Reverts- Personal Testimony. What brought you HOME?

  • Thread starter Thread starter robertaf
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
R

robertaf

Guest
Greetings Church

I always get excited when someone who has been away returns to the Catholic Church.

I love personal testimonies.

Will you share your stories with us? What brought you back?
[smileys.smileycentral.com/cat/17/17_1_14.gif](http://www.smileycentral.com/?partner=ZSzeb001)
 
This has been a very long journey for me. I have lived in the desert for a very long time and I feel like I have just drunk a very cold glass of water, but the journey though arduous has been beneficial to my spiritual growth and my pursuit of God.

I left the Church as a teen and I believe the impetus was a combination of poor catechisis (sp?) and an introduction to comparitive religious studies on too poor a foundation provided by that poor catechisis. Other teens rebel by staying out late, drinking, doing drugs and talking back to their parents. I rebelled by rejecting the ultimate parent. For awhile I went through a period of agnosticism – atheism – agnosticism. My big issues with the church always had to do with its legalistic/political aspects & the idea that it was the only faith with the fullness of truth. It seemed obvious to me at the time that this wasn’t true.

Since I was mad at God with the big G, there came a point where it was obvious I wasn’t really an atheist so I started exploring other faiths and spiritualities. I started attending a women’s spirituality group that was sponsored by the Unitarian Universalists. After that I flirted briefly with Call to Action or WomenChurch or whatever that group of Catholic dissenters is called. Possibly, it was a combined group of the two, but they annoyed me beyond the point of reason and it was really clear to me that the Catholic Church was not going to change matters of doctrine so those groups are essentially slamming their heads into a brick wall. After that brief flirtation, I went back to the UUA. Most of my friends were Unitarian and while I found them wishy-washy it was at least something.

I found the UUA satisfying on an intellectual level, but on a spiritual level there’s not a lot of there there so I moved on to paganism and wicca. After rejecting that as so much silliness I was basically nonreligious, though I would occasionally dip back into the UUA or occasionally the Society of Friends (Quakers). I never ever gave a serious thought to any of the mainline Protestant denominations because after reading up on it I thought they were barking up the wrong tree. That’s what’s so funny. I knew that Catholicism had it right and that the rest of them didn’t, but I was too angry and rebellious so I kept looking for something else to fill the void.

Pretty much I kept bouncing around with long extended periods where I didn’t practice any religion at all and there was a long period where I had more or less settled myself as an agnostic. I didn’t know if God existed, but I didn’t know if He didn’t exist either and basically I didn’t care either way. I had ethics and I wasn’t scared or bothered by the concept of nothingness after death and I felt that if there really was a God and a heaven, then He would probably take the way I’d lived my life into account.

That actually contented me for a long time, but I found myself after several years looking for something more and I made a decision, an intellectual decision that it was better to act as if God were really there, that it was better for me as a person to have that belief than to not have it so I started to “act as if” and eventually that moved me into “came to believe.” Anyone who is familiar with the 12 Steps is familiar with this strategy, but it really blew my mind when I came across this quote from Aquinas recently, “Believing is an act of the intellect assenting to the divine truth by command of the will moved by God through Grace.” Whenever atheists in particular have asked me in bewilderment why I would take such a course as to decide to believe in God, I never had a really clear answer for them, but I suppose this is it. I was moved by God through Grace.

cont.
 
continuation.

The journey home still wasn’t over yet though. I spent a few years churchless and then I visited a Religious Science service with a friend of mine from a 12-step group and heard a lot of what I needed to hear in that very first sermon. So ironically, I came back to Catholicism through a non-Christian religion, Religious Science. I am eternally grateful for having found Religious Science at the time when I needed to hear its message because it expanded my relationship with God and furthered my embrace of faith in God’s existence.

Though essentially non-Christian, Religious Science has respect for all faiths and most especially for Jesus. Their teachings are both metaphysical and very practical, so I found myself able to finally let go of a lot of my anger at both God and the Catholic Church. I think once I finally reached a point of peace with my childhood confusions and bitterness, God tapped me on the shoulder and said “It’s time to come home now, get packing!” I procrastinated for quite awhile, but I eventually I took the step I was being called to take and scheduled Confession. That was about five weeks ago now. I was away from home for 22 years.

