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| 50 Reasons Why I Converted to Catholicism |
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Originally Posted May 9, 2008; Addendum the actual list of 50 added July 3, 2008
In the middle period of my initiation into the Catholic Church (about eighteen months), I became fascinated with the literature of catholic conversion. As the United States Bishops and our own Fr. Mark noted the weekend of May 3-4, evangelization is an individual duty and has ramifications for the whole of mankind (if we took it seriously, the Kingdom of God would be finally peacefully manifested here on Earth). In May of 2007, I started to feel guilty that I had not written my formal testimony about my journey to Catholicism. As a person home on disability, with pretensions to being a great American writer since the final year of my undergraduate years, a professional or semi-professional writing career felt to me a perfect way to land my family’s financial security and gain for me a measure of personal and spiritual satisfaction. In late summer of 2007, I became a sponsor/godfather for a RCIA candidate, and my next nine months were filled with the exhilarating process of helping another brother in Christ return to the his original Church. So my writing on my conversion testimony took a delay as I focused on being a sponsor/godparent. The literary genre of apologetics testimony is most recently dominated by cradle Catholics, and the genre of conversion testimony focuses on the macro spiritual journey and large theological obstacles to conversion to Catholic Church (e.g. Rome Sweet Home  ) from American Protestantism, and stays away from the little myriad (yet fascinating) details of coming into the Catholic faith as an adult. I have been struggling to either fit my story within those constructs, or to press my imagination and nobility to invent a new way to think about Catholic conversion and evangelization. This year’s focus on evangelization, and Fr. Mark’s fabulous May 4, 2008 homily reminded that each Believer has a Gospel (Good News) story… a version of living in Christ. A story that is unique and compelling. A story that we must think about and share; a story, once shared, that can have salutary effects on people already in the church, and those who are outside the church. Fr. Mark’s urgency in preaching this homily drove home the point that it is our Christian duty to share our story as part of our commission to evangelize. The literature of Catholic apologetics has ancient stars and contemporary bestsellers. The writing of names like Augustine of Hippo, William F. Buckley, Garry Wills (Why I Am A Catholic), leaves the nascent writer humble to a level that is not healthy or noble. Liz Kelly’s charming and simple enthusiasm of faith and elements of Roman Catholicism,  May Crowning, Mass, and Merton: 50 Reasons I Love Being Catholic, left me thinking that there was no room to explore how the Holy Spirit brought me back to Christ’s original church, and the illumination found within. So starting today, I am dedicating my blogs to enumerating, in short bites, why I converted to Catholicism. Some of these reasons are supernatural signs, others are mundane (bordering on the banal). Some of the reasons are theological reasons, and some are Catholic prayers, practices and postures. One is a particular person in my family. All are things I encountered prior to Holy Week 2007. Since my initiation I have come across things, ideas, individuals that make me glad I continue to be Catholic, but I want to focus this series of blogs on the people, places, things and ideas that drew me into the Catholic Church; things the Spirit placed before me that lead me down the road, on the road to becoming.
Coda: long before reading up on the theology of conversion and evangelization, I suspected that the Holy Spirit is the animating force in all individuals coming home to the Catholic faith. To have experienced that in my own life, the inexplicable tug of God toward all things catholic, as I became and remain joyously Catholic is a certainty of God’s presence and salvation purpose for all lives. This list is not manmade, or unique discoveries I made; but came from Christ's Church, and the Holy Spirit. I am humbly not forwarding intentional heresies. The items will not be posted in numerical order (1, 2, 3... or inverse order like a Letterman Top Ten List 50, 49, 48, 47... 1).
12:7 But to each one is given the manifestation of the Spirit to profit withal.
ADDENDUM
Since there have been comments/questions about my having 50 actual reasons for converting, I decided to prove that I have fifty true things that compelled my to move from Protestant to Catholic at age 47. Readers can read "The Nifty Fifty" as opposed for the slow rollout of one every other day.
