I blogged some of this earlier, but I re-post it here with some additions and minor changes since it essentially completes one of the segments of the conversion story I started this blog to document :).

My wife and I were travelling full steam towards an entrance into Holy Mother Church when our train was violently derailed by learning of incorrupt saints. At first we were horrified to think that people actually kept deceased saints on display for centuries. The fact that they were incorrupt seemed almost a sign that something was wrong ... really wrong. Research of this led us into the realm of relics. This seemed even worse. Martyrs were divided up into pieces and sent around to the various churches for the purpose of veneration. Why was this? Why did it seem so foreign and wrong to this Protestant American?

First, I should explain my reservation. Dead people creep me out. There is something seemingly dirty about death that I really think is at the root of what bothers us about this. Most people rather avoid passing by a casket at a wake. We prefer to distance ourselves as far as possible from the deceasesd seemingly for fear that we too might catch whatever it is that killed the person lying in the casket. Second, the flesh seems so much lesser than the spirit that the idea of degrading it to the point of it being worthless is a very common idea amongst particularly Protestants. Essentially, it is a corrupt mindset about the body and more significantly, about the physical.

What careened this hurdle into the recesses of my past?

First off relics and veneration of such was a historically observable fact of early Christianity. From the time of Polycarp we can see that the Church has kept remains and other items owned by or used by martyrs and Holy men and women of the Church. An excerpt from the Martyrdom of Polycarp (156 AD) best illustrates this principle:

Accordingly, we afterwards took up his bones, as being more precious than the most exquisite jewels, and more purified than gold, and deposited them in a fitting place, whither, being gathered together, as opportunity is allowed us, with joy and rejoicing, the Lord shall grant us to celebrate the anniversary of his martyrdom, both in memory of those who have already finished their course, and for the exercising and preparation of those yet to walk in their steps.(Source)

Since the historical continuity of doctrine was one of the primary reasons that I felt I must become Catholic, this early indication of such carried great weight with me.

Second was the fact that there were clear indications in scripture of God using items, like bones, garments and even shadows to affect persons in a very real way. (1)

2 Kings 13:20-21: “So Elisha died, and they buried him. Now bands of Moabites used to invade the land in the spring of the year. 21 And as a man was being buried, lo, a marauding band was seen and the man was cast into the grave of Elisha; and as soon as the man touched the bones of Elisha, he revived, and stood on his feet.”

Acts 5:15-16: “. . . they even carried out the sick into the streets, and laid them on beds and pallets, that as Peter came by at least his shadow might fall on some of them. 16 The people also gathered from the towns around Jerusalem, bringing the sick and those afflicted with unclean spirits, and they were all healed.”

Acts 19:11-12: “And God did extraordinary miracles by the hands of Paul, 12 so that handkerchiefs or aprons were carried away from his body to the sick, and diseases left them and the evil spirits came out of them.” (cf. Mt 9:20-22)

Third, I came to recognize the false dichotomy that I had maintained between spirit and matter. This was even more intriguing from my standpoint because I had managed to conquer this objection in my study on the sacraments. Earlier, I posted about my lifelong affirmation of the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. To me this naturally follows from the Incarnation. The same holds with baptism. What I wanted to do with relics was say that God couldn't do what Catholics claimed He could do with relics, especially in the case of the incorrputables. What this required of me was a total conversion to the idea of sacrament. I had to get over the idea that there is some kind of division between matter and spirit. I think this is a problem that exists in Americans as a whole. Europeans are not so squeamish about the dead, I think, because they have deeper Catholic roots. The division of matter and spirit is not a new idea though. It seems every major heresy from the dawn of time made the basic assumption that matter was evil and that the spirit was good and that none shall the two meet. The Incarnation is the single biggest indication that there is fault with that idea. To further find fault, from a Christian perspective, one only need look at Genesis. To summarize:

God created and it was GOOD.

Further understanding of what evil is, as taught by the Church, reveals even more clearly this truth. "Evil is the privation (or absence) of good." (paraphrase from Augustine) Nothing created by God is in and of itself evil. Few Protestants would disagree, yet the dichotomy exists in the minds of so many ... It did with me.

