Returning Catholic

[katiecall87]

So how many of you active forum lurkers fell away briefly or are total converts? I am curious to hear your stories.

I am a returning catholic, still somewhat in the ‘conversion’ phase of returning. I am attending mass again, but my heart is still conflicted on some issues.

I have been really enjoying listening to “The Journey Home” on the EWTN app on my cell phone. The program answers a lot of my questions.

Oddly enough, though, every speaker I have heard has returned from a protestant faith.

My own personal journey was very different. I left Christianity entirely for a handful of reasons. I lived my life as “agnostic” for a few years and then when I began to desperately crave fellowship and what I was calling “communion with deity” I began practicing neo-druidry/wicca.

I met some good people and had fun, but I never found what I was looking for spiritually. I always ran into problems. They weren’t welcoming of children, they seemed to mock their own faith rather than celebrate it, etc etc. There was always something. I would leave the group and desperately begin searching another one- people who were more serious about their faith, more open with children, less “weird” (meaning, more focussed on worshiping god and goddess and nature and less intent on running around naked and drinking). I wanted “pious” pagans, basically.

My husband used to invite me to church (he is protestant) and I used to give him very detailed responses as to why I would go to mass if I wanted to be Christian again. It was as if, even in my “I don’t believe in Jesus!” fury, I was still very Catholic. If I was going to be Christian, I wanted the fullness of the church. I would physically not be able to pray to god, but refrain from also honoring Mary.

In retrospect, I feel as if there were hundreds of little things that led to a “perfect storm” if you will, that tore me away from my faith. I could go on for pages about what happened. I could also go on for pages about what brought me back. I’m so flabbergasted and in awe of the whole mess… that I also can’t get enough of hearing other people’s stories.

 

[lax16]

I really look forward to hearing more of your stories and from other posters as well. I have nothing to add because I have always been a practicing Catholic, but I wanted to encourage you to listen to Catholic radio if you are not already doing so.

Welcome home!!

 

[Dorothy]

Honoring our Blessed Mother brought me into a much better understanding of my faith.

I am a senior, senior citizen now, and more readily recognize the times that our Blessed Mother straightened me out.

Peace in Jesus and Mary,

Dorothy

 

[GLam8833]

I have always been Christian, except for a time
when I was in deep depression over my loss of
my ties with my steady girlfriend and I tried
Transcendental Meditation for a while, I had always
been wary of it, and the leader of the meditations
showed a very selfish side of himself to his boarder.
Then, I had a “coming home” experience and got
baptized in a Fellowship Baptist church and was
a cafeteria christian for some years when I finally
“stumbled into” the Catholic Faith, but I’m glad
to be finally “Home”.

 

[PBP]

Hello and thank you for sharing your story with us. About 4 years ago I dabbled in the possibility of leaving the faith. I had questions and no one (including pastor at that time) had more than the canned answers designed to get them out of the conversation which I found to be shallow and frustrating. So I went to check out another Christian denomination’s church hoping to experience people on fire for GOD. Mistake #1, I put my faith in the people. So the auditorium was very nice there…high quality sound and video system. Suddenly a light high above the stage came on and there was the preacher, several people in white robes, and a clear see thru pool of water so spectators could see. The preacher began to explain the symbolism of the act of the baptism about to take place. He then said quote “now we know nothing actually happens”. I was in shock really because I knew that denomination’s baptism were normally valid and here was someone in that faith saying otherwise. I stayed remainder of the service and left disappointed that I had not experienced the fellowship there but more importantly knowing I couldnt walk away from the sacraments. Apostolic Succession is undeniable.

 

[Dorothy]

Thank you Glam, and PBP for what you shared!

 

[svid2]

Pax Christi!

Welcome home, Katie! I like this thread and look forward to reading stories and sharing mine, when I can get to a laptop.

God bless!

