I was born into the Catholic Church in February 1964. My father was a convert from the Southern Baptist church to Catholicism. He rarely attended Mass—perhaps twice a year on Easter and Christmas. My mother, a devout Catholic, made certain that my two brothers and two sisters and I attended Mass every Sunday. When I was in the third grade my mother taught us the rosary. We would say the rosary every morning before school.
When I was 15 years old my parents divorced. My father was an abusive alcoholic, and my mother had lived a life of quiet fear and pain, both emotionally and physically. Most of my siblings and I never knew what my mother had survived until years after the divorce.
Once my parents were divorced, and our heavy-handed father was no longer in the home, I began to rebel. My two older sisters were 16 and 18. They had cars, boyfriends, jobs. My two younger brothers were falling into the trap of going back and forth between Mom and Dad. And me? I was just there. I spurned church. After all, what was the big deal? Or so I thought at the time and for many years to follow. I left home and fell into a life of drinking, drugs, and sex. I can’t begin to imagine now the pain I must have brought my mother.
When I was 20 my father died from a brain tumor. His was the first death of someone close to me that I had ever experienced and, needless to say, I wasn’t very close to him at the time. Many years later my mother told me that my father had called her when he knew death was near and had apologized for everything he had put his family through. I knew then that my mother had spent many years praying for my father. I too began praying for him. I love him very much and hope one day to see him again in paradise.
I met my husband, Paul, the year of my father’s death. He and I worked closely together at the same company. We started dating, and soon I became pregnant. Like so many young women, I opted for an abortion. I did not tell Paul I had been pregnant until after the abortion. Within months he had asked me to move in with him. I did, reluctantly. I knew that living with a man usually killed a relationship. I was in love with Paul and wanted a lasting relationship. I was thrilled when, four months later, he asked me to marry him. We were married by a justice of the peace April 1985.
It was amazing to me that through all the drinking and drugs of my earlier life I had never become addicted, although I was a prime candidate for addiction because of my father’s alcoholism. And that throughout all the promiscuity, although I had never used birth control, I never became pregnant or contracted a disease. Now here I was, married to a wonderful man, and I was getting pregnant every year. The problem was, I never could carry the baby to term. I had six miscarriages in six years. These years were followed by six barren years, despite the fact that we did not use birth control. Paul and I resigned ourselves to a life without children.
Through all those years I did not attend church except the few times I went with my mother. I could not understand her beliefs. I knew she believed without question all of the Church’s teachings, but I thought this was spiritual blindness. I knew some of the Protestant beliefs about Catholicism were wrong—such as thinking Catholics worshiped Mary—but I also thought that much of the Church’s teachings and beliefs were silly or unnecessary.
Practices such as blessing objects seemed ridiculous. I never thought that Holy Communion was anything more than a symbol. And confession to a priest? Unnecessary. I thought there was nothing wrong with birth control. I had no thoughts on abortion one way or the other. And I truly believed it was not necessary to attend church in order to have a good relationship with God. I did not know the Church claimed to be Christ’s Church, but had I known I would have scoffed.
Then one day in 1997 the Lord hit me over the head with a brick so to speak. I will always remember the days following this experience, because it changed my life forever.
I was sitting at my computer in the middle of the afternoon, thinking about spiritual things, when all of a sudden an inescapable thought came to mind: Vivian, you have to start going to church again! I didn’t know why this thought was so overwhelming, but in that instant I knew that I had to worship God in church, that it couldn’t be done sufficiently and completely anywhere else.
Now, those of you who have attended Mass all your life may ask, What’s the big deal? Of course you have to go to church. But you cannot understand what it is like to live 18 years of your life without church. I may have given a brief thought to church once a year, if that often. When you have little or no faith, thoughts of God and church are few and far between. Perhaps a Jehovah’s Witness shows up at your door. Or perhaps a faith-filled member of your family gives you something that you ponder for 20 seconds or so, only for the thoughts to move to the back of your mind, soon to be forgotten completely.
It is unimaginably sad. Those who, for whatever reason, have lost their faith need our prayers more than we can possibly know. I had no idea how barren I had been until I found my faith. Thank God that he loves me so much that he finally brought me to a point where I could ignore his calling no longer!
And then my next thought was, What church will I attend? You see, I did not want to be a Catholic. I had said for years, “If I ever go back to church, it will not be the Catholic Church.” My husband was raised in the Worldwide Church of God, and from what he told me I didn’t want to be a member of that religion. I felt that any of the mainstream Protestant denominations would do. But I didn’t know which one of the thousands that I should join.
I had an overwhelming desire to study the Christian faith before making a decision. I went to my set of encyclopedias and started with the Baptists, mainly because one of my sisters had converted years before. I was under the impression that all faiths had more or less existed since the time of Christ. I thought perhaps some might have changed since then but that they still had existed. What I found was that the Baptist faith went back only to 1609.
The more I looked at the different Protestant faiths, the more I began to realize that none of them went back any further than this thing called the Reformation. So I looked up the Reformation, which led me to Martin Luther, which led me to Catholicism. This Funk & Wagnall encyclopedia was telling me that no Christian faith except Catholicism existed before the sixteenth century. I was stunned.
I decided to go to my local Catholic bookstore and see what I could find out about Catholicism. I asked the clerk at the store if he could suggest some good, simple, basic reading for someone who was considering the Catholic faith. He suggested Surprised by Truth, a collection of conversion stories. I also bought a Catholic Bible because I had never owned a Bible.
I read Surprised by Truth two or three times, and I went through the Bible verses given in support of Catholic teachings. I bought more books, such as The Faith of the Early Fathers, which showed me that the early Christians were Catholic. A week later, I called my mother and apologized to her for all the negative comments I had ever made concerning Catholicism. I informed her I was coming home to my Catholic faith.
The joy I experienced was overwhelming. I found myself wanting to share what I had found with those I love. I realized though what a tremendous gift God had given me when it became clear that what to me was as obvious as the nose on my face was not obvious to others. My Protestant friends and family members couldn’t care less about the history of Christianity. All that mattered was a personal relationship with Christ. It was a difficult lesson for me to learn, but God finally got through to me and showed me what prayer could do. He taught me how to back off and remain still.
For reasons that escape even my mother, I was not confirmed as a teen. Both of my sisters had been, but somehow I fell through the cracks. I visited my local parish priest. He told me that I needed to be married in the Church and confirmed. I asked my husband if he would marry me all over again, and he said yes. I was confirmed just before Easter 1997. We were married in the Catholic Church on April 12. Nine months later, on January 7,1998, our son Nicholas was born.
God has been overwhelmingly generous with my family and me. He has filled our lives with grace beyond comprehension. I thank God that he protected me in my youth. I thank God that he has forgiven me my sins through reconciliation. I thank God that he died for me. I thank God that he lives in me and guides me to all truth through his Church. I believe everything the Church teaches, without doubt. I love my heavenly Mother, who has guided me into a tremendous relationship with my earthly mother, the woman who offers Masses and prays rosaries every day for her five children.
I hope one day to give my son back to the Father as a gift, for I would love more than anything for him to be a priest. I pray that I may run the good race and persevere. I pray one day that I will see the fruits of my labors, through prayer and teaching, to bring others to Christ’s Church.