The Conversion
I was christened Church of England, I went to Sunday School and apparently loved it. However, I fell out with the church in my early teens to the extent that I stopped attending church completely. I still felt I was a Christian but could not align my beliefs with the church.
I have an odd religious background. My mother’s family were Methodists, my grandmother was the organist, my grandfather was the choir master and my great grandfather was the Methodist minister. My dad and his father were both confirmed atheists.
Nevertheless, I have always considered myself to be a Christian. I remember nearly driving a nurse to distraction because I wouldn’t allow her to put me down as C of E or Catholic or Methodist, I was a Christian without a church. An anomaly. They didn’t have a box for that.
A few years ago, I moved to be with my son. I needed help as I was getting older and had been doing a full time job and looking after my badly disabled husband for nearly 10 years. I was getting tired.
After a while the urge to go back to church raised its head again as it often had. I had always had an excuse not to go back to church, but now there was an anglican church at the end of the street. No excuse. So I bit the bullet and got up on a Sunday morning and went back. I had gone several times to the local Catholic church with my eldest son who had converted to Catholicism some years ago. He often worked away from home and when he was home he would persuade me to attend his church with him. At this point I still felt I was a protestant.
For a short while everything worked fine and then the temporary vicar retired and we were left with no one to administer the Sunday services. A minister from a nearby local church came but it meant that the services were brought forward and I found it difficult to attend early because I needed to make sure that my husband and father were both up and had their breakfast before I left for church. I started attending a church a couple of miles away, as by this time I didn’t want to leave the church, I felt better mentally and felt that what I was doing was right for me and I needed to belong to the church once again.
I had been going to the nearby church for a few weeks when I decided to speak to the minister about being confirmed as I was never confirmed when I was younger. He was very happy for this to happen and a couple of months later came to me beaming and saying wonderful news the Bishop will be here in a couple of months and we can get you confirmed.
Then it happened.
The weirdest experience of my life.
It seemed to me that straight into my right ear, a voice, male and really quite loud said “oh no, not here, not him”. I don’t know if the minister saw anything in my face but I thanked him and got out of the church faster than a scalded cat.
I was very unnerved. I did not understand what had just happened and I did not go to church the following week. My son had come home so I was to go with him to the Latin Mass and whilst talking to my son I decided to tell him what had happened. He said “well mum it’s up to you but maybe it’s God’s way of telling you your choice of church is something you need to think about”.
Maybe he was right and I did need to think about what I wanted and where I wanted to be, maybe I was making my choice out of what was, not what should be. After a lot of consideration I decided that maybe, just maybe, the Catholic church was the way to go. Even though I had always said I’d never become a catholic or that hell would freeze over before I became a catholic. Well I guess hell just might have frozen over. I spoke to the Father at my son’s church and he said he was more than happy to welcome me fully into the Catholic church but I needed to know what I was letting myself in for first. So we had a long discussion and he gave me a bit of reading to do. Well actually quite a big bit.
Apologetics and Catholic Doctrine is over 600 pages, it is a big book and it is really quite dry and complex in parts and yes I struggled with some of the theology, but mostly I was left going, yes well that’s what I already believe, I don’t see the problem. It really didn’t challenge any of my beliefs and it did dispel a number of erroneous beliefs. Admittedly the bit on obedience was and is a work still in the making. I do struggle with obedience generally, always did. I would never have survived in the armed forces because as my mother said “why should I” is not an acceptable response to an order. But in many ways, I read it and thought maybe I have been a closet catholic and just didn’t realise it. My reading list however grows ever longer. Most of it is very fascinating.
The thing with Catholicism is that it’s hard work and in a world where sex and the idea in general rules, its unpopular. You have to work at being a Catholic, I think, more than any other religion. From the word go, you are not good enough, in fact, you never will be good enough, you will always be striving to be a better Christian.
The Catholic church is the only Christian church that seems to be sticking to scripture even if it’s unpopular and not in line with the homogenous masses the world is trying to create. I don’t have any problem with being different, I never have, I understand that I am going to have to work at being a good Catholic, not just pay lip service to it, but actually mean it. Be kind, tolerant (in the true sense of the word), modest, in fact all the things Christ was but we are not and that’s a long list.
For over 50 years I was just a Christian, to be a Catholic is a whole new ball game.
MC