Journeys Home (28 page)

Furthermore, I was deeply frustrated that Protestants, no matter
how large their denomination, were unable to work out theological
or ministerial unity among themselves, to the detriment of the
growth of the entire Church. Their pursuits of what has been called
the "narcissism of small [doctrinal] differences" will be their
collective doom. Along with every other Protestant pastor or bishop,
I would always be relegated to reinventing the wheel of polity
and ministerial infrastructure.

How, in this divided and schismatic enterprise called Protestantism,
could I ever work to minister effectively to those in Africa,
Croatia -- or even Cincinnati, for that matter?

Finally, I saw and understood that, according to St. Peter's words
recorded in Acts 10:34 - 35, God accepts
all
who fear Him and
work righteousness. The Catholic Church teaches and lives this
reality. The Protestants tack on theological particulars that
go beyond what God Himself requires.

I pondered the major reforms of the Catholic Church since the
sixteenth century. I began to acknowledge the fervent love for
Christ and His Word exhibited by the Catholic Church. I wanted
a unified, international, and historically legitimate Church that
embraced the historic creeds and confessions. I believed in Trent
over against the Reformed creeds, and I realized that I was no
longer fighting the ecclesiastical wars of the sixteenth century.

We contacted our Catholic friends, the Whites, to tell them of
our decision. They eventually became our sponsors into St. Teresa
Catholic Church back in Springfield.

Our transition to the Catholic faith was emotional and difficult,
but ultimately healing. I drafted a letter to my presbyter, my
original mentor, stating my intentions to leave the ministry of
the Springfield congregation and join the Catholic Church. My
plan was to continue preaching for six weeks so that I could help
the parishioners transition to other traditions, including the
Catholic Church, should any desire to do so. But within a few
hours, the presbyter called each parishioner personally and told
them that I, now an "idolatrous papist," was defecting to the
"Sicilian pit" of Rome and was not worthy to be their pastor for
a single day longer.

This action devastated the congregation and me. Given that I was
obviously fired, I visited my own congregation one more Sunday,
trying to explain my transition to the Catholic faith and offer
my help. The weeping among the congregation was great -- and brief.
The crying turned to anger and name-calling within only a few days.

The congregation dissolved fourteen weeks later. Even though I
lost ministry income, I had kept my professional job and thus
avoided problematic entanglements and financial difficulties while
making this transition.

In November 2003, my family joined our parish's RCIA and CCD classes,
and during the 2004 Easter Vigil, Jennifer, my three children,
and I were confirmed in the Catholic Church and partook of our
First Communion. The pain and wounds notwithstanding, God, through
much tribulation, had driven my family out of harrowing trials
and into the broad and blessed land of His Catholic Church.

Though we knew the pleasant and unpleasant episodes of Catholic
history, we embraced Christ and the Church because it is His Church.
We now know the blessedness of the faith once and for all given
to the saints; the rightly administered and Real Presence of Christ
in the sacraments; the legitimate Church polity and clergy whose
origin comes from the Apostles; and the joy of worshipping with
unified Christians from every tribe, tongue, and nation.

In fact, we are now preparing to minister on our RCIA team, to
provide premarital counseling to engaged couples, and to teach
our parish's youth group. We now, without doubting, finally have
the assurance that we know God, His will, and His Church, and
this is a most blessed estate in which to be. We diligently sought
the Kingdom of God, and, as He promised in Sacred Scripture, we
found it (Mt 6:33; 7:7).

We understand what the online edition of the
Catholic Encyclopedia,
in the article "Protestantism," means when it says: "The convert,
beside and beyond his knowledge, must have sufficient strength
of will to break with old associations, old friendships, old habits,
and to face the uncertainties of life in new surroundings. His
sense of duty, in many cases, must be of a heroic temper." Although
we embrace a greater breadth and number of friends today, we are
sad about the loss of those friends and associations that were
apparently based only upon mutual agreement on small theological
differences.

Were the non-Catholic beginnings of the journey a tremendous waste
of time and resources? Not at all! Our Reformed instruction rightly
taught us that nothing happens apart from God's sustaining and
governing love over all His creatures and over all their actions.

Our journey thus far was God's decretive will. Ours was to love
and to obey His Word as it was revealed by the Holy Spirit to
us at each step of the way. We kept seeking after His kingdom
and praying for His wisdom. We trusted God to direct our steps
providentially (through circumstances and the like) to where He
would have us.

The tribulations were a sanctifying part of the journey. As St.
Paul stated:

More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering
produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character
produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God's
love has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit
who has been given to us (Rom 5:3 - 5).

On reflection, we can see that for us, life as Protestants was
difficult, fractured, and somewhat hopeless. The cost of transitioning
to the Catholic faith was small when compared to the glorious
joy that my family and I are now experiencing at home and serving
the Lord in the Catholic Church.

Gerald Tritle is a corporate vice president and entrepreneur who
serves as a lector at St. Raphael Catholic Church in Springfield,
Ohio, and teaches public speaking at Urbana University. His wife, Jennifer,
is a university adjunct professor of psychology. They have three
children, Jedidiah, Josiah, and Sarah; Jedidiah is currently discerning
a vocation as a Catholic priest.

