“But it’s just so preposterous!” The familiar words brought an inkling to the back of my mind. Four years ago I called Christianity preposterous, and within a year I became a Christian. Now I was calling Catholicism preposterous … uh oh …
That was less than a year ago. Today I’m happy to say God led me home to the Catholic Church.
For me, converting to Catholicism looked a lot like converting to Christianity. Both took a similar route. Just like my initial conversion, I started by meeting strong Catholics who wouldn’t fold to cheap arguments. We debated day by day until I felt exhausted and needed a break. I remained unconverted.
Then, just like my first conversion, I started reading the Bible. Things I had never seen before jumped out at me. I would read lines like Malachi 2:14 “did he not make them one, with a portion of the Spirit in their Union” and say to myself “if God actually does something to make a marriage, that’s a sacrament and not a symbol.” Verse after verse bombarded me until the preposterous didn’t look so crazy anymore.
Eventually, even the most “out there” dogmas, like the pope, Mary, and praying to the saints seemed plausible.
Intellectually, three ideas drove me into the arms of Mother Church. First, if a Protestant Church was the true Church, how could 1500 years of Christians all be heretics? Second, how can I reconcile a religion that is all about subjecting oneself to a higher power with a theology that makes everyone their own pope? Third, does my faith look like what the Apostles taught, as represented in the Bible and earliest Church fathers?
I realized the only Church that could adequately resolve these tensions was the Catholic Church. However, just like my first conversion, mental assent wasn’t enough.
That’s where the Sons of St. Patrick and Gratia Plena stepped in. The remarkable brothers and sisters in these groups showed me that Catholics have faith lives every bit as rich, if not richer, than their Protestant cousins. (This may be an uncontroversial point to the readers of this paper, but myself and most Protestants are skeptical of the Catholic faith since the average Catholic we see is “lapsed.”)
The last piece of my conversion came in the Mass. I started attending weekly, and then daily. There was a beauty and a power there I simply couldn’t explain. Worshiping in the Mass convinced me that however much my mind resisted it, however much my eyes resisted it, the Eucharist really is the true presence of the Lord. Once this clicked I knew I couldn’t stay away from the Catholic Church.
“Where else shall we go? You have the words of eternal life” (Jn. 6:68).
From here I’m starting RCIA, and I can’t wait to be welcomed into the Church. To my Protestant brothers and sisters considering crossing the Tiber I say, “come on in, the water is fine.”
Nick Letts is a former “radical atheist” who converted to Protestantism as a senior in High School, and then converted to Catholicism as a Junior in college. He studies philosophy in the Morrissey College, and loves nothing more than to curl up with a good book. He is engaged to his lovely fiancée Katherine Brown.
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