Journeys Home (31 page)

The inner dynamism of these gifts and graces toward Catholic unity,
that essential mark of the Church as Christ willed her to be,
is what brought me home. In this sense, my conversion essentially
involved bringing to fulfillment in my own life a unity already
given by God as His gift in founding His Church. In the spring
of 1992, I became a member of Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church
in Massapequa Park, on Long Island in New York.

For about three years after my return to the Catholic Church,
I continued to teach at Molly College, a Catholic liberal arts
college in Long Island founded by the Dominican Sisters of Amityville.
I longed to be more directly involved in serving Christ and His
Church, however. I could not imagine what He had in store for
me. By January 1996, I was teaching philosophy at Conception Seminary
College in Conception, Missouri. I rejoiced in God's blessing
for this new opportunity to trust and serve Him.

The singularly most important thing about teaching at Conception
Seminary College was being of service to Christ and His Church
by helping the seminarians to discern, in the process of priestly
formation, whether Christ was calling them to the sacramental
priesthood. A priest is above all a faithful servant of Christ
and a steward of the mystery of salvation, the new life of grace
communicated by the Church in her sacramental life -- the love
of the Father manifested in the gift of the Son and communicated
by the Holy Spirit, which is present fully and unsurpassably in
Christ's redemptive sacrifice on the cross (see 1 Jn 4:9 - 10).
My own contribution in this process of discernment was chiefly
in the realm of philosophical formation, a critical and creative
engagement with the history and problems of philosophy in the
light of Divine Revelation.

So I found my way home by means of the gifts and graces of the
Spirit of Christ. I have used the image of journeying home as
the guiding theme in this chronicle of my return to the Catholic
Church to describe my life's walk with God. Yet the journey home
has still not ended for me and all those who are, as the New Testament
puts it, "in Christ," that is, in communion with the Body of Christ
that is the Church.

We are the journeying People of God, the Pilgrim Church, and the
Church promises to bring us to our home in heaven (see Phil 3:20;
Heb 11:10; 13:14). This eschatological hope also embraces the
fallen creation, now redeemed in Christ and headed toward the
fullness of the kingdom, which is the new heaven and the new earth
(Rev 21:1 - 8) realized in glory at the end of time.

We have not yet reached our final destination, however. Meanwhile
our present life is not a mere waiting room. As Christ's faithful
people, we are called to announce and extend the kingdom here
on earth. In the words of
Lumen Gentium:

The Church, consequently, equipped with the gifts of her Founder
and faithfully guarding His precepts of charity, humility, and
self-sacrifice, receives the mission to proclaim and to establish
among all peoples the kingdom of Christ and of God. She becomes
on earth the initial budding forth of that kingdom. While she
grows, the Church strains toward the consummation of the kingdom
and, with all her strength, hopes and desires to be united in
glory with her King (
Lumen Gentium,
5).

Thus, we are still on the road yearning to know the love of Christ,
sharing in His glory, which surpasses knowledge, so that we may
be filled with all the fullness of God, "with the joy native to
the life of the Trinitarian Persons," as Father Nichols puts it,
in our heavenly home (see Eph 3:19).

Dr. Eduardo J. Echeverria received his Ph.D. in philosophy from
the Free University of Amsterdam and his S.T.L. from the University
of St. Thomas, Rome. He is Professor of Philosophy in the Graduate School
of Theology, Sacred Heart Major Seminary, Detroit, Michigan. Dr.
Echeverria is the author of
Dialogue of Love: Confessions of an Evangelical
Catholic Ecumenist
(2010) and
"In the Beginning...": A Theology of the Body
(2011).

former ex-Catholic Presbyterian

LEAVING THE CHURCH THE FIRST TIME

LEAVING THE SECOND TIME

SURPRISED BY TRUTH

HOME AGAIN

On January 24, 1997, the feast of St. Francis de Sales, I was
received back into the arms of the Holy Catholic Church. Since
I had made a profession of faith in the Presbyterian Church, I
now made a renewed profession of faith in all that the Catholic
Church teaches. For this I chose to read the profession of the
Council of Trent, because it spoke the truth concerning specific
errors I had embraced. Then I received the sacraments of Penance,
Confirmation, and Holy Eucharist.