THE PRODIGAL COMES HOME -- ROBERT RODGERS

SEEKING THE ANSWERS TO LIFE'S BASIC QUESTIONS -- DR. EDUARDO J. ECHEVERRIA

HOME AGAIN, THANKS BE TO GOD! -- LYNN NORDHAGEN

GRACE UPON GRACE -- JEFFREY ZIEGLER

YOU ARE THAT MAN -- MARK CONNELL

HOW I GOT THIS WAY -- CHRIS ROBINSON

WE DO NOT STAND ALONE -- TODD VON KAMPEN

AND THE TWO SHALL BECOME ONE -- TIM AND MARY DRAKE

FROM ONE WORLDWIDE CHURCH TO THE TRUE ONE -- DAN SEVERINO

PREACHING CHRIST CRUCIFIED -- DANIEL ALI

WELCOME TO THE UNIVERSAL (CATHOLIC) FAMILY OF GOD -- DR. JEFF SCHWEHM

A TWENTIETH-CENTURY CENTURION SWEARS ALLEGIANCE TO CHRIST -- MONSIGNOR STUART W. SWETLAND

FROM EVANGELICAL TO EVANGELICAL CATHOLIC -- JASON SHANKS

Though the initial reason for the formation of the Coming Home
Network International was to assist non-Catholic clergy in their
journeys home to full communion with the Catholic Church, from
the beginning lay men and women began contacting us. Since their
inquiries and conversions usually did not result in the loss of
vocation or employment, their needs were not so acute. Yet their
reasons and desires for reception into the Catholic Church were
just as strong. Moreover, their conversions did result sometimes
in similar consequences and conflicts with family, friends, and
even employers.

In the following pages, you will meet some of our friends who
made the journey into the Catholic Church as laypeople. Most of
them remained in the lay state after their conversion, while others
later responded to the call of our Lord Jesus into ordained Catholic
ministry.

former Anglican

LOVING THE ILLUSION

OFF TO SCHOOL AND THEN LONDON

THE ROAD TO DAMASCUS -- ALMOST

FROM CONFUSION TO ROME

ON TO ZANESVILLE

Luke records a great parable of Our Lord in which many of us can
probably see ourselves -- the parable of the prodigal son. It
was while reading this Gospel story nearly three years ago that
I found my heart weeping at this parallel to my own dark past
and glorious return to our Father's arms. You see,
I
was that
ignorant, self-righteous son who had thought he needed nothing
from the Father.

I once thought my life's destiny would be whatever I chose to
make it. The laws of right and wrong, I insisted, could be twisted
to fit my needs. When I was still young, I began to view faith
as a threat to my freedom, and as a result, my conscience became
hardened to truth, to God, and to the difference between right
and wrong.

Every Sunday, my parents took me to a place where I didn't want
to be, a place where I didn't feel comfortable. I had been baptized
in the Anglican faith, and I attended services until I was about
nine years old. Finally, after I had put up enough of a fuss and
my parents had lost sight of our need for the faith, I gained
my "freedom."

It was a "freedom" I would abuse every chance I got for the next
seventeen years. I put God out of my life. I recognized His presence
only when necessary to please others, such as on occasions when
I needed to talk about faith in order to be part of a conversation.
But I was convinced that I didn't need God.

I took to this "free" lifestyle like bees to honey. Having helped
me push God out of my life, Satan was able to gain a great portion
of my soul. Slowly my vision narrowed, my sense of guilt faded,
and I lost any sense that my actions had consequences for which
I was responsible.

I thought I was free! Deep inside, of course, I knew my "freedom"
was only an illusion that would one day fade, and I would be left
to face the outcome of my choices alone and without comfort. Nevertheless,
I still loved the illusion. As the years went on, I took whatever
I could get from the world. Work at our family business provided
a seemingly endless source of money, which gave me a distorted
sense of reality. I wanted to have my hands in everything I saw
going on around me, and nothing was going to stop me.

In the eyes of my parents, I was a great son, but I had to work
hard to keep them from suspecting otherwise. By the time I was
in high school, I was deep into drugs, even selling them to friends.
Alcohol also became an easy friend. Through these two tools of
the Devil, my true identity was buried, and I became another person.

I wore mask after mask so I could appear to be whatever the occasion
called for. I had become a social chameleon. "Truth" to me was
something I could fabricate. Nothing was sacred and nothing was
beyond my twisting, if twisting it was to my benefit.

Whenever I found someone who loved me, I would appear to respond
with genuine love on the outside. But inside, I was actually trying
to calculate how much I could profit from the relationship. I
gained trust through falsehoods and used it to my benefit. I quickly
learned that I could take advantage of those who loved me to further
my own agenda.

This abuse of love left a deep void in my heart, which I learned
to bury through my addictions. On occasion, when I would allow
my heart truly to love even a little, a glimpse of the truth would
surface inside. The inner battle, to which I was otherwise blind,
would manifest itself every once in a while, causing me to feel
the true turmoil of my soul. In these moments, those who loved
me would draw nearer to me, wanting to help. But the moment would
soon pass, and I would return to my blindness.

My pit of despair was too deep to escape. I was helpless
to crawl out of it on my own. I convinced myself that I was
comfortable with how I was living and safe in my false image
of myself. I chose to know nothing else. Truth was something
I feared. The dark had become a comfort for me.

There was no pain. Grief emerged only when I allowed the quiet
voice inside to speak, urging me to start the long, impossible
climb out of my pit. But hopeful moments like these would be quickly
erased by my actions whenever I was under the influence of drugs
and alcohol. I often publicly inflicted pain on myself. Any glimpses
I had caught of the truth I quickly rejected as lies, while the
lies I took as the truth.

The time came to leave my family for college, but instead of focusing
on studies, I sought opportunities to boost my ever-growing ego.
Soon, however, this ego suffered a terrible blow: I was on academic
probation by the end of my second year. Still, this wound to my
selfishness was soon forgotten, buried beneath the usual addictions
and lies. In the shadows of pleasure offered by the Devil, my
eyes were blind to the truth about the road I was walking.