Journeys Home (22 page)

It was about this time that I flipped the switch. I wanted to
lead our church into this denomination and then resign. I didn't
know where I would go, but I was aware of a curiosity: How do
those Catholics keep themselves together in one group and not
lose their moral identity?

For example, they are unquestionably the most pro-life institution
in the world. Yet they also do more than anyone on earth to help
those who have had an abortion. What was probably more amazing
is that this Church maintains the fervent loyalty and devotion
of those who disagree with these positions.

In an effort to open up new vistas, I joined Toastmasters, the
national non-profit organization whose members present talks to
develop public speaking skills. Someone there heard me speak and
gave me a tape with a witness I would recommend to anyone. He
said, "Tom, I think you will really appreciate this. I realize
it could be offensive, and so I will never mention it again. However,
if you like it, I have several other similar ones."

It was Scott Hahn's testimony, a man who went through every contortion
I had gone through in Protestant theology. At any other point
in my life, I would have thrown the tape away because it was Catholic.
But the Lord's school of discipline had finally softened my hard
head enough at least to listen.

I couldn't refute anything he said. That meant I would have to
study more. I asked for the rest of the tapes and was stunned
to hear the testimonies of several former Protestant ministers
who had converted to the Catholic faith.

The tapes and my accompanying reading addressed what had been
gnawing at my sanity for a couple of years: the issue of authority.
I had upset the comfort zone of everyone around me by simply going
through every aspect of our church life and asking, "Who authorized
this?"

The typical reply of "the Bible" was beginning to be unmasked
for the ruse it was. An open Bible on a pulpit authorizes nothing.
It takes a person to read it and then authorize some form of action.

I was beginning to see that we probably had a thousand different
voices in the Protestant world authorizing various doctrines and
practices in the church, all from the same Bible. What we did
was pick the voice we thought best expressed the intent of the
Scriptures. I was haunted by the conclusion that was forming in
the back of my mind: Everything we did was self-authorized. In
the end, it was my individual decision that said, "The Bible says
we must do this."

Scott Hahn addressed this issue head-on. The Reformation doctrine
of
sola scriptura
says that the Bible is the sole source of authority
for faith and practice. The only problem with that idea is that
it is not taught in the one place it should be taught -- the Bible.

Hahn made that very clear, and I was ready to hear it. But what
was left? Could it possibly be the unbroken tradition of apostolic
authority established by Christ Himself?

That authority loomed before me now. I knew that I could not do
what Scott Hahn had done. He had studied every last doctrine and
document, consulted with the best anti-Catholic scholars he could
find, and finally concluded that the Catholic Church was the one
true Church. That approach seemed to me to be more of the self-authorizing
route I was trying to abandon.

I saw myself more in the role of the Roman centurion asking for
a healing in his household (see Lk 7:1 - 10). His doctrine and
understanding were probably woefully inadequate. All he needed
was the source of authority.

Jesus commended his faith as greater than all the scribes in the
land. My white flag had already been hoisted. I wanted to surrender
to an authority greater than myself. I would conform my belief
to this authority and not the other way around.

To my great surprise, when I first attended a Mass, I found the
words of that centurion forever memorialized in the Liturgy of
the Eucharist as the congregation responds to the invitation to
come to the Lord's Supper: "Lord, I am not worthy to receive You;
only say the word and I shall be healed."

Thus before I ever attended my first Mass, I was emotionally converted.
But emotional conversion is not adequate. I needed actually to
meet with Catholics and attend Mass and study and pray. For the
first time in my life, I was willing to do it.

Continuing the simile of the man born on the wrong side of the
sea, I could now see that I had often sailed past the harbor I
was looking for because the harbor was Rome. At times in my journey,
I would hear the distant call of her voice, but as I sailed our
ship in that direction, I would recognize it was Rome and pass
it by, only to wonder why the voice faded.

Other times, I would see the light of the blessed port I sought
and head in its direction, only to overshoot it and see its light
fade. What I didn't know was that I was tacking across the ocean,
zigzagging ever nearer to my sought-after harbor. Each time I
passed it by, I was actually closer. Finally, I could smell her
sweet fragrances and wondered why they faded as I passed by the
one place I knew was not my destination.

Scott Hahn's tape brought me to the shore. Shoals and crashing
surf had beaten my ship to splinters, but I was like a mad Captain
Ahab, determined to meet my destiny. I finally understood that
all I sought for was present in the nearest Catholic Church.

Jesus was there in the Blessed Sacrament, watched over by someone
who had received the authority, from a successor to the Apostles,
to absolve my sin. Overwhelmed, weary, beaten, guilty, forsaken,
and hungry, I drove to the nearest Catholic parish. I made an
appointment to see the pastor.

There I met a man who, in an attempt to encourage me, said all
the wrong things. He told me things I pray he has since reconsidered.
I forgave him. I told him that he could be a drunken homosexual
and I didn't care, because I knew he had the authority I was seeking.

Once again, my greatest deterrent to finding my way home came
from within the Church, not without. God forgive us. I had found
the pearl of great price, and it cost me everything.

This priest's confusion wasn't going to deter me. I started attending
Mass at his parish. But I sought out other help from someone who
could understand why I had crossed the ocean to come home.

I was at a Mass once where a deacon was going to read the Gospel.
Before he was permitted this responsibility, he bowed his head
before the priest, who blessed him and authorized him to carry
out this task that tens of thousands of Protestants perform without
batting an eye. To me, the image was clearly speaking of authority.
The deacon had to be authorized by the priest even to read the
Gospel. The priest is authorized by the bishop, to serve in his
place, so to speak. Bishops are appointed by the pope as successors
to the Apostles. There was the authority I was seeking.