1. The Mass
2. Priests, Nuns, Deacons, Pastoral Associates
3. The Big Welcome
4. My Son, William
5. Liturgy & Devotions
6. Jesus and the Gospel of St. John
7. Single Race Churches No Longer Acceptable
8. 250,000 Jesus Frans Can't Be Wrong
9. I Needed Spiritual Boot-Camp; Freedom Through Discipline
10. Faith, Logic & History of Doctrine
11. Catholic Prayers
12. Catholic Books: The Bible, The Catechism of the Catholic Church, Missals, Magnificat, The Divine Comedy, The Case for Christ, The Confessions
13. My Small Christian Community
14. November
15. Our Lady of Guadalupe
16. Incense
17. Four Scripture Readings During Sunday Mass
18. Respect and Love for Jewish Brothers
19. Silence & Devotion in the Mass
20. Calls & Response in the Mass: Thanks Be To God
21. Time
22. Humanae Vita and the Single Garment
23. New Orleans
24. John Paul II
25. Benedict XVI
26. Dreaming of the Hail Mary
27. Holy Days of Obligation
28. First Sunday of Advent
29. I Almost Died, and Then I Lived... Paralysis, Surgery, and Dreaming of Anne Rice
30. Courage
31. Stuff I Forgot I Knew
32. Catholic Aerobics
33. The Holy Rosary
34. Western Civilization: University system
35. Western Civilization: Art and Architecture
36. Western Civilization: Monks Preserving Literacy and Literature
37. Urban Civilization
38. What is Bred In the Bone: JFK, RFK, St. Drexel, St. Seton,
39. Henri Nouwen
40. Music
41. Catholic Schools, Colleges, Hospitals, Charities
42. The Honesty of Admitting Mystery at the Heart of Faith
43. Comprehensive Nature of Catholic Christian Discipleship
44. The Kindness of Strangers
45. Mary, Mother to Us All
46. EWTN
47. Watching the Rite of Election
48. Eucharist
49. Watching the Holy Triduum
50. Cynthia, the Preacher's Kid and wife devoted beyond measure
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| Look foward to reading about your journey! |
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Gene |
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May 09, 2008 at 7:20pm |
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This is very exciting! I can't wait to read your story.
Gene |
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Grant |
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May 09, 2008 at 8:37pm |
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| I look forward to this too. I have studied Catholicism and early church Christianity for a long time now. Perhaps some of your comments will center on answering my objections as to why I have not converted to Catholicism. I give such reasons as Marianism, Infallibility, authoritarianism and dogmatism in areas not commanded by Christ or His Apostles. Blessings! |
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| I'm just marvelling that you have exactly 50! Why not 46, or 53, or 39....guess I can be pretty shallow! (It is late after all.) Ok, well I too look forward to your reasons! |
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Gene |
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May 10, 2008 at 12:01pm |
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You know, when I converted it had nothing to do with an academic acceptance of church teaching. It had everything to do with coming to know Christ.
Just considering the tone of his blogs, I suspect that Jay may have something similar going on. Thus my excitement.
When I was deep in the search, I had established the premise that every denomination had something about it that was wrong. So that's I think people have a tough time reading any church's documentation and getting that warm fuzzy feeling that they're making the right move. Hopefully, when we're looking for God we're open to His direction which includes selection of a denomination and church home.
Gene
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I am curious as well. I was in catholic schools from age 5 to 22. I do think that Catholics can be Christians (hear me out here) but so many that surrounded me and are around me "go through the motions" (I know all denominations do) but what hung me up was the role of the priests, the changing of views (which were originally based on man-made rules, not scripture), the works-based salvation (do the sacraments, get in good with God). I hope that your journey took you to Catholicism as a means to further understand Christ. Because the Catholicism I knew and lived with knew very little of the Bible, and while they knew Jesus died and rose for us, there seemed to be a lot we had to do to get saved. God Bless. |
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Gene |
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May 13, 2008 at 11:10am |
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Growing,
Really? You grew up believing that if you went through the motions you'd "be saved"? I've heard this from a lot of people.
While I am truly exstatic about my Christian life as a Catholic, my biggest beef with them is religious education. What you commented supports that. I will tell you that there is a growing swell to correct that problem.
Gene |
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Yep. I really didn't understand the simple connection of this: Jesus HAD to come to earth to die - to defeat death - in order for my sins (if I repented) to be wiped clean. I'm 31...so I'm post-Vatican II. We were taught that when Jesus died, the gates of heaven were opened and now we could 'get in'. With hindsight, I was basically taught a form of "universalism with a cost". Everyone can get there, you just either have to DO enough things here to take time off your purgatory sentence, or spend time in that existence until you were purified. PLEASE NOTE I do not think that Catholics cannot or are not saved, but many ARE not because they're off-target. It's a case of hamartia or "missing the mark", and it's due to the education we receive. I've often said that my grandparent's generation was pre-Vatican II, and didn't know the Bible unless they knew Latin, but were devout and regimented in their living. My parents saw that dissolve, but passed on the 'motions' to my generation, who by and large dropped ANY belief in Christianity because Catholicism seemed to be more focused on bingo and not eating meat on Fridays than understanding why this Jesus guy was so important! That's why so many people I've been around will go and drink and smoke and gamble and believe that confessing to a priest and saying prayers (rote repetition) wipes it out. There's no repentance there. Once again, I believe that many Catholics DO get it, but the education and 'baseline" understanding isn't there.
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Gene |
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May 13, 2008 at 11:52am |
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Hmmm. That's sad to hear. Too many people have just flat missed the richness. Which is why I'm a major advocate of "seek ye first the kingdom of God" and being willing to be led by the Spirit.
You were a Catholic led somewhere else so you could bloom.
I was a Baptist led to Catholicism so I could bloom. Something similar apparently happened to Jay.