What the Protestant convert has to struggle through is understanding the purpose of these "things" Catholics have. Statues, rosaries, relics, stained glass. All of them are things we can use as aids to piety. We do not worship them because they can do nothing for us and they themselves have no power.

But God can work through them. That is the lesson I had to learn ...

The final realization about the incorruptables was that this falls perfectly in line with the idea of the resurrection of the body which is something we recite in the Nicene Creed every Sunday. Death was defeated by Christ and in that it took that we can rest assured that this is a power that Satan does not have. That is why it is most assuredly of God that these things happen. Why did God choose to give us these type miracles? That is beyond the scope of this little brain of mine ... but there they are.

One of the last and strongest oppositions that I maintained against the Catholic Church had to do with the fruits of people that I saw all my life that called themsleves Catholic. I knew that the Catholic Church taught a high standard of morals but it did not seem that it translated very well into changed lives. Consider the following example from our Engaged Encounter weekend, which we attended prior to our marriage as Episcopalians:

(from the previous blog entry) there was a time when all of the couples sat in the round and a couple of questions were asked. The questions were about cohabitation and sex before marriage. The responses included

"I'll call you a liar if you say that you are not sleeping together before you get married"
"After all, you wouldn't buy a car without a test drive, I don't see why getting married is any different"
"We would be living together but my future father-in-law threatened to kill me if that happened"
"The everyday difficulties of life require us to live in sin"
and the gem of the evening.
"We are all sinning and know it but we know Jesus is going to forgive us anyway so what is the point"

Add to this my wife knowing a Catholic girl in college that maintained that "Mary would be at her wedding and that it didn't matter whether or not Jesus showed up" and intending on getting a divorce because "love doesn't last but about 7-10 years anyway" and we had seen a wide array of bad examples in our own lives. To add further damage to the matter we had numerous pro-choice Catholic politicians both in Louisiana and around the nation. The case for bad Catholics was overwhelming.

Three things changed my mind:

First, meeting and reading about solid Catholics: At first this was limited mostly to online since the majority of my contact with Catholics willing to talk about their faith was through message boards, blogs and web sites dedicated to defending the faith. There I met folks who were intelligent, lived their faith and who presented logical arguments in favor of the Catholic position rather than wilting under the fire of Bible zingers. I was so excited to see this. It let me know that solid Catholics existed. Also, I couldn't discount the lives of the saints and fantastic modern examples of pious Catholic living. How could I not see at a minimum Mother Theresa and Pope John Paul II?

Second, reading a solid biblical defense of sinners being in the Church: On Sinners in the Church Some select quotes

The parable of the wheat and weeds (cf. Matt. 13:24–30, 36–43) and wheat and chaff (cf. Matt. 3:12; Luke 3:17)
Matthew 7:21–23 implies that there are many counterfeit believers
‘Strive to enter by the narrow door; for many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able’" (Luke 13:23–24).
Jesus himself rebukes six of the seven churches of Asia he addresses. Most scholars think that the book of Revelation was written no later than A.D. 100. Yet look at all the serious problems we already observe in these apostolic churches even before the last apostle (John) died

The Church then, as now, was riddled with problems: hypocrisy, lukewarmness, heterodoxy, fornication, idolatry

Third, a dynamic unique to Catholicism: The dynamic I am referring to is best described by pointing out the WAY dispute is handled in the Church. If Catholics disagree with the Church, schism is simply not an option. Christ prayed, "that they may all be one" (John 17:20-23). Catholics understand and believe this very strongly. There are ways to handle dispute in the Church and it might take hundreds of years for a matter to be settled. Both the faithful and the dissident know this history. Meanwhile, I have to sit next to someone who disagrees with me, even on things I know have been settled for centuries. In the Catholic Church you have VOTF, Catholics for a Free Choice, The Rainbow Sash movement and a host of other groups that disagree with fundamental teachings in the Catholic Church. They typically remain in the Church despite their gross disagreements with Rome. Protestantism, on the other hand, contains a heritage of schism. "Here I stand" is the battle cry for one group of members in a church who have decided that a doctrine held by others in the church is unacceptable. When the matter reaches a certain boiling point, a new church is formed and doctrinally like-minded folks group together while leaving the remnants holding to the less favorable doctrine behind. The result is that the people in the pew next to you hold very similar doctrinal beliefs and tend to have similar standards of morality. It makes it appear as if where you went to church contained a minimum standard of folks that should call themselves Christian. Reality, paints a different picture, even in Protestantism. If you were to combine all Protestants, from the morally liberal all the way to the most pious of puritans, you would have something quite similar to what I see at mass every Sunday.

