Testimonies

Eliza is 26 and is a school teacher. She can be contacted at [email protected]

Whenever someone asks me about why I converted from �Christianity� to Catholicism, I am always stunned at the crudeness of the question. Why the question why? No one ever questioned me why when I converted from nihilistic atheism to �Christianity� eleven years back! Startled at the strangeness of the question, more often than not, my answer is almost always a shrug. �Because of Love?� I said. It didn�t even sound convincing to me.

As I grew in the Catholic Church and faith, I found myself also becoming a nuisance, by asking some new converts I knew, �Why become a Catholic?� partially because of my own attempt of looking for an answer. As the question burns in me, I have to look for the answer. I guess to fully answer this question, I have to go back eleven years ago and answer the question why did I convert to Christianity.

I was the spoilt only child of a middle-income family. Both parents work to support the family, so I spent most of my childhood reading alone, under my grandparents� loving supervision. I didn�t have to do any household chores, or fulfill any familial obligations, and all that was expected from me was to do well in my studies, which I easily did.

My parents� opinion about what I should achieve as a person differed greatly. My mother, the unassuming and humble soul she is, only wanted her child to be happy and healthy. So she spoiled me with the pocket money to buy all the food I wanted and the freedom to do what I liked. Fortunately, as a kid, all I ever wanted was to read and escape into my own fantasy world, and she was more than happy to have me do exactly that. My father however, expected very differently. He believed that I was gifted in languages, hence force-feeding the forum page and international news to me everyday in my formative years, which I hated. He demanded that I top the class, which I readily did most, if not all the time in primary school. But he was violent when angered, and the trigger was often my lack of interest in his prescribed readings. I learnt from young to proudly bear the humiliation of his beatings and not cry, which angered him even more. My grandparents, who stayed with us, were doting on me, but even they could not stop the anger of my father.

When my grandparents passed away when I was in Secondary two, I felt terrified with the unbearable emptiness at home, and I started to find consolation outside home. A lost soul like me is like a beacon to other equally lost teenagers, and soon, I found myself amongst boys who are interested in me outside school.

I was then bemused with this question, �If Life is such a bother, why was I brought into this world?� Often, after an enraged argument with my father, the question becomes, �If you dislike me so much, why give birth to me at all? I never CHOSE to be born. I never chose to bear your surname.� Once I wrote this in my diary, �To my unborn child: I will never bring you to this world, cos this world is full of suffering�you would feel much better being unborn�.

Yet, despite all my outward show of spunk and spite, deep inside me, I believe in Love, and I believe in the goodness of my ultimate Creator, whoever He or She is. I know all these sounds confusing and contradictory, but I was only a muddled teenager. The first time I was exposed to Our Creator�s love is when my niece sang to me what she learnt in Sunday school, the beautiful song �Give Thanks�, which to this day still brings a tear to my eyes. From the beauty of this song, I learnt of a name, the name called Jesus that I cherished in the depth of my heart. He, who is Lord, gave His only Son, so that the weak can be made strong, the poor can be made rich, to whom we give thanks. I didn�t understand the full impact of the song then, but I kept the song in my heart, and hum it softly to myself whenever I feel down. Little did I know that it is the beginning of a lifelong prayer!

Yet, this sketchy understanding together with my faith in Love (or the idea of Love, rather) brought me dangerously near to serious physical relationships with boys. When my heart felt like a lonely desert, any attention and companionship from the opposite sex counted as �love�. So I had my rounds of truancy, lies and deception, all for my various beau. Relationship with my parents dipped to a new low, and I even roped in my friends to help cover up my disappearances from home and lessons. But at the back of my head, something in me knew that all these are empty pleasures. Up to a certain point, what seems like pleasure was not even pleasurable when I found out that my first boyfriend was two-timing me, and using me for his own pleasure. So I left him, despite all his protests.