I wrote to my friends in the Coming Home Network International:

"What can I say? It's all beyond words somehow.
I feel
plunged
anew into sacramental graces. Drenched!

"Penance, Confirmation,
and Holy Communion -- all within the hour, and then a peaceful
prayer time alone with Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament. Visible,
audible, touchable!

"'That which was from the beginning, which
we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have
looked upon and touched with our hands, concerning the Word of
life' (1 Jn 1:1).

"Amen! I'll write more later. Right now, I'm
more or less melted by love and speechless in the light of His
grace.

"Thank you, dearest Lord; thank you, St. Francis de Sales;
thank you, dear friends. And now, please pray for me, that God
may grant me perseverance."

Almost five years earlier, on April 5, 1992, after a full year
of diligent study and faithful attendance, I had stood before
a Presbyterian congregation to make a profession of faith along
with membership promises that included submitting myself to "the
discipline and governance of the church." I joyfully wrote the
date in my Bible.

I was at the same time dedicating myself to serious study of God's
revealed Word, in the classical Reformed tradition, embracing
all the
"solas"
of the Protestant Reformation: faith alone, grace
alone, Scripture alone, Christ alone, and glory to God alone.
I had studied and read until I had become convinced of the truth
of "TULIP," an acronym for the distinctives of Reformed theology
describing the human condition: Total depravity, Unconditional
election, Limited atonement, Irresistible grace, and Perseverance
of the saints.

At that point, I had left the Catholic Church not just once but
twice. I had grown up Catholic, before and during Vatican II.
I enjoyed sixteen years of Catholic schooling, living close enough
to walk to school all the way through college. Our parish was
known in town, deservedly or not, as the "Holy Land" because of
having the grade school, two convents, a high school, a Jesuit
university, and a very high percentage of Catholic families in
the neighborhood.

I loved the Latin Mass, and in high school and college, I attended
daily Mass and Communion. I was young enough to accept gracefully
the changes of Vatican II, but not without some sadness. A wonderful
Jesuit priest formed a group for a few of us interested high school
students to study the documents of Vatican II. We loved our Church.

So how could I ever have left the Church I loved? Only for what
I thought was more of God. The charismatic renewal came to our
Catholic college campus, led by a Bible Belt Pentecostal preacher.
Many of us were caught up in the emotional appeal of belonging
to a group of Christians who were really excited about Jesus.
Eventually the charismatic group split along Catholic/Protestant
lines.

About the same time, I married one of the Protestant young men.
For three years of our marriage, I remained Catholic, but I finally
allowed myself to become disillusioned by the lukewarmness of
so many cradle Catholics compared with the Pentecostal ardor in
my husband's church. So in 1974, I gave up on the Catholic faith,
and naively hoping that the Holy Spirit would soon unite all Christians
anyway, I became very active in this independent charismatic church,
attending at least five meetings a week.

Over the next ten years of raising our kids in this enthusiastic
atmosphere, I nonetheless became very restless and increasingly
sensitive to the frequent misrepresentations of what the Catholic
Church actually taught. I perceived more and more differences
between the teachings of the independent church and orthodox Christianity.
So in 1984, under the guidance of a loving priest, a former teacher
of mine, I returned to the sacraments.

This was a difficult time for my husband, who was concerned about
my confusing the kids and about his responsibility as spiritual
head of the family. The fundamentalist teaching on submission
left no room for a wife to worship elsewhere. The pastor counseled
me to submit by staying "under the umbrella" of my husband's spiritual
protection, but I insisted that I must "obey God rather than men."
Although my husband and I felt the pain of not being able to worship
together, I also experienced the peace and joy of being home again
in the Catholic Church.

