Journeys Home (12 page)

I was sensing deeply that I was in trouble. I began keeping a
list of the places in Scripture where I thought the Catholic Church
seemed to be right. When this list reached twenty, I
knew
I was
in trouble.

When the list eventually reached thirty, I converted. With the
eyes of faith I have cultivated since becoming Catholic, that
list has grown to over seventy, and it's embarrassing to admit
how blind I was. But then I'm getting ahead of myself.

Another issue that became overwhelming was the sacraments. Protestants
generally teach that sacraments are but empty symbols and do not
communicate power. Yet I kept finding Scripture passages that
indicated they were intended to contain power. For example, in
1 Corinthians 11:27 and John chapter 6, it is very clear we are
talking about the reality of Jesus' Body and Blood in the Eucharist
and not just symbolic ideas.

I eventually found passages for each of the seven sacraments that
indicated the same reality. From my Protestant prospective, these
verses weren't supposed to be there.

Another associated issue (particularly difficult for a Protestant
to deal with) is Eucharistic adoration. As I was getting closer
to becoming Catholic, our spiritual director, who was also our
referee in marriage, strongly encouraged me to spend some time
in Eucharistic adoration. Having never done this, let alone considered
doing it, I asked him what one
did
in Eucharistic adoration. He
said, "Just talk to Jesus."

Most cradle Catholics may not understand how difficult it is for
Protestant converts to practice Eucharistic adoration. In many
Protestants' eyes, this is out-and-out idolatry. But having received
this instruction from a man of my spiritual director's stature,
I couldn't escape.

So I went into the chapel with my Bible, really irritated but
obedient. I decided that if this devotional practice had any validity
whatsoever, there must be something about it in Scripture. Turning
to the explicit Eucharistic passages, I started reading John chapter
6 and was shocked.

Just before the section where Jesus talks explicitly about eating
His flesh and drinking His blood, I found a passage that is suggestive
of Eucharistic adoration. John 6:40 reads: "For this is the will
of My Father, that every one who sees the Son and believes in
Him should have eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last
day." Now, when do you and I see Jesus?

I have to testify to you that since that day, I have found my
times of Eucharistic adoration to be incredibly fruitful, insightful
times of grace. The entire aspect of the sacraments and the power
of the Eucharist in Catholic tradition have been personally overwhelming.

Maybe one of the most important issues very central to my own
heart that led to my conversion was marriage and sexuality. We
worked hard in my Protestant congregation to build strong Christian
marriages. From the pulpit and the classroom we offered lots of
Christian formation, Bible study, marriage formation, and marriage
enrichment. I became increasingly uneasy, however, as I realized
that the resources and foundational concepts I was promoting,
though they were scriptural, tended to be Catholic.

For example, St. Thomas Aquinas taught that the family is an incomplete
society needing the state for its support in temporal matters
and the Church for its support in spiritual matters. One of the
implications of this teaching is that a husband and wife should
not expect to carry all the emotional and spiritual weight of
a marriage. There is simply too much going on between a husband
and wife -- and there was too much going on between Pat and me.

Pat has a strong personality although she looks very gentle. You
just don't want to get her angry. One evening, we were having
one of our serious disagreements. I had been preaching this stuff
on marriage, saying that every couple needs to have a spiritual
director or someone they can have as an impartial, informed third
party for difficult times.

That night, she looked at me and said, "Why don't you do what
you preach?" Recognizing that she had me, I said okay, and that's
how our Jesuit spiritual adviser entered our life.

I found myself casting about looking for wherever I could find
truth. Of course, Scripture was most generally present, but when
you're living with a Catholic, you look at every other option
first. And though Pat was gracious and patient, she also had a
good strategy.