Shortly after this, I found myself falling in love again, this time a bit more seriously, with a fellow classmate. He gladly reciprocated, having waited one year already for me to have a clean break with my previous boyfriend. He also brought something else called �faith� into my life, as he brought me to all the Christian fellowships he attended. Life was good, and my heart was full with love and contentment, and my first encounter with God was to say the least, pleasurable and fun, as the entire fellowship often consisted of teenagers just like me, with our own share of family and relationship problems which provided for the perfect sharing of grouses. Finally, I had found a niche in life and I was glad, thinking that if there were a God, He must be good to me.

But God obviously has other plans for me. Just when all seems smooth sailing and I could even picture a future with my boyfriend, he decided to break up. This I found so hard to swallow, and the �Why?� stuck in my heart for seven years. I refused to let go inside, but I couldn�t do anything to stop him. I felt so lost, but I couldn�t even start to understand why.

His ostentatious reason for breaking up was that he felt our relationship was distracting him away from God. I felt confused. Didn�t God, who oversees all things, plan our meeting? God could have planned us to be together! At that time, when inter-religious and even inter-denomination couples were frowned upon, ours seemed to be a match made in heaven. After all, we attended the same church, attended the same cell group fellowship, and we are both zealous for the �Word of God�. What could have gone wrong?

Bitter, disappointed, I left the church he invited me to, and joined another, upon the invitation of some other friend. In the eighties where Christian evangelism was rampant in Singapore, it was relatively easy to hop from church to church, while never having to commit to one. It never occurred to me why there should be so many churches, each claiming to be biblical, and yet everyone of which claiming to be the universal or the true church at the same time. I couldn�t be bothered then, for I was still suffering from shell shock of the break-up. And I was sorely disappointed with him when I found out from a mutual friend that even him stopped attending church altogether. That was when I knew the reason he gave for breaking up was not valid at all. He lied to me.

Subsequently, my life took on a pattern. I would get romantically involved with a guy, and ditch him, and get romantically involved with another guy, only to ditch him again. I was the classic vamp leaving a trail of heartbreaks behind me. Meanwhile, I was also changing churches like I changed clothes. The pattern would be similar to my experience with boys. I would go to a church gathering, get relatively warm in my involvement, and then withdraw completely from the church, using family persecution as my excuse.

Strange enough, God never gave up on me. Whichever way I turned, wherever I went, well-meaning Christians would come up to me to invite me for their church fellowship. Or to their new church building. Or to do bible sharing. Never once did God leave me out of His loving sight. Imagine my surprise when evangelists on the streets gave me my first bible! Though it was only the New Testaments (the King James version printed by Gideon), it provided me an opportunity to read God�s word, which I have never consciously done in my church hopping days.

I was enthralled with the little pocket-sized blue book. I would devour its contents and rush through the pages, so hungry was I for spiritual food. And the verse that jumped out at me, which I pondered at over and over again, even poring at all its translations into various languages that I couldn�t understand, was John 3:16, �For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life.�(NKJV) I was awed by John�s moving words, and the verse gave me the first inkling to the true meaning of LOVE, the preoccupation of my young life.

So, I graduated from secondary school with good enough grades to go to my dream junior college, and made a conscious effort not to fall in �love� again. My only love was to be Christ, and became an active youth leader in a youthful local charismatic biblical church. I was so zealous about evangelizing God�s Word that, armed with basic knowledge of the scripture and reformation history (which I offered as an �A� level subject), I went around trying to convert �unenlightened� Catholics at bus-stops outside certain targeted schools. We held religious arguments with Catholic classmates in our midst, trying to convince them that they are all misguided in their faith. We gain great satisfaction in being able to be truly biblical Christians, imagining ourselves to be like the early fathers of the church, evangelizing to the masses, fellowshipping with one another and worshipping God almost everyday. Yet, all these can only be done in secret, because of the violent objection of my parents. Eventually, I gave up explaining to my mum what I was doing, and I went on worshipping.

