This was a big turning point in my life. I was now 31 years old, and was starting over. I decided to become a computer programmer. I lived with my parents, went to computer classes, and worked part-time at a nearby Sears store. I also met my future wife – she was Catholic. Beforehand, I would never have been involved with a Catholic, but at this point of my life, I did not care. She would drag me to her church, and I went reluctantly. Two years later I graduated from school with an Associates degree in Computer Science, and found a job as a computer programmer. Then I married my Catholic girlfriend. We were not able to have children, so we adopted two wonderful girls from China. We continued to go to the Catholic Church, but we could not partake of the Eucharist. My wife was previously divorced, and never received a Catholic annulment. But I did not really care, actually. Although my life was now better, I felt I did it on my own – without the help of God. But I still remembered how my life was a shambles when I trusted God. I felt that I was better off without God. Sometime this attitude would scare me. Sometimes my wife and I would visit a Protestant Evangelical church. I would go forward on the Altar Call and re-dedicated myself to Christ. If it was a Pentecostal church, someone would lay hands on me. But then on Monday, my apathy would set in again. Except for a few times on a Sunday morning, I did not want God to be a part of my life. There were times I cried to God. I tried repenting with my whole heart, but the next day my attitude was totally different. At times I was afraid that I would go to hell if I died. At other times, I did not care. Whenever I tried to pray, all the bitter memories of how I was treated when I lost my ministry came back to me. I could sense that as years went by, I questioned whether any of religion was even true. I felt I was on the road to being an atheist, or at least an agnostic. I started to rationalize that maybe it would not be so bad if there was no God. But still, for the sake of my wife and kids, I still went to church with them. When my wife and I saw my children take their first communion, I was very intrigued. Maybe there was something to the Catholic Eucharist. I wished I could take it to see, but we were not allowed because of her previous marriage.
During my seminary days, I had a roommate, a graduate from Moody Bible Institute. He actually converted to Catholicism while in seminary. He and I had some very interesting discussions. Before I knew Paul, I thought there was no valid argument for the Catholic faith. But he had arguments I just could refute. He would argue to me “How could sola scriptura be true if it is not even in the Bible?” I would respond with II Timothy 3:16. But Paul would respond that this verse say that “ALL scripture is inspired by God, it does not say ONLY scripture is inspired by God”. Also, “scripture” in this verse meant the Old Testament scripture. New Testament scripture was not yet completely written or canonized yet. So if this verse supported sola scriptura, then it supported sola Old Testament scriptura, which means that the New Testament would have to be excluded. So if there is no verse that supports sola scriptura, then that means I believed in a doctrine, sola scriptura, that was not in the Bible. Since sola scriptura taught that all doctrine must be in the Bible, it was a contradiction, since sola scriptura itself was not in the Bible. My friend also pointed out to be that many of the doctrines and practices in Protestant churches are not explicitly taught in the Bible alone – the doctrine of the Trinity, the deity of the Holy Spirit, asking Christ into your heart, accepting Christ as your Savior and Lord, the rapture, the Altar Call, pews and hymnals. These are more supported from our traditions than what is actually taught in the Bible.
All his arguments came back to me as I intended the Catholic Church with my family. I became convinced, that, if there was a God (which I was not so sure then) and Christ is God, it made sense that the Catholic Church is the Church that Christ founded. But I was only intellectually convinced, and only if God actually did exist. I still thought that if one wanted to grow spiritually, it would be anywhere but in the Catholic Church. I was convinced the Church was the true Church if Christ was God, but I was still bored with the Church.
My family and I went to a wedding, and we sat with the priest. The priest was liberal, but I did not know it at that time. I asked him if it was all right for my wife and I to take communion, even though my wife was previously married to someone else. “Sure”, he said “You two seem to be a nice couple! Just don’t tell your pastor about your wife’s divorce”. This, of course was bad advice, it went against the teachings of the Church. But God can use even a dissident priest for His purposes. That Sunday, my wife and received communion. As soon as I received the Eucharist, a small voice kept on saying in my head “Now you must go to confession!”. I could not get this thought out of my head. Even the next day, this thought stayed with me. Normally, I became apathetic about God during the week, but this time, I had a new determination to follow through with my commitment. I must go to confession that Saturday.
So I did! It was 30 years since the last time I went to confession. I told him all my sins of my past. I then told him about my wife’s previous marriage. So the priest made the arrangements for my wife to get an annulment, and then that we had our marriage con-validated in the Church. Until then, we abstained from all conjugal relations with each other, so that we could continue to receive the Eucharist. When I left the confessional, I never felt as forgiven as I did then! All these times, as a pastor, I preached that God forgave us on the cross through faith. But I never felt as forgiven as when I heard the priest say those wonderful words that absolved me of my sins. I then realized that the true application of the Cross was not just by faith alone, but by the sacrament of confession through faith.
