An old college friend and I were chatting on the phone, sharing stories across the miles. After I made mention of our baby’s baptism, Kathy asked, “In the Catholic Church?”
“Yes,” I said. “There’s so much to tell you, but I’m Catholic now.”
Kathy paused, then with a smile in her voice said, “I’ve always known that the sun will rise every morning and Angie will never be Catholic. Now I wonder if the sun will even bother coming up tomorrow.”
Her response revealed how hardened my heart had been toward Catholicism. In fact, my spiritual journey into the Catholic Faith is one of prideful walls being torn down and replaced with an unbelievable amount of acceptance.
I was raised on a farm in northern Wyoming. Our family attended a Baptist church, and my parents lived a wonderful example of Christian service. When I was eighteen, I moved for the first time in my life, to attend college in Montana. Even as I entered adulthood, I was blessed with the faith of a child, and I consistently sought Jesus in prayer.
A friendly Baptist church in Bozeman welcomed me in. Honestly, it’s so easy to praise God when you are surrounded by gorgeous mountains and can slip away into nature within minutes.
Beauty in obstacles
After much prayer, I moved to St. Louis to follow my dream and finish my degree in occupational therapy. While there, I met the man who would become my husband. As a matter of introduction, he offered the information that he had nine sisters and a brother, he was Catholic, and had just bought a dump truck. I could have run away right then, but his strong family values and sincere, even-keeled temperament only roped me in tighter.
As Jim and I were falling in love, we talked about how we could meet on common ground to incorporate traditions from both our religious backgrounds. After all, we both believed Jesus Christ was our savior. On a road trip, Jim once said, “See those mountains over there? They provide a physical barrier, just like the rules of our different denominations. We can choose to focus on the obstacles, or we can decide to see the beauty in them.”
We talked about the importance of always going to church together when we were married. He agreed, of course: He was in love. Besides, Jim really only went to church on holidays. I had years of Fundamentalist jargon in my head, with some very negative opinions about the Catholic Church. When I was bold enough to blurt these out, he assured me that he was willing to find a church home together once we were married.
Our wedding was in my hometown Baptist church, with my beloved Uncle Louis, a Methodist minister, presiding. Already we were off to an ecumenical start. Shortly afterward, we moved to Texas for my first job. We were invited to attend a Baptist church there with an active young couples’ Bible class. Every meeting was like a mini marriage retreat.
I loved it, but Jim could not have been more miserable. He stopped going and we started fighting about our differences in faith traditions. Jim refused to try a different Protestant church, and I felt betrayed. With no common spiritual ground, we permitted the stereotypes of each other’s different faith practices to chew up our relationship.
Shut out of Communion
While wandering in this darkness, God guided me to a car pool with a woman who was Catholic. I vented to Barb for hours each week about how my husband made promises to me he never intended to keep. She listened compassionately listening and eventually invited us to attend her church.
When Jim and I finally did go to Mass together, I was filled with self-righteous anger. Why was I the one who had to compromise? After all, I rarely missed a Sunday of church in my whole life. The injustice was searing. At every Mass I cried when Jim went to receive Communion. It just seemed like a mountainous obstruction to me: Jim was invited, but no matter how close I was to Jesus, I was not allowed to receive him. It was another fiber of misunderstanding which was knotted up inside of my hardened heart.
Yet the priest there at St. Jerome’s was brilliant Fr. Bill was a convert to the Catholic Faith himself, and he had the gift of welcoming people in and recruiting their talents. He was diligent in inviting me to attend class “to learn more about your husband’s faith. No strings attached.”
So I went to RCIA. And I argued. I stayed after the meetings to grumble to the others about how these teachings made no sense inside my Fundamentalist framework. Jim went to the first few sessions with me, but then started attending a college class that met at the same time. He appeared disinterested; his silence was antagonizing to me. He plainly said that his faith was private and he didn’t know how to explain it. Little did I know how hard he was praying for me.
Faith strong enough to bend
During the study of John 6 with a guest speaker, I began to understand the Catholic teaching of the Real Presence in the Eucharist. I took it to heart and didn’t want to be one who turned away from Jesus because this was such a difficult teaching, to believe that he is the living bread. Jesus said, “The words I have spoken to you are spirit and life” (John 6:63 ). I wanted to be filled with the spirit and life that he explains comes to whoever eats this bread, which is not a symbol but the real flesh of Jesus.
Waiting for my husband to return from receiving Communion was no longer so lonely and alienating. At some point a little thought started to grow in my mind: Jim’s faith was starved outside the Catholic Church, away from the sustenance of the Eucharist. Maybe there is something to that. Maybe my faith was strong enough to bend, so I could quit tearing him down. I prayed that God would show me what to do.
One other emotion played into my spiritual journey: feeling like I was abandoning my sister, who is a vibrant born-again Christian. Melissa and I had enjoyed a wonderful closeness in recent years, often praying together over the phone. I was so fearful that entering the Catholic Church would push her away. This tormented me, and frequently I wondered if I would regret the decision to become Catholic. I continued to beg God to help me know his will.
Right after our second wedding anniversary, we moved back to Jim’s hometown in Missouri. Still on my path toward Catholicism, I enrolled in RCIA again. Doubts and complaints did continue to circulate in my mind, but they were slowly being replaced by my yearning for the Eucharist.
A hospital witness
One morning while I was at work at the hospital, I finished seeing a patient in her room. I was too busy writing notes on my clipboard to notice that a Catholic priest had just brought Communion to her roommate. As the priest left, this roommate, to whom I hadn’t spoken before, gazed out her window.
“I’m so thankful to have my faith to rely on,” she said, almost to herself. “I converted to the Catholic Church when we were first married. After all these years, I know it’s the best decision I ever made. It meant that we were able to raise our kids in union of our beliefs. After my husband passed away, someone asked me if I would go back to the Presbyterian Church. Why would I? The Catholic Faith has become my own. It’s a constant source of strength to me.”
At this point, my jaw was lax, my head felt light, and I was walking slowly toward her in awe. How could this woman line up all the uncertainties in my head and knock them down like dominoes? I mumbled something about being in the process of converting, and she just smiled and delivered the most powerful message I’ve ever received. She glanced at me, as if she was seeing me for the first time and said, “I didn’t give anything up. I only gained—gained the sacraments.”
At that moment, I understood that the Holy Spirit was giving me encouragement through this woman, who could look back over her life and see the goodness that flowed from her decision to become Catholic. The wisdom she spontaneously shared was strong enough to infuse me with new hope. Along with it came a profound feeling of peacefulness, the exact element which had been so lacking in my marriage. It was a turning point, to start healing the blame and offering complete acceptance to my husband.
This woman was discharged from the hospital before we could speak again. Through the years it has brought me great comfort that she would share her reassuring message with me right after receiving Jesus in the Eucharist. Of course.
Grace through sacraments
I entered the Catholic Church the following Easter. Friends and family members, who had lifted me up in prayer all along, surrounded me with love and support on that night.
On my thirtieth birthday, Jim and I celebrated the sacrament of holy matrimony. By that time I understood more fully that a sacrament is an outward sign instituted by Christ, where he pours his grace over us. That last bit is my paraphrasing, but it allows me to picture us standing under a big chandelier, being showered by the light of Jesus’ grace through the sacraments.
That’s exactly where I want to be: married to this kind-hearted man and raising our five kids on this common ground of strength and faith. Against all odds, we’re standing here together now as a Catholic couple. And, yes, Kathy, the sun will indeed rise tomorrow morning.