My Reversion Story (Part I of II)

Everybody has heard accounts of "foxhole faith" before right?  You know, people who couldn't have cared less about God, or what he wanted, suddenly finding faith when staring down some terrible catastrophe?  These people get through some ordeal with sanity intact, due to their new found faith.  Well, that's not me.  I'm too stubborn.

I had to lose everything.  I had to hit the proverbial "rock bottom" and keep digging, before I could vaguely recognize that the pit in which I found myself, I could only find myself there by the grace of God. 

Through all this strife, I experienced an incredible peaceful gratitude for just being.  This wasn't a constant bliss, but a reprieve from total panic.  People around me, who were going through, or had gone through something similar, were telling me that this was the doing of "God."  Of course, they all had their own ideas of what that meant.  I was certain, at this point, that God could not be what I had been raised to believe He was.

Thus began my comparison shopping for hope.  I didn't believe then that it could be found in any organized religion.  Honestly, I tried to seriously investigate various beliefs.  There was something lacking in all of them.  Whether it was a violent creation account, the disturbing idea of reincarnation, the problematic confusion of polytheistic faith traditions, or one thing or another, every religion that I researched had irreconcilable flaws, right out the gate.

One person truly tuned in to my plight.  This person was a Christian, but most certainly not a Catholic.  They brought John 6:66-68 (As a result of this, many (of) his disciples returned to their former way of life and no longer accompanied him.  Jesus then said to the Twelve, "Do you also want to leave?"  Simon Peter answered him, "Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. NAB ) to my attention.  Ultimately, the central question in these verses was the one that I had been asking all along: "...to whom shall I go?"  Ironic as it is, these verses and the ones immediately prior to them, among others, would eventually reel me back in to The Latin Rite of The Catholic Church.

(About The Bible Papist) My Diversion Story

I remember the first time that someone questioned me about the biblical basis for Catholic doctrine.  I wasn't sure how to answer.  Now, I had been raised in a Catholic family.  Some people commonly refer to people such as myself as "cradle Catholics."  For almost each of the first sixteen years of my life, I had undergone some type of Catholic instruction.

I knew enough about the Bible to "know" that some of the beliefs which my interrogator held, were indeed unbiblical.  Here I was though, searching my memory for some reference to Scripture, which supported the belief which was in question.  I came up blank.  This was before Google, Yahoo, or Bing, but after I had graduated high school, long after I had stopped attending Mass, and very long after I had "finished" my faith formation.

This created a quandary.  Here were two opposing groups.  There appeared to be some Biblical truth to the claims of each, and some appeared to be contradictory to one another!  My post-Vatican II Catholic education had not prepared me for these challenges to my faith.

To compound matters, my parents had recently divorced.  My parents, especially my Mother, had been my spiritual role models until this point.  If you know anything about Catholicism, divorce is kind of a big no-no.

I was at the beginning of a very dark period in my life.  Not only had my belief in Catholicism been clouded in doubt, but Christianity as a whole.  This book, the Bible, appeared to contradict itself with every turn of the page.  Relative morality crept in to my conscience when my parents divorced.

I subsequently spent thirteen years away from my home, the Catholic Church, and most of that away from Christ.  If "The Bible Papist" has no other message, it is this: This does not need to happen to anyone else! 

To non-Catholic Christians:  In your efforts to evangelize Catholics by "proving" Catholicism "wrong," it has been my experience that this does more damage than good.

To Catholics:  If you ever face questions such as "Where is that in the Bible?," or "If you were to die today, are you certain that you will go to heaven?," there is a Catholic answer!  But more than that, Catholicism is a rich, beautiful faith.


Welcome to "The Bible Papist," and thank you for joining me on my faith journey!