Catholics Called to Care for Converts

Time certainly does fly after high school! It’s hard to believe it has been 12 years for me! Like many, I waited to enter college after working a few years. Then again, as I’ve come to appreciate in hind sight, in a way I had to wait to go to college as I did because it wasn’t until after my conversion to Christ that I discovered my calling.

This week I read a statement put out by the U.S. bishop’s conference calling Catholics to seek new ways at welcoming and supporting the thousands of new Catholics that will be entering the Church this Easter Vigil through the Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults (RCIA).

Father Richard Hilgartner, assistant director of the Secretariat of Divine Worship for the bishop’s conference, offered several suggestions. On his list were for Catholics to offer special “prayer” for these individuals, for them to “listen” to the example of these who seek to “follow the Lord more closely,” as well as to “cultivate a welcoming spirit, to be a witness to the new Catholics, and to invite them to grow deeper in the life of the Church.”

Again, time flies, as it is hard to believe that it has been 9 years since I had gone through the RCIA program. On April 14th, 2001, I had received Baptism, Confirmation, and First Holy Communion.

Yet, to be quite honest with you, I still wasn’t quite there yet intellectually in my greater grasp of Christianity at the moment of Baptism, due to many of the things I was taught. However, sometimes that is to be expected for those who God is calling to follow Him by trusting His guidance.

I knew I had been called to Baptism in the Catholic Church as it came through a clearly answered prayer. After I had begun taking my Christian faith seriously at the age of 20 I had hesitations about where to begin going to Church. For my mother had been raised Lutheran and my father had been raised Seventh-day Adventist.

When I was little Mom had taken my brother and I to the Lutheran church she had gone to as a child. However, when we were older we had begun attending the Seventh-day Adventist church from time to time. Here, being older, I got more theology, whereby I picked up a few anti-Catholic statements.

For example, as a youth I was told, “Lutherans are nothing more than watered-down Catholics,” and, “The real day of worship is Saturday, not Sunday. The Catholic Church changed the Sabbath.” There were other statements, like, “Some day the Catholic Church will come to an end,” and ridiculing Catholics for “having beer tents at church functions.”

The most memorable moment, however, came when I was talking to a Seventh-day Adventist member about the different beliefs of various denominations, when he ended by saying, “Whatever you do, don’t become Catholic. Catholics worship Mary.”
Still, I wasn’t quite ready for Baptism, as that was left up to me when I was “ready,” as Dad recommended. It wasn’t until 2000 that I was ready, yet becoming aware of the countless “denominations” out there I really didn’t know where to go. So it was, one particular day at work I prayed, “Lord, I don’t know where to go from here. Please lead me.”

That SAME afternoon I was talking to a close friend of mine who knew I had begun taking my Christian faith seriously. On her own volition that day she had called the Director of Religious Education (DRE) of her parish to inquire about the possibility of Baptism for me. So when I called her that same day of my prayer, and she said to me, “I spoke with the DRE of my parish and we thought you might be interested in the RCIA program for Baptism,” I was shocked.

I immediately recognized that the Holy Spirit had just answered my prayer through her, a member of the Body of Christ! It was the call to Baptism, and so it was obvious! But in the Catholic Church?

Of course, it wasn’t until I joined the RCIA classes that I learned that Catholics do not worship Mary. However, I still lacked theological understanding about the Sabbath and the role of the pope, yet I persevered on to the call to Baptism.
Now, it wasn’t until after my Baptism that I discovered the truth of the Catholic teaching concerning the presence of God’s grace at Baptism. Hereafter I discovered those theological resources I was looking for, one of which came from Catholics who cared about a new Catholic like me.



Mr. and Mrs. Mangehra borrowed me Dr. Scott Hahn’s lecture set, “Answering Common Objections to the Catholic Faith,” in which he addressed the role of the pope, the role of Mary, the Communion of Saints, the Eucharist, and purgatory. Dr. Hahn also shared his own conversion story as a Protestant minister coming to discover the nature of the new covenant with the Church and the later rise of “denominations” since the 16th century.

Herein I discovered my love of Christ’s “original Church,” as I like to call it, my love of theology, and my desire to teach the ancient Christian faith. Thus, as noted before, it wasn’t until after my conversion that I found my calling and could finally enter college for a theology degree.

In the statement mentioned earlier put out by Father Richard Hilgartner, he acknowledged that new Church members remind all Catholics that this period after baptism is “ongoing and essentially what all members of the Church do throughout our lives.” He pointed out that it is their time also to perpetually “grow deeper in faith and relationship with Christ, constantly discerning his will.”

This RCI year of 2009-2010, as in years past since my own conversion, I have had a care and love for those who have also taken that step to enter into full communion with the Church. My wife and I are both sponsors to other adults who will be receiving Baptism, Confirmation, and First Holy Communion.

At the same time, as the Church and Father Hilgartner has called us to this Lent, I also seek to go deeper in my union with Jesus Christ. More learning about The Faith is essential for continued intellectual conversion. And more time spent in prayer, more frequenting the Sacrament of Confession, and more receiving the precious gift of Christ in the Holy Eucharist are essential for spiritual conversion.