As I mentioned earlier, in the Catholic Church, I might be sitting next to a rainbow sasher. What that reminds me most is that I TOO am a sinner and that pride is my weakest link. Who am I, a lowly sinner, to judge one who is there presumably seeking the Truth. The Catholic Church is for the sick, the dying, the grossly sinful and the Holy too. Jesus came for ALL of them and while I may not like sitting next to a bored teenager defiantly clad in tight Abercrombie and Fitch clothes, there she is and Sunday after Sunday she hears Sacred Scripture and she participates in the Holy Sacrifice of the mass. Every day, that grace calls you to decision. My prayer should be that each day we all (my self included) accept that grace and follow Him, and never turn away from the Lord, our strength.

There is a reason you see a lot of little old ladies scooting around the parish every day, serving with every last ounce of life they have in them. They used to be that defiant young girl.

[NOTE: It needs to be known that these posts are short starters for longer overviews that I eventually intend to complete in a more thorough manner. There are few actual references to information (ie lengthy scripture quotations etc) because my time to blog is limited. Anyway, I have decided to be more candid with these and clean them up when I organize them in the future. The initial goal is just to get down the basic story.]

Shortly before and just after my wife and I were married the topic of birth control came up regularly. We had decided prior to marriage to use the pill just like all of our friends and relatives. The wedding day and the honeymoon came and went. We were together. Life was beautiful. Despite those facts, my wife was extremely depressed. This was a shock to both of us because we had just been through the most beautiful wedding that God could have blessed a couple with and the start of our marriage was wonderful. Once again, we were together. Life was beautiful. Why the sorrow?

Shortly afterwards my wife noticed that the times in her when she was depressed and significant hormone changes tended to coincide. This caused her to suspect the birth control pill of affecting her in a negative way. Prior to our wedding my wife received an unsolicited email from a friend with several bits of information about known side effects of the pill. We had neglected to read the email thoroughly when we received it but these recent developments begged us to pull it up and really delve into what the email contained. What it claimed left us horrified. The email noted that side effects of the pill included depression, stroke and even in rare cases death. Not only that, the email alluded to the fact that it was an abortaficient, which meant that it would expel an egg AFTER fertilization. My wife and I are staunchly against abortion and we firmly believe that life begins at conception so the idea that we could be terminating a pregnancy after conception weighed very heavily on us. During the time following the reception of that email my wife and I looked into the matter further. We specifically looked into what doctors had to say and what various Christian leaders had to say about the use of the pill and other birth control methods. In our reading, we happened upon a stunning fact. Prior to 1930 EVERY Protestant denomination was unified in teaching with the Catholic Church that contraception in any form was immoral. It was the Lambeth Conference in 1930 that was the first declaration by a major Protestant denomination (Anglican) to allow for the use of contraceptives and then only in difficult circumstances. The questions raised by this were obvious: Why did the whole of Protestantism modify their teaching on this matter and even more curiously, why DIDN'T the Catholic Church modify its teaching on the matter? These side questions distracted us from a settling answer on the matter of other birth control. We had to press on.

We decided to consult other friends to ask how they arrived at their conclusions. The more that I asked the question the more I realized that it just wasn’t asked any more. When presented with the information we had found some even responded, "God is bigger than the pill. If He wants to bless you with a child then He will” and the issue was promptly dropped. We found this to be akin to testing God. Why would this be any different than expecting God to stop us from stealing chocolate from the candy store by performing some extraordinary miracle? Why were we trusting God to undo our decision to not have children? That rationale simply did not sit well with us. Some concluded that it is wrong to bring many children into the world if you cannot provide a prosperous life for them and that any method was just as good as the other. To me this was motivated by material wealth and implied that those who cannot afford to exist shouldn’t. This also didn’t sit well with us because scripture stated in Psalm 127 that children are a blessing from God. Still, the avoidance of the issue was what stood out. Thinking back, without the depression that came about in the life of my wife I am not sure we ever would have asked any questions about birth control itself. I firmly believe that it is by the grace of God that this issue was raised in our lives.