 

[katiecall87]

At the time where I left the church… Hmm, how do I best describe that “perfect storm”?
Well, I had come from a very sheltered (and to be frank) very abusive childhood. Or at least my teenage years were filled with abuse. I was a real life variation of Cinderella. I had been a spoiled much loved little girl. Then my father remarried. His new wife was ruthless, but also very Catholic. Or supposed to be… She herself hardly lived a Catholic life, despite forcing my father to convert and put me through religious education (so that I could be baptised). I fought it hard in the beginning because my step mother was so cruel. She openly mocked me- belittled my appearance, my intelligence, and more. It was like the villain from a Disney movie had walked out into real life and was making mine miserable. I was never allowed to go out with friends, participate in school events, or really do much of anything (including being in a room with a door closed for anything less than getting dressed). All I was allowed to do was play with her younger sons and clean. The boys were emperors. They had to always win games (or I would get a beating) and if they wanted to watch TV, I had to watch whatever show they were watching. If I read books I was told to put them down and spend time with the family, or if I had to read, read a textbook. Basically my teenage years were filled with servitude and beatings.
My step mother’s sister however was very kind to me and one of my only family members, at that point in my life, who would listen to me and make me feel like I was worth more than a house keeper. She sparked my interest in the faith. I became obsessed through her guidance. Through every beating I would think of Jesus or pray to Mary to hold me afterwards when I would cry. I was so devout and longing for escape so badly. I didn’t talk about my troubles back then. I had believed fully that my step mother was well within her rights as a parent. She was strict. She disciplined often. Somewhere in my head I knew I was getting punished for absurd things and being treated strangely (forced to wear ugly clothes that she would pick out, eating soap if I said anything she didn’t like, etc) but I still found ways to justify it.

There was a point when I was 16 where I wanted more than ANYTHING to be a cloistered sister. I saw convents as these perfect havens of bliss and safety. I actually begged my godmother/aunt to take me to the local convent once so I could plead my case. However I got there and they didn’t wear habits. For some reason that killed all desire I had to go there and I had no idea how to reach out to other organizations.

Yet despite this fixation I had other desires (as young girls do) for romance and children and adventure/travel/ seeing the world beyond my 4 walls.

So there I was desperate and begging to god for some way to escape and I met a recruiter like clockwork. I signed on with the air force and went to bootcamp, where I confused a good number of my peers. I was so calm. I did what I was told. I excelled, was rarely yelled at. When I was yelled at, I didn’t burst into tears like other girls. It didn’t really phase me. The other girls kept connecting my calm and smiles to my faith. I had no idea how to tell them that basic training was actually easier than life at home. The yelling and name calling was normal for me, and at least I knew the training instructors couldn’t hit me.

But anyway… my head filled with a sort of pride. I saw what other young adults were like for the first time, and I saw how they treated me. They treated me like I was some sort of saintly oddity. White as snow and kind as a child. I began to see myself that way. I think that was when the true trouble began. With that pride.

 

[katiecall87]

Ignorance was the other problem.

I got out of basic and went to tech school- and fell head over heals in love. I found my white knight so to speak. My husband (of almost 10 years now) at the time…hmm. If I can compare my step mother to Disney, I suppose I could also compare my husband to Disney. He was painfully charming and very sweet, but also strong and knightly in his uniform ha ha. He treated me at times like I was made of glass, and slowly he drew my story from me.

So we ended up married after as little as 3 weeks.

And boy were there problems in the beginning. Not from my marriage, so much as from life. It was really my marriage that kept me from self imploding entirely. You don’t take someone who was as naive as I was, throw them into the real world, and expect it all to go well.

My husband and I had our first military assignment in Germany. All of our peers were drinking, going to strip clubs, and generally going wild with freedom. For my part I was enjoying real freedom for the first time in my life. I was making friends and surprised to find that every person I met was wildly unchristian, and these people didn’t treat me like I was special. They looked at me with pity, like I was some poor ignorant damaged thing.

I thought, “I’m not special. I’m just…broken.” And that white shining feeling that I felt when I prayed started to go away.

