Later that week I had lunch with my former pastor, and noticed that he was awfully cheerful for someone who had just lost his livelihood. Not a trace of self-pity or anger. I asked him about it. “You see, Heidi, I’ve been studying the Church Fathers for more than a year—long before I started RCIA. That study has transformed my life, and made me more certain than I have ever been that this is where I belong.”

He gave me several tapes and books, which I consumed voraciously. I had been through Bible school, had been on several short-term missions trips, and had spent the first 30 years in my life visiting nearly every Evangelical denomination in existence.

Fourteen years ago, I sneaked into my first Catholic Mass. And I knew I was home. It took a while to iron out the theological wrinkles … but I was amazed to discover that I had been fed a bill of goods. That once I studied what the Church ACTUALLY teaches, from authoritative texts such as the Catechism, that I realized that (in the words of Archbishop Fulton Sheen),

“There are not a hundred people … who hate the Catholic Church. There are millions, however, who hate what they wrongly believe to be the Catholic Church— which is, of course, quite a different thing.” (Radio Replies, 1938)

It sounds as though God has a journey ahead for you, too. There will likely be people on both sides of the ecclesiological divide that have strong opinions about what direction you should take. Try to tune them out when you can … and trust Lord to speak to you Himself. Here’s a little post that might help:

....Is there a list somewhere? How do I get off of it? I’ve got hyper Lutherans taking over IM and an army of converted Catholics coming through the email box. Does somebody win money if they bag me?

What would it take for one of you to write a stranger and tell him that his Christianity was a “bill of goods?”