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Guest
Was there a lightbulb moment? I don’t know. The journey through Protestantism in various forms to Catholicism was long, starting from a position where I believed that Catholicism, if it could be called Christian at all had so many non-Christian additions that it was very dubious. One step on the way was attending a Life in the Spirit course while at college having been invited by a non-catholic.
Another was working through a copy of David Fleming’s Modern Spiritual Exercises - a modernised version of Ignatius’ classic text. I saw it was very good and thought that if this was Catholic then all was not lost. Of course I edited out the Mary bits.
The process went into rapid acceleration mode here in Wales. Discussions online at Yahoo helped - the “Catholic” rooms were always nicer than the “Christian” ones even with all the trolls. I learned a lot.
If there were 2 lightbulb moments in the process they were these. (a) After steadfastly rejecting apostolic succession as a late invention, reading about it in early Christian writings. Maybe it was right after all. (b) After steadfastly holding to the eucharist as symbolic only - and Catholicism inventing transubstantiation late on (1215) - reading about it so clearly in Ignatius of Antioch and Justin Martyr and others and so seeing exactly how the early church understood the words of Scripture. (c) minor lightbulb - learning, again from earlier documents that the Catholic Church did not evilly add books to the Bible in the 1500s.
Once I accepted the truths of the real presence it limited choices. And I only really accepted it during RCIA so obviously lightbulbs before that to make me hunt more and more deeply. When you accept the real presence you can be Catholic or Orthodox (or a few others) but can’t ever go back to the symbol-only churches.
They were ok about it. I haven’t had a single person tell me I’ve rejected Christ. The pastor of my former church was very surprised and shocked but I did fully explain my reasons which were accepted. Fortunately I’ve been able to leave them on very good terms and we’re still friendly. He did though say he sees my Catholicism as a “phase” - I will go there, be transformed, and then come back. Ho hum.
I suppose I’ve been lucky. There isn’t too much of the attitude here that says Catholics are hell-bound and need to come out and get saved. There’s some but I haven’t had it thrown at me yet, even from people who I know think that we are hell-bound and need to repent of our pagan ways.
They were surprised too. My wife wasn’t. She had seen the journey for the years it took. But my family are ok about Catholicism. My mother, who doesn’t even believe in God, always lights candles and says a prayer in churches. Strange. She had a Catholic “phase” as a teenager and wanted to be one of the older sisters of Therese of Liseux. My parents say it’s ok for me, but not for them.
Just me. When I married her my wife was a reasonably high-church Anglican. I successfully led her away from some of that into my baptist/pentecostal ways. She has problems with Catholicism - both concerning the doctrine and the moral teachings - and doesn’t want anything to do with it really. She supports me and lets me walk this path but in no way would want to follow. Much prayer needed.