That scared me so I began reaching out for a faith community. Sadly, at the base we were at in Germany the Catholic community did not exist outside of mass. There were no prayer groups or alter societies. No fellowship. So I began attending the COUNTLESS protestant groups available. They had a group for the young airmen. They had groups for families.

But I felt like an even bigger oddity with them than I had with my atheist/agnostic friends. I was loudly Catholic and it was obvious I was only with them because nothing else was available. I could feel them judging the church for that, and therefore I felt like everyone was there was on this insane obsessive mission to save the poor little Catholic girl. So I fell out of step with them.

Essentially I had no one, and the people kindest to me then were all agnostic or even atheist. I met my best friend who was… really the first sort of genuine deeply loving friend I’d managed to have in my still very new adult life. And boy did I love her. I loved her to the point of confusing my devotion with passion.

I had never once thought of females in a romantic way before, but my love for this friend was so intense, I probably would have let her love me in such a way had she approached me with that kind of desire.

Fortunately, she never did. But still, discovering that I was capable of such feelings was pretty shocking, especially when I loved my husband so much.

 

[katiecall87]

Between my questioning and my solitude, I came to the conclusion that yes- I had never been special, I had been duped. I turned to an imaginary friend (God) when life was at it’s darkest, because my step mother had never given me another option.

When I first left the faith, my life spiraled into darkness. I needed antidepressants just to function. I would have TERRIBLE panic attacks. I felt like I was going insane. A headache would suddenly become, “I can’t breathe”, and then “maybe I am dying”. I would hyperventilate and tear off my clothes because they felt like they were cutting off my air.

I’m not entirely sure what changed. Motherhood? Maturity? All I know is that one day I recognized how desperate I was for community and faith. I was disgusted by christianity though. Physically disgusted. My body would cringe at the mere thought of even being in a church.

I’ve always loved fantasy and fairy tales. LOVED. So when I stumbled across a book called “The Mists of Avalon” which characterized exactly why the Christian faith had turned me off so badly- and at the same time held up sisterhood and magic… I was enchanted. I began to study wicca and seek out covens. It gave me genuine solace. It may not have been the true faith, but even dirty pond water is delicious when one is dying of thirst. That’s the best way I can think to put it. It made me genuinely happy and that’s when I began to climb out of my darkness. I wasn’t depressed anymore. I began to feel very silly for the old days of questioning my marriage. I fell wildly in love with my insanely patient husband, again, and became a better mother. It was like I had stepped out into the light after years of being lost within myself.

But I wasn’t satisfied…

As I mentioned in my first post, I kept trying to find communities that would be more open with children. Or… more serious about their faith. I always found that my pagan groups were largely silly. No one was very devout. No one seemed to really care about the goddess. They just wanted to hang out and wear funny clothes. It upset me greatly. I gave up on the communities, but continued to practice in solitude.

Then the oddest thing began to happen between my quiet reflections and growing love with my family. My hatred for Christianity vanished. I was not in anyway interested in practicing… but I no longer saw christians as hateful biggets who control the world and abuse little girls. I saw the true spirit and beauty of the faith. I defended my husband’s beliefs (for he had never stopped being christian- although he was and is protestant) to anyone who would tease or say rude things around us. I had never done that before. I had always agreed with the jokers before.

Then one day my I became painfully nostalgic while searching for another pagan group. I would think… I’m not ready for Jesus yet, or “God” for that matter, but I missed Mary. Mary had been the one part of my teenage faith that had felt the most real for me. I am not sure why- maybe because she was human, female, a mother…

And I had an epiphany. All the time I had been wiccan. My veneration of the goddess, the maiden, the mother… rarely ever did I think of her as crone. I think if I had ever felt something real, it was always Mary trying to keep me from falling completely out of God’s hands. Because also, oddly, while I was very pagan, I had never been able to appreciate the God aspect. I recognized him in practice, but never felt him in prayer- only Goddess.