Where I go from here I really don’t now. I feel that I may be called to a vocation and that I’ve always been called to such and have been running away from it my whole life. When I was a child I wanted to be a priest or a nun and I feel the stirring now to some kind of life of contemplation, but I’m taking it slowly because I get scared that this won’t last. I worry that I’ll become disenchanted, that this Grace in my life will leave me. I pray that it does not.

Jenn
 
I could write a long testimony here but I will attempt to just hit some general highlights.

Basically, I began to discover more and more each and every day something I believe I always knew but refused to face head on. That is that anything temporal is relatively meaningless. I was becoming more and more aware of my own selfishness. Things in my life that I felt gave my life meaning become to seem more and more fragile and of less and less importance.

I was miserable and couldn’t p(name removed by moderator)oint why. What I knew was that I was always comparing what I had with what others had and with what I had hoped to have. All from a secular viewpoint.

When I read the chapters on Pride and Humility in C.S.Lewis’s Mere Christianity, it helped me discover just how warped my thinking had been. Somehow reading this along with other infomation I was receiving from being tugged on by the Holy Spirit enlightened me that my philosophy of life, which basically was: “We are all responsible for our own happiness so leave me alone with my selfish pleasures and I will leave you alone with yours” was not the way to true joy and fulfillment. In fact it was just this philosophy that was inhibiting joy and fulfillment in my life. I was missing out on all God intended for His creation.

From there it simply escalated with prayer.
 
Born and raised Catholic. Mom and her side of the family are Italian and very devout, while my Dad is Baptist, but not that religous. This may have given me just enough mixed signals, combined with a poor CCD program, ( I didn’t even know how to genuflect or why it was done for example), so I rarely attended mass once I became a teenager and had a driver license. I was a big-time partier, sex, drugs, rock-n-roll, women etc. After many partners, I eventually co-habitated with my eventual first wife and had a son. She left me a couple years later for another man. I remarried in a civil ceremony a couple years after that to the love of my life. After a few years I began to hear God’s call to me to get back to the Church, but rather than bother with an annulment, we decided to go to an Episcopal Church. What a wonderful congregation, they were like a family to us. My wife became confirmed, we baptized her kids, and were very happy there. But there was this nagging tug on my spirit saying to me “go back to the Catholic Church”. I suppressed it for 6 years, but when they ordained an openly gay bishop, it really opened my eyes to the doctrinal decay. AFter much prayer and deciding to yield to His will, I asked for God to show me what to do. He placed the answer loud and clear on my heart. Go now! So I told my wife what we had to do. She wasn’t thrilled, but out of love was willing to follow me. We began the annulment process last fall. I cannot describe the spiritual excitement on my return! I can’t wait to be able to participate in the sacraments when our annulments are granted. I’m trying to convert my wife, but she is still resistant, so I’m praying, and gently and lovingly giving her books and tracts to read, while waiting patiently for her to come over when she is spiritually ready. Pray for her eyes to be opened to the truth. Thanks be to God for his patience, not giving up on me!
 
40.png
CnDWelch:
I’m trying to convert my wife, but she is still resistant, so I’m praying, and gently and lovingly giving her books and tracts to read, while waiting patiently for her to come over when she is spiritually ready. Pray for her eyes to be opened to the truth. Thanks be to God for his patience, not giving up on me!
Click to expand...
CnDWelch, have you read or suggested to have her read, The Lambs Supper by Scott Hahn?

I am just finishing the book now. If you are familiar with The BooK of Revelation you will enjoy it all the more. I think if anyone were to read this book they would see the Catholic Mass is an entierly new light. The light it was meant to be seen in.
 
Your stories are wonderful. Thank you.

I love the Lambs Supper, recommend it for every single Christian.
 
I put this testimony on a different thread but I thought it might fit here as well:

