My Journey Home
My journey into full communion with the Roman Catholic
Church ended during the Easter Vigil 2000 at St. Joseph’s Roman Church in
Bracebridge. How I got to that point wasn’t a sudden realization that I should
become Roman Catholic, a bolt of lightening from heaven, but rather a slow and
gradual awakening to the truth. It all began when my nephew keep asking me to
come to Mass to see him serve. A simple enough request but one I resisted for a
long period of time until one day I made arrangements to attend with his mother,
my sister. (My sister had married a Roman Catholic and had converted much
earlier).
I was raised mainly in the United Church of Canada and
sometimes I went to Anglican Church of Canada. In secondary school I underwent
instruction and was confirmed in the United Church. All during my childhood I
attended Sunday School and was involved in all the Church activities that I
could be involved in. As I grew older I joined the choir and attended church on
a very regular basis. I was a voracious reader and read the Bible several times
along with many other books about the faith. Our Minister at that time, Rev.
Muir was a very advanced thinker and saw to it that our confirmation class was
exposed to many of the different denominations in town, including the Roman
Catholic Church. I can still remember that Mass (post Vatican II) and the
Father talking to our class before the service. He must have made quite an
impact because I honestly can’t remember any of the other services that we
attended but that one is still very clear. By the time I was in University I
attended interdenominational services on campus, that is when I did attend. One
of the courses I took (to fill out a philosophy requirement) was “Comparative
Religions”. I found the course extremely interesting and would have likely
continued with more courses in that vein but it was outside of the field of
study I had decided on and I couldn’t work them into my schedule.
I guess I drifted like so many people do at that age and
really didn’t bother going to church. When I was married it was in my
husband’s church, Presbyterian. It didn’t matter to me because I knew and
respected the Minister greatly. My husband and I didn’t really attend church
and sort of drifted until we decided to attend a church that was just up the
street from us. A woman I worked with at the time attended there and had
invited us to go. Thus began a flirt with the Baptist faith. I never really
felt at home in that church, many of its beliefs were not only foreign to me but
I could not reconcile them with what I had been taught and what the bible
said. Ideas such as once saved always saved, baptism of the believer rather
then baptism of infants, alter calls, the bible only, their insistence on being
the only Christians (that other religions were just cults) and so on. Even the
order of the service felt foreign and strange to me. Over the course of our
attendance there I felt that something was wrong with me, because I couldn’t
find the same type of faith without question others appeared to have. I had
questions and when I asked them they didn’t or couldn’t answer them. I read the
Bible even more to try to find the answers but couldn’t find ones that fitted
with the Baptist outlook, my prayers for understanding and faith seemed to fall
of deaf ears. I finally realized that God wasn’t turning a deaf ear to me,
instead I was being lead away from this Church but I didn’t know where I was
being lead. I finally decided to leave it in God’s hands and ceased to go to
the Baptist Church. I never set foot into a church again until I finally agreed
to my nephew’s request and went to Mass to see him serve.
Going to the Mass brought back that time so long ago
when our confirmation class had attended St. Joseph’s and I really enjoyed the
liturgy. In many ways it reminded me of going to Church when I was a child. It
also helped that I had met both priests, Father Joe and Father Larry in social
settings at my sister’s house and liked them both. I went a few times and
suddenly realized that I had to investigate the Roman Catholic faith further in
order to really know if it was for me. I also had an additional problem in that
a member of my husband’s immediate family had become over the past few years,
almost rabidly anti-Catholic. This was of concern for me because I didn’t want
to cause strife within the family nor problems within my marriage. I decided
that the best way to deal with the situation was to list their beliefs about the
Roman Catholic Church and then to try and determine if they were correct or if
that was what the Church really taught, before I went any further. So began a
period of study and prayer, where I didn’t say anything to anyone including my
husband since I knew it was a spiritual journey I had to take alone.
I began my study by reading a great deal of
anti-Catholic literature and trying to ascertain the main arguments against the
faith. These included but were not limited to the following: Peter wasn’t the
first Pope and Christ did not found his Church upon Peter; that infants are not
to be baptized; that transubstantiation does not occur; the immaculate
conception did not occur; purgatory does not exist; confession to a priest is
not biblical; Mary had more then one child nor did she remain ever virgin;
intercessory prayer is only available to living people, that the communion of
saints ceases after death; that the Pope is not infallible when speaking ex
cathedra; that the Catholic Church added books to the bible; call no man father;
basically every Catholic doctrine was criticized as being wrong. Then we get to
the more startling accusations: the Roman Catholic Church is the Whore of
Babylon; the Roman Catholic Church is a pagan religion; that the Pope is the
anti-Christ; that Catholics worship statues; that Catholics pray to dead people;
that Catholics worship the Pope; that the Pope forbid reading the bible; that
the Roman Catholic Church uses brain washing and mind control on its members;
that the Catholic Church through inquisitions killed ninety-five million people
because they believed in Jesus and the Bible, therefore, it is anti-Christ and
on and on it goes. I was astounded by the venomous accusations that were almost
always followed by the words ‘we love our Catholic brothers and sisters but hate
the Catholic religion’. It always struck me that statement was like Archie
Bunker making the statement, ‘I love my black brothers and sisters but hate the
colour of their skin’, it just didn’t make sense nor ring true to me. I
decided to investigate the more outlandish accusations first because if any of
them were true I couldn’t have anything to do with such a Church.
