A year ago I wrote an article in this paper about my decision to “cross the Tiber” and enter the Catholic Church. At that time many of my Protestant friends worried for my sanity as well as for my spiritual life. After a year in the Church, with all its hardships, and there were hardships, I’m happy to say “see, here is water” (Acts 8:36). Living the Catholic faith has only proven that it truly is the Water of Life coming from the side of Christ.
Becoming Catholic feels like finally discovering the owner’s manual for the human soul after decades of fumbling in the dark trying to piece it together from trial and error. I never knew life could be this good or this joyful.
This is especially true for the Church’s most rejected teachings, such as her sexual ethics. As a Protestant I thought sexual ethics ended at consent + marriage = moral, a shade away from the world’s consent = moral teaching. The Church’s call that sex be free, total, faithful, and fruitful has already helped me to love my fiancée more than I thought possible, and when we do come together on our wedding night I know we will be open to God blessing our marriage. While I was examining the Church, the arguments themselves sometimes fell flat. Having lived the Church’s teachings (insofar as an engaged man can), I’m amazed at how intuitive and life-giving they are. The Church helped me realize my chastity isn’t just valuable because God commands it. It’s valuable because I am valuable, and I am called to make a total gift of self. Contraception lets you go through the motions of a total giving, while in reality it’s focused on what you’re getting. Even without using contraception itself, that mindset seeps into a relationship and affects how we treat each other. I am eternally grateful to the Church for holding fast to her doctrine and teaching me the right way to love my fiancée.
Another teaching that has changed my life is the doctrine of the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. I struggled to accept this doctrine as a Protestant, but now I could never turn my back on it—on Him. Like contraception, I struggled to believe when the issue was only words on the page. After a year of attending daily Mass, waiting to receive the Eucharist and meditating on Him, I am amazed at the generosity of Christ. Simply put, as a Catholic I get to believe that God did more for me than I did as a Protestant. He gave me a Church, He gave me sound teachings, He gave me a communion of saints, and most of all He gave me Himself on the altar. What prophets and kings longed for, I can now experience every day. Leaving Protestant worship meant losing many good things (excellent sermons, lively music), but they have never come close to the intimacy with Jesus I have gained in the Mass. It can’t fit into words; it must be caught, not taught.
I first became Catholic because I believed in Jesus and wanted to follow his truth wherever it led. After a year, I’m amazed to find that my experience of the Church’s life is strong enough to work backwards and strengthen my faith in Jesus. The theology is so consistent and so resonant with the soul that it is nothing short of miraculous. I never feel like I have to fudge a verse to make the system work. The fact that this has been maintained for 2,000 years suggests that the Bible really does have a unified plan for living, and that God preserves it in the Church. All I can say is “See, here is water.”
As a convert, there is a temptation to think that I’m a Catholic because I figured something out, or studied harder. That’s not right. I’m a Catholic because I couldn’t figure things out and needed to have God hand it on to me from his Apostles. These days I like to imagine myself like one beggar telling another where to find the bread of life: in the Church.
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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