Testimonies

By Sara McLaughlin

My mother gasped and clutched her chest. "Sara," she wheezed at her young daughter, "Catholics worship Mary. They think they're drinking real blood and that the pope is perfect. Catholics believe it's all right to do anything as long as they go to confession afterwards." Something told me my mother was not well versed in Catholicism.

My conversion to the Catholic Faith was not an overnight decision. The journey took 35 years, and I sustained some injuries along the way. Nevertheless, the Lord lined my path with faithful witnesses, pushing me ever forward. Every one of my childhood encounters with Catholics and the Church was memorable.

I was brought up a Southern Baptist. In the summers, when I visited my Baptist grandmother, I remember how much I loved to walk across the street with her to visit her best friend, who was Catholic. There was an unmistakable serenity in her living room, and I could sit and gaze for hours, mesmerized by the lovely white Madonna on the mantle and the crucifix above the door. I didn't know why these unfamiliar objects had such an effect on me; all I knew was I felt strangely drawn to them. In retrospect, those experiences were mystical, for they brought me outside of time and into an incredible, other worldly peace.

When I was four years old, I asked my grandmother about the Madonna and the crucifix, and she replied, "My best friend is Catholic, and Catholics have statues and crucifixes in their homes and in their churches. There are a lot of things like that that I don't approve of in the Catholic Church, but you won't find anyone who is a better Christian than she is."

My grandmother and I had many frank talks about religion. There were a number of things I disliked about the Baptist Church. Even as a young child, I discovered that the overwhelming emphasis on evangelizing the "lost" left little room for spiritual growth or development for the "found." I announced defiantly one Sunday that I was finished going to the Baptist Church because I had more or less graduated. My grandmother smiled and said nothing. Back home, I became enchanted and preoccupied with the notion of this strange and wonderful Catholic Church. Instinctively, I knew it possessed something lacking in my own church. At school, I made a point of befriending Catholics so I could ask them questions about the Faith and read their catechism texts. I often finagled an invitation to their homes so I could snoop around in their books of prayers and look at all the Catholic trappings. My mother was not pleased with my Romish hobby, but she was convinced this too would pass, and eventually I would take up something less annoying like tennis or guitar.

But the attraction didn't wear off. In fact, my interest deepened. I continued to ask questions about the Catholic Church and begged her to let me visit one. I even wrote to a convent and corresponded about the Church with a sister. She gave me several gifts, including a rosary, Thomas � Kempis' Imitation of Christ, and a statue of the Blessed Virgin that read, "Our Lady of the Snows." At the time, our neighbors across the alley were Catholics, so finally, my mother reluctantly asked them if they would take me to Mass "just once." Her vain hope was that my visit would put to rest my curiosity. Of course, the neighbors were delighted by the request, and the following Sunday, off we went.

Coming from my Southern Baptist background, I was startled by the sharp contrasts the moment I walked into the church. Before Mass, silence took the place of chitchat. People were kneeling to pray, and there was a reverence and an air of anticipation, of mystery, unlike anything I had ever known. There were statues and a crucifix in place of stark, white walls. When the liturgy began, it was rich in participatory responses and focused around the reception of the Body and Blood instead of a 45-minute sermon. Although everything about that place was foreign to me, it felt at the same time strangely familiar.

Back then, I was too young to identify or articulate precisely what it was that drew me to the Catholic Church. It was more than mere window dressing, more than the statues, kneelers and sanctus bells. Looking back, I believe the unidentifiable "it" was holiness. Perhaps my experience was somewhat similar to C. S. Lewis' description of having his imagination baptized when he read George MacDonald's Phantases: "I did not yet know (and I was long in learning) the name of the new quality, the bright shadow, that rested on the travels of Anodos. I do now. It was Holiness."

I left with an indelible impression, a sense of belonging to the Church, a feeling that beckoned me back. My enthusiasm, however, was not shared by my mother, who loudly voiced her objections, all of which were based on misconceptions. She certainly wasn't being objective. Besides, her own mother had admitted to me that Catholics were Christians, as evidenced by her lifelong friend across the street. This was a fight worth pursuing, and so, like a typical teenager, I whined and begged and argued with my mother until, finally, I wore down her resistance. We reached a compromise we could both live with. She gave me permission to become an Episcopalian because, as she put it, "The Episcopal Church is about as Catholic as you can get and still remain a Protestant." The insinuation was clear: the virtues of Protestantism versus the evils of Catholicism.