I came across a Baptist lady at work and we had a discussion about why she stopped attending church. I think the bottom line for her was that she just didn't see the connection of what they talked about.
Unfortunately, I think the story you told is very similar to stories all across the country of people loosing interest in the faith of their childhood, regardless of the denomination. The simplicity of the Gospel just keeps getting lost in religious red tape of all kinds.
Gene |
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GrowingInFaith, I too am sad that your experience with Catholics is one of folks going through the motions. I think it is easier to see the people going through the motions than it is to see those who are living the faith (walking with Christ). We are almost trained to see the negative (ever watch the evening news?) I also think that many times people see what they want to see. My brother likes to find the negative in any and every Christian denomination (he doesn't "believe in organized religion"). I think this is to justify his "Just Me and Jesus" approach to Christianity. But to take the church (Christ's body) out of the equation is not what Christ had in mind. This type of Christianity can quickly become somewhat relativistic. So my point is, if people start looking for the light of Christ within the body, we will be amazed to see how Christ is truly working in and around us. On the topic of works. It seems that you have a bit of misunderstanding of what Catholics believe about faith & good works. I know looking back on my own years as a child that I can't remember being taught certain things about the Christian faith. That doesn't mean that I wasn't taught. It could mean that at that time in my life, I wasn't ready to hear it. May I ask how your parents lived out their Christian faith? Too often parents send their children to Catholic or some other form of Christian schooling and expect their children to get a Christian upbringing. If parents are not living it, chances are the children aren't going to grow up living it. This is why it is so important that parents realize that church starts at home (the domestic church).
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Jay |
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June 12, 2008 at 5:23pm |
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Malleus, Gene, Emae:
Thanks for the encouragement. I hope that you will enjoy the telling of my journey. It might take awhile for me to draft and get the story right, so pray.
Grant, Mike-n-Lau:
Thanks for saying you will read. I hope you will find it interesting, despite your reservations about Catholicism, or my precise number... I guess 50 did seem a little precise for something directed by The Holy Spirit.
Cade_One:
I generally agree with your impatience with the critics of "Organized Religion." Even when I struggled deeply with my faith (not precepts, but with the fundamental notion that Man made God, and not God was the Creator), I still knew that organized religion (Catholic, Protestant) was better than the "Me and Jesus" individual worship because that is the road to self-indulgence, indolence, sloth, and an entropy to the void. Left to our own devices in the individual approach to Christianity, I suspect that most people would adopt the attitude of indulged only children.
The confusion of what "works" means, and our commissions: to love and serve the Lord; love our neighbors as ourselves; making disciples of all people and nations does seem that it should be laid at the feet of parents. But I also think that there is a willful/gleeful want by critics of Catholicism to twist living and being our faith in the world (being Eucharist, after receiving Eucharist) to a mercantile exchange of faithless charity for salvation. Even I learned at secular undergraduate history courses that the myth of selling indulgences was a limited and quickly eliminated heresy.
GrowinginFaith: Properly educating children by word and example in the basics and life of Christianity (let alone Catholicism, or the alphabet) is a difficult process for parents. I have worried about this from the first day my wife was pregnant with our first (miscarried) child. I continue to really struggle with educating our family in Christ. It is a constant up and down process. I take my defeats to the confessional, and try to be humble about the successes in raising our surviving son. I hope that there will not be defeats or unintentional hypocrisy that will lead my family to ruin here and in the afterlife. I do affirm everyday that it being a good husband and father is my vocation. It is my career. How I pursued that career, and explain to my son the truths, duties, and above all joys of Christian Life is the focus of upcoming post. Sorry you felt cheated by took much focus on the mechanics of meatless Friday, and not the penitential reasons and joys of a small weekly sacrifice. But I agree, Bingo is kind of lame to become fetishistic about :-).
Pursuit of the sacraments (and I assume you are talking about Confession and Confirmation here) should not be empty ritual. Sorry if it was for you, and your questions went unsatisfied in your youth. I have been told that only recently (past 10-15 years) has the understanding and teaching of the sacraments been renewed with vigor and joyous faith. I hope you will stay with my series of posts on my conversion, as I hope to show a different side of Eucharist, Confession, Anointing of Sick and Confirmation, that is worthy of exploration since they are the most misunderstood or considered merely burdensome by most ex-Catholics of my acquaintance.
Jay |
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Cade_One not sure if you're still going to see this, but as far as the 'works' aspect goes, believe me...I was in Catholic school from kindergarten THROUGH the completion of my bachelor degree...I had to take quite a few classes in college too. My issue lies with "salvation through sacraments"- those 'works' are the ones that muddled me up and removed MANY of my friends from religion altogether. In 17 years in catholic school, I never saw much of a focus on Christ as much as the sacraments for the 'way' to salvation. I am glad to see though, that your Christian walks are BOLSTERED by your Catholicism, not limited as it was for me. |
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