Replies

OK, try this one on for size. It is a true one all right, because I am eyewitness. I am one of those real converts.

My wife is cradle Catholic. Hardly can one fine something more classic, she was raised in the Church during German occupation in France, went to Catholic school, steeped in the teachings. As the 1960's rolled along, she drifted away, or maybe the Church drifted away from her. Happened to most of her cohorts.

I was raised protestant, mostly Presbyterian, and thought it was ok, just not answering everything, sort of like Diet Coke. In the late '60's, my wife's cousins persuaded us to take a look at the new Catholic Church. (Guitar Mass and Joan Baez look-alike.) I was shocked out of my wits, wanted to get out of this hippie place. My wife was amazed, but more polite. We simply avoided this new "Church" for years afterwards.

A decade later, I searched for a more complete "Truth", praying and trying out and finding nothing fit. My wife tried going back to what used to be her Catholic Church and kept her chin up, but remained disturbed.

The more I searched and prayed, the more I kept coming back to the Catholic Faith as the true faith. To do so meant I had to swallow my bad impressions and continue to embrace the only thing I knew as the Catholic Church. By this time we were back in France and started attending a one thousand year old church with a fine old Catholic priest, Novus Ordo. I started seriously on the road to confirmation. To me the Church I saw was little different from my old Presbyterian Church and I battled inner feelings that it was pointless to convert. Convert from what to what? Finally, inwardly I was driven to find the Faith hidden in the Catholic Church somewhere.

Note:. My desire to convert was something the parish couldn't deal with! It was a shock to the Bishop! Nobody, I mean nobody, was trying to convert TO the Catholic Church, at least to the point of confirmation!! I wound up going to visit the Bishop along with the bunch of confirmation kids, to the amazement of all including myself. We all had great fun at this anomaly.

There, we met the Bishop. We could tell because he was the guy in the sweater with the cross around his neck. He took us to the "redecorated" Basilica of St. Pius X where the inside had been cleaned out of all its old stuff, much like a train station and folding chairs served whatever use the Basilica might have. Then he answered a question from a kid who wondered why the Church was different from the one his father had described. The Bishop explained: "Think of the Church as a snake shedding its skin. Your father has been clinging to the skin but now the snake emerges from the skin and your father is simply clinging to the old skin." Great analogy. I had never thought of the Church as being a serpent before!

We also visited the seminary. It was nearly empty. A young seminarian from our parish, a conservative one at that, talked to us, explained he was about all alone in his attempts to be true to the Faith. Other rooms sported posters of famous far left heros. Just a tiny handful in this huge and once highly influencial Diocese.

Still we persisted trying to fit all this with what we both thought the True Faith to be. At one point we could stand it no longer, and by wonderful chance, came upon the large almost underground community of the traditionals. As we got to know them, old lifelong Catholics, new vibrant large families with happy well-behaved kids, we realized the Faith they shared matched what I had been searching for decades and my wife simply recognized the Faith she knew as a child.

So there you have it. I have "come home" to the Faith. But there were no "droves" coming home in this classic Catholic crucible through the Novus Ordo, just me. I came home to the Faith with the modern version of the Church as a major obstacle to pass through. For seven years now, I have been "home".

Meanwhile horrified Novus Ordo folks bombarded us constantly with polemics. I would hear such discussions constantly on French tv as well. Seemed they all were a bunch of lawyers trying to justify, to find loopholes, to find obscure canon law to explain things. Happily in our new "home" it wasn't an issue. We just worshipped and appreciated the canonized Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

It has happened to me on this forum. Shucks, it is easy to out-lawyer me and bedazzle me with convolutions, with interpretations, or with even accusations. I have no great claim of expertise in nuances of theology. For that we turn to our priests. Luckily from my perspective, intelligence and knowledge of all the laws is not a prerequisite for being a good Catholic. Simple Faith is. The purest, most saintlike Catholic we know is a nearly illiterate simple old woman who wouldn't know beans about all the discussions, simply lives her Faith. She recognizes in in the traditional Catholic Church.

Other protestants have joined our bunch directly, coming straight in to the traditional Catholic Faith. Once there, none of these I know of nor the cradle Catholics are searching for any more elusive truths as we had once done. We know it when we see it. We know we are home.

Deo gratias

So there you have it. I have "come home" to the Faith.

Thank you for sharing your faith journey with us in this forum. You are not alone in your feelings of frustration with the contemporized church. Ultimately, the seed of faith, as you have discovered, is present in the catholic church. And, it is individuals, like you, who will foster the return of a more meaningful liturgy.

May God continue to bless you on your journey!

I searched for a more complete "Truth", praying and trying out and finding nothing fit

Think you will enjoy this true story! This is the conversion story of Marty Barrack who has appeared as a guest on Journey Home.

From his web site, www.secondexodus.com ....

The Catholic Church alone has the complete deposit of faith. All other religious traditions have some part of Christ's deposit of faith.

Therefore, the story of a pilgrim journey from any other religious tradition to the Catholic faith is a completion story.

A transition to any non-Catholic religious tradition is a conversion.

"A Kosher Ham Finds Christ"

As Marty phrased it .....

"I told them that as a Catholic I was really a Jew who accepted Jesus Christ as the promised Messiah and that I accepted His Deposit of Faith as the completion of my Jewish heritage. I told my family that where the synagogue has a tabernacle with the written Word of God in it, the Church has a tabernacle with the Word of God made Flesh. Where the synagogue places a red candle above the tabernacle representing God's protecting pillar of fire, the church tabernacle has the same. Where the Jewish home has a yahrzeit candle to remember the dead, Catholics place memorial candles in the church. The Catholic priest continues, as the Messiah instructed, the final sacrifice that the ancient Jewish priests prefigured. "

Thanks for this.

Thanks, for you heart-warming story. With the state of the Catholic Church in America today, my father's statement, 30 years ago, holds true:

"Converts to the Catholic Faith make some of the staunchest and best defenders of the One, True Church."

**Luckily from my perspective, intelligence and knowledge of all the laws is not a prerequisite for being a good Catholic. Simple Faith is.**

You have the secret! Welcome home!

What a touching story. You definitely persevered.

God bless you and your family!