For those converts, New to or returned Catholics

  • Thread starter Thread starter Zachary
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
Z

Zachary

Guest
Just curious what particular event officially changed your heart to bring you back home.

I love those stories because as the only one of 10 siblings still Catholic, I need all the insight I can get to help bring my family home. It also strengthens my faith.

Thank you!
 
Had to think about that one, as a Jewish Convert and all my family Jewish especially as my nephew is a Rabbi, personally I think reading the Church Fathers, if you don’t know your Catholic Faith, catechism, and don’t read about the Saints, and get to know your Faith more, you fall away as don’t know understand and know your religion so make yourself to an easy target to all those Reformation sects, for me it was very easy - it was this -

One only has to study the Church Fathers to know that Christ founded the Catholic Church which it claims and can be bore out by reading the Church Fathers any of them what they did in the early Church they do now, what they teach is what the EARLY CHURCH FATHER taught the same thing, and is not man made.
  1. Every Protestant Sect is man made starting from Martin Luther who had his gripes with the Church and rather than talking about it he ran off with a nun to have sex with, obviously could not keep celibacy, as he did not run off just by himself. He could not stay loyal or obedient to the vows
    to say HE WOULD DO JUST THAT.
All the rest are the same man made in i7/18/19/20 th Century who had different gripes within there own Protestant denomination, its always a downward spiral once you start attacking, look at the Church of England what Henry did in having row’s with the Pope so now is its members following Henry’s lead and taking on the Anglican Church in the same way, what goes around, comes around.

So on this basis, for me, it was either Catholic or Jewish and as I no longer believed that the Messiah had not come but HAD COME the answer was simple the Church that Our Lord had given the keys of the Kingdom to, even though my late Dad was very Jewish he thought the same it was one or the other.
 
For me it was Pope Emeritus Benedict XVl who led me home.

Right at the beginning of my journey, it seemed he was everywhere I turned, I couldn’t get away from him. It was like something (or someone 😉 ) was deliberately putting him in front of me.

So I had to take a closer look, and then I found out he is a theologian and writer, and that was it really. He switched on the lights and it all made sense.

As much as I appreciate and am loyal to our Holy Father Pope Francis, I have to say that Papa Benedict has my heart. I really don’t think I would be here today without his inspiration.

 
For me it really started with Wisdom of Solomon Chapter Two. I had decided to read “The Apocrypha” and was so blown away by the clear prophecy of Christ I read there, that I immediately knew either this was written after Christ or it was Scripture because it was the template for much of what was chosen to be relayed in the gospels. It clearly predated so we’d screwed up scripture as protestants.

In that moment I understood that if we “sola scriptura” types had our scripture wrong we could never succeed.

It took many years but I finally swam the tiber and was received last easter vigil.
 
I spoke to a man now in his 70s and he said to me that when he was in his 40s he wasn’t going to mas and didn’t follow his faith at all. he said one day he saw a co worker a work with a book about our lady of FATIMA. He borrowed the book from him and read it and he said that cjanged his whole life and now if you see him he is really a child of GOD that loves the Lord and loves going to mass.
 
I had a Catholic convent school primary education, and detested the whole Catholic church because of it. I was actively antagonistic to the Catholic Church.

When I was 51 I started an interdenominational singles group in my small town, and part of our socialising was to attend each other’s church services. When it came time for the Catholics, I suddenly was busy elsewhere and couldn’t fit it into my schedule (surprise!) but was shamed into attending by other members.

It was a Charismatic Mass on a Tuesday evening, with Father John Rae, a visting Marist priest. When it came time for Communion, I was talked into going up for a blessing, with my hands crossed on my chest.

Father Rae offered me the Host ‘The Body of Christ’. I thought he must have missed my hands crossed on my chest, or I had done it wrong, so I said, loudly, ‘I’ve come for a blessing.’

‘The Body of Christ’ again, so I put my hands behind my back, and again repeated I had come for a blessing, even louder.

