“God works in mysterious ways.” How often have we heard this phrase? None of us know what plans God has in store for us. But sometimes we encounter mysterious events in our lives that lead us in completely new directions.
This happened to me. I was a Protestant all my adult life and content with my life’s direction. Switching to Catholicism was not part of the picture. Yet I did convert. It started with an encounter with the Holy Spirit. Because of that encounter, my life’s path began a journey toward putting God first in my life and eventually a journey to Catholicism.
It was not an easy journey. After correcting many misconceptions I had about the Catholic Faith, I still had to surmount a number of basic ideological differences between Catholicism and Protestantism. I did not set out to prove that Catholics were right or wrong; rather, I wanted to learn more about my faith in general. If the answers I learned about these ideological differences supported my Protestant faith, I was going to remain a Protestant.
However, if they supported the Catholic faith, I was ready to make the change to Catholicism. These ideological differences included the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist; Tradition; and papal authority, succession, and infallibility.
A typical upbringing
My upbringing was not far from the family life depicted by the TV show Father Knows Best. My parents never had a lot of money, but they always provided my sister and me with the necessities of life. Most importantly, my parents loved each other and showered us with plenty of love. Any faults that I developed, such as not always putting God first in my life, were not because of my upbringing but due to my own actions.
I grew up in the suburbs of Southern California. My parents were devout Lutherans. I attended church every Sunday and participated in all of the normal church functions: baptism, Sunday school, confirmation, etc. By the time I was ten years old, I was an usher in our church. I thought our pastor was reverent and extremely knowledgeable in religious matters and the Bible. I trusted his every word.
I attended public schools. To the best of my knowledge, none of my boyhood friends were Catholic. All of the Catholic kids in my neighborhood attended a local Catholic school. I also cannot remember my parents or friends ever making any comments either for or against the Catholic Church. Therefore, I did not have any ingrained opinions about the Catholic Faith.
But because of my isolation from Catholic families, I also knew nothing about Catholicism except that a large part of the Catholic service was in Latin. That seemed cruel to me. I had a hard enough time learning English, and I thought that Catholic kids had to learn English and Latin.
I attended UCLA and earned a Ph.D. in electrical engineering. The only time I attended church during that time was when I visited my parents. I always believed in our Lord and Savior, but during this time I did not put God first in my life.
After college, I got a job in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and spent most of my career as a scientist. The focus of my work was to ensure the reliability of satellites in the harsh radiation environments of space. To accomplish this required a significant amount of research and a good understanding of the physics of the effects of radiation on electronics. I achieved a fair level of success, having written approximately 200 technical publications and given numerous presentations. I also met my wife, Lucy, at work.
My wife was a cradle Catholic, and I attended church with her many times, but normally only when it was convenient. If the Pittsburgh Steelers were playing football on TV Sunday morning, that would take precedence. I can still remember the first time I went with her to the Catholic church. I was expecting not to understand the service because I thought it was going to be in Latin. I was also prepared to be sprinkled with water by the priest, hear bells ringing throughout the service, and be overwhelmed by the smell of incense.
However, lo and behold, I found out that the Catholic Mass was very much like a Lutheran church service. One major difference immediately apparent to me was that a significant part of the Catholic Mass was devoted to the Eucharist. This surprised me. In my Lutheran Church, we received Holy Communion only once a month. Catholics could receive Holy Communion every day of the week! A second major difference was that in the Lutheran Church the choir and singing are a major part of the service.
While in college, and even while attending my wife’s church, I thought I was developing an insight into the fundamentals of Catholicism. As a Protestant outsider who never took the time to learn about the Catholic Faith from proper sources, I was forming many misconceptions about it. I thought that Catholics worshipped saints, including Mary, the mother of Jesus; that confession began in the Middle Ages so the Church could find out who was doing what; that the pope was considered to be infallible in all matters; and if a priest blessed an object, it had special powers.
