My Road To Emmaus

I want to welcome you to this website. My hope is to proclaim the name of Christ through all of this, to help educate those who desire a deeper faith and closeness in the Lord, and to defend the Catholic Church. Thank you for visiting this website, I hope that you enjoy it. If you are not a Catholic and are looking to give an opinion against something, I invite anything you have to say, provided it is tasteful and loving.

I was baptized into the Catholic Church, (CC from now on), had my first communion, and then went to a secular school until 5th grade when I was sent to a Catholic School for 2 years before Junior High School. My Mom was Catholic, my Dad was and is a Protestant. I will never be able to thank my Mom enough for those two years she put us through Catholic School, even though at the time I hated it. I had influence from both sides of the fence, and it seemed to lean more towards the Protestant side for some time. By the time I got to 5th grade at Catholic School, I had a hate for it. I remember being called into the office by the nuns and I would answer their questions with “yeah” They got upset and asked me to answer, “Yes Sister” I remember saying, “Your not my sister! Your going to hell!!!” That didn’t go over so well.

So went the next 21 or so years of my life, getting deeper and deeper into the Protestant faith, and ultimately into the extreme forms of Fundamentalism. I learned so much while I was in it though that I know will somehow be used for the good of Christ. From AWANA, to the Evangelical Free Church, to the “Assembly Church” led by George Geftakis, The Church of Christ, Baptist Churches of various sorts, Extreme forms of “tongues” churches, the Mormon Church, etc. The list could go on. I believe that I learned about some of these churches, and even became a part of them at times so that my faith would be richer now, and humbling now that I am Catholic. Honestly, if you told me when I was in the Fundamentalist Church I was at, that I was going to be Catholic soon, I would have laughed in your face and damned you to hell. (as if I had that power anyway!)

In 2001 my Mom died quite out of the blue. I was very sad as I avoided her for so long because she was Catholic and after my parents’ divorce I completely avoided her anyway. I did however get to talk to her 2 weeks before her triple aneurysms. I got to have closure, and tell her even though we disagreed, I wanted her back in my life and to get to know her again. I think she kissed every place on my face she could reach, as she is shorter than me. It was great to have that love and friendship again with my Mom!

But I have to say, when she died, my life got better. I think it was because she could be in heaven and pray perfectly for me now. I started being able to pay some debts off, things started happening for me in my life, good and bad, and in 2003, I met Sarah.

Sarah and I met and started seeing each other almost immediately. We also started having major arguements almost immediately because she was Catholic. Why I was seeing a Catholic was beyond me at the time, now I know why of course, because I have had the honor of being her Husband now for over 2 years and going strong! We would argue constantly about the CC, and I would stump her on many issues of the CC. I got her to finally go to my church, we’ll call it OBC. She went three times, and after that my world turned upside down. I tried to put her in touch with “key” people who were supposed to talk to her and show her the truth and get her “saved”, because I thought she was going to hell. :-)

She first talked to a number of people in my “click” of friends there. When they heard she was part of the CC, she immediately became a project of theirs. They would treat her differently and start preaching to her. You know when you have a disease and you tell someone and they say something like, “Ohhhh, I am soooo sorry” and then they sort of distance themselves, but are willing to help? That was what happened. Sarah talked to a few people and she would not be convinced because their arguments were very weak, or were very unbiblical. Someone actually told her that satan put dinosaur bones on this earth to deceive the hearts and minds of man. That’s simply stunning.

Then Sarah and would talk and talk and she started asking questions that I couldn’t answer. I was being stumped now. She made me begin to think about things, and my world started changing in a major way. I started to love her and she was quickly becoming my best friend too. I was very upset and confused. I was thinking, if Sarah isn’t a Christian, then who is??? The bible says you will know a Christian by their fruits and if you know Sarah at all, you know she is about the most blameless Christian that I think ever walked the earth. She loves everyone around her, loves Christ with all of her heart and always seeks to know the Lord better and better each day. So I started questioning everything in my life.

Shortly after this I was sent to Texas for some Army training for 19 weeks to become a Surgical Assistant. This was January of 2004. Before that, I was thinking of leaving OBC. People told me that basically if I left, I was not a believer and was denying the faith and was going to hell. I know if any of them are reading this, that is not what you meant, but it was very indirectly implied that if I left, that was it.

People in OBC were very legalistic and very pushy and judgemental. For instance, one day I was looking at a billboard and saw a Michael W. Smith concert was going on in the area. A guy we’ll call Chris walked up and saw the poster and proceeded to tear it down! I said, “what the heck are you doing? That isn’t yours to tear down!” He said that we shouldn’t have a poster of someone in OBC that is not walking with the Lord and is probably not a Christian. I couldn’t believe the arrogance and judgemental attitude from him.