I am a cradle Catholic who found my way back home four years ago. I began drifting from my faith in my late teens and early adulthood. By the time I was in my late 30’s, I had become a full-fledged agnostic and was teetering close to atheism. During those intervening years I did many things that I’m not proud of now but at the time felt no remorse for. Ironically, it was my final push towards atheism that eventually brought me back to the church (in reality it was grace from the Holy Spirit). At the time, I had virtually given up on a belief in God and felt that I could live with the notion of meaningless existence because other very intelligent people like Richard Dawkins, Carl Sagan, David Denkins and other assorted scientists and secular materialists were doing so - they were my heroes at the time. However, I could only pretend for so long and about two months later, I had a gnawing urgency (the Holy Spirit again) to determine one way or another whether God really existed. I spent a significant amount of time studying, reading and asking questions and eventually came to the conclusion that God really did exist. The next step was to determine how God revealed Himself to the world. I studied all the major world religions including Judiasm, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism and others and the only one that made sense (even arguing from reason and history) was Christianity (and Judiasm before it). The final step was determining the church that Christ founded and that became crystal clear after I looked at the writings of the early church fathers - it was staring at me right in the face: the early church was Catholic! It’s been a joy ever since but it’s also been hard because I had to change certain aspects of my life that I was reluctant to give up. It’s also been hard because not all my family has taken the same path I have and in some cases have been hostile to my renewed faith in the Catholic church. It’s definitely been worth it, though.
 
40.png
Riley259:
I put this testimony on a different thread but I thought it might fit here as well:

.
Click to expand...
Glad you put it here. It’s a story of an intellctual journey, I enjoyed it.

BTW I too am from Mass. South Eastern
 
Again, I will just hit the highlights:

Born and raised Catholic, poor CCD but practicing family, drifted away during college, married a similar “lax Catholic”, had kids and began to attend Mass “alittle” more often, and then…September 11th occurred and rocked my world.

I did not know anyone personally involved in the tradegy but I guess it forced to me face my own immortality for the first time. Those people who died that day could have been me. Driving home from work that night I made a conscious decision to live for Christ and follow Him. I began listening to Christian music, and reading the Gospel and praying every morning. My wife thought I was nuts! It was a scary time and yet the most exciting and hopeful time in my life. I still was not “hooked” on the Catholic church but I attended there. I remember being envious of my devout Protestant friend who had a congregation that “got it”- I was discouraged by the lackluster I saw at my Parish.

Then in the summer of '02 I read a book titled “The New Faithful”- it is about how there is a surge in young Americans looking for orthodoxy in the Church. I couldn’t get enough of this story- I didn’t know that side of the Church even existed today- the idea of young Catholics who were so committed to Christ and His Church and submitted their lives in obediance blew me away and I pined to find this side of the Church in my area.

“Ask and you shall receive”

Through prayer and reading and joining a solid men’s group, visiting different parishes/pastors, I have found this vibrant and orthodox side to the Church in my backyard!

My wife has come along way also in the past 3 years (she is at adoration right now 🙂

I have been very blessed and I try to always remember to thank God for the gift of Faith. What a gift we have been given!!

I have a very special place in my heart for those affected by 9-11. I try to pray for the victims daily and consider them my guardian angels- on some level.

Thanks for the thread- what a nice idea. God bless all! (sorry I guess I hit more than just the highlights 👍 )
 
I was hurt by sexual predators beginning at a young age and onward. I had a very warped view of my sexuality and just of life in general. I was a very messed up girl. I started using drugs at eleven, had an abortion at fifteen and as an older teenager became involved in the sex industry as an exotic dancer. I had a few friends that I would do “favors” for in exchange for gifts and money. I would have described myself then as neither happy nor unhappy. I was just there, living the life that had been laid out for me. I lived a wild life, though, lots of partying, shopping, and bent on being the prettiest and sexiest “male sex object” ever. I seemed to be “carefree”, but that was a desperate attempt to prove to myself that I didn’t care. I would laugh to myself about the “stupid” women, who let men push them around. I was in control. In the words of Julia Robert’s in Pretty Woman … " I say who … I say when …" The men that frequented our establishment, I laughed at inside, as I kept taking their money and their affections. I thought they were fools.
But sometimes … I did care.
When I was a little girl. I remember sleeping all the way on one side of the bed, with my arm crooked out to myside. Every night I made room for Jesus. I don’t remember when I stopped doing that.
When I did care, I would cry from loneliness.
Sometimes … very rarely … I would pray.
One night, I was praying and feeling very sorry for the things I had done. It seemed as if a mirror had been held up to my soul and I saw my misery clearly for the first time. I was heartbroken! I sobbed and begged for Our Lord to punish me.
cont.
 