Most importantly, I could not fathom how Catholics believed in the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist. I was taught and always believed Jesus was speaking symbolically when he said, “Take this and eat it, this is my body” and “for this is my blood, the blood of the covenant, to be poured out in behalf of many for the forgiveness of sins.”
Even though I was periodically attending church again, albeit not a Lutheran church, our Lord and Savior was still not foremost in my life. I was just too busy in my job. However, when I was 62 years old, that changed dramatically.
My journey to the Faith
Shortly after my 62nd birthday, I experienced some very difficult situations in my life. I started to pray in earnest to God for help, like I had never done before. One day I picked up my mother’s Protestant Bible, and as I randomly opened it up, my fingers went to one (and only one) verse:
“Jesus looked at them and said, ‘For human beings this is impossible, but with God all things are possible’”( Matt. 19:26).
Of all the thousands of verses in the Bible, there could not possibly be a more relevant verse for me to be guided to. I was asking for God’s help in several problems that seemed to me impossible to surmount, and in this verse Jesus tells us that God can do the impossible. At this time, I had to think: Did God direct me to this verse? Is he telling me to keep praying and my prayers will be answered?
Two weeks later, I was looking at the pictures in my wife’s Catholic Bible. As I was going from picture to picture, my fingers and eyes were guided to a single verse: “With God all things are possible.” I must stress that I was not reading the Bible. This was the only verse that I read, and now I had been directed to this same verse twice in a two-week period!
Being a scientist, I immediately tried to estimate the probability of this occurring twice in a row. According to numerous sources, there are over 30,000 verses in the Bible. The odds of me randomly finding this most relevant verse in the Bible are 1/30,000 times 1/30,000, or almost one in one billion! I no longer had the question “Is this divine intervention by the Holy Spirit?” It was now a statement of fact. There could be no other explanation.
It didn’t stop there. A short while later my wife and I were driving from Albuquerque to Phoenix. Along the way, we stopped at a truck stop. Inside my wife went over to a shelf and picked up a pretty glass artifact. To her amazement, it was engraved with the verse “With God all things are possible.” She purchased it for me. Imagine my amazement when she showed it to me. This was certainly not an artifact that anyone would typically expect to find at a truck stop.
On another occasion, my wife and I visited a relative in a local hospital. We went to the gift shop to buy the relative a magazine. While in the gift shop my wife noticed a basket of medallions, and she told me she was going to pick out one for me. She gazed into my eyes and without looking picked out one of the medallions. You can guess the inscription: “With God all things are possible.” I looked in the basket to see if all of the medallions were inscribed with the same verse. They weren’t. They had different inscriptions.
I knew the Holy Spirit was giving me divine guidance. The odds of me winning the lottery are better than all of these events occurring. This was by far the most overwhelming experience I have had in my entire life. I was stunned and awestruck. It immediately raised the questions in my mind: Is God talking directly to me? Why me? Before this time, if someone had said that these events happened to them, I would have said, “Yeah sure,” and walked away.
I have known the Nicene Creed since I was ten years old, and I have said the phrase “I believe in the Holy Ghost ” hundreds of times. I have always believed in the Holy Spirit, but to actually experience direction by the Holy Spirit puts this phrase on a totally different level. Now I know the Holy Spirit continues to work in mysterious ways, even today. When I hear phrases such as “guided by the Holy Spirit,” I now fully appreciate what this means. These events became very important for my understanding the Catholic doctrine of the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist.
I have believed in God all my life. However, even if I had been an atheist, this experience would have turned me into a firm believer. God is ever present and he works in all of us. The probability of my experiences merely being a coincidence is too small to be real. I truly believe that God’s powers are real.
My wakeup call
My encounter with the Holy Spirit was my wakeup call. I needed to put God first in my life. I knew that if God was talking to me, I had to pay attention. I asked our Lord, “Why me?” I don’t possess many talents, but one thing that I have done well over the past three decades is to perform research, write up my results, and give presentations on my results. Perhaps the Holy Spirit was telling me I needed to apply my talents and gifts for his greater glory.
