Here goes.
When I was young,
back up when we went to Kingston Christian Church, possibly when we
lived in Kingston, for all I know, I was not allowed to receive
communion. I was not aware of this until another little girl was
sitting with our family and took the wafer and cup as the plates
passed by. I wanted to know why I could not. My mother explained to
me the seriousness of what these elements were; they represented
Jesus, God who died to take away our sins. I do not remember a time
when I had not a perfectionist streak in me. I saw that I needed
Jesus to be perfect. I saw that his death was very serious and that
the wafer and the cup were connected to this. Whatever I grasped I
grasped that Jesus loves me and this was part of how he showed his
love. I wanted it.
I accepted Christ
at a young age and was baptized some years later in Tennessee. I
realized as time went on that I was not yet perfect. At times I
rebelled against what I knew, in my own quiet way. I realized that
with knowledge comes responsibility and wished I did not know as much
about the Bible; maybe then I would not have to be good. Though, I
did want to do what was right, even when it meant I felt cheated when
others ate out of the candy jar without permission. Still, I did
want to please God, because God loves me.
I struggled at
times with feeling like a failure; it can be so difficult to forgive
people, it could be so hard to keep my mind and heart pure,
especially when I have such a vivid and curious imagination.
I realized at one
point, when I was still in high-school, that my “mind drifts”
were not a good idea. Here is the premise behind that term: I would
let my mind drift into whatever stories it happened upon, whatever
characters showed up. Mostly the stories were adventure stories
like, Grey Wolf being a sort of Robin Hood-like female character,
without the band of merry men—just a loose association of
honorable, well, brigands; or Charles the scorned son, rejected by
his mother and family, who nonetheless went on be the honorable one
who saves lives and stuff; or the Island Princess, on a cold island
in the north Atlantic, who must learn much in England before
returning to her homeland to wrest it from the English; and on and on
I could go. If that was all, not necessarily bad, but what about the
blind servant who was raped? Later I changed it to have her rescued,
but still it was not good. The verse about taking every thought
captive convicted me. I knew that I needed to not allow my mind to
live into each story that came along; some must be rejected.
Along the way,
especially after getting into college, I learned that I really needed
to avoid movies and books with sexual content. The problem was not
that I would replay those exact images, it was that it fueled the
side of the imagination that led me accidentally into a bad mental
sexuality that included masturbation. It did not happen all at once,
took a few years, really, and even then there were the words that I
knew to be wrong, but I heard them so often that they became
excuses--”natural”, “healthy”, “normal”. I heard them in
movies and tv shows, sometimes not explicitly but out of the way in
which the subject was treated. When I first heard the word
“masturbate”, it shocked. I did not know what it meant, could
guess, but did not want to know.
Why would I tell
all that? Because, it plays a role in a particular story of
spiritual growth. See, it got to this point where I would pretty
much monthly either struggle against or surrender to sexual
imaginings of characters who were only in my mind, but the imaginings
affected my body—call it mental porn. It was frustrating, because
I knew it felt good temporarily, was wrong, and kept coming back. I
would pray, on better days. Sometimes I would sing or read the Bible
or just try to focus on something else. I would think I had victory,
and the next month the mental porn was back. (I did not notice the
monthly cycle of it immediately).
In the mean time,
some years back I had the thought that I could write history with
more sympathy for the Catholics then what I grew up on. As someone
who was not Catholic, maybe people would pay more attention, give it
more credit. At another point I described myself to our Cumberland
Presbyterian Chaplain at college as a “Catholic-leaning Cumberland
Presbyterian.” I often during those years would describe myself as
Christian “officially Cumberland Presbyterian”. A few years
before that, my family had joined the Cumberland Presbyterian Church.
I still remember them telling me what they were doing and inviting
me to go up with them to join. I asked what they believed and was
given the Confession of Faith. I did not see anything stand out as
particularly wrong, and I did see the importance of the church as a
body, being dependent on one another, helping one another, holding
each other accountable. My family was going, so would I.
I appreciated the
more liturgical balance of the service, though I thought it more
businesslike than what I remembered of the mass. I enjoyed teaching
in Sunday school or going to Sunday school before
the main service. The Cumberland Presbyterian Church has a
missionary focus that is energetic and admirable. When a new pastor
came, and there was greater emphasis on the CP identity, he led a
class on the Confession of Faith. It was very helpful and
interesting; the main thing I remember explicitly is the conversation
on infant baptism.
Somewhere
during that time frame, I got to teach world history, much to my
delight. I ordered a few books off a list I made for my students to
read some of the philosophical works of the past. Among these was
Apologia pro Vita Sua
by John Henry Newman. I began reading it. It is a very interesting
book, but I set it aside because he might have persuaded me to become
Catholic. That was an uncomfortable thought, not because I did not
like Catholics or Catholicism nor because I did like them, but rather
because I was teaching at a school where the history books are
anti-Catholic and I knew my mother would not like it and I was afraid
of how people might react.
I
knew where I was headed.