All seemed well, until one day, my trial in love came again, in the form of another boyfriend. He was the director of a play that I was stage-managing, and the constant close collaboration has brought us together as comrades. When he finally proposed that we should �be together�, I couldn�t refuse. Things started to happen very fast. My brothers and sisters in the church started to chide me for being �unequally yoked with unbelievers� and required me to make a choice between him and God. I was so pressed for a break up with him, which I couldn�t bring myself to. All the gatherings I went to, all the services I attended, basically wherever I went with my Christian brothers and sisters, some well-meaning person would ask, �so, have you made up your mind for God?� I felt miserable and misunderstood. The worship and prayers, which I have been so zealous for, began to feel so dry and meaningless. I feel that as loving brothers and sisters in Christ, they could exhibit more heart in this matter. The zeal that my church has inspired in me for God�s word started to run dry, and I began my self-exile from the church. The church felt to me cold and heartless, for it couldn�t accept �love� as a reason to be together with a non-believer.

Disillusioned, disappointed, discontent, I became as a wanderer on the face of this earth. I drifted from one social circle to the next, not able to grow root in any of them. I hung on desperately to my relationship with my then boyfriend and lost all contact of past church friends. A great blow came when my boyfriend had to go overseas for his university studies on a scholarship, and I faced complete solitude for the first time. No friends, no boyfriends, no church, nothing. So my university years were like a barren wilderness spiritually.

It also seemed like the start of my apparent freedom. I stayed in the hostel, with no parental supervision for the first time in my life. I appeared single and available for there was no one by my side. I openly flirted and courted attention from anybody who was interested again, thus beginning the pubbing and clubbing days of my life.

Yet, despite all the outward pleasure, inwardly I still groan for God�s love. It is so painful, searching for my soul�s resting place, yet not being able to find any. Still, I prided myself to be a charismatic biblical �Christian�, and I turned up my nose at the mention of �cults� like the �Catholic Church�. This is my reaction when my best friend in university, Claudia invited me to her Rites of Christian Initiation for Adults (RCIA), which she is attending, because she knew I was still searching for God deep in my heart.

I was both shocked and offended at her suggestion. How could she suggest that I join the RCIA of the Catholic Church? Doesn�t the Catholic Church believe in idol worship and prayers to Mary? Also I was confused, for how could this friend, whose judgment I trusted so much, be converting to Catholicism? But she was kind and patient, and we both prayed about this. Finally, one day, my curiosity got the better of me, and I followed her to Immaculate Heart of Mary to attend the RCIA conducted by Father James Yeo.

My first session there made me wanted to take flight. Never before in my past experience with the church had I came to meet with so many people above the age of forty! In fact, almost half of the congregation is middle-aged, many are housewives, and some are even grandparents! Coming from a youthful church congregation, my first instinct was to run away from the many expected painfully boring RCIA sessions to come.

But my views of the church changed the moment they started to praise and worship the Lord. For the first time in my proud young life, I was amazed. I couldn�t believe my eyes! The whole congregation, both the young and the old, the weak and the strong, are dancing, clapping, and cheering to the songs of praise and worship! The praise and worship leader must be at least fifty, but she was dancing with the gait of a fifteen year old! In the midst of the congregation, I see a wheel chair bound old lady, a middle-aged man with crippled gait, a lady whose movements are marred by polio, and yet, the love and warmth of God radiated from their faces! I was deeply moved by the scene before my very eyes, and I thought to myself, �This is a church like no other.� And so I was hooked.

From that day on, I had to be there, every Wednesday from 8pm to 10.30pm. Considering that I stayed in Clementi and had to travel one and a half hour to Highland Road for my RCIA, it was no mean feat. It was also the start of my new term in the National Institute of Education, and I had to readjust my life.

As I committed myself to RCIA, my life started to take on a strange turn. I worked on a busy project for the NIE and got myself physically and mentally drained. Then I went on a trip to Australia despite my parents� violent protests for reasons unknown to me. Soon after I came back from Australia, my father was hospitalized due to a minor operation, and he kept himself there, until the doctors prescribed the psychiatric ward. Somehow he linked his sufferings with my faith in God, and he threatened me with curses when he finds traces of my newfound faith in my bedroom and forced me to throw my bibles and crosses away. I was much traumatized by my father�s bizarre mood swings and violent behavior, as he attempted to drag the whole family down into his misery.