About once every six months, when I was having a difficult pastoral
or maybe counseling problem, she would say: "You know, Paul, if
you would be Catholic with all the resources of the Catholic Church -- spiritual direction, Confession, the sacraments, all the Catholic
theology -- you would be so much more effective." Now, if a wife
says that just once every six months, that is not too much. But
over eighteen years, that adds up to thirty-six interventions.
I finally avoided the whole issue by getting into a building program.

I thought I could justify to Pat and to myself ignoring all these
issues while I was immersed in this building program. Around this
time, Scott Hahn's conversion tape was released, and my wife -- who never misses an opportunity -- obtained it. But with architectural
drawings in hand, I said, "I'm not interested," and avoided listening
to the tapes for almost three years.

After the building program was complete, I truly found myself
Catholic and decided I needed a day of personal reflection and
retreat. On October 15, 1991, I drove off to my favorite hiding
place along the Mississippi River fortified with a book of Catholic
doctrine by Frank Sheed and two sets of Scott Hahn's tapes. After
reading a few chapters and listening again to Scott's tapes on
"Common Objections," along with his series on Mary, I fully realized
that all my biblical arguments had disappeared.

It became clear that day that if I remained where I was, I would
be compromising. I would be stagnating spiritually and facing
spiritual death. When you can see the consequences of your behavior,
clearly you have a better chance of making a decision.

So I drove home and said to Pat, "I'm either going to stagnate
and die or change." Then together we decided that we needed to
make some radical changes. I resigned from my pastorate and moved
to Steubenville, Ohio, to study Catholic theology and become immersed
in the very strong Catholic community there.

For the entire first week at Franciscan University, after listening
to Father Mike Scanlan orient the new students, I was in tears
because I realized how stubbornly I had been avoiding what I had
clearly seen for eleven years. Then at the Easter Vigil Mass in
1992, with my wife and children and friends from the Master's
program standing up and cheering in the back, I was received into
the Catholic Church.

The Lord has truly blessed us. Through gentle leadings as well
as remarkable signs and wonders, He has guided and provided whenever
and whatever we have needed. Yes, in this journey we have learned
in unexpected ways the importance of the evangelical counsels
of poverty, chastity, and obedience. He has humbled me repeatedly,
asking that I give up everything -- money, position, power, even
for long periods my wife and family -- all to help me rediscover
how much you and I can totally depend upon Him.

After a number of years of study and intense struggles, trying
to discern how I might be able to continue to serve the Lord in
the Catholic Church, I was hired by the Diocese of Lubbock, Texas,
as director of evangelization and of their Spiritual Renewal Center.
In 2007 I was ordained a priest for the Diocese of Tyler, Texas,
and I now serve in college campus ministry.

In the Catholic Church, we have the richness and the fullness
of the tradition, the wisdom of pastoral practice, the wholeness
of biblical theology. Now we must prayerfully and charitably help
each other learn it and apply it. It continues to be an incredible
journey, and I give the good Lord thanks for everything He has
done for us.

Father Paul Key was ordained a Catholic priest in 2007 for the
Diocese of Tyler, Texas. He is now engaged in campus ministry
at Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches, Texas.

former Jew and Evangelical minister

MEETING JEWISH BELIEVERS IN CHRIST

VIEWS OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH

GRADUATE STUDIES AND NEW MINISTRY

UNSETTLING QUESTIONS

DISCOVERING CATHOLIC TRUTH

COMING HOME

"May He guide thy way, who Himself is thine everlasting end: That
every step, be swift or slow, still to Himself may tend."

As I set out to do the unthinkable -- to study the claims of the
Catholic Church -- I clung to this prayer, fearful that the enemy
of our souls would deceive and render me useless for the kingdom
of the Christ I had come to know and love.

I was raised in a Jewish home, one that celebrated many of the
Jewish traditions, at least in our younger years. I remember having
a special sense that the one God was our God and that we were
His people. Yet as we grew and went out on our own, much was left
behind. Eventually my brother, David, became an atheist, and I,
perhaps, an agnostic.

