Returning to Catholicism - The Early Years

First, as a point of clarification, let me explain what I mean when I say "returning to Catholicism," as this is both true and untrue.  I was actually baptized as an infant in the Catholic church, though, to my memory, we never attended mass regularly growing up.  So technically speaking, I am returning to the faith into which I was baptized (but never confirmed), but for the most part am seriously coming to Catholicism for the first time.  And yet, despite this, it really does feel to me as though I am returning to Catholicism, even if I was never really there in the first place.

Despite attending a series of non-denominational, pentecostal and charismatic churches growing up, I still had a fair amount of exposure to the Catholic Church through my mother's family who is predominantly Catholic.  (My mom is one of 11 kids, one of whom is now a priest.)  They mostly live on the east coast, but we usually made it out there at least once a year (my dad worked for TWA) and those visits usually involved attending mass at some point.  I can even recall one Christmas Eve or Christmas Day mass where I ended up sitting by my granny, which was a very intimidating experience as I could only kinda get my way through the mass.  I also attended the ordination of my Uncle, which was an amazing service/mass, though in sitting on the front row, the Cardinal came up to me to offer the Eucharist, which I had to awkwardly turn down.

Through the years I also had several conversations with my Uncle Pat, who most people now know as Father Pat.  I even spent a week with him out in San Fransisco after graduating high school.  At the time he was a member of the Jesuit order, working on another masters if I remember correctly.  While there, we got to see a lot of the tourist sights, but at the same time we also talked quite a bit about a lot of more serious matters, and faith certainly was a part of those conversations.  I even remember watching The Mission with him while I was out there.

Moving into college, I was involved with with the Campus Christian Fellowship organization up at Truman State.  It is associated with the Independent Christian Churches movement, though at the time I wasn't aware of any affiliation.  I did know that CCF was a very large and vibrant organization, and the people I got to know there came from a variety of different backgrounds.  My involvement steadily grew, and by the time I was an upperclassman I was leading Bible studies and attending organizational meetings.

The first Bible study I led was on the book of James, for while I had not attended mainline Protestant churches growing up, I had a strong sense of the doctrines of sola fide and sola gratia (faith alone and grace alone).  To me then, the book of James, and particularly 2:14-26, seemed to almost stand in direct contrast with some of the writings of Paul, and I wanted to tackle that issue head on.

Now, I am by far not a Bible scholar, but I also believed in sola scriptura (scripture alone) and being a person of reasonable intelligence I was confident that I could tackle this thorny issue on my own.  (I did consult a number of commentaries in the process, though.)  Through that study it seemed awfully clear to me, then, that faith manifested itself in works, and that mere belief did not seem like the answer.  My thinking at the time went something like, "If I believed that my friend was in trouble, I'd probably do something about it."  As Staples would say, "That was easy."

That was perhaps my first questioning of Protestant ideas, though I didn't recognize it at the time (or even until the last month or so).  There were other little things as well.  I remember looking at 2 Timothy 3:16, which reads, "All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness," (NIV).  (Funny how the next verse, which concludes that sentence, is often omitted from quotations.  "so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.")  This of course is often used in defense of sola scriptura, but I didn't really see where it had the word "only" in there.  A fleeting thought, though...

Anyway, I should also add that in my college years I dated a Catholic girl.  Now, this was something I was greatly concerned about even before I asked her out.  I knew that I didn't want to raise my kids in the Catholic Church, so dating someone who was Catholic could potentially cause a lot of problems.  I prayed about it a lot, consulted my friends, and ended up dating her for several months.  To my best recollection, I tried to be up front about how I felt about the Church and its teachings (I didn't like most of them at all), and how I didn't want my children growing up in the Catholic Church.  She might have a different opinion about how that all went.

In the end, we parted ways over this issue as she wanted to raise her kids Catholic and I didn't, though the whole thing did cause me to begin to examine the Church a little more closely.

In my senior year, then, I started dating Carrie, who herself was raised Catholic but had started attending Protestant churches in college.  We got married a year and a half later, and it was not a Catholic wedding, largely at my insistence.  And that, I think, is where I will have to leave things for now.  Stay tuned for the next installment in this series.