Meanwhile my wife and I struggled with birth control questions for a brief period before finally determining that NFP was a good method if properly utilized. It must be noted that during this time our thought process had not come in line with what the Church teaches about NFP. We were purposefully avoiding pregnancy by using NFP. We had not entirely embraced the idea of openness to life and we had not discerned the difference between NFP and other forms of contraception. The difference is quite clear. On one hand we have the conscious decision to have sex given available information and on the other we have the deliberate interruption of fertility during sex. My favorite response about this not so subtle difference from a rather brash apologist I read online was “What? You don’t know the difference between having sex and not having sex?” Still, within 5 months of our marriage, my wife was pregnant with our first child.

Our future research on this matter will lead us closer to the teaching of the Church, not because we sought what the Church had to say about it but because we became increasingly aware of good reasons not to practice birth control. A prime example is my own existence. I am the fifth of six children. If my parents had chosen to stop at two or three like the majority of couples today, I would not exist. I have five siblings and at current count they have fourteen children. The legacy my parents will leave is impressive indeed and each and every life that resulted during the course of their adherence to Church teaching is a blessing in my life and for certain the lives of others.

Even though we had come to a better conclusion than the pill on the matter, the questions about our decision lingered … especially the troubling ones that raised real issues about teaching authority in the church we were attending.

[in final affirmations add story about contraception coming up before V2, being tabled til theologians could recommend FOR its use and Humane Vitae coming out opposed to it anyway]

To learn more about the next step in my conversion you have to know a little bit more about me. I come from a background of musicians. My mother taught piano. Also, my brother is a professional bass player for a fairly well known blues band. Finally, I spent a significant amount of my summers writing songs despite my thorough lack of training. For my mother and brother it was a vocation. For me, it was the sheer beauty of it that uplifted me. My own songwriting experience allowed me to experience musicianship and thus music at a level that is a little beyond that of your average pop music fan. My taste in music at one time was an obsession. I had found a small niche of music, or genre rather, that spoke to the depths of my person at the age of 14. You couldn't hear much of it on the radio so I began to seek friendships with those that had similar tastes. I met a couple of friends in school, one with some musical training and one with just good taste in music. Our friendship developed into a band, which for me was a hobby and to this day represents some of the fondest memories that I have as a youth. The love I have for music remains to this day. As my tastes matured I longed for something deeper. That something I found in classical music and jazz so both are very much a part of my music collection and a significant amount of time late in college was spent listening to everything I could get my hands on. To me, experiencing music was the way I got to know God before I had the foggiest idea what His place in my life was. I was wandering in wonder. That was my knowledge of God.

Upon my zealous reversion back to Christianity my attendance at non-denominational Protestant services exposed me very much to contemporary Christian music, which I fought very much against despite the will of my friends to convince me that the message was what was important. Over my years as a Protestant I slowly was able to sing along and find a value in the words themselves, but the music left me wanting for something that I got in secular music and most prominently in classical music. The choir in Neptune of Holsts' The Planets never failed to give me chills. It always touched me in a very deep way and that was something that I could not get from the praise music I was singing, no matter the venue. Where was the awe that I was brought to when I was listening to the finest musical talent in the world? Where was the mystery? Where was the sacred? I must stop for a moment to highlight a lesson that I took from this that I wish many folks in Catholic churches would learn. There is spiritual value in singing along in church. The actual participation in every aspect of the mass brings you to a deeper realization of what is going on. It is an opportunity to praise God and in the mass is far deeper than that. You can participate in ways that Protestants cannot. Much of Protestant worship is very much geared towards praise. Catholic worship is geared towards the Most Blessed Sacrament. In it we touch God in a very real way. We join our sufferings with His and He gives us Himself fully in the Eucharist. The music should be beyond that of pop songs that happen to mention scripture, or God or something Jesus did. The music should be the best mankind has to offer; that which is created by the greatest gifts He gave to man. It is what we should expect, but we should also do what we can to participate ourselves. Every action we make towards Him is a good one and singing is such an easy way to do something simple that grows like an oak tree from the smallest seed.