This time Father Rae proffered the Host silently, and from BEHIND ME, just over my shoulder came a Voice ‘Are you going to deny me three times?’

In shock, I took the Host, then turned round, to find there was nobody behind me, as I’d been the last person in the line.

I started to cry on my way back to the pew, and all the hard heartedness towards the Church began to melt away. By the end of two weeks I was attending Mass several times a week, though I never again was offered, or took, Communion, until my Confirmation two years later. I always had a blessing, though.

I have spoken with other Marist priests who know Father John Rae, and they say he would not offer the Host to someone who made it plain they were not asking for it, and also at a Mass where he knew strangers were present. So, what happened to me is a mystery. Why did Father John Rae feel prompted to repeatedly offer me Communion? Why did I hear a voice?
 
I would like to think that eventhough i had to wait till i was an adult to become catholic, i think it was ment to be. My mother named me after my grandma, maryfrances. Eventhough i was teased by my cousins for having ’ a nums name ’ (lol)
My grandma instilled in me the love of the church and true christ love. I will always love and thank her for that. However my mom did not raise me that way
She told me that i had to wait till i was an adult to pratice what religion i chose. Honestly she tried to raise me very liberal, but in my heart i always didnt agree with her views. I seen my grandmother as a pillar of peace. And i wanted that same peace. I taught myself all the rosary prayers, i read up on anything i could learn about catholicism. Long story short i attended rcia. Got baptized ,confirmed with the name philomena and today i smile knowing i made my grandma proud but most importantly i know i made God proud.
Thank you for posting your question. You made me reflect and remember how much my faith is to me. Tommorow i will be going to my church to do just that.
God bless
Mary:angel1::angel1:
 
It was not a “one moment” thing for me. It happened over a period of time. Its a long story but here is the short version.

I had not been to church (I was raised non-denominational but with Pentecostal leanings) In years but I wanted to go back to church so I picked one and it turned out to be a Lutheran church, but not traditional Lutheran. Casual worship, no liturgy, communion once a month and so fourth. This got me interested in Martin Luther and the Catholic Church. I found out the church I was attending got together with other “independent” Lutheran churches in the 1920’s or around that time and decided they had a “spiritual awakening” and they formed their own denomination. That seemed off to me. That is kind of when it started to occur to me… lots of people have had “Spiritual awakenings” and started their own denomination. Something did not seem right about that. Here, I was starting to believe that maybe the Lutherans are right, and it turned out I was going to church in a Lutheran denomination that was pretty much just a splinter group from traditional Lutheranism.

Catholic apologetics is solid as a rock. I would read Catholic apologetics and think “That sounds right, but It cannot be.” So then I would read protestant apologetics (mostly, stuff on why Catholics are wrong) and that would someone convince me that I should not become Catholic again. But then I would read catholic apologetics again and repeat the process. At the end, I found Catholic apologetics was just more solid than any protestant apologetics I have read in my entire life.

I came to the realization that The Catholic Church is the Church Christ founded. I was really all for Christian unity even when I though I was a Lutheran… what better way to do this than to be part of the original church. Not a splinter group or a man made denomination. So I knew I had to become Catholic. 🙂 I prayed a lot during the whole process. I prayed everyday for God to lead me down the path of truth.
 
I was raised in an obscure holiness sect. We had very little contact with outsiders although we were very active in overseas mission work. I spent much of my childhood in Mexico. We were quite simply cut off from modern society. I received an excellent academic education through my church and went on to college.
Naturally I rebelled against my restrictive upbringing and began questioing the existence of God. I became quite a hedonist but Someone was looking out for me. I married a wonderful man at age 20. As our children were born, God made Himself known to us. I knew the Catholic Church was the true church from my Scriptural and doctrinal studies in graduate school, but my husband was barely a Christian as it was and being Catholic scared him to death. So we went Anglican although our children attended Catholic schools. That’s what eventually led us home. A deacon, our children’s theology teacher, gave us each a little red leather missal/guide to the Catholic faith. The headmaster gave us each a rosewood rosary. These things led us home.
Now I eagerly share my story with those who will listen.
 
