a bit angry at times. (might just be me) All the same a great book that gives depth and shows the other side of the story which gave to me a sense of credibilty (Sp?).
His Website also instumental.Covering a vast amount of martierial which I couldn’t have gotten this far without.
Ya’ll at the forums have been exectionally helpful as well. Been nice through all my questioning.

So in summery:
  1. Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen (Kind and caring in presenting what he wants to say)
  2. Karl Keating (depth and breadth and gives other side)
  3. Ya’ll at forums (knowledgeable and patient with questions)
 
A very beautiful older woman is the key person who brought me to faith. As a sixteen year old, confused teenager, I must have seemed hopeless. Every weekend an older lady and her hubby would invite me to spend the night in their home and attend mass. They had their own troubles. Their youngest son was in a wheel chair and needed care and they had a mentally handicapped daughter who could at times be a handful. Yet, they went out of their way to show me the love of Christ and the Church. She has since told me that she purposely left little pamplets and books in my room for me to read.

I am now forty and the same woman, now close to eighty, is going to be with my family when we become Catholics this Easter. I have asked her to be my youngest daughter’s godmother and she has accepted!
 
I am a revert. The main person who lead me back into the Faith was a fundamentalist Seventh-day Adventist who did not believe Jesus was God, but a created being who “became” God (I know this isn’t the main SDA belief now, but it used to be) and after researching this with the great resources at Catholic Answers, EWTN, Scripture Catholic and the Church Fathers I decided the Catholic Church might have something to it. One of the things that led me away from Catholicism subtly (no one was outright anti-Catholic) was an ex girlfriend of mine who went to some type of born again Christian church. I never attended services there but I did go to their youth groups because my girlfriend went. We went on a retreat one day and I had an “altar call” experience, at the time I didn’t even know what I was doing. I was just going up with everyone because everyone else was. I didn’t really feel moved like so many other people who have been “born again” say they were. I just went up there because they said if you accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior to go up there. I already had, but that was from my catechism and the Catholic Church and I didn’t realize it. Only after I got out did I realize the difference between “born again” in the Fundamentalist Christian sense, and the historical Christian sense (Catholic). Instead of leading me out of the Church, my friend forced me to get educated in the Faith and now I am back for good.
 
I was a Catholic from birth, but was not raised in the Church. I thought all churches where pretty much the same, for suckers. I was converted instantly by Gods love through Jesus Christ. I went right to the Church and spoke with a priest. Scared, ashamed, covered with tattoos. He helped me understand some of what happened. But reading the bible helped the most, especially proverbs and acts. My wife is byzantine from birth, she waited 17 years for me to come to Christ. She was with me the night this happened. I have since been confirmed and married in the Church. The toughest thing about this type of conversion is rebuilding my life from scratch and having the faith that Christ is still with me. God Bless, Tim
 
of course CAF!

By the way franciscomarto, who is St. Anthony the great?
 
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slyboots:
God works in mysterious ways. You betcha!
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AMEN to that! Just reading the posts in this thread and hearing other conversion stories, I marvel at the individual and unlikely ways God brings each person to the fullness of truth. Ain’t He great???
 
For me it was the tag-team of the Holy Spirit, and my wife. My wife (before she was my wife, actually) pointed me in the right direction, and the Holy Spirit took it from there.
 
Over all I think God called me to the Catholic Church. I was raised Protostant. we went to a Protostant church from '97 to '99. After the Pastor left we desided to hcange churches. We attented a baptist one for a while, then the church of christ. After that it seemed as if we were trying a new church every sunday. In between it all we tried one Catholic church. I liked it, but my mom and brother didn’t, so we didn’t go back. The thing about most of the churches that I didn’t like was the traditional service followed by the modern service. I also didn’t like the music they played, it was like listening to rock during service. Anyways, after a while I just didn’t enjoy going to church anymore. The service left me feeling empty.
My brother and I are in the hospital a lot for health issues. So my mom, my brother, and I had to take a trip up to a hospital for a few days and had to stay in a Ronald McDonald house. While wew were there we met a lady name Deena. She was one of the most spiritual people I had ever met. Because she spoke so highly of the Catholic faith I thought she was Catholic.
Shortly after that I just sort of woke up one day and felt that the Catholic Church was the true church and thats where I was supposed to be. I was terrified to tell my mom at first, but she undstood.
I’ve always had a fasination with St. Patrick, so I was thrilled when we found that our city has a St. Patrick’s church. We’ve now been going there for almost 4 years, and are taking RCIA lessons. I’ve even desided that I want to become a Nun.
 
viktor aleksndr:
By the way franciscomarto, who is St. Anthony the great?
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When I found out about him recently, he was also a new Saint to me as well! 🙂 … I’ve always had fun discovering new Saints 😃

He is also known as St. Anthony the Abbot or the “Father of Monasticism.” He is considered one of the “Dessert Fathers”. Much more can be found here.

Francisco
 
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