Home at Last: 11 Who Found Their Way to the Catholic Church

by Rosalind Moss (Editor, Contributor), Michael J. Sheehan (Preface), Ray Ryland (Foreword)

The impressive Bernini columns that stretch from St. Peter's Basilica out towards Rome, enclosing St. Peter's Square, have been described as the arms of the Church reaching out and welcoming all people, all language groups, all cultures, and all individuals looking for truth, happiness in this life, and eternal salvation in the next. Our beloved converts have come to love the Church as their mother and home. They have prayed, argued, studied, and finally embraced the Catholic faith. But it wasn't by their works alone that they have found a home in the Church. Ultimately they--like all Catholics--are members of the Church because of God's generous gift of faith, which we neither earn nor deserve. May these converts, and all like them, persevere in their newfound faith and bear fruit a hundredfold. -Most Rev. Michael J. Sheehan Archbishop, Archdiocese of Santa Fe

We like to hear others talk in glowing terms about someone we love. We take delight in gaining new appreciation of that person by seeing him through the eyes of others. And if still others want to praise that person, we will not stop them by saying we have already heard all the good things we need to hear. Though volumes of convert stories have appeared in recent years, we who love the Catholic Church never tire of reading about how still others have allowed themselves to be led by the Holy Spirit into the Church. We know the next one we read will give us a fresh look at the Church through that person's eyes. Curious or even critical non-Catholics will find much food for thought in these testimonies. Each convert travels a unique road. One of our contributors reminds us of this by quoting Venerable John Henry Newman, the most distinguished of all Catholic converts since Augustine. Newman pointed out that the Catholic Church "presents herself very differently to different minds who are contemplating her from without. God deals with them differently, but, if they are faithful to their light, at last, in their own time, though it may be a different time to each, he brings them to that one and the same state of mind, very definite and not to be mistaken, which we call conviction." -Fr. Ray Ryland Professor of Theology, Franciscan University of Steubenville

Genres: Catholic

150 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 2001

Reviews

[Steven H · Rating 5 out of 5]

A DIVERSE COLLECTION OF ACCOUNTS BY ELEVEN CONVERTS TO CATHOLICISM

Fr. Ray Ryland wrote in the Foreword to this 2000 book, “In recent years there have appeared many collections of ‘convert stories,’ accounts of how individuals were led by the Holy Spirit into full communion with the Catholic Church… Why publish more of these ‘confessions’? Two reasons: The first is this: Though the destination---Rome---is always the same, each convert travels a unique road to reach that home… Furthermore, each story offers non-Catholic readers an invitation to take up the search for truth that can lead them also into Catholic communion… A person changes from one religious tradition ... to another for one of two reasons: Either he likes the new religion for some reason and therefore thinks it must be true, or he realizes that it is true and that he must embrace it whether he likes it or not.” (Pg. 13)

Editor Rosalind Moss says in the Introduction, “Herein are stories of souls, my own included who sought the truth of God and of his Church, sometimes at great cost, even when their doing so seemed to go against what they had been taught, against what was familiar, against what they had come to trust, and against their very understanding of God. Each discovered that to be Catholic is not to have other than Christ, or more than Christ. It is…. to have the WHOLE Christ, all that God gave us in giving us his Church…” (Pg. 23)

James J. Pitts recalls, “my problem was not Scripture. It was Mary… One day, I decided to go sit beside the Pecos River with my Bible and forget Mary… I opened Matthew’s gospel to the first chapter… Verse 19 says that Joseph was kind and just, and had decided against any public shame for Mary or himself…. ‘Thank you, Lord!’ Here was my answer… I would not cause myself any public shame involving Mary and the changes in my life that devotion to her might bring.” (Pg. 34)

Alex Jones notes, “The Church had a vibrant, rich spiritual life that was not fully captured by the New Testament … The great thinkers of the Church… are totally ignored by the mass of Protestants. Yet it was these men who withstood heresies and heretics… and formulated the very New Testament doctrines we Protestants believe today… With all of this new enlightenment, I had to make the greatest decision of my life. Would I take what I had learned and resign from the pastorate of my church, or would I attempt to share an unpopular and alien message with those I loved, including the congregation in served? I chose the latter course…” (Pg. 49)