I meant it!! (It was as if you were really sorry for hurting someone, and the only thing that would make you feel better would be if they clocked you. So you keep pointing to your chin saying, “just give me a good one right here.”) Sobbing I said over and over again … “PLEASE punish me!!” I needed to feel purged!
I was surprised by the most indescribable voice (physically, I was alone). This voice would be impossible to recreate by any earthly means, not even the most sophisticated sound equipment. It was majestic and powerful (move mountains), but most of all it was living LOVE! The voice said only three words.
It said …“No, my child.” For the duration of the words spoken, perhaps one and a half seconds, I was completely filled (ecstasy?) in a way I had never been before, nor since (even during contemplative prayer). When it stopped my immediate response was to grasp for it again. “What? Say it again!” Then I lied there in amazement. He called me “his child”, he called me “his child”. I am his child! Me? Yes, me.
Ten years later, many times I walk around my home. My white picket fence, apple pie, married with children, Church on Sunday life … and I fall to my knees. I can’t believe it! In Him, I crossed over. I made it … from darkness to light. Me? Yes, me.
 
I was born and raised Catholic. Eight years of Catholic grade school taught me very little about the Bible or Church teachings. I had questions but learned not to ask them because when I asked questions out of curiosity the nuns seemed to think I was asking out of disrespect.

I kept going to Mass throughout high school, participate as usher and organist.

When I left home for college in 1977, I quit going to Mass, started living life the way I wanted to.

A few years after college, I started watching a TV preacher named Fred Price. It occurred to me that he was actually using the Bible to help people heal wounds from the past. It sounded like his teachings about faith were psychologically very similar to an infomercial guy selling “self-talk” tapes for $300 that I almost had considered purchasing.

I bought a Bible for $12 and watched Fred Price instead of buying the $300 tapes. I didn’t either believe or disbelieve, but looked at the Bible as a good source for healing, and learned my way around it a bit. As time went on, I gradually became more convinced that there must be truth in the Bible beyond mere human wisdom.

This was in about 1985, about the time I met the Catholic lady who is now my wife. When I was deciding on marrying her, I got a newsletter from Price with prayers for a spouse! I started going back to Church with her, and although it was a bit strange at first, I gradually came to accept it and feel at home again. I stayed and we baptized all six children, five of whom are still in Catholic school and one just started in public college after 13 years of Catholic school.

Meanwhile, in 2000, we were in Los Angeles and went to visit Fred Price’s church. He has a wonderful ministry, and a huge 10,000 seat dome in the middle of a ghetto. Although I don’t completely agree with his teachings, I credit him with bringing me back to God and helping me find prayers to decide on a spouse, and still watch him on the web from time to time. I may not agree with what he says but boy, I have no problem understanding it as he is very clear and easy to understand.
In case you’re interested his site is at faithdome.org/

Alan
 
I was raised a Catholic, but went to church because my parents wanted me to. I never really thought about God until my first marriage broke up (I was only 20). I was sitting in the backyard thinking, “How do I get rid of this pain? Should I kill myself/drink/take drugs?” Then I thought of all the times I heard people say things like, “Jesus saved me!” or “I once was lost, but now I’m found!”, etc. and I wondered if maybe those people were on to something.

I read the New Testament that summer. When I finished I thought, “Well, that was interesting, but I still don’t feel happy.”

After waiting for something to happen, I said, “God, if you’re there, then hear this. I have a sneaking suspicion that I will always feel empty inside, like I do now, unless I follow You. St. Paul seemed pretty happy in the New Testament. I want to be injected with whatever HE was injected with. Thanks.”

Within a week I started to think differently and see things from a different perspective. I was especially aware of (and full of remorse for) my sinful nature, which I had been hitherto ignorant of.

22 years later I am still on the same path, and I have never regretted it. However, it is NOT easy, as most of you are already aware of.
 
Wow.

This was a good thread for me to read, as my journey back “home”, thus far, has pretty much been fraught with heartache and pain.

I am at the point of giving up, but there have been people on this forum who have and continue to encourage me to stay the course.

I just don’t understand how that if I know now that this is the place I belong (20 years away, cradle Catholic, LONG story) why I can’t find a “home” here anymore.

Therese
 
40.png
vatoco6:
Wow.

This was a good thread for me to read, as my journey back “home”, thus far, has pretty much been fraught with heartache and pain.

I am at the point of giving up, but there have been people on this forum who have and continue to encourage me to stay the course.

I just don’t understand how that if I know now that this is the place I belong (20 years away, cradle Catholic, LONG story) why I can’t find a “home” here anymore.