Apart from the growing tension in my family, I began to see myself as more and more imperfect as I knew more and more about God. I became ashamed of myself, and the guilt of my past wrongdoings pierced my heart. Also, as the meaning of true love dawned upon me in Jesus� sacrifice, I realized the cheap substitute I had looked for was so unworthy of myself as God�s creation, that I got thoroughly disgusted of myself and my past romantic flings. I realized that despite my past search for love and attention, I was emotionally bankrupt, no more being able to love than to be loved. My imperfections burnt deeply into my soul as I cried time after time talking to various priests about my past mistakes.

Gradually, I felt so miserable that I had trouble sleeping, and had insomnia for three months. I would pace the room at exactly three am every morning, with the demons of my mind tormenting my troubled soul. Then I couldn�t even pray without terrible images of violence and gore filling my mind. The overwhelming sense of guilt, hopelessness and fear choked my spirit. This is truly the dark night of my soul, as it was being torn and tormented in unimaginable ways, the source and reason of this torment unknown to me. I started having trepidations and hyperventilation in school, and I was such a failure in my teaching practicum that I had to take MC after MC, as I could not bring myself to school anymore.

Then one day, I saw my future as so bleak and miserable that I decided to end it all. I downed all my pills prescribed for my insomnia and was rushed to hospital (ironically, by my father, whom I thought didn�t love me). Soon I was diagnosed as clinically depressed, and I was allowed three months break from teaching practicum. In the two weeks I was recuperating in the Psychiatric ward, I am amazed by the love of God that sought me out there. Along with me in the ward were two Catholics, and when they found out that I was in RCIA, they started to pray together with me. We encouraged each other by trying to recite the rosary and reading the daily bread. Although the rosary would sometimes break down, due to various reasons, like someone would be too choked by one�s berserk emotions and is unable to pray, or distracted by other patients around us, we tried as much as possible to give each other what little comfort we can offer amidst the seemingly bleak Ward 22 of NUH.

Amidst my internal turmoil, love and concern from friends and family rushed in everywhere, and I began my walk out of the dark valley of my life. After I was discharged from Ward 22, I continued with RCIA, and I was so uncertain of my own sanity that I wanted to give up baptism. Yet, in this time of darkness of my soul, there is still a quiet reassurance that if I could only pray about this and trust Him completely, He would intervene and clear the obstacles in my path. Indeed, He will not give us burdens that we are unable to bear. His call to me to follow Him despite my own shortfalls came in the form of Father James Yeo. He said to me, �You can never be hundred percent prepared for baptism. If you waited for another five years, would you still get baptized?� My answer was a reluctant yes. Then he beamed, �so why don�t you make up your mind and get baptized?�

I stared at him, slowly taking in the weight of his words. Doing that would mean making a commitment that I have never made before. It would mean going against the wishes of my parents, especially my own father. It would mean going to church every Sunday, and I had little confidence of myself ever attaining that regularity. It would mean becoming the only Catholic in both my immediate and extended family, and also the family that I was going to start with my fianc�. I thought that if God wanted to send me forth as a light in the darkness, He was sending too small a light into too great a darkness.

There was also this issue about transubstantiation of the Eucharist and Mother Mary. As a Christian steeped in Protestant believes, Mother Mary and transubstantiation were hard pills to swallow, much harder than sola fide and sola scriptura, as I do believe that faith without works cannot be even called faith, and that since the books included scriptures are first and foremost, decided by the Catholic Church, the Church must have an authority on par with the scriptures. About transubstantiation, it is when I started reading the stories of true modern day miracles of the host turning to flesh and blood, and understanding the true meaning of the verse �This is my body�This is my blood�� that I accepted that the Eucharist indeed contains the living presence of Jesus.