I went to the Army training, Sarah missed me a lot. I told her when I left that I was going to prove her wrong on all counts with the CC. I took along about a million different books of hers, mainly a few books by Scott Hahn, Peter Kreeft, Karl Keating, and a few other Catholic Apologists, as well as a concise history of the Christian church. I started reading about the history of the church, not the CC but Christianity in general. What I started finding was a lot of Catholicism in past history. I will talk more about this in another article about Church history. I had never studied this; I had limited myself to the bible and everything in it…Sola Scriptura!! Sola Fide!!! Boy was I wrong and humbled by Christ, to get right to the point.

I told Sarah shortly after I went to the Army training that if I were to ever become Catholic, I would only do it for God and for myself, and not for her or anyone. I couldn’t believe I was seriously considering it. So I wrote my pastor of OBC and started asking him questions. I had no intention at that point of becoming Catholic, I was just asking questions. I began asking about communion and the book he recommended to me entitled, “The History of Christianity”. The book, although protestant, seemed to talk more about Catholicism the more I read it. It kept coming back to Catholicism. I started to have lots of questions, and I wrote my pastor and asked him some things. After a few conversations by email, he told me that is saddens him that I am well on my way to denying the faith and “embracing RC” (Roman Catholicism). He said he doesn’t suprise him. He warned me that if don’t believe in the gospel of grace and turn from my “sinful musings” then I was never a believer to begin with. He then basically told me never to email him again, I am cut off and he was going to “save his pearls”. Just a side comment on that remark, I have talked to a few people from “OBC” and I am serious, I think they have a special room where there is a pile of pearls in the corner and it keeps getting bigger and bigger every day. One of these days they are going to be the richest church in the world with all their pearls.

Well, it saddened and frustrated me that he did not listen and understand what I was saying. So I kept praying and reading. Finally I started to see the truth to the CC, to sum it up. I saw clear as day in James 2:24 that it is not by faith alone, but by works too! I studied history and saw that Luther wanted to throw out the book of James because of that darn chapter 2. I saw a lot of things that I will cover in other articles. I was convinced of the Eucharist really being the body and blood of the Lord, which was one of the hardest parts to believe. I still have struggles with it, but what Catholic doesn’t? Unless you have been one of the few who have actually seen it turn into flesh and blood, and I mean few, then it takes a great deal of faith. But how great is our God and Father Jesus Christ!!!

So, I decided I was going to return to the one true church, but I didn’t know when. God did though. I got back June 16th of 2004, and started looking for a job. A month later I got a phone call that I was being deployed in 4 days for Iraq. I was going to be there for 2 years as a truck driver! I was so upset that this was happening. I had planned to save for a ring for Sarah and ask her to marry me that next month. So Sarah and I talked that night and we decided we wanted to be married before I left 4 days later. Through a complete miracle, her family and my family and all our friends were able to come together 36 hours later to have a small wedding! I went through my own mental anguish about the whole thing what with going to Iraq, getting married and then leaving my new wife for 2 years, and returning to the church. The next day after I found out about my deployement I spent about 8 hours with the Priest, who we both knew pretty well. I went a few times with Sarah to her church, St. James and we just walked up to the Priest and told him what was going on. He didn’t think we could get things all done in one day, so he and I went into his office, while Sarah went and got things ready for the wedding. I needed to return now, and God wanted me back. I spent about 6 of those 8 hours having a very very long confession with him, talking and having him help prepare me for Iraq. Finally, I had done it. I didn’t hear any bells and whistles or a band come through or anything like that, just a calm and a peace. So we got married the next day, and that next morning, from our honeymoon suite her parents had gotten for us, I got another call. It was from my Captain. She said something had happened overnight and I wasn’t going afterall. She said this NEVER EVER happens. There was some mistake with the paperwork and I wasn’t going afterall. I just lost it. (In a good way!)

So since then God has completely turned my life around and blessed me in more ways than I can count. Sarah and I have a good marriage, and we now have a 3 month old baby named Joseph too! God is awesome, and you know, I have to say that Pat was very wrong to call me an unbeliever. I have never felt like more of a believer in Christ than I do now!

My desire is to serve Him, my wife and my family. My desire is to conform more to Christ and not to world day by day. It is clear in God’s word and in the church that we must read and know His word, have fellowship together whenever we meet as a community of believers, be taught by our leaders, the Priests chosen by God, and to have prayers and pray to God.

Thank you for reading my “Road to Emmaus” and I look forward to your comments on this and my other articles to come!