In the summer of 1975 (we were now in our thirties), I visited
David. For years, David had been searching for truth, for the
meaning of life, and to know if there really was a God. Many times
I had thought to myself:

What makes you think there is such a thing as truth?! ... that
there is one thing that is truth? And what makes you think you
could find it? Wouldn't it be like looking for a needle in a haystack?
And how would you recognize it?

But even if there was such a thing
as truth, and you could find it, and you knew when you had it
... and even if the truth meant that there is a God -- then what?
How would knowing that make a difference in your life? I figured
that I am because of what is. If what is means there is a God,
then therefore I am; if what is means there is no God, then therefore
I am. My knowledge or lack of it doesn't determine what is, so
why know?

In our conversation during this visit, David told me he had come
across an article that said there are Jews -- Jewish people -- alive, on the face of the earth, who believe that Jesus Christ
is the Jewish Messiah -- the Messiah! -- that the rest of us were
still waiting for. I'll never forget the shock that went through
my system at that moment. I thought back to all the years we had
sat down at the Passover table in expectation of the Messiah's
coming, knowing He was the only hope we had. And now David was
telling me that there are people -- Jewish people -- who believe
that He came?

I said to David, "You mean they believe He was here -- on earth -- already? And
nobody
knows? The world is not changed. And He
left?"

Now what? There would be no hope, nothing left. It's insane. And
besides, you can't be Jewish and believe in Christ.

Within three months of that conversation, I had moved to California
and met some of these Jews who believed in Christ. They didn't
just believe that Jesus Christ was the Jewish Messiah, but that
He was God come to earth! How can anyone even compute that? How
could a man be God? How could you look on God and live?

One life-changing night, I was together with a group of these
Jewish believers, all Christians -- all Evangelical Protestant
Christians. They told me that God required the shedding of blood
for the forgiveness of sin, and they explained how, under the
Old Testament sacrificial system, individuals would come daily
to offer animal sacrifices for their sins: bulls, goats, lambs.

If it was a lamb, it had to be a male, one year old, and absolutely
perfect, without blemish or spot. The individual would put his
hand on the head of the lamb, symbolic of the sins passing from
that individual onto the animal. That lamb -- which was innocent
but symbolically had taken upon itself the sin of that person -- was slain, and its blood was shed on the altar as an offering
to God in payment of that person's sin.

I couldn't understand why God would put an innocent animal to
death for my sin. It began to get through to me, nonetheless,
that sin was no light matter to God. These believers explained
further that those animal sacrifices were temporary, that they
needed to be repeated, and that they could not perfect the one
offering them. Those sacrifices pointed to the One who would one
day come and take upon Himself, not the sin of one person for
a time, but the sins of the entire world, for all time.

And with that, they pointed me to one verse in the New Testament,
John 1:29, when Jesus came and John the Baptist looked at Him
and said, "Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the
world!" The Lamb of God -- the final, once-for-all sacrifice to
which all Old Testament sacrifices pointed. It shattered me.

I couldn't believe what I had just begun to understand. My biggest
hang-up was the thought that a man can't be God! But I realized
that night that if God exists, He can become a man! God can be
anything or anyone He wants to be; I'm not about to tell Him how
to be God!

It was not long after that that I gave my life to Christ. God
transformed my life overnight. I knew little if anything about
Evangelicalism, or Protestantism in general, for that matter.
I had become a Christian. I had a relationship with the God of
the universe and a reason to live for the first time in my life.
I wanted to take a megaphone to the moon and shout to the world
that God is and that everyone could know Him.

My first Bible study as a new Christian was taught by an ex-Catholic,
who himself was taught by an ex-priest. So I was taught from the
start that the Catholic Church was a cult, a false religious system
leading millions astray. For years, I myself taught against the
Catholic Church, trying to help people, even whole families, by
bringing them out of such "manmade" religion into a true relationship
with Christ through the only Christianity I knew and believed
with all my heart.