Another incident I observed will further illustrate this reality.
I had begun the practice of visiting as many different Catholic
Masses as I could, even though I could not partake of Communion.
One Sunday, I took a seat in a church and watched the usual reverence
of worshippers arriving early to kneel in private prayer before
the service began.

I saw a young mother come in with a babe in arms and a three-year-old
son trailing behind. The boy seemed to be watching everything
but his mother as she found a seat a few rows ahead of me. She
knelt at the end of the pew, in reverence for the presence of
Christ in the Tabernacle.

As she rose to make her way down the aisle, her son arrived, and
not knowing any different, he knelt as he had seen his mother
do. I was genuinely moved. Where, in this world, does anyone learn
respect and reverence for anything?

The authority present in a Catholic church brought a toddler to
his knee, even though he didn't know why. All he knew was that
there was some reason to kneel in a Catholic church. I thought
about the hundreds of Evangelical churches I had been in. There
was nothing in any of them worthy of such respect.

I knew I was coming home. I knew I was seeing something I had
longed for all my life. Sometimes I could smell the bouquet of
the Communion cup. How had I lived all my life without it?

How could I live any more without it? I was already beginning
to lose the ability to communicate with old friends. As an Evangelical
Protestant, you typically define home as a place without repetitious
prayer, without images and statues, without prayers to saints,
without devotion to Mary, without priests, without an altar, without
purgatory, penance, and confession. When you break free of that
and begin searching for a home with all those things, you are
left with almost nothing but arguments.

I didn't want to argue. Neither did anyone who knew me before.
They simply didn't want to encourage me to go down this path.
And so they didn't. I had to go alone.

I felt like the prodigal son who grew tired of eating with the
pigs. I was going home. I called Monsignor Laurence Higgins and
explained that I was a Protestant minister seriously considering
converting. He cleared a space for me on his busy schedule and
met me with a broad smile and arms wide open as I walked into
his office. Earlier I had met with Father Philip Scott, who had
his whole religious order pray for me. And through Monsignor Higgins,
I was introduced to Bishop Thomas Larkin.

It took all three of these men of God to keep me in one piece
while taking classes, working at nights and trying to find a new
vocational direction for my life. During this time, I found great
solace in the Mass, even though I could not partake of the Eucharist.
I learned to pray the rosary. And I frequently went to sit before
the Blessed Sacrament in any church I happened to pass.

When most of the dust had settled, Bishop Thomas Larkin took me
through a condensed RCIA (Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults)
program and arranged a private Mass for me to be received into
the Church. On May 14, 2002, on the Feast of St. Matthias, I was
welcomed into the one, holy, Catholic, and apostolic Church. When
this change came -- into the Catholic Church -- I was all alone.

Except I wasn't. Monsignor Higgins sponsored me, and Father Philip
Scott concelebrated with them this holy Feast where I first tasted
what my soul had ever longed for: the Body and Blood, Soul and
Divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ. I had earlier attended an Easter
Vigil. It was the first time I had ever heard the Litany of the
Saints. That tune is ever in my head.

I am not alone. I never was. And I never will be. I am home.

Home. It is what drives the Pacific salmon to turn away from the
vast waters of the ocean to head inland. Sensing a call to spawn
where she was spawned, she will brave peril, danger, difficulty,
and exhaustion to answer that call. Once she starts her journey,
she will never know the help of her natural element. Upstream,
always upstream, she will struggle mile after mile against swift
currents that at times become raging torrents. She will brave
them all and then somehow summon the strength to jump time after
time up spills of water, defying the waterfalls. She is driven
by something unseen to arrive at all costs at her destination,
the place of her origin, that place on earth that nurtured and
sustained her first days of life.

The call of home is that powerful. On the day I was received into
the Church, I stood with my hand surgically pinned together after
a recent fall. I had a mountain of medical bills as a result and
no steady employment.

I had no title, position, or honor. I was a divorcee, prevented
by Church law from marrying again. I was still emotionally bruised,
still weary from my journey, still confused about my future, still
hurting from my ordeal.

The timing couldn't be worse. It was that dreadful time in 2002
after Pope John Paul II's urgent meeting with the American cardinals
and before the conference of bishops in June. The news was full
of stories about abuse, corruption, cover-up, and scandal in the
Church I was joining.

As her flaws were uncovered, I was transfixed by her beauty. There
was not a happier man on earth.

Our Lord told a parable about a man who found a treasure hidden
in a field (see Mt 13:44). He sold everything he owned to buy
the field. He was a wise man. I was a fool. He willingly sold
all he had. I had to have everything stripped from me to realize
the value of the treasure in that field.

Anyone who reads this, please understand. I have not lost anything.
I have only gained. What the world sees as a little round wafer,
I recognize as a treasure worth more than all I have. And as long
as I live, I will ever praise my God for loving me enough to chase
me into His kingdom.

I do not share this story to suggest any heroic effort on my part,
for there is no heroism here except for the Man of Calvary, God
in human flesh, willing to taste death for our redemption. I relate
my journey for the purpose of instructing others about the vast
and treacherous distance that separates those who freely dine
at the Lord's Table from those who seek to satisfy themselves
on something less.

I hope to encourage others to make the same journey I made, only
more willingly. And I hope to assist good Catholics everywhere
never to cease in their labors to invite all people everywhere
to this wonderful feast of love. There is no price too high, no
sacrifice too precious, and no demand too great for the privilege
of dining at the table where Jesus comes to us in the Eucharist.

Father Thomas Hickey was ordained a Catholic priest for the Diocese
of Hartford, Connecticut, on May 16, 2010.