The first step was to put God first in my life, so I started by reading Christian books in the hope they would inspire me even further. My wife had amassed a rather impressive personal library of religious books (mostly related to Catholicism). At this point becoming a Catholic was not even on my radar; I just wanted to start to fill my mind and heart with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
The first book that inspired me was The Story of the Church by George Johnson, Jerome D. Hannan, and M. Dominica. After reading a few chapters, it became clear that the church Jesus started was the Catholic Church. The Catholic popes are the successors to Peter, and the bishops are the successors to the apostles. The organization of the Church started in Rome with Peter, and, following Peter, officials of the Catholic Church continued to be the organizers of the Church.
The reality that the Catholic Church was indeed the Church Jesus established prompted me to consider previously foreign thoughts. Should I consider Catholicism? Could I seriously consider this? Could I possibly be a part of this Church with all of its strange practices?
To get some answers, I picked up the book Catholicism for Dummies by John Trigilio Jr. and Kenneth Brighenti. I knew I had to be missing something, and I thought that possibly some of my concerns might be misguided. I was amazed that, as I read, each of my concerns was addressed in the book as unfounded.
Where I believed that Catholics worshipped saints, I quickly learned that Catholics ask saints to intercede for them. That actually sounds like a good idea to me. If the saints are already in heaven, why not ask them to talk to God and put in a good word for you?
I used to believe that papal infallibility meant popes knew everything. However, if this was true, why did the Catholic Church burn scientists at the stake for saying the Earth was not the center of the universe? By leafing through Catholicism for Dummies I quickly learned that the infallibility of the pope meant that popes teach without error in matters of faith and morals, and not in matters of science. One after another, my concerns about the Catholic faith were answered. It wasn’t the Catholic Church that was misguided—I was!
As a result, I decided to sign up for RCIA (Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults) to start the path of becoming a Catholic. I still had some major concerns to overcome, and I knew that if I could not resolve some of these, especially the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist, I would drop out of the RCIA class and remain a Lutheran.
“Why?” is the key question
Being a scientist, I am probably more interested in the question “Why?” than the average person. To this end, during my RCIA class I started to research numerous aspects of the Catholic faith: foremost the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist, then papal succession, authority, and infallibility, Tradition, and confession. I looked for the biblical and theological answers to each of these issues. I found compelling arguments for the Catholic perspective on each issue.
For example, for the real presence, by studying Jesus’ “Bread of Life Discourse” in John 6 and looking at parallelisms (typology) between Jesus and Moses, especially Moses during the Passover, I was convinced of the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist. I realized the truth when I received Holy Communion for the first time at our parish. Meeting Jesus bodily for the first time was an overpowering experience.
Similarly, I was able to understand tradition by separating it into Sacred Tradition and human tradition. Sacred or Apostolic Tradition, which is part of the Catholic Faith, comes from the word of God. I learned it is inspired by the Holy Spirit, it is based on Sacred Scripture, and it does not change from year to year. The second is human tradition. It is man-made and it is not based on Sacred Scripture. Human tradition can change as often as the Church finds it necessary to change it. It can give us a deeper appreciation of our faith, but it is not Catholic doctrine.
I am continuing my research into the Catholic Faith almost daily. The more I learn, the more I enjoy learning. I now have a hunger for more knowledge about my Faith, and I have a much deeper and richer spiritual worship experience. My goal now is to let others know of the awesome knowledge that I have learned, which is one way I can give thanks to God. I am prepared to use my God-given talents to inspire others to God.
Without a doubt, my journey toward putting God first in my life is the best journey of my life. My decision to explore Catholicism, research the Catholic Faith, and eventually become of a member of the Catholic Church has also greatly enriched my life. Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is now number-one in my life.
Incidentally, God did answer my prayers. The insurmountable problems I had were resolved. My experiences are proof that “With God all things are possible,” and that God is always with us.