My husband and I have a conversion story that was actually published in both our parish bulletin and, eventually, the diocese bulletin.

My husband was raised Protestant but always had a feeling something was missing. He went to Mass once when he was nine and was taken aback by the reverence of communion. He wondered why the priest held up the host and actually quoted scripture by saying “this is the body of Christ” instead of saying it was “in memory” at his Church. He asked his mother this question and couldn’t get an answer.

Time went on and he became more and more unhappy with his church. He was raised Pentecostal and is incredibly shy and very introverted. He wanted to convert to Catholicism but was disheartened by the vast number of Cafeteria Catholics he met (including a priest!).

But he kept reading about the Church and its history and began to study himself out of Pentecostalism and into other Churches he thought were more genuine. He tried Presbyterianism and Calvinism…and was unimpressed with both.

He came close to attending RCIA three separate times. Each time he’d talk himself out of it.

Then I came into the picture. I was a fallen away cradle Catholic. I was raised in a “Catholic” family. We were water, rice and dirt Catholics. I was baptized and sent to a very poor Sunday school at my neighborhood parish.
My parents did absolutely nothing to raise us in the faith except help us learn a couple of mandatory prayers and only brought us to regular Mass a couple of months before we were to receive our First Communion.
I stopped Sunday school soon after, with no objection from anyone, and was never confirmed.
I grew into an agnostic who thought she “knew” everything about Christianity and how “wrong” it was and how “crazy” people were to believe in it.

I met my husband. We started dating. He was in the military and was sent on an 8 month training deployment soon after. We got to know each other through endless hours on the phone.
This led to a lot of discussion about Christianity. What he said made perfect sense.

When he came home around Christmas we watched The Nativity Story together and went to midnight Mass.
Watching that movie did something for me. It moved me so much and opened my heart to Jesus.

But I still didn’t go to Church. I just started reading the bible and praying.
Going to a Protestant church wasn’t really an option for me. I went to one service at my husband’s mother’s Church and was scared and really confused.
I didn’t like the band and I didn’t like the casualness of the preaching. I didn’t like the openness of it…or the alter call.

My husband and I moved in together…we were making it all up as we went along. No one saw anything wrong with us co-habitating. I had no idea it was so wrong.

Predictably…and after being together for 3 years…I found out I was pregnant.

This was when everything changed.
He proposed to me soon after and we started looking into getting married. I wanted to be married in the Church.
I finally started reading into Catholicism and exactly what it taught and why.

I was horrified. Absolutely horrified. I was horrified at myself. I couldn’t believe how wrong I was and how wrong we had been.
I was also angry that I had never been taught about morality. My parents, the Church I went to during my childhood.
Even my soon-to-be husband knew about this all but still caved to everything.

Meanwhile…my husband was seriously looking into conversion. He started going to a local parish because he liked the messages on the Parish sign. They were conservative and not watered down.
He went in to talk to the Priest and the Parish director. They weren’t like other Catholics he had met.
They actually believed everything the Church taught and were very Orthodox.
He started going to Mass and adoration.
A couple of months later…I did too. Then we both started RCIA.

It was the longest, hardest year of my life. I was in school full time, working part time, going to RCIA, planning for a baby and planning for a wedding…and we got approved for a house loan and started house hunting too.

In this order…we finished RCIA, had our daughter a week later, he was fully received into the Church about a week after that, closed on our house a month later, baptized our daughter a week after we closed on the house…and a week after that we were sacramentally married. Two days after our wedding I was confimed and a week after that we moved into our house.

The Holy Spirit was with us the whole time…I didn’t know it at the time…but, looking back, it’s seriously obvious.

God is amazing…isn’t He? 😉
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top