We
receive this lovely, thoughtful magazine called First
Things. Its premise is that
religion matters a lot in the public square. In it, schools and
conferences are advertised, but I do not tend to pay much note to
those. I am more interested in reading the book reviews, the
correspondence pages of continued conversations about past articles,
or the articles about such things as truly looking at people, the
Syro-Phoenician woman, or
the “Back Page” with all its curiosity. There was this add,
though, “Challenging the Secular Culture” and I thought that it
might be good to go, as a teacher. Maybe I could learn something
that I could pass on to equip my students to face the world with
boldness. I asked advice, mostly of my father, and went up to
Steubenville, Ohio’s Franciscan University.
It
was lovely. It was invigorating; I enjoyed listening and taking
notes, breathing in the cool air and occasionally talking to people.
I
went to mass on Saturday, because I would be traveling on Sunday and
wanted to go to church. It was a large, not particularly attractive
building from the outside. They had a band to the left of altar down
along the wall. That was odd to me, as last time I had been to mass
with a choir or band of some sort they played in the back in a choir
loft. But when we celebrated the liturgy of the Eucharist, I wept.
It did not matter that I stayed back in my pew kneeling and praying
and trying to not be in people’s way. I knew it was more important
to be here where the body and blood of Jesus were.
I
had been studying John’s gospel. It took me a while, but I had the
Ignatius Study Bible of John, with its questions in the back and a
Dallas Theological Seminary online course. It was really amazing.
One of the things that was very clear to me, is that when Jesus said
that he would give us his own flesh and blood, he meant it. Many
disciples left. I did not want to leave.
I
also did not want to leave. I did not want to leave off following
Jesus, but I did not want to leave the comfort of where I was. I had
felt the need to stop some of
my roles at Liberty, because
I did not believe what the Cumberland Church teaches on Communion and
on what were the books of the Bible. While studying John, running
into troublesome passages, I began restudying the Confession
alongside What we Believe
by which was written to explain Cumberland Presbyterian beliefs. I
could see their scriptural reasoning behind revising the Westminster
Confession, but I was not readily able, through internet digging, to
find out why the subsequent revisions which continued to subtract
from and soften the Confession of Faith. It was bothersome. I do
not know how I found Church Militant and Catholic Answers on YouTube,
but I did listen to them. I also picked up Responding from
the Scriptures with Catholics by
Ron Rhodes from a Goodwill.
I figured I wanted to hear both sides.
Here
is what it came down to: I cannot hope to understand every passage of
scripture in every possible theologically correct way. I cannot rely
on my reason alone, but I do see Jesus plainly starting his Church
with Peter as recorded in Matthew--”You are Peter (Rock) and on
this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not
prevail against it.” I do see that Jesus body and blood are
present in the Eucharist just as he says it is as recorded in John.
If the gates of hell did not prevail against the Church, it is still
present and it is the one called Catholic. I wanted to receive the
body and the blood of Christ that he tells us, gives us eternal life,
and to eat and drink in memory of him. I had to become a Catholic.
When
I returned home, I started to
go to Saturday vigil masses from
time to time. I asked my father about joining the Catholic Church.
He said he would rejoice. I asked my mother; she said I needed to
follow God wherever that led me. I continued to attend Liberty
with my family, but also
became more regular in my attendance to mass.
Just
before October, it was
announced that October was the month of the Rosary. Now, I knew a
little about the Rosary already. There is this girl in a story who
is Catholic. Her mother died and she goes to live with her father
she has not known and his family. It is very much a struggle, but
she prays the Rosary pretty regularly, so I had to look up the
prayers. It was a Monday in the story, which
means one is to reflect on the Joyful
Mysteries—how wonderful!--remembering
the announcement to Mary, her visit with Elizabeth, the birth of
Jesus, his presentation in the temple, and his being found in the
temple. Joy! That was what my girl needed. So I saved a pile of
prayers and continued typing. Well, now, here I am however long
after that all happened hearing that October is the month of the
Rosary. I might take another look at those prayers and stuff, but
then a lady at St. Catherine’s gave me a Rosary. During October,
most days, I prayed the Rosary in the evenings. After October, I was
not as diligent. It was also in or around October, that I began to
go to RCIA—Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults—a class for
adults who are interested in the Catholic faith. It was not the most
brilliant class, but some of the videos were interesting and
educational. I was given a slim volume on
Catholic teaching, which I sometimes read alongside the Confession of
Faith. It was deeper and more particular about doctrine.
A
couple months passed, and it occurred to me that I had not struggled
with mental porn since before October. I
think I was reminded by a fleeting temptation that was so easily
brushed aside with prayer. I
was so happy; God had used meditating on the gospel through the
Rosary, he answered our
prayers, and protected me. I
am grateful for Mary’s, and Joan’s and Jeremiah’s,
intercession; and mostly I am grateful for the great work of Jesus.
Easter
of 2017, I was confirmed in the Catholic Church. It is more
important to me than my graduations past.
I
do not know everything; I know I am still not perfect; but I do know
that God is still working with me. I will still face temptations,
but I know that God is cleansing me of all unrighteousness and that I
do not fight alone. I do not like the division between me and people
that I still love that has happened as I have continued to follow
Jesus, but I still hope for that time when the whole Church will be
united under Christ and the world will know that we are Christians by
our love.
