Journeys Home (32 page)

Another crisis arrived a couple of months later when I started
visiting the Blessed Sacrament to pray for enlightenment. I was
unable in conscience to genuflect, because I didn't believe in
the Real Presence. But one day, I realized that I didn't believe
in His presence in the Lord's Supper at the Presbyterian church,
either.

Immediately I felt an anguished doubt: He was nowhere on earth!
Neither in the Catholic Mass, nor in the Protestant Lord's Supper.
I was
alone
. I felt cut off from
any
communion. That Sunday, I
passed up the elements at the Lord's Supper, then called and made
an appointment with a Catholic pastor.

Doesn't it seem that the Catholic Church is never in a hurry?
It seems the more impatient I was to know and decide, the more
the priest advised me to slow down, to "make haste slowly." He
assured me that things would all fall into place for me at the
right time. It wouldn't necessarily be easy, he said, but I would
know that it was right and that the time was right.

How could I believe that all this exhausting effort was leading
to something that was just going to "fall into place"? But after
many months, when I was making a last-ditch effort to find a livable
compromise, one that would please my husband, myself, my family,
and friends, things did fall into place. One day, prompted by
the priest's gentle challenge about compromising, I knew what
was right, and a great sense of relief came over me. I was ready
for it not to be easy, just to be right.

It was far from easy. I felt overwhelmed and fearful, I spent
hours in desperate prayer, and I finally said many tearful goodbyes
at my Presbyterian church. One especially tough time was my meeting
with the elders. I felt I had to honor the promises I had made
to submit myself to their "discipline and governance," and I had
tried to stay open and candid with the pastor all during the many
months of study, indecision, and conflict. When I told him I had
finally made the decision to reunite with the Catholic Church,
he said the elders wished to meet with me to hear my thinking
and to admonish me from Scripture.

I had told the pastor about St. Francis de Sales, who was bishop
of Geneva, Switzerland, soon after the Reformation. As a young
man, before he was made bishop, he was responsible for the conversion
of thousands of Calvinists back to the Catholic Church. He won
their hearts with his gentleness and persistence in teaching the
truth. When they would not listen to his preaching, he wrote leaflets
and slid them under their doors. He lived among them at great
personal risk and won them by his love.

I told the elders that I had decided to return to the Sacraments
on the day the Catholic Church celebrates the feast of this apostle
to the Calvinists, January 24. I felt that this saint had reached
down personally through space and time, through the communion
of saints, to rescue one more little Calvinist. My meeting with
the elders lasted almost two hours. After we had gone over most
of the issues, the pastor read me their admonition.

On my way home, although it was late, I stopped to pray in the
Blessed Sacrament chapel, and Newman's words expressed my feelings
again, in his "Prayer for a Happy Death":

Oh, my Lord and Savior, support me ... in the strong arms of Thy
sacraments and by the fresh fragrance of Thy consolations. Let
the absolving words be said over me and the holy oil sign and
seal me, and Thy own Body be my food, and Thy blood my sprinkling;
and let my sweet Mother, Mary, breathe on me, and my Angel whisper
peace to me, and my glorious Saints ... smile upon me; that in
them all, and through them all, I may receive the gift of perseverance,
and die, as I desire to live, in Thy faith, in Thy Church, in
Thy service, and in Thy love. Amen.

Lynn Nordhagen was born and raised in Spokane, Washington, and graduated from Gonzaga University. She and her husband, Marvin, now live in Chattaroy, Washington. They have four children and six grandchildren. Lynn is editor of the book
When Only One Converts
(Our Sunday Visitor, 2001).

former Presbyterian

EARLY YEARS

ENCOUNTERING EVANGELICALS

CHANGING ATTITUDES TOWARD THE CATHOLIC CHURCH

INTRODUCTION TO CATHOLIC TEACHING

COMING TO FAITH

"What shall I render to the Lord for all His bounty to me? I will
lift up the chalice of salvation and call on the name of the Lord"
(Ps 116:12 - 13).