So a NEW inner battle started, where I wanted to go back to mass. I missed THINGS about Catholic Church, but not the right things. I missed the smell of incense. I missed beautiful statues of Mary surrounded by many lit candles. I missed the rosary the most. When I would get nostalgic like this and think about the rosary, I swear I could smell roses. And I would physically crave roses, to the point where I would go buy rose tea and drink it.

It was all consuming.

But still, I knew it wasn’t for the right reasons. You can’t go to church because you like church. If you’re there but don’t believe, isn’t it wrong?

So I kept fighting.

Then my husband was deployed a few months ago and Christmas came around. I was home alone with my 2 sons. And despite it being my husband’s 3rd deployment, it was my first time being alone. When my older son was a baby, I would go live with family until he came home (usually HIS family, just to clarify). I’ve never been one for solitude.

It was really hard on me at first… Then when Christmas came around… I was gobsmacked by how much I wanted more than snow and Santa. I didn’t just want to celebrate turning the wheel of the year with mint everything… I bought a nativity scene for my tree and an advent candle… Then I bought an audio book called “Joy to the World” by Scott Hahn.

Mary was calling me again, and I just knew it. It was the weirdest feeling. I didn’t fight it or question it anymore. I went to mass. Oh boy was I confused. All the words were changed. At first I almost didn’t go back, because I had wanted everything to be exactly the same as I remembered it, but then I ran into a lady at the gift shop. I admitted it was my first time back in about 6 years. She told me she had waited 20 years before returning when she fell away. Really, though, it was being surrounded by all the iconography and by such kind and talkative people that got me past my shock.

I kept going back to mass and found that it was so soothing, just to be there attending.

 

[katiecall87]

I will admit… I am not entirely sure what I believe right now. In the 10 years since I ran away from home, I have discovered that I’m actually a very analytical person. I enjoy reading and looking for absolute truths with evidence- I like history more so than science, but can enjoy both. It is very hard for me now, being how I am to simply accept Christianity as fully real again. I know that I enjoy being at mass and praying, especially the rosary. That is enough for me, for now, but I am still in the process of coming home in some ways. While I am back, my doubting mind hasn’t caught up with my heart yet.

Right now I find that I’m the most hungry for historical documentaries and novels not only regards to biblical events, but to the church itself. Anything that tries to shed a more physical documented history of our faith has been helping my mind to catch up, so to speak.

I think the biggest WOW moment I’ve had since “giving up the fight” happened while I was listening to an episode of “The Journey Home”. The gentlemen on the program explained how Mary is the Arc of the New Covenant. I was astonished because it made perfect sense, and it helped me to rationalize why/how after all this time it was Mary and not Jesus who has held me to God as you would expect- as you would assume it should be. It is because God/Jesus was held within her. She is like a missing link for one like me… a human, a nurturing mother, who held God inside of her in a more literal and physical way than any of us ever will. When you think of how the people in the old testament venerated the arc and how powerful it was, it makes sense how Mary could be so important and powerful, and yet most decidedly not be God.

So that is how I am seeing everything that happened to me in retrospect. It was always Mary holding me to the light. All I needed was time to heal old wounds and come home of my own free will. My faith is still new, but I feel it will be stronger than it ever was before, once I fully complete this new conversion. It’s so hard to explain how it’s possible to be so happy to be back and yet still so far from real belief. I am in an odd place I guess.

(amusing after thought- Do you know what was the final straw where I fully left paganism? When the gentleman who ran our grove decided to start invoking Smoky the Bear during rites and no one stopped him… I was like… This is madness!)

 

[GLam8833]

Thanx katiecall for sharing your faith journey,
isn’t it interesting how in retrospect, we see
God’s Hand in our journeys!!

Reminds me of the Song,
“When Morning gilds the skies,
my heart awaking cries,
may Jesus Christ be praised!
When evil thots molest,
with this I shield my breast,
may Jesus Christ be praised!”

 

[lax16]

Thanks for sharing your story!

It never ceases to amaze me how many people are brought back to the church by Mary.