Cy Kellett and Joe Heschmeyer engage with a listener exploring the journey toward joining the Catholic Church.
Transcript:
Caller: So question why I’m not Catholic? Well, because I haven’t started OCIA yet. I am inquiring.
Joe: That’s a good, that’s a good reason.
Caller: As I continue down this path, what are some, if you will, do’s and don’ts, as far as what activities I should be participating in, how I should be praying? My wife and I happen to attend the Protestant church. So curious to know about where I should be sending my tithes, things of that nature, and also just how to, you know, engage my wife. This is something that brought to her attention. She supports my relationship with God. I don’t believe, at least not now, that she would want to go through OCIA with me. So really I’m looking for, you know, prayers and guidance as far as what I should do, what I shouldn’t do.
Joe: Very, very good question. And I like the context you gave. You’re, you know, coming from a Protestant background and then even about the whole relational context with your wife. I think in terms of do’s and don’ts, I’m going to break this up mentally into a few different categories. One are going to be books. Then we’ve got prayers, then we’ve got overall practices, because it will be a spiritual journey and you will hit some obstacles along the way, almost guaranteed.
So in terms of books you can read, it can be helpful to have books that take a sort of overview level. And I would suggest a few in particular. Trent Horn’s *Why We’re Catholic* is an obvious one. If you stay on the line, we’d be happy to send it to you. Bishop Robert Barron’s book *Catholicism*, I think is a very nice overview of just like what it is to be Catholic.
Additionally, a book that I would recommend partly for you and partly for your wife would be Scott and Kimberly Hahn’s book *Rome Sweet Home*. And I mention that because he was ready to become Catholic before his wife was. Brilliant. I mean, he is, I like to say he stands alone. It’s really like Han Solo. I mean, he is one of a kind. His book I found very helpful for couples where one is ready to go before the other one is because one of the things he had to stop himself from doing was being really pushy about kind of the argumentative side.
And I’ve known a lot of, I’ll just say, a lot of theological nerd guys who were married to women who were not as nerdy about theology or as enthusiastic about upending their life to become Catholic or as enthusiastic about reading 20 books on being Catholic. I know that’s not everybody’s journey. But if you find that that resonates with you at all, that book I’ve found to be helpful on both parties’ side of how they kind of live out that experience where one person may be ready and the other isn’t. In addition, it’s just a great resource for a lot of other reasons.
So that’s kind of the book list.
Second, in terms of prayers, entering into the life of the church and life of prayer in that way can be really rich. But I will give you a don’t right out the gate, which is don’t feel the need to do everything and don’t exhaust yourself. Like, if you get a gym membership on January 1st and your desire is, okay, I need to use every piece of equipment in here, you will by January 7th be like, I don’t ever want to go back to the gym because you’ll just worn yourself out.
There are a lot of good, beautiful, rich things that the church has to offer. There’s a storehouse, a real treasury when it comes to the spiritual gifts, including 2,000 years of really good prayers. And you can feel like you’re not doing enough by not doing all of them. And that’s actually not a good place to be. So you need to discern what are the things I can realistically say yes to and make sort of a part of my life.
And then the last thing doesn’t neatly fall into either the prayer or book category. But finding Catholics who you respect and can have, like, shared life with and like friendship with, it can be really huge. Because what happens to a lot of people is that they become intellectually convinced. And then, especially if you’re in a bigger, I don’t know where in St. Louis you’re at, but if you’re at one of the bigger parishes, sometimes they can feel kind of anonymous because there’s a lot of stuff going on.
And it’s like being a newcomer to a big city where if you’re not really intentional, you can sort of slip through the cracks. So that’s a lot. I know I kind of dumped a lot there. I’m curious about your thoughts or if there’s any part of that that went unanswered that you’d like me to maybe explain a little more about.
Caller: Again, practical was, you know, relationship with my wife. And she surprised me with a lot of questions that she’s asked. And I said, okay, we’re going to research this together. I’m going to research it. If you want a more thorough answer than I can provide off the top of my head. And I never want to be pushy. And that’s one thing I really feel called that I need to kind of slow my roll. But in terms of attending Mass and again, currently tied to the church that we attend. Oh, right, yeah, things like that. It happens to be a Pentecostal church. I am not a member of the church. That was my choice, theological points that I disagreed with. But, you know, do I continue to attend the church with my wife? Because I don’t want to drive a wedge between us.
So I guess it’s like, how much should I be doing with the Catholic Church right now? You know, what do I need to distance myself from with the current church I attend? So a lot of the practical, as I said earlier, the do’s and don’ts.