Therese
Click to expand...
I still (and always will) struggle. Sometimes, it seems so hard to live the Faith. A constant striving, getting weary. Sin wounds the soul. Whether done to us or by us. All heartache and pain, sickness and death is a result of sin. He forgives us, but He also renews our soul, brings order from disorder, harmony from chaos. In my experience, this always entails suffering. Sometimes I get discouraged by how far it seems I have to go, then I look at how far He has brought me and I am encouraged.
My biggest struggle is (still:o ) actually believing He loves me. I also still struggle to accept this love. I know that the only way to accept it, is to accept that this wonderful awesome God-man had to go through extreme suffering unto death for me. It’s not a struggle of believing it, the struggle is because I believe it. It’s the part of me that wants to scream as He is walking to Calvary … "NO!! STOP!! Turn back!! Please don’t do this for me … I am not worth it. Just let me go to hell! That in order to allow Him to love me, Innocence must suffer on my behalf! It should be me up there and sometimes I wish it were. I want to rip Him down and take His place. Then when the slightest opportunity to suffer somes along, I complain and resist interiorly. (sigh)😦

Home … our home is in Heaven. But the Church offers a home away from home. A refuge and shelter on our pilgrimage and exile. I pray you find what you are looking for, Therese.
 
40.png
vatoco6:
Wow.

This was a good thread for me to read, as my journey back “home”, thus far, has pretty much been fraught with heartache and pain.

I am at the point of giving up, but there have been people on this forum who have and continue to encourage me to stay the course.

I just don’t understand how that if I know now that this is the place I belong (20 years away, cradle Catholic, LONG story) why I can’t find a “home” here anymore.

Therese
Click to expand...
See Therese, you can’t give up because that is exactly what the devil would want from you. Last thing he wants is sweet Therese, Child of God, actually having success and praising God until her breakthrough comes! …which it always does come if you just keep on pushing through the pain.

It is NOT an easy journey, and there are days when everyone feels like giving up becuase it is so hard - but OH the reward is great!

I have prayed to Jesus, “please let me just stop and move on, instead of wait for xyz to happen in my life. This is too painful and I have no more strength.”
And God quietly responds to me, “NO”.

Well, He is responding to you as well, “No, Therese. You must stay and I will stay with you. It will be hard, but I will help if you learn to lean on me.”

God Bless you in your journey home. God has put you here at this point in time because he knows you can handle it.
 
Iv’e just read all of your stories and the thought came to me…We have to follow in His footsteps…from the Agony in the Garden… up the hill to the Cross and…The Ressurection!!! :love:
Remember there is no Easter without a Good Friday!
God Bless you All and I will keep you in my prayers…Annunciata:)
 
Raised Catholic, Catholic schools grades 1-12. From about 1970, mid high school years, when I was old enough to think and question things, I drifted away from the Church, and from all Christianity or any spirituality. I was a vaguely Christian person for over twenty years.

In 1985, I was at a Padres baseball game in San Diego. I sat in the general admission seats, where no seat is assigned. While I was sitting there, a sizable group of people came in and ended up in seats all around me. These people stood out as being different. The grooming, jewelry and dress of this group were “normal” which was unusual at that place and time. The children were polite and respectful with the adults and even with each other. No coarse laguange. It was very notable to me as an island of normalness there in a sea of chaos and craziness. I talked to a couple of the kids, and they told me they were going to meet one of the Braves players after the game. When I asked how they had arranged that, they said it was through their church – Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

There was no change in my life or thinking. However, several years later, I happened to be going through the AM radio stations in my car to set the buttons on radio stations. As I did this, I heard a few seconds of a radio preacher, Chuck Swindoll, on his show on a Christian radio station. Something about it caught my attention, and I listened for a few more minutes. As I listened, I had a very similar feeling as I had at the ballgame – a sense of there being an oasis of normalness here amidst all the craziness. I started listening to Christian radio more and more. I kept it a secret, for fear of being thought of as one of those loonies who “got religion.” The draw toward spiritual things started getting stronger, and I decided risk coming out in the open a little bit, and to start going to Church. Without thinking too much about it, I decided to give Catholic church a try, since I had been raised in that. A lot had changed since I last went to mass. Most of my mass-going experience in the early years had been the Latin mass, with just a little of the early English mass. I continued going to Mass, started taking the family. I read about different Christian faiths, and the more I read and thought about it, the more I realized that the Catholic Church has genuine teaching authority.

Keath Wade
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top