But Mother Mary? What about Mother Mary? Whenever we pray the rosary, I will always be stuck at the salutation: �Holy Mary, Mother of God.� As a Protestant, God is the greatest and the most powerful. He is the creator. So how can there be a �Mother� of God, who �gives birth to� God? Later, I found out through talking to priests and reading that �Mother of God� is actually a translation (and if you ask me, a misleading translation) of the Greek word Theotokos, which really means �bearer of God�. This is why Mary is also called the ark of the new covenant. The ark of the old covenant carried the staff of Aaron (signifying priest), the tablets of Moses (signifying king) and manna from heaven (signifying the presence of God). Mary carried Jesus, who is prophet, king and God at the same time. Therefore it is right to say that Mary is the bearer of God, since Jesus is God. And the English translation of the rosary really means Mother of God to be the lady who carried God in her womb, not the originator of God. And if the Ark of the Covenant can be considered holy because of God�s presence in it, Mary can also be deemed holy because she bore God in her womb. Although I was still uncomfortable, I felt that I have to let go of my doubts and just trust God to reveal His wisdom to me slowly.

Also, I was worried for my future with my fianc�. Wouldn�t the Church frown at me being �yoked with an unbeliever�? As I confided in my prospective Godmother, Maria, of my doubt, she responded with a bright smile, �Don�t worry. As long as he is not against the Church, he will be for the church. Just pray for his eventual salvation. I know because I prayed for my husband for twenty years and he only just baptized. Remember that God�s time is not our time� I looked at her with respect and amazement. This lady who is to be my role model in the Catholic faith, is a true testimony of the power of lifelong prayer and faith in Christ! She shared that she never preached to the family, but through her daily prayers for her husband, he got converted, and along with him his parents too! I was touched to the core. Here is the true church that made no distinctions between believers and non-believers, but converts non-believers through love, patience and prayers. This removed the last doubt I had in the Catholic faith.

As I made the intentions of baptism clear to my friends and family, well wishes poured in from every side. My mother, who was against me becoming a Christian, relented after she knew that I was going to be baptized into the Catholic Church. Incidentally, her best friend had always been a devout Catholic, and mother felt that the Catholic Church would be the right place I should baptize in, as opposed to the protestant churches I attended in the past. She even agreed to siding with me if my father should question about my newly found faith. My fianc� was supportive, seeing that the church has brought me out of depression. My sponsors and Godmother prayed for me everyday, and I received tremendous support and encouragement from Claudia. I was touched by their willingness to go for the extra mile for me. But I still could not bring myself to tell my father that I was to become a Catholic. Father James Yeo suggested that I bring up the matter only after the tempest in my father has subsided, and I await the opportunity to this day, in constant prayer and hope.

The day of my baptism soon came, on Easter 2000. I was thrilled when my mother agreed to attend my baptism, as I had truly wanted her to share in my spiritual rebirth. As my name was called and the Holy water poured over my forehead, I felt the coolness of relief spread all over me. Suddenly, all the sorrow and fear and guilt and fatigue that had been plaguing me for the past year had lifted off me like a veil. I looked around me and blinked in amazement. The world, which was so dark and gloomy, now shone with a holy light from above. My sponsors and Godmother noticed, and commented that I looked radiant! And I knew from that instant that something changed within me. My heart, which had been heavy with guilt, sadness and fear, was transformed by God�s light.

I have been baptized for two years now, and I have not been the best example of Catholic living. Yet, by the love and example of fellow Catholics in my newfound community, I continue to grow everyday. And I believe that I have finally found the most perfect source of love that I had started out searching so long ago, the love that is God, expressed through the most perfect sacrifice of His son, Jesus Christ. So I guess I really have the reason for my conversion to Catholicism, after such a lengthy search, and that reason is none other than God�s Love, that has found me out and made me whole, and he has brought me, through all the circumstances in my life, to the Universal church that can be my home.

Good Friday 2002