Shortly afterward I found a Catholic newsletter at the church. This newsletter had the teaching of the Rosary by Pope John Paul II. He taught that the Rosary is a Christ-centered prayer. I started to read more on this. I started to pray the Rosary. For eighteen years, I could not pray. Now I was praying the Rosary. I made a commitment to God to pray the Rosary every day. It helped me to pray to God again! I was also surprised how other traditional Catholic devotions, such as the Chaplet of Divine Mercy, the Stations of the Cross, veneration of Mary and praying to saints brought me to a closer relationship to Jesus Christ. I always thought that these things drew a person away from Christ. But the exact opposite happened to me. All these Catholic practices and devotions made Christ, His work on the Cross, and His resurrection more real to me. I was so wrong in thinking that the Catholic Church is spiritually dead. Sure, there are many Catholics who are the way I used to be – going through everything as an empty ritual. But deep down there is hidden a pearl of great price – it is Jesus Christ Himself!
Also, I learned from all this that truth matters. The Bible says that we should be lovers of truth. All through my life, I compromised the truth. I compromised my beliefs in order to pastor a church. After a while, deep down I did not believe in an absolute truth anymore. Doctrine was just something that you kind of believed in until it became too inconvenient. Sure, the Bible was truth, but I could always change my interpretation of the Bible to suit my needs at that time. And so could others. What is a sin today may be fine tomorrow. This shifting of truth made me start questioning the existence of absolute truth. And since the source of all truth is from God, I started to question the existence of God Himself. But God saved me from all that. I realized truth is absolute. People cannot have conflicting competing views of the same truth cannot be valid. For there to be absolute truth, everyone cannot be right. Only one can be right, which means that the others are wrong. Protestantism brought us a sea of relativism – all Protestant denominations are equally right, or at least God views all denominations equally, whether they are right or wrong. But that either makes truth relative or unimportant. Only one church stands up and say that there is only one truth, and there is only one interpretation of the truth – and that is found in the Catholic Church. Only one church has for 2,000 years stood for the truth without compromise – whether it be abortion, homosexuality, artificial contraception, divorce, the deity of Christ, the resurrection of Christ, or the inerrant Bible. Other churches have believed these things in the past but then compromised in the present. And I am sure that other churches who believe them in the present will compromise in the future. If the Lord tarries, there is only one church today which will still hold these truths 2,000 years into the future, and that is the Catholic Church. As Christ promised, the gates of death and hell will not prevail against His Church. It is the pillar and foundation of truth.
God also taught me another thing through His Church – forgiveness. Forgiveness is not an option. We cannot be saved without it – as we pray in the Our Father, “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us”. I must forgive those who hurt me in the past. I must forgive the kinds who made fun of me in my childhood. I must forgive those who forced me to resign from my pastorate. I must forgive my ex-fiance. This must be done for the sake of my own soul. Not only did God show me was it imperative to forgive those in my past, but through the Holy Eucharist and the Blessed Virgin Mary, God gave me the grace so that I can forgive.
Along with forgiveness, God also taught me humility. God revealed to me the people who forced me out of ministry were the ones who were right! I was the one who was wrong! Marriage is forever. The Bible does not teach that divorce ever acceptable. An annulment is possible with the Catholic Church, but that is not the same as a divorce. An annulment is the recognition of the Church that the marriage was never valid. So when the people at the Baptist church saw that was wrong for me to marry a divorcee, they were closer to the teaching of the Catholic Church than I was. I thought for many years that I was right and they were wrong. It was very humbling for me to realize that I was one who was wrong. As stated before, I used to believe in “soul-sleep”. I then realized that “soul-sleep” was a heresy. I realized that cannot trust in my private opinions. Too many times in the past I dogmatically held a certain view from the Bible, only to change my view a few years later. This is why I could never commit myself to a Protestant denomination. My views kept changing, and then I move on to a different denomination in a couple of years. The longest I was ever in a Protestant denomination was three years – that was when I was a Baptist minister. As the Bible says, I was “tossed to and fro, from every wind of doctrine”.
But I have now been home in the Catholic Church since 2002 – that is 10 years. I realized not to trust in my opinions or in my own pet doctrines. The Catholic Church has stood for 2,000 years. I humbly submit all my opinions to that of God’s Church, and to God’s representative, the pope. I have been wrong so many times in the past. But God’s Church has never been wrong. For it is not because of the people in the Church. It is because of Jesus Christ, the head of the Church, who promised that the gates of death and hell will never prevail against it.