My thoughts on music further extended into art and architecture but at a later date. My first flirtation with that was when I became engaged to my wife. We started attending a local Episcopal church downtown known for its beauty and architecture. I have no qualms admitting that reason. We were tired of going to church in warehouses. We only attended the church downtown for a few weeks before we started attending the church of her youth, which was also a beautiful little chapel on the campus of a local high school. What was common with both was the artistry. The colorful stained glass windows and adornments were a constant reminder of the greatness of God. The detail given to the flowers on a weekly basis were a reminder to life and the regular renewal of that life. All in all things were simply beautiful and it enhanced my ability to focus on worship. After months of attending church in both places I realized something was happening to me. I was beginning to enjoy art. I was beginning the journey I had in my youth with art, and more importantly with God. Beauty drew me in and it enhanced my relationship with Him far beyond that which I could have ever achieved on my own or by only reading or singing praises.

Man is created in the image of God, and we are endowed with attributes that are similar to certain awe-inspiring aspects of God. He is the Creator. All He creates is good. Man is creative. We do not create in the sense God does because we are incapable of creating something from nothing. We can however take what is created and craft it into a work of art, or a piece of music or poetry. It is in this sense that we have a similarity which in itself inspires us to contemplation of the great He who Is. In every imperfect painting of a waterfall that we create, we can further strive to realize the perfection of God's creation in the flowing thunder of Niagara Falls. Art itself is a catalyst that assists our getting closer to God by understanding the attributes that we are endowed with that are mere types of what He actually is capable of. Our imperfect understanding of the mystery that is the chasm we cannot bridge keeps the well of desire in our hearts for Him overflowing. The beauty we see is a grace that keeps us coming back.

These aspects are not limited to just art and music but also flow into the liturgy itself. The first time I attended an Episcopal church I thought to myself that I was getting back to something that was more real. I was getting back to something that was beautiful and that was ordered towards thinking about God at a very high level. That is where I wanted to be. God wooed me towards Him with beauty. After all, it only makes sense. He is the one who invented the passion for it.

"Art is beauty made a sacrament" - V. McNabb: Thoughts Twice-dyed.

I was not convinced that this was the end of the road but I had quickly come to the conclusion that the Episcopal Church was really no different than the Catholic Church. The only difference was that folks wouldn't get on my case about it. And they didn't ...

The first real indications that the Catholic Church was who they say they were occurred to me when I was attending a non-denominational church just out of college. At the time I was travelling out of town 5 days a week. My life consisted of travelling, sleeping and going to this church on Sunday. I had recently gotten involved in their Ministry 101 course which was geared towards getting you active in a particular ministry in their church. During that time the church, which had been around for 25 years, had gone through a great deal of growing pains about "doctrine". Nobody could seem to agree on what the church stood for as far as core doctrine went and a movement had come about to at least specify a small statement of what was considered required beliefs by the members of the church. The reason for this is because some dissent was arising amongst the members of the church. Some of the elders wanted to clarify which particular beliefs were in line with what the church was teaching and what beliefs were not. Now this is what Catholics, Orthodox and mainline Protestants call a creed. Creeds are very tradition based and many, particularly in the Evangelical movement of Protestantism are so opposed to tradition that the idea of a creed is itself creepy and "unbiblical". Still this church discovered from its own growth that it was necessary to minimze dissent and to foster unity within the church. The Apostles creed has verbage that can be traced back to at least Tertullian in the early 3rd century with some evidence to support the idea that the creed traces back to the 12 apostles themselves. This seed would uproot my holding of the doctrine of sola scriptura and it was planted here. While it was a slight doubt at this point, it would eventually grow into the single issue that caused me most to question Protestantism.