I wish I could say that was the end of my wanderings. But there
followed several years of distressing events, including the serious
illness of both my parents, my father's death, and a difficult
year of classroom teaching in a Catholic school. I sought counseling
and became involved in a "Catholic" meditation group, which taught
"Christian Zen" and other mixtures of Eastern philosophy and religion.

I had been devotedly practicing this meditation for some time
when, through my kids' involvement in pro-life activities, I began
conversing with a Protestant coworker whose kids had been arrested.
We soon discovered a mutual interest in theology. I felt quite
up to the task of arguing doctrine with a Calvinist, since I had
actually paid attention during my sixteen years of Catholic schooling
and had already had my "fling" with Protestantism.

I felt secure in my Catholic faith, so I took on the apologetic
challenge. Our lunchroom table debate went on for a year and a
half, but I, the Catholic, didn't win. I was not as prepared as
I had thought. I had not really come up against the strong intellectual
side of the Protestant Reformation before.

Now I was reading Martin Luther's
Bondage of the Will,
John Calvin
on the Lord's Supper, G. C. Berkouwer on faith and perseverance,
and many other Reformed authors. In addition, I listened to hundreds
of theology tapes by R. C. Sproul and others. I was outnumbered
and should have asked for help, but instead I looked critically
at the New Age stuff I was involved in, saw the sheer volume of
intellectual ammunition on the Protestant bookshelves, and became
convinced that they had Scripture on their side.

I felt compelled to submit to the truth, and I started attending
the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA), where I would later
become a member. This involved more stress for my family, because
I was rocking our boat again. I became very seriously concerned
and argumentative about the doctrinal errors in the independent
church where my husband and kids still attended. But over the
next few years, my husband became satisfied that I was at least
Protestant again, and we both made good friends in my Presbyterian
church.

Even then, I grieved over giving up my belief in the Real Presence
in the Eucharist, and I harassed my friend at work about talking
me into what I called "the Real Absence." Eventually I made peace
with the notion of a real presence being spiritually communicated
to believers by the Holy Spirit in a special way during the Lord's
Supper. But there was always that tug in my heart for the real
thing. Still, if the Catholic belief was idolatrous, I had to
reject it.

For five more years, I delved into Calvinism. It was very comforting
to know that God was absolutely sovereign over human decisions,
and to believe that as one of the elect I was perfectly sure of
going to heaven, no matter what I did, since it all depends on
God. I believed in predestination by God's decrees before the
foundation of the world and that Christ died only for His chosen
ones, because to think otherwise was to admit He was not in control
of salvation. I was a deeply convinced Calvinist and was working
on convincing everybody else.

In April 1996, I read
Surprised by Truth
(edited by Patrick Madrid),
the collected stories of eleven converts to Catholicism. I found
myself saying, "You know that's probably true. You've
always
known
it." Another part of me would say, "Then how did you change your
beliefs so thoroughly? And how can you even trust yourself to
'choose' any one belief system over another?"

I started reading and studying with renewed intensity. I read
again Blessed John Henry Newman's
Apologia Pro Vita Sua.
I read
books on the Eucharist and on the papacy. I corresponded by email
with the Coming Home Network International members and other Catholic
apologists.

A turning point came the day I finally realized that I did not
accept the principle of
sola scriptura
any longer and told my
pastor so, because then my whole orientation to authority changed.
The realization was also very depressing and unsettling, because
I was still so unsure of many Catholic teachings. I became very
fearful that this change would mean losing friends and upsetting
family.

I could not see how I could be sure of anything ever again, especially
my own trustworthiness in decision-making. I identified with Newman
saying in his
Apologia
, "I had been deceived greatly once; how
could I be sure I was not deceived a second time? I then thought
myself right; how was I to be certain that I was right
now
?"