David K. DeWolf recounts, “I had always been moved by Communion, and the more I pondered it… the more convinced I became that this was not just a symbol of our Lord’s body and blood, but actually BECAME his body and blood. As I came to believe that, I came to want it for myself… God put it on my heart that this was the next step in my journey toward him.” (Pg. 57-58)

Jeri Westerson reports, “Atheism is difficult to describe to a theist… I had lived my life alone in an empty room. But that night in the monastery the door opened, and though I could see no one, I knew with that prickly-neck sensation that there was now someone else there. My mind whirled… Was I having a religious experience? Worse, was I having a CHRISTIAN religious experience. Could I be accepting not only God but also Jesus Christ? Not me! Yet those feelings… How could I not accept?” (Pg. 63)

Thomas Ricks says of he and his wife: “As we began to talk through the enormous ramifications of conversion, we … took a three-part approach to our consideration of whether to convert to Catholicism. First, we tried to read the Scriptures afresh, with our hearts and minds as open as possible… Second, we studied Catholicism. We knew that there were holes a mile wide in our knowledge of Catholic belief and practice… Third, we read the writings of the early Church fathers… More and more I began to see that our ‘cell’ church’s practice of the faith… was very different from the practice of the early Christians…” (Pg. 77-78)

Howard Charest recalls, “The beginning of my liberation from such man-centered spirituality came though Catholic thinkers such as Augustine and Aquinas, who had confronted philosophy and transformed it in the light of Christian revelation rather than retreating into an anti-intellectual ghetto… The final moment of my liberation came with my discovery of Thomist realism, an alternative to empiricism and idealism.” (Pg. 92)

Sally Box recounts, “It finally dawned on me that I alone would be responsible for the type of Catholic I would be. Others in the Church could help or hinder me, but I would be accountable for my own actions… I came to understand that my own dissatisfaction with other Catholics, the sorry state… of the Catholic liturgy, and even the probably conflict I would have within my own family were mere difficulties---but they were not doubts.” (Pg. 100)

Eric M. Johnson notes, “it was a lesser known renaissance composer who provided me with the most dramatic fusion of fidelity and musical strength…I became transfixed by the consummate beauty of the work, as well as its intricate complexity… The visual arts also drew me to Catholicism. It is impossible to survey the history of art without running into the fact that a huge number of great works were created for the glory of God. The vast majority of these works… were created by Catholics.” (Pg. 104-105)

Robert Ian Williams explains, “My entry into the Catholic Church was not a Damascus Road conversion. Although God can work like that, my journey to the historic faith was a gradual learning experience… In many ways the process for me was like a detective novel in which one is always confounded to discover who the real villain is. I thought the Catholic Church was the villain, but at the end of my journey my conceptions were confounded and turned upside down.” (Pg. 112)

Craig Turner recalls, “I had always known that my vision of the universe was not the only one…It is like looking through the end of a telescope, thinking that what we seem constitutes the infinitude of reality. What was happening to me, I thought, was an expression of my field of vision through my telescope, so that I was able to see more of reality than I could previously, albeit not the entirety. I knew beyond any doubt, though, that I had heard my friends’ prayers. This was astounding.” (Pg. 131)

Finally, Rosalind Moss wrote of encountering the Catholic apologetics magazine, ‘This Rock’: “Catholics have a defense for their faith? I had never met a Catholic who knew his faith. No Catholic ever told me the gospel. But there was something more. I never knew Catholics CARED that anyone know it. I thought, ‘If you even THINK you have the truth, and the truth means your soul, and the souls of everyone alive on the face of the earth, how do you keep that to yourself?’ I had my first measure of respect for any group of Catholics who would want the world to know what they believe.” (Pg. 146)

This book will be of great interest to anyone seeking accounts of conversions to Catholicism.

[Ken · Rating 3 out of 5]

This collection os stories from 11 people from varied cristian faiths describes how they fall away from the church & found trheir way back throuth the fullness of the Catholioc church. Rosalind herself came from a Jewish background & found truth & herself in the Catholic church.

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

I won this book from the Coming Home Network. As a cradle Catholic, I love conversion stories. This book is no exception. My only complaint is with the length. Most of the stories are too short. I would have appreciated more development.

[Christian D. D. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very inspiring compilation of stories of Catholic converts from a variety of previous religious (and non-religious) backgrounds.