Joe: Yeah, okay, that’s very helpful. So first, I think you’re already doing the right thing when you’re moving at the speed of your wife’s interest and have questions and you’re validating those questions and then you’re looking for answers. That is helpful for both of you and I think can only enrich the relationship because you’re treating her spiritual journey with the seriousness that it deserves rather than just kind of expecting her to be a fellow traveler on yours.
Second, you should move at the speed of your own comfort in some ways, I would say, in terms of when you start going to Mass. And I’ve known of people who have done both, depending on the kind of Pentecostal church that might be a lot in a day, but I’ve known couples where, because they’re not on the same boat and because there was nothing heretical necessarily being taught at the Protestant service, they would do both.
You’re definitely going to want Mass to be a major part of your life before you finally become Catholic. But again, you don’t have to do everything all at once. And so at this point in your life, you’re not yet bound by, you know, the weekly obligation to go to Mass. That will be something you’re bound by once you become Catholic, God willing.
And so growing towards that becoming just part of your regular routine is really important. Now, again, it may be a situation where that means your wife goes alone to the Pentecostal Church or it may mean that you’re going to both. It might be something that you have to kind of work out with her. Maybe you go with her sometime and, you know, you have to sort of respect one another’s consciences.
In this, if she doesn’t feel comfortable going to the Catholic Church or if you don’t feel comfortable continuing to go to the Pentecostal Church, there’s a need for real mutual respect for one another in terms of that journey. And it seems like you’re off to a good start there. I would just continue to be mindful of not pressuring either of you to do something you can’t in good conscience do, kind of in the name of marital unity, that there’s a lot of stuff that you want to kind of hold on to there.
Pentecostals, it depends on a lot of situations. But one way to think about it is this. Every Pentecostal I’ve known has taken miracles very seriously. And so when you explain the Eucharist and explain that there is this real miracle that Jesus Christ is being made bodily present, I have found overwhelmingly Pentecostals don’t have a lot of the built-up opposition to the idea of a miracle that a lot of other Christians do.
They, you know, some Christians are, you know, they are not continuationists, they’re cessationists. They think miracles stopped in the first century. So the idea of any miracle on earth is weird to them. That burden is already overcome when you’re talking about Pentecostal-Catholic kind of questions.
And so I know you said you’re not a member of it, but if that’s kind of the basic worldview, presenting it in terms of here is this miracle and I want to be present for this miracle in which our Lord is at, and he’s here in a special and unique sort of way. Hopefully that framework will be helpful for her.
It’s kind of a practical thing in terms of tithing. Again, you will, once you’re Catholic, have an obligation to assist in the upkeep of the church. Technically, the Catholic Church doesn’t have a strict 10% rule. That’s all coming from the Old Testament. But that is a good model for what you’re giving. You do have a duty and justice to help build up the church. And what that looks like for every individual is something you have to spiritually discern.
So that’ll be something else that you know, as you’re moving forward. At some point you will want to be financially assisting the church. But it is not, you know, some Protestant schools of thought claim that there’s still like a strict 10% that is actually not something that historically has been taught by the Catholic Church because it’s not something we find explicitly in the New Testament, but it is nevertheless a good modeling guide.
I don’t know. Does that help?
Caller: It’s extremely helpful and good. I don’t want to take up too much of your time and other listeners, but as far as with the miracles, when my wife and I were discussing the Eucharist, a very good dear friend of mine, Father Gaurav Shroff, who is now at Korea, was explaining transubstantiation. It was like my wife was just totally blown away by it in a very good way. And so, you know, there are a lot of things that I think are, if you will, no pun intended, easier to swallow, so to speak. She has questions.
Joe: Yeah. So last thing I’ll say, because I know we’re actually going to go to a break here pretty quick. I know an old friend of mine, actually an ex-girlfriend from college who was Assemblies of God and became Catholic. And her description was that the Eucharist was like a magnet drawing her past all of her oppositions and inhibitions.
Wow. And it sounds like there might be a similar kind of phenomenon with your wife that it’s like, okay, once you realize, yes, if I become part of this, I get to receive Jesus in this radical way. There’s a strong spiritual draw for many people from more of a Pentecostal background.
And so I would just let that be kind of a guiding principle. Even when you inevitably hit a sort of I don’t know what to make of this moment along the journey, don’t let that stuff get in the way of saying yes to Jesus in the Eucharist.
Cy: Hey, hang on. We’re going to send you the book *Why We’re Catholic*. Right back with more Joe Heschmeyer. Why aren’t you Catholic?