Journeys Home (41 page)

During the summer of 1993, while walking home from church one
morning, Tim expressed his potential desire to learn more about
the Catholic faith. I was both shocked and excited. At the same
time, I was cautious. I didn't want to say too much. I kept my
distance and feared getting involved because I didn't want him
to feel pressured. I knew that if I pressured him, he would resent
it later on. I knew that it had to be his free decision.

I didn't want Tim converting because of me. I offered to be his
sponsor and he accepted. So I began praying more.

In 1992, at the age of twenty-five, I came to learn about the
family I didn't know I had. I also learned that because of the
circumstances of my conception, my father had wanted me aborted.
To say that such news was shocking is an understatement. Learning
the truth turned my whole world upside down. It threw everything
I thought I knew into question. Yet learning that truth led me
to a far greater truth.

The greatest blessing was learning of my half-brother Rich, whom
I had never met. I gave Rich a call and we spoke for a long time,
agreeing to meet at a nearby restaurant. I was nervous about our
meeting and didn't know what to expect. As I walked into the restaurant
that evening, there was no denying who my brother was. We shared
an undeniable resemblance.

Meeting him was like looking into a mirror and seeing myself thirteen
years later. As we sat eating our hamburgers and comparing stories,
the waitress asked, "Are you guys brothers?" Here we were, meeting
for the first time in our lives, and a stranger could see the
resemblance. We laughed, thinking,
If you only knew!

In that meeting with Rich, a unique and inseparable bond was formed.
We each felt more complete. Yet our bond is one that is more than
genetic.

As we sat talking, I learned that Rich had converted to the Catholic
faith at age eighteen. Not only had I gained the convert I needed
to talk with, but I had also gained a brother.

Like me, he had grown up Lutheran. His sharing his story with
me propelled me to learn more. The Holy Spirit had placed him
in my life exactly when I needed him.

Not long after I met Rich, a couple of other events pointed me
toward the Church. The new
Catechism of the Catholic Church
was
published, and we purchased a copy. I liked having it around because
it seemed to have answers for so many of my questions. It also
impressed upon me the validity of having all that the Church believes
in a single source. It gave meaning to the statement "one holy,
Catholic, and apostolic Church."

Also at about this time, Mary's church, St. Columba's, started
perpetual Eucharistic adoration. Feeling the need to pray more
and not fully understanding the meaning of the Blessed Sacrament,
I signed up to pray an hour each Sunday evening.

Unfortunately, the RCIA (Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults)
program at our local church left something to be desired. Had
it been for RCIA alone, I never would have converted. So I'm grateful
that a friend offered to go with me to a thirteen-week "Fundamentals
of Catholicism" class at a nearby parish.

The class was taught by an orthodox, faithful, and humble priest
capable of handling any question put to him. It didn't take long
for the Holy Spirit to work within me. An audiotape by former
Protestant minister Scott Hahn and the book
Surprised by Truth
further propelled me toward the decision I knew I had to make.

Incredibly, the issues with which I had long contended were no
longer issues. They had melted away. I felt as if I had been infused
with a knowledge and acceptance of the Church and her teachings.

I learned that asking the Blessed Virgin Mary or the saints to
pray for me was no different from asking a friend to pray for
me. I understood the Church's respect for the sanctity of all
human life and its teaching on the selfishness of contraception.
I came to know the differences in belief about the Eucharist and
why non-Catholic reception of our Lord's Body and Blood would
imply a unity among Christians that has not existed since the
Reformation.

I wanted our family to be one spiritually. I was on the road to
reconciliation.

Confession was my last major obstacle, more out of fear than any
lack of understanding. It was difficult to overcome the Lutheran
belief, as Martin Luther had put it, that we are "dung heaps covered
with snow." My teacher-priest compared the Lutheran concept of
forgiveness to typing with an old typewriter. If a sin were like
a mistake, you could white it out, but you would always know that
the mistake had been made.

In contrast, he compared the Catholic idea of forgiveness to using
a computer. Confession, he explained, was like hitting the delete
key. Once the key was struck, you would never be able to tell
the mistake had been made. If this was true, I felt that confession
had to be an utterly powerful and freeing sacrament given by Christ
to His Church.

On Ash Wednesday, I was moved to go to confession. Compiling a
laundry list of twenty-seven years' worth of sin was a very humbling
experience. The Cathedral of St. Paul seemed an appropriate place
for the sacrament.

There, I poured out the sins of my life and was filled with the
grace that accompanies the sacrament. It wasn't a lightning bolt
of grace, striking me suddenly, but rather a gradual appreciation
of the sacrament and its graces. After confession, things moved
quickly.

Converting is a covenant you enter into with God. Like marriage
or parenthood, it is one of those things you can't really try
out beforehand. Once I decided to convert, there was no going
back. It was all or nothing. Either I accepted the Church and
her teachings, or I wasn't Catholic. There was no room to pick
and choose.

RCIA and the "Fundamentals" classes were very much like marriage
preparation coursework and Engaged Encounter. There was only so
much prayer, reading, discussion, and discerning I could do. My
intellect could only take me so far. Eventually my heart had to
follow.

Through adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, I had acquired an
unquenchable thirst for the Eucharist. Truly, I was in love with
God and was being moved to take a childlike leap. I didn't have
all the answers. I didn't know where it would lead. But I had
to trust in God. As the Church teaches, some things have been
and will continue to be a mystery. This is what faith is.

I was unable to wait until Easter to convert. My heart had been
opened to the truth. To delay converting felt like denying God.

On March 19, 1995, the feast day of St. Joseph, gathered with
my friends and family and Mary as my sponsor, I professed my belief
in the Holy Catholic Church and all her teachings, was confirmed,
and accompanied Mary to the Lord's Table for the first time since
we had begun dating ten years earlier.