What shall I render to You, O Lord, for all Your bounty to me?
You created me out of nothing, You hold me in existence, You redeemed
me by Your Son's Precious Blood, You adopted me in the Sacrament
of Baptism. You have given me an angel as a guide and protector
and a Virgin Mother as an advocate and refuge.

You have led me to the fullness of faith in the Catholic Church,
and through her, You call me into an eternal communion of life
and love with You. Truly I can justly thank You, O Lord, only
by offering myself to You day by day in the Holy Sacrifice of
the Mass, in union with the oblation of Your Son.

I did not exist, and then I came into being, and this was Your
doing, O Lord. You loved me into existence when You infused an
immortal soul into the body that my parents had procreated. And
so I was conceived, a sinner who shared the taint of original
sin merited by my first parents. You rescued me from the fate
that befell so many hundreds of millions of my contemporaries -- death from chemical or surgical abortion, death from the abortifacient
pill or IUD or implants or contraceptive drugs, death from the
burning of salt or the dismemberment of limbs. Through no merit
of my own, You willed that I be born into a family where I was
loved, in a place not afflicted by starvation or war. Six months
after my birth, You baptized me, O Lord Christ, by means of a
Presbyterian minister, and divine life flowed into my soul.

You allowed me to receive the rudiments of Christian formation
at the Western Presbyterian Church (PCUSA) in Palmyra, New York.
When I was in third grade, just before my family stopped attending
church and I stopped attending Sunday school, I received from
that congregation's minister a Revised Standard Version of the
Bible that would play such an important role in later years. Because
of the graces that flowed from my baptism, I never doubted the
inerrancy of Scripture, for which I thank You, Almighty God.

That year I attained the age of reason and thus began the long
train of sins, which You have forgiven in the Sacrament of Penance
and for which I must render an account at the moment of my death.
And wasn't there something more involved than the world and the
flesh -- namely, the Devil? Didn't I tell a friend in fourth grade,
in bizarre words that shock me as I recall them, that "Lucifer
is the king of darkness, and I am the prince of darkness"?

Despite my sins, O Lord, You sought me out. At about the age of
nine, I saw an advertisement in
TV Guide
for a television show
devoted to the end times, and I watched that show. You inspired
me to jot down the address at the end of that show and to write
for further information. Thus I began to receive two pamphlets
every month from the
Radio Bible Class.
I did not read the literature,
but You moved me to keep it in a desk drawer.

As I passed through junior high school, I excelled in school,
I excelled in athletics, and I became deaf to my conscience. I
thought only of myself and never of You. Once You spoke loudly
to me through my conscience as I was about to commit a grievous
sin against charity, but I chose to ignore Your voice.

At the age of thirteen, I became infatuated with a girl, but she
didn't like me. You inspired my mother (who probably saw my distress
and wanted me to become more active outside of the home) to ask
me either to attend Sunday school or to join the Boy Scouts. You
gave me the grace to choose Sunday school.

The teachers, a married couple, were Evangelicals. They told me
how to become a Christian, and on the afternoon of Sunday, September
25, 1983, I followed their instructions and those of the text
we were using in that class. I confessed my sinfulness, my inability
to save myself, my faith in the substitutionary atonement of Christ
on the Cross, and my belief in salvation by faith alone. I accepted
Your Son as my personal Lord and Savior.

You inspired in me, O Lord, an increasing hunger for Scripture
and prayer. By Your grace, I delighted to memorize the Scripture
passages quoted in my Sunday school text. I went on long walks,
prayed to You, and at times knew the peace that only You can give.

You led me to open up the desk drawer and devour the material
from
Radio Bible Class.
I would read the epistles of St. Paul
in that RSV Bible I had received years before, and I recall how
deeply moved I was by his description of Christian family life.

