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Then came the most amazing statement of all. I had been taught
that Pope Gregory the Great was the one who first claimed universal
authority for the pope in the sixth century. But Irenaeus proved
this claim wrong. He was explaining to his readers how he could
easily list the apostolic succession of every bishop of every
church in his time. But to do so would require too much space
in his book. So he decided he would give only the apostolic succession
of the bishop of the Church of Rome.

Why? Because, he said, everyone had to agree with that church
anyway on account of its "preeminent authority." The authority
of the Church of Rome went back to the teaching of the Apostles!

My eventual decision to come into full communion with the Catholic
Church was influenced profoundly by St. Irenaeus. To my delight,
his writings were steeped in biblical references. He was a remarkable
bishop who was faithful and wholly committed to one thing: passing
on the apostolic tradition he had received from Polycarp, who
had received it from John, who had lain on the bosom of our Lord
Jesus Christ.

All the earliest writers recognized a special importance in the
Eucharist. The early Christian text called the
Didache
, Justin
Martyr, and especially Ignatius of Antioch all gave instructions
and directions concerning the Eucharist. It was the center of
the early Church's worship. The question I had was whether to
emphasize the words "This is my body" or "Do this in memory."
Was the Eucharist always understood to be the body of Christ,
or was the Eucharist originally just a memorial? What I came to
understand was that the biblical use of "memory" was much more
than merely recalling a past event.

When the Jews in the Bible, who lived a thousand years after the
time of Moses, would remember the great events of the Exodus,
they spoke as if they were the ones actually there. The ritual
remembering connected them to the event.

When Jesus commands, "Do this in memory of me," he intends that
we relive the Eucharist in a way that we actually participate
in the original once-for-all sacrifice of Jesus Christ two thousand
years ago. This is the reason Paul says, "The cup of blessing
which we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ?
The bread which we break, is it not a participation in the body
of Christ?" (1 Cor 10:16). "Do this in memory of me" and "This
is My body" are two sides of the same coin!

"Don't they know what that means?" my dad had exclaimed as he
dialed the phone. It was 1974, and he was calling a family whose
teenage son was dating a Catholic girl! As a boy, I had often
listened to my dad explain the many dangers of the Catholic Church.
In light of that upbringing, I would not be able to become Catholic
easily. Much of my seminary training had involved anti-Catholic
apologetics. One evangelism program I had taken part in had even
provided the tracts and technique for proselytizing Catholics
because they did not believe in faith alone. These experiences
had created a deep bias in me. I was carrying significant emotional
baggage that resisted becoming Catholic.

Throughout my life, I had studied the Bible. Now I had found it
to be Catholic. Church history was Catholic. Tradition was Catholic.

Because of this journey for truth, I had become Catholic in faith
and worship style. But I was not in communion with the Catholic
Church. Why not? I decided to explore the possibility of coming
into full communion with the Catholic Church.

My wife, Cindy, and I would talk about Catholic teachings almost
every day in the fall of 1998. What about Mary? What about the
pope? We went through every issue quite thoroughly, and we took
our time. Though I was committed to finding the truth, I loved
being the pastor of the wonderful people at Church of the Resurrection,
a Charismatic Episcopal congregation. There was no hurry. Looking
back, I imagine that I looked at every issue so closely because
we did not want to leave Resurrection.

What would being Catholic mean for us? What would it be like to
be Catholic? Ultimately, I needed to be honest.

Someone once told me that if you want to know what Israelis think,
don't ask Palestinians. To find out what Catholics truly believe
about Mary, I could no longer be honest if I only asked anti-Catholics.
So I read the
Catechism of the Catholic Church.

Catholic teaching is very clear. The faithful are to worship only
God, and Catholics worship God as Trinity -- Father, Son, and
Holy Spirit. Catholics use the words "adore" or "adoration" for
worship but the words "venerate" or "veneration" with reference
to the respect and honor that is appropriate for human beings.

Catholic teaching forbids the worship of Mary, but Catholics venerate
her as the mother of Jesus, who is fully God and fully man. Catholics
also ask Mary to intercede for them with her Son Jesus Christ.
This teaching is clear and consistent.

Some people very close to me said, "I do not care what the Catholic
Church teaches; when I look at those people, I can plainly see
they are worshipping Mary." Sounds like Archie Bunker saying,
"Don't bore me with the facts. I've already made up my mind."

In all fairness, even if someone wrongly did worship Mary, this
does not mean that Catholics as a whole worship Mary any more
than the Pentecostal who reads his horoscope means Pentecostals
as a whole believe in astrology. Both people act contrary to the
clear teachings of their tradition. Catholics honor Mary (and
Scripture), who proclaims in the Bible: "Henceforth all generations
will call me blessed" (Lk 1:48). And in the same way Protestants
ask friends to pray for them, Catholics ask their friends in heaven
to pray for them. They are a great cloud of witnesses (see Heb
12:1)!

Others ask, "Why don't Catholics go directly to Jesus, who intercedes
perfectly for us in heaven?" But, strangely, at the same time,
they belong to the intercessors prayer group at their Protestant
church.

It is common for Protestants to ask someone to intercede for them
in prayer. Why won't they ask those who live closest to the Lord
in heaven to intercede for them in prayer? Talk about an untapped
prayer resource!

One day, Cindy was praying in the car, asking God about the Immaculate
Conception of Mary. Until that time, Cindy did not believe it.
In her prayer, God revealed the reasons for this great truth.
She came home excited to tell me about how the Holy Spirit had
revealed to her the reasons for the Immaculate Conception.

I was in shock. I got out the Catechism and read back to her almost
word for word what she told me. I had just finished studying in
the teachings of the Catholic Church the very words she had heard
in prayer. I kidded her that it must be nice not having to study.