But I think the real reason my mother felt some affinity for the Episcopal Church was because her uncle had been an Episcopal vicar. Also, from a strictly practical perspective, an Episcopal church was within walking distance from our house, and she knew transportation wouldn't be an issue. I joined the Episcopal church without delay, and I converted my bedroom decor into "Catholic Gothic." My mother teased me one day saying, "I hate coming into your room to put up the laundry. I feel so uncomfortable in there, like I'm supposed to genuflect or something."

For many years, I really liked the Episcopal Church, or I should say, I liked everything about it that was Catholic. After all, being Episcopalian was never my first choice. Hence, I was an Anglo-Catholic at best. More accurately, I was a Catholic pretending to be Episcopalian for the sake of convenience. The Episcopal Church had some Catholic remnants, like a crucifix, kneelers and the stations of the Cross. It took me many years to realize, and even more to admit, the Episcopal Church had only the form of Catholicism, but lacked the substance.

My problem was that the longer I remained in the Episcopal Church, the more attached I became to the people. Many of them were closer to me than my own relatives. Therefore, for years, I blocked out any thoughts of leaving my newfound surrogate family. In addition, when I was 24, I married a Methodist who showed a great deal of interest in the Episcopal Church. Shortly after our marriage, he converted. Understandably, I was happy that we belonged to the same Church.

My entrenchment in Episcopalianism increased when I joined, as a lay associate, the Community of the Holy Spirit, an Episcopal order for Religious in New York. Their mother superior at the time, the Rev. Mother Mary Christabel, played an enormous role in my spiritual development. Having attended several silent retreats conducted by her, I was inspired to write Meeting God in Silence (Tyndale, 1993). The dedication reads, "This book is dedicated with love to my grandmother, Amy Webb Gambrell, whose life and steadfast faith in God taught me that Christianity is not about a philosophy, but about a relationship with the Living Christ; and to the Sister Mary Christabel, Community of the Holy Spirit, who first introduced me to God's gift of silence. Both of you are a blessing and an inspiration to those whose lives you have touched."

Things began to change for the worse in the Episcopal Church shortly after I joined (I assume there was no causality between the two events). What bothered me most was the Church's tendency to avoid taking a "controversial" stance on moral issues, like opposing abortion. I became an outspoken critic and allied myself morally and dogmatically with the Catholic Church. The more I read and studied, the more I respected Catholicism's fidelity to tradition and Her insistence on taking the "high road" in moral matters.

I wrote "Liturgical Fidget," a critical look at some of the problems in the Episcopal Church, and my article was published first in The Living Church, then reprinted in Anglican Digest. I received an overwhelmingly positive response. Years later, an anti-abortion article I wrote in my regular newspaper column won a national writing award. The local Catholic cathedral, Christ the King, commended me and reprinted my article in its newsletter.

Those familiar desires for the calm and holiness of the Catholic Church returned. My husband and I had a daughter who was baptized in the Episcopal Church. I knew that he had strong anti-Catholic sentiments, so once again, I convinced myself to compromise and stay where I was. My husband agreed to attend catechumenate classes with me at the cathedral, but upon their completion, he still opposed the idea of my conversion. I remained an Episcopalian.

Lurking around every corner, though, was a reminder of the Catholic Church. Even professionally, there was no escape. I teach English at Texas Tech University, and one of my areas of special interest and research involves the work of C. S. Lewis and G. K. Chesterton. On several occasions, I presented papers on Lewis at conferences, and in Seattle, met Peter Kreeft and Thomas Howard. I remember riding with Kreeft, Howard and a few others in a van to a special event. Seeing a religious insignia on my suitcase, one woman asked if I was an Episcopalian.

I replied, "Yes, but . . ."

Laughing loudly, she interrupted. "I love it! 'Yes, but.' I know what you mean. I'm one of those 'yes, but' Episcopalians, too." We compared notes regarding our reservations about the Episcopal Church. Overhearing our conversation, Howard told us about his own conversion from the Episcopal Church to Catholicism.

One of the stories he related stayed with me. He said Mother Teresa was once addressing an audience at Harvard. At one point, a Protestant in the crowd stood up and said, "Oh well, when it's all said and done, I guess the Lord needs some people in the Catholic Church and some people in the other churches."