And so the years of high school continued, and You were there
as a provident Father. I read Scripture (all sixty-six books of
the Protestant Bible in 1986), I prayed for others, I attended
Sunday school, I went to church, I tried to lead others to You.
I continued to read the material from
Radio Bible Class;
I bought
several Bibles,
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance,
and many books
by Evangelical authors.

On occasion, I listened to the radio program
Focus on the Family.
I subscribed to
Christian Herald
and
Christianity Today
magazines.
I imbibed the anti-Catholic bias of much of my reading.

When I was about to sin, my Evangelical mind told me that I was
saved no matter what I did, but my conscience told me that I should
not sin. Often I rationalized and sinned.

My father supervised the book review section of a secular newspaper,
and You moved him to bring home books on religion for me to examine.
One book he brought home was
Preaching the New Common Lectionary
(Abingdon), and by Your grace I used it as a basis of prayer.
As I meditated on the Scripture readings for Sundays and feast
days, I understood the importance of the liturgical year and the
biblical basis of feasts such as the Annunciation, the Visitation,
the Presentation, and Epiphany.

During my last two years in high school, You led me to pro-life
books, and my revulsion for the Catholic Church was changed to
a grudging tolerance, for I respected her biblical positions on
abortion, divorce, and sexual morality. You allowed me to be moved
by the attractive example of charity lived by a few large Catholic
families that I knew. You permitted me to catch the flu during
the winter of my junior year, and while ill, I turned on the television
one Saturday afternoon and discovered Malcolm Muggeridge on
Firing
Line.
He was a Catholic, and yet I thought, "This man must be
a Christian."

You led me to the Middle English of
The Canterbury Tales,
and
I was struck by its Christian ethos, even though it was written
by a Catholic. You led me to Pope Leo XIII's encyclical
Aeterni
Patris,
and the prologue of the
Summa Theologica
of St. Thomas
Aquinas. I was struck both by the apparent arrogance of Leo XIII's
authority and by the beauty and logic of the prologue in the
Summa
of St. Thomas.

I was convinced I was fully a Christian, a member of the invisible
Church of the saved. But You gave me the grace to try to discover
which denomination was most biblical. (I could not in conscience
join the PCUSA because of its tolerance of abortion.)

By Your grace, I would spend an hour or so each week in the church
library reading about the various denominations. There I also
read parts of Eerdmans'
Handbook of Christianity.
From that book,
I copied a list of the major Christian authors throughout history -- from Clement of Rome to Hans Kung (!) -- and thought that perhaps
they could help me in my search for the most biblical denomination.

I began my studies at Princeton University in September 1987.
I joined Princeton Evangelical Fellowship. Its leader told me
that he would eventually introduce me to dispensationalist theology,
which he said was more biblical than covenantal theology.

I attended the Sunday services of the Presbyterian Church in America's
congregation in town, and I loved the strong, biblical preaching
of its pastor, an ex-Catholic. He told me that he would eventually
introduce me to covenantal theology, which he said was more biblical
than dispensationalist theology.

You placed in my heart a hunger for the Eucharist, so I also attended
Episcopal services on campus.

Father of mercies, by Your grace I recalled quotes from G. K.
Chesterton's
Orthodoxy
that I had read the spring before in
Christianity
Today,
and I borrowed the book from the campus library. Every
day after the conclusion of classes, I would read a chapter of
it, and I loved it. Here, too, was a Catholic who seemed so Christian.

One day in September, I was sitting in a faculty department office,
waiting to speak to a professor. You led me to pick up the campus
newspaper, which I did not usually read because of its liberal
bias. There I saw an advertisement for a course called "Introduction
to Catholic Teaching," taught on Wednesday evenings by Father
C. John McCloskey III, a priest of Opus Dei who was then a chaplain
at the Aquinas Institute (the name of the university's Newman
Center). He is now the chaplain of Mercer House in Princeton.

And so, by Your grace, I began to attend these short weekly classes
in Murray-Dodge Hall in October. After one class, a thought came
into my head that one day I might be Catholic; I developed a palpable
revulsion to the idea.