When we realized we were Catholic in belief, we quit protesting
against the Catholic Church. Obviously, the word Protest(ant)
is a reference to the five-hundred-year protest against the Catholic
Church. This culture of protesting is so strong with some that
one of the Charismatic Episcopal Church teachers coined the phrase
"Romaphobia."

Many Christians will not believe or practice something just because
Rome does. I realized that the abuses that existed in the Church
in the Middle Ages were corrected a long time ago. It was in the
Charismatic Episcopal Church that I realized how much we Protestants
had thrown out the baby with the bathwater.

Just before I was ordained a priest in the Charismatic Episcopal
Church in 1995, I had to struggle with my position on infant Baptism.
The CEC baptized infants, and I needed to be one-hundred-percent
sure I believed in it, too. In Peter's first sermon on the day
of Pentecost, he said to them:

"Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus
Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you shall receive
the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is to you and to
your
children
and to all that are far off, every one whom the
Lord our God calls to Him" (Acts 2:38 - 39, emphasis added).

Many who do not believe in infant Baptism claim that the word
"children" here refers to descendants, not necessarily their children
alive at the time. So I let the Bible determine how the word "children"
would be interpreted. I looked in the Greek to see what word was
used in this verse.

The Greek word is
teknon
. I studied every place that
teknon
was
used in the New Testament. In every single case, it means a person
already born.

Teknon
never means a potential person. It could mean "descendant"
in the sense of a person being a child of Abraham, but in every
instance, that person was always already born. A descendant of
Abraham not yet born is called the "seed" of Abraham.

This distinction between a "child" meaning someone already born
and "seed" meaning someone not yet born is consistently followed.
This is especially true in the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of
the Apostles. Therefore, the "children" in Acts 2:39 must have
been born already. They were "children," not "descendants."

Baptism is for children! This insight helps interpret verses in
which a person and his whole household were baptized.

In Colossians chapter 2, Baptism is compared to circumcision.
Circumcision was performed on children born into the covenant,
and on converts and their children, too. Children were always
included in the Old Testament covenant and were marked by the
sign of the covenant.

How discouraging if children could not have Baptism, the mark
of the New Covenant? Interestingly, a study of the New Testament
era reveals that Gentile converts to Judaism were washed in a
ritual bath -- their children, too! The words that were spoken
over them in this ritual bath are remarkably similar to the words
used in the New Testament to describe Baptism and its effects.

The Church Fathers who address infant Baptism all attribute it
to apostolic tradition. Some misleadingly teach that Tertullian,
the first of the Fathers to speak of infant baptism, was against
it. What they failed to mention was that he wanted everyone, not
just infants, to wait until they were near death so they would
not abandon their faith after baptism. He acknowledged that infant
baptism was the early practice, but those who abandoned the faith
later in life scandalized him.

Interestingly, I was told that a recent study showed that a higher
percentage of people baptized after the age of reason fall away
from their faith than those baptized as infants. I wondered why
we were not taught the whole truth.

The first Christian to describe the baptism of people of various
ages was Hippolytus, around a.d. 210. He instructs the faithful
to baptize the little ones first. If they can speak for themselves,
let them do so. If they cannot yet speak for themselves, then
let a parent or sponsor speak for them. Then baptize the men,
and last the women.

Hippolytus claims that this is the tradition that was passed down
from the Apostles. I learned that the practice of "believer's
baptism," which requires all children to wait until the age of
reason, was never accepted for children who grew up within the
Church until the Reformation -- fifteen hundred years after the
fact. Any early Christians who delayed baptism for their children,
for any reason, were firmly rebuked for denying this grace-filled
sacrament to the infants. What a tremendous joy it has been for
me to baptize many little ones into the New Creation in Jesus
Christ!

Coming into full communion with the Catholic Church in 1999 brought
a great sense of fulfillment. Conversion, though, always has two
sides. Those who have gone through conversion know what I mean.
I was certain I would become Catholic. I was uncertain what becoming
Catholic would mean to all the cherished friendships I valued
as a priest in the Charismatic Episcopal Church.

Peter once questioned Jesus, saying, "We have left everything
and followed you. What then shall we have?"

Jesus responded, "Everyone who has left houses or brothers or
sisters or father or mother or children or lands, for my name's
sake, will receive a hundredfold, and inherit eternal life" (Mt
19:27, 29). So, all wrapped up together, I experienced the excitement
and joy of gaining such a rich Catholic faith with the potential
of losing many of the people I loved the most.

The convocation of the Great Lakes Diocese of the Charismatic
Episcopal Church in 1998 had provided a good opportunity for people
to get to know their diocese. Those who attended from my parish,
Church of the Resurrection, were astonished to hear our bishop
introduce me to the diocese with such favorable words. He said
that he loved all his priests, but that I was like a son to him.
I genuinely felt this same close bond. Now, I wondered, could
our bond endure this important change in my life?

As we gathered, we were amazed to discover so many others who
had been on the same journey. At one time, each of us had thought
that he was the only one who believed in the Bible, the power
of the Holy Spirit, and the sacraments and liturgy all at the
same time. The Charismatic Episcopal Church was a brand-new denomination
of like-minded men and women attempting to recover and balance
these three strands we felt essential to the Christian tradition:
the Bible, the power of the Holy Spirit, and the sacraments and
liturgy. We were committed to growing in the truth, and it took
courage to break from our previous faith traditions and ministries
to walk in this new convergence of three streams.

Those closest to me were my church family at Resurrection. Four
years earlier, in the spring of 1995, it had all begun when my
wife and I had enjoyed dinner with a couple in Brighton, Michigan.
They were former Episcopalians who were looking for the same expression
of the Christian faith that we had in the Charismatic Episcopal
Church.