We left the church that had told me to be thankful for my mom’s cancer, and had just started attending a fairly new, non-denominational church. We’d only gone a couple of times when my mom died. Our oldest daughter was four, and our second daughter was only one, and my hormones were still all over the place. My mom had been my best friend. She and I had lived on our own out in California away from the rest of our family for most of my upbringing, and there were huge portions of my life that only she had been present for. Now she was gone, I was a young mom, and I was struggling with all the internal guilt of the ways that I had failed her. My salvation came in the form of this new church we’d started attending with our friends.
The first Sunday after my mom’s funeral, the pastor had already found out somehow and approached me with such love and compassion – and he never once told me to be thankful about my mom’s death. The worship was full of life, the pastor was excellent at breaking down the Word, but always, ALWAYS, bringing it back to Jesus. The community was close-knit and passionate, and there were plenty of places to get involved. Where had this place been all my life?! It was the first time since our church back in college that I actually felt like getting up on Sunday mornings to go to church.
But before we had found this place, we had already started looking further into Catholicism. We had a brief interest in the Orthodox Church…until we attended…and we knew it just wasn’t for us. But this new church, it was phenomenal – it just wasn’t Catholic. Through lots of reading and study, Lukus had become convinced that Catholicism was true, but in all honesty, between my mom’s death, Lukus doing school full-time, and moving to a new house, we just didn’t have the energy to go through a nine-month class to convert. So we started this new church with Lukus already convinced of Catholicism, and me just wanting to get swallowed in the warm, healing presence of this new, spiritual family. We let our pastor know of our inclinations toward Catholicism, and he was completely cool about it. They even let us lead a small group, which was much more open-minded than what we had experienced from others.
It was here that I learned to grow in my prayer life. I went to classes on prophecy that were uncomfortably challenging, but well-balanced and not wonky. I began to see images or visions during worship that only took me deeper in prayer and worship. Our small group was growing, and people began connecting in greater intimacy, sharing their insights, confessing their sins, and asking for prayer for hard things. Our marriage had never been better, our friendships felt rich, and life just felt like spring time. Well…for me it did.
Lukus was fine. But only fine. His passion is for truth, and once he’d studied Catholicism, it was where his heart was. He’d found a treasure that Protestantism just didn’t possess, and he grew more and more disenchanted as time went by. But he knew I was still too fragile to move. Every day was a small step toward healing, but he knew I wasn’t ready to take any big leaps yet.
Oddly enough, it was at an economics conference that started stirring up that old desire in me again. Lukus was getting his master’s in economics and decided to attend a libertarian economics conference held at the Mises Institute in Auburn, Alabama. I’ll go anywhere to get out of town, so I tagged along with him, attending a couple of lectures, but spending most of my time exploring the small town of Auburn. We got to each lunch with some of Lukus’ personal heroes, like Tom Woods, Lew Rockwell, and Jeff Tucker – all libertarian thinkers and historians who also happen to be Catholic. But the greatest impression made on me was by Dr. Gerard Casey, an Irish Catholic/anarchist/professor/gentleman.
Dr. Casey had lectured on how his faith aligns with anarchism – a fascinating and entertaining lecture – and we asked him to have drinks afterwards. We told him about our newfound interest in Catholicism, our visit to Rome, our conversations with Andrew, and our studies. Like the seminarians, the thing that stood out to me most about Dr. Casey, was his obvious and overflowing love for Jesus. Everything he said was centered around Christ, and his eyes were lit with joy. It had made sense with the seminarians, but I hadn’t met enough “average” Catholics to get a good guage on how they relate to Jesus.
But at this conference, I met Catholic after Catholic after Catholic who loved to talk about the Church, who knew scripture, and who loved Jesus most of all. What stood out to me even more was their love for one another. These total strangers were coming together for an economics conference, making new friends amongst Protestants, atheists, and Buddhists, but as soon as they discovered another Catholic next to them, there was an instant bond. I’d never seen this in Protestantism, it may exist among those who attend the same church, or a few friends you make along the way, but nothing like this. This was almost miraculous, and I watched silently in awe. These people knew each other on a level that typically takes years to develop, and yet, the scripture that played over and over in my mind that whole week as I observed them was, “They will know you by your love for one another.” THIS was what Jesus’ Church was supposed to look like! Bonded in unity, loving one another through Christ, and savoring that fellowship. Dr. Casey never really said anything about faith that blew me away – it was he himself, simply being a good witness of love for one’s brother and for Christ, and I will never forget him.
Again, those wistful thoughts began to reemerge – in spite of how much I was loving our new church, I wished we were Catholic.