I traced a good many of the more bizarre accusations to
two sources, one was the Jack Chick organization and the other was a book by
Alexander Hislop (1807-1862) called The Two Babylons and a spin off book by
Ralph Woodrow called Babylon Mystery Religion. I started with Chick and his
chief assistant Alberto Rivera (who claimed to be a Jesuit and bishop), the hate
mongering is so outlandish by these people that I even found people who
otherwise would be considered anti-Catholic, going out of their way to discredit
them. Rivera has been proven a fraud, much like another piece of anti-Catholic
fiction, Maria Monk and others in their vein. The Hislop book is available on
the internet and it certainly does seem like a scholarly work complete with
footnotes and is used most often by anti-Catholics as their source for some of
the most outlandish claims. I can see how a writer could be taken in by it if
they didn’t confirm their facts with other sources. I believe Ralph Woodrow
when he gives his reason for the withdrawal of his book Babylon Mystery Religion
from print as he finally realized the errors in the Hislop book and found it to
be a work of anti-Catholic fiction rather then a scholarly treatise. I must say
I do respect Mr. Woodrow for having the honesty to admit his mistake and try to
correct it by publishing the Babylon Connection?. It is a pity that other
people cannot be as honest as Mr. Woodrow.
I then started to read some of the writing of the early
Christians, men who were there when Christ walked the earth, or at least when
the Disciples lived. I was astounded when I found that they believed
universally in the same doctrines that the Roman Catholic Church taught. It was
like a flash had gone off, I started to dig deeper into other areas. Birth
control came immediately to mind, why was the Catholic Church the only one with
that teaching. Again I was surprised to find that all Church’s had the same
teaching until the 1930’s when the Anglican Church bent to ongoing pressure and
accepted it, the rest of the Protestant Churches followed. I then began a (still
ongoing) study of apologetics, the more I read, the more I studied the bible and
compared it to what the Catholic Church taught the more I realized that they
were teaching correctly. I will not discuss the apologetics here because there
are many people out there who have written volumes on the subject who are much
more informed and capable then I am. I would just say I find it a topic of
great interest and the more that I study the more I feel blessed. I then felt
that I had no choice but to enter into full communion with the Roman Catholic
Church.
That is when I broke the news to my husband and much to
his credit he accepted the fact and gave me his blessing although he was not at
the point he wanted to convert. I then talked to our local pastor, Father Joe
and was scheduled to start in the RCIA classes. Just shortly before the classes
started my husband surprised me by telling me that he had talked to Father Joe
too and that he was going to the classes with me. I was thrilled by the news.
The RCIA classes were wonderful, lead by Father Joe, Father Larry, Deacon Eric
or an extremely knowledge lay person Ed F. It was strange, many of the
questions that I had been asking for so long and never getting answers to, were
suddenly answered It was like I had been wearing blinders all of my life and
they were finally removed. I enjoyed the process very much and I also
appreciated the frank and scholarly answers that were given to every question.
I loved the Mass and how each part of it came from the bible along with over
2000 years of tradition and I couldn’t wait to be able to receive the Eucharist
and all that meant. It was a wonderful time but it also was a time of stress
because we were waiting for Larry’s family member who was so anti-Catholic to
find out that we were attending the Roman Catholic Church.
This happened shortly after the New Year in 2000, we
received a call from this person demanding that we stop going to the Roman
Catholic Church, telling us it was a pagan, false believing cult and that we had
to attend their church to be saved. Needless to say the conversation ended
badly, we hoped the person would rethink their position and we could discuss it
rationally. This unfortunately didn’t happen, instead a series of very nasty
comments about me personally and my husband more generally were made all over
the internet by this person. I was accused of many different things, all of
them untrue but this person had made up their mind that it was true, so just
like their opinion of the Catholic Church, what they believed was correct,
whether it be true or untrue. This didn’t stop us and during the Easter Vigil
2000, we were brought into full communion by Father Larry. What a joyous and
blessed time that was. The only cloud was the anti-Catholic relative who
continued their attacks, that was until August 30th 2000 when my
mother died of a bee sting. During this horrible time, Father Larry was a tower
of strength and comfort to us, what a blessing to have him and the Church with
us. God used this time to increase my faith, which grew in leaps and bounds
during those days, however, it was sorely tested when the anti-Catholic
relative chose September 7th as a day to launch a civil law suit
against us for something that had happened over five years previously. I
survived all of this with my faith intact and growing, thanks be to God.
Then after receiving some very wise counsel, I stopped
worrying about what my husband’s relative was saying or doing, forgave them for
what they had done and moved on in my journey. I pray for them every day that
they may find peace and joy in their life, but I have shaken the dust from my
sandals. Late in 2001 I was called to serve my brothers and sisters in faith by
becoming a EME (Extraordinary Minister of the Eucharist). Every time that I am
allowed to help serve the body and blood of Christ, I feel humbled. Thanks to
my sister and her family, my husband and I celebrated our twenty-fifth wedding
anniversary this year, by renewing our vows and having our wedding blessed by
Father Larry. God has blessed me greatly since leading me to his Church and I
praise him every day for what he has done for me.
Linda Matthews November 2002
Linda's Domain
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