But this is just the beginning of my journey. The issue that really set me off on the path towards Rome was different but it came up right around the same time period. Usually at this church, every so often, a missionary would come in and give a talk about their ministry and then an offering would be taken up for them. One week an offering was being taken up for a new ministry that the church was going to fund. This ministry was going to send people to Rome in order to convert Catholics at the Millenium Jubilee who were going to walk through a gate "to have their sins forgiven" through an indulgence. Naturally, it was apparently well known at this church that Catholics do not hold to the true biblical doctrine of the blood of Christ being the sole source of redemption of sins. Catholics had ways to buy and earn redemption through works and indulgences. The problem I had with this was two-fold. 1) I knew through discussions with my parents that the doctrine of salvation by works alone (Pelagianism) was a historical heresy in the Church. 2) I knew that Catholics did not believe that sins could be forgiven by some approved actions other than our repentance, confession and penance. To me the problem here was clearly one of misinformation. All throughout the presentation there was an underlying air of hatred for this unbiblical Church that has misled many and something needed to be done about it. Countless many had been rescued from Catholicism and this was their way of advancing the cause. The problem is, as was clear to me early in my conversion process, was that they were attacking a Church that did not exist. As Bishop Fulton Sheen once said:

There are not 100 people in the United States who hate the Catholic Church. There are however, millions who hate what they think is the Catholic Church.

I was foruntate in my conversion process that I did not have to get over bias founded on thick layers of lies about what Catholicism actually is. I could see clearly that lies were being propogated as truth by good, honest and sincere people. If lies about the Catholic Church could inflitrate the church I was CHOOSING to attend, how bad could it be elsewhere where virulent Catholic hatred had been apparent from my youth?

I cannot finish this story without pointing out something very valuable that I took from this time in my life. The zeal for the scriptures that I saw in this church allowed me to develop a deep desire to want Christ and to seek him fervently within the scriptures. The doctrine of sola scriptura had been mentioned to me by my brother and my parents (each with opposing viewpoints) and it seemed logical on the surface and it was all I had to go with. Grace got me closer through another wonderous avenue in my life but clearly the problems I was seeing with this church were readily apparent and I had to leave.

Since I was a young child preparing for my first communion, I knew there was something special about the Eucharist. In my many years away from the Church, this is the one Catholic doctrine that I carried with me that I had absolutely no doubt about. I BELIEVE that Christ is substantially present in the Eucharist. The amazing thing that I found was the number of Protestants who also hold this belief, especially high-Anglicans. I assumed this was a belief that was accepted across the deonominational divide. That is, until I started service as a lay Eucharistic minister in the Episcopal church. What I saw was a distinct contrast to what I saw when I was a child. I expected deep reverence for the sacred Body and Blood. What I saw was treatment more on the level of it being mere bread and wine. This caused me to look into what the Espicopal church taught about the Eucharist. I came to find out that the range of beliefs went from a mere memorial supper to it being completely the Body and Blood of Our Lord.

I was amazed at the range of beliefs on the matter. Shocked even. To me, the accounts of the Last Supper seemed as clear as a bell. "This IS my body." From a biblical perspective John 6 is really the focal point of contention about the Eucharist. The language is quite graphic and shocking to those present. This would certainly be the case if Christ did mean as Catholics say He did. People left. Christ had a moral responsiblity to clear the matter up and HE DID NOT. I find it difficult to conclude anything other than He meant real flesh. The primary rebuttal of this by non-believers in the Real Presence is John 6:63 which says "the flesh has nothing to offer". To me this fails to deliver the desired blow to the doctrine because even if it was referring to the same flesh of Christ that was mentioned in the previous several verses it never DENIES that it IS His flesh. It just says that it profits nothing. It would still BE flesh. Beyond that bickering tended to focus on the further clarification of Real Presence to specifically mean transubstantiation.

To me, the dividing line between what was correct and what was not correct had to do with the level with which I felt God was capable of bestowing the gift of His Body and Blood to us. The question simply became: Is God capable of doing it as Catholics say that it is done and if so would He give us any less than Himself totally? Transubstantiation defines the Eucharist as being substantially the "Body, Blood, Soul and Divnity" of our Lord. Somehow, someway what we receive that appears to us as bread and wine IS Christ and it certainly is an act of faith to accept that.

This doctrine was a primary point of contention between where I was and where He wanted me to be. Before that though, there were a great many other hints that led me to at least give the Catholic Church a fair shake. The remainder of these posts will be my story, somewhat sequentially, as to how, by Gods grace, He led me back into His Holy Catholic Church.