Mother Teresa replied, "No, He doesn't."

Those words pierced my heart. I knew that moment, in the summer of 1991, I was called to be Catholic. In one of his books, Howard eloquently explained what convinced me intellectually that I needed to convert: "It is the same old story which one finds in Newman, Knox, Chesterton, and all others who have made this move. The question, 'What is the Church?' becomes, finally, intractable; and one finds oneself unable to offer any very telling reasons why the phrase 'one, holy, catholic, and apostolic,' which we all say in the Creed, is to be understood in any way other than the way it was understood for 1500 years."

Besides the authors Howard referred to above, I also read J.N.D. Kelly's Early Christian Doctrines (Harper Collins) and Documents of the Christian Church (Oxford University Press). Both books further convinced me of the historicity and continuity of the Catholic Church. In addition, having written my master's thesis on St. Augustine's influence on C. S. Lewis, I had spent many hours reading the works of St. Augustine. I collected all his prayers for a book, finding his writings moving. The reality became evident: I was drawn to the Catholic Church on all levels � spiritually, emotionally and intellectually.

A woman I befriended at one of the Seattle conferences had been raised Catholic but left as a young adult, attending instead several Protestant churches. However, in her early 30s, she returned to the Catholic Church. When I asked her why, she said something quite simple that made a lot of sense: "Everyone knows the Catholic Church was here first. No one denies that there was such a thing as the Protestant Reformation. I just realized that I don't want to be allied with the protesters. It's a childish thing, rebelling against authority, saying, 'We're going to take our marbles and go play somewhere else.' "

When I spoke to Peter Kreeft for the first time, after one of his talks, I told him, "You are what I want to be when I grow up."

He furrowed his brow and replied, "What? A Bostonian?" The twinkle in his eye told me he knew what I meant. We began to correspond. In that time, I realized, for two reasons, that we're kindred spirits. First, because we both have a desire to write apologetics, and second, because we're both Catholic. The only difference, of course, is that he beat me to Rome. Howard also made it there before me. I seemed to be the only one stationed for an undetermined delay in Canterbury, and it was posing difficulties for me as a writer of apologetics. I could no longer tolerate being identified with or supporting any part of a divided Christendom.

In the summer of 1993, I again attended a conference in Seattle cosponsored by Seattle Pacific University and Seattle University. This one was entitled, "In Celebration of the Moral Imagination." Although there were friendly Christians of many denominations in attendance, I felt myself gravitating to the Catholics.

In my journal one night I wrote, "There were, as usual, mostly Roman Catholics in my groups of friends. I feel so envious of them. They really are members of the true Church. When they went to Mass on Saturday, I felt very left out. Someday, God willing, I will be received into the Roman Catholic Church. One Catholic told me today that someone has coined a name for a person in my predicament: 'a peeping Thomas.' "

A few years passed, and in the summer of 1995, my husband, after counseling and painful soul-searching, told me he wanted a divorce. It was one of the most horrible experiences of my life. When I wrote to Kreeft and told him the news, in a kind letter, he replied, "What can one say? Divorce is like suicide. It is suicide of the new 'one-flesh' created by marriage. The Catholic Church teaches that it is like the Abominable Snowman: a superstition, something that does not and cannot really exist, only pretend to be . . . We all have our wounds. They bleed into crowns." During the marital separation, I went to see the Rev. Michael O'Dwyer, the priest at St. Elizabeth's University Parish in Lubbock, Texas. Because I was baptized and had already completed all the necessary classes a few years earlier at the cathedral, I was ready to be received into the Catholic Church. I also expressed my desire to try to petition the Church for an annulment after the divorce, an effort which, thanks to the help of Fr. O'Dwyer, was successful, based on the Church's conclusion that the marriage had been invalid.

I believe good does overcome evil. The end of my marriage wasn't my choice and was filled with suffering. Nevertheless, at last I was free to join the Church that called to me all those years. I was free to be the Catholic apologist I felt I was born to be. No longer did I need to compromise my Faith to please others. When my journey was complete, I expressed my weariness to Kreeft, who as usual encouraged me in a letter. He wrote, "Welcome aboard the Old Ark! You are a survivor."

He was right. Through the grace of God, I did board the Old Ark. I shall always remember that glorious Day of Pentecost, 1996 � the day when, at long last, I came home.