I can now look back on these remarkable events and clearly see
the hand of God in their timing. Had I not learned the truth about
my family, not only would I still be living without knowledge
of my father or my half brothers, but I also probably never would
have met my biological father before his death, and I might not
have come into the Church.

It is a sad statement about my Catholic education that I grew
up so ignorant about my faith. In some ways, I was not taught
my faith; in other ways, I took my faith for granted. I made no
effort actively to learn more about it. I now realize how thankful
I am that Tim converted. The questions that Tim raised through
his "Fundamentals" class inspired me to learn more. His questions
and reading taught me things I never knew.

Tim shared with me what he was learning, and he taught me the
true differences between Lutheran and Catholic beliefs. Tim's
conversion was a great blessing to me. I am a more faithful Catholic
because of it.

I'm also thankful that the Spirit moved Tim to convert when he
did. Though he didn't convert in order to make our family life
easier, his conversion did in fact make it easier, especially
in raising children. It is an incredible blessing to be a family
strong in one faith. It helps to make our decisions easier. We
feel more united in how we discipline and raise our children,
and we share common friends who feel strongly about their faith
as well.

Although I believed in Christ as a Lutheran, my faith did not
hold the fullness of truth so beautifully expressed in Christ
and His Church. Therefore, through my conversion, 1 Corinthians
7:14 was fulfilled: An unbelieving husband was sanctified by a
believing wife. Even more miraculously, God took my love for Mary,
combined it with my love for Him, and created new life, not only
within me, but within us. Just weeks after my conversion, after
a long struggle with infertility, my wife and I learned we were
expecting a child.

Our joy was compounded in discovering that the timing would be
near the timing of Christ's own birth. We felt closer than ever
to the Holy Family when we learned that our due date was Christmas.
Elias Joseph Drake was born on December 27, 1995.

It used to be that both the Lutheran denominations and the Catholic
Church seriously cautioned against mixed marriages because of
the potential "danger of loss of faith." While I understand their
caution and the potential that mixed marriages have for causing
pain, I marvel at the joy that Mary and I now share. In the end,
our own mixed marriage strengthened not only my faith but Mary's
as well.

Tim Drake serves as senior writer with the
National Catholic Register,
a service of EWTN. He has authored six books, including
There We Stood, Here We Stand: 11 Lutherans Rediscover their Catholic
Roots
(Author House, 2001). He has published more than 700 articles
in publications such as
Faith and Family
magazine,
Our Sunday
Visitor
, and
Columbia
magazine. Tim has appeared on Vatican Radio,
EWTN, and Fox News, and is a regular guest on several radio programs.
His wife, Mary, is a homemaker and the primary educator for their five living children. They reside in St. Joseph, Minnesota.

former ex-Catholic and member of the Worldwide Church of God

THE WORLDWIDE CHURCH OF GOD

CHANGES IN THE WCG

MY GROWING INTEREST IN LITURGY

RECONSIDERING THE CATHOLIC CHURCH

FINAL STEPS BACK TO THE CHURCH

I was born, baptized, and catechized a Catholic. When my parents
married, my father was nominally Catholic and my mother consequently
converted, taking on the sole responsibility for the religious
formation of us children. I don't remember how faithfully we attended
Mass, but I do remember going to Sunday school regularly.

Though I wasn't a devoutly religious child, I was always inclined
toward God. I wanted to please Him, so I made a conscious effort
to obey my parents and tell the truth. I tried to read the Bible
but didn't understand it, so my interest waned. I remember being
inspired for a time by my First Holy Communion and Confirmation
to participate regularly in the sacraments and daily devotions.

During those childhood years, my mother became a captive audience
to radio and television evangelists. Then shortly after my confirmation,
she decided to become a member of the Worldwide Church of God
(WCG). I was content being Catholic, and if my dad had been more
devout, I probably would have stayed, but I wasn't strong enough
or equipped to go against my mother's direction.

Since the Worldwide Church of God isn't a well-known denomination,
it's likely that few readers have met a member or convert from
this sect. We should begin by giving a little of the background
and history of this group.

The WCG today is a much different organization from what it was
in the mid-sixties when I began attending with my mother. Herbert
W. Armstrong founded it, believing that he had been called by
God to restore the gospel that had been lost since the first century
a.d. Under his leadership, the WCG espoused an eclectic mix of
doctrines.

The central definitive doctrine was the observance of Saturday
as the seventh-day Sabbath. The members of the WCG also held to
the sacred calendar of the Jewish people, celebrating the Days
of Unleavened Bread by removing all leavened products from their
homes. Christmas and Easter were not observed because they were
not biblically ordained festivals.

Members also followed the dietary restrictions of the Jewish people
and did not eat pork products. We would diligently read the ingredients
of items such as bread and crackers to make sure they were made
with vegetable shortening and not animal fats.

Prophecy and the return of Christ were always in the forefront
of the group's teaching and evangelization. Mr. Armstrong and
his son, Garner Ted, spoke daily on their radio program,
The World
Tomorrow.
The program got its name from the expected thousand-year
reign of Christ that included a worldwide secular utopia.

Many sermons on prophecy were preached. The Catholic Church was
looked upon with great suspicion. Part of the prophetic package
included the belief that the United States and Great Britain were
the descendants of Israel, and therefore the Old Testament prophecies
that mentioned Israel were thought to be speaking to our nations.

There was no belief in the Trinity. God the Father and God the
Son were separate beings, with the Holy Spirit being only the
power of God. The WCG held to
sola scriptura,
but not to
sola
fide.
A Christian was required to keep the Ten Commandments for
salvation: If one didn't keep the seventh-day Sabbath, one couldn't
be saved.