Becoming Catholic at a Baptist School

and why I joined the Church

On a bright Sunday morning in downtown Birmingham, at the Cathedral of St. Paul, I stood before an assembly of people professing my faith in the Church. Giddy with excitement, a smile permeated my expression and my step held an undeniable bounce. My confirmation sponsor, Claire– my beloved sorority chaplain, friend, and mentor– laid her hand ever so gently on my shoulder as chrism oil was placed upon my forehead in the sign of the cross. Behind me, I felt my friends’ own smiling faces, expressions of pride and joy as they watched me take these next steps in my faith journey… in my conversion journey.

This was this past March 2nd– a day I will always remember because it was the day I officially joined the Catholic Church. After nearly a year of discernment, prayer, tears, and much joy in trial, I have joined the Church.

For an outsider looking in, this may seem like a minute decision, whereas others may understand the gravity of it. For my evangelical non-denominational family who sat in the pew beside me as I made this decision, it was certainly a confusing one. Yet, there is something my dad said to me recently that permeates my memory:

“Madison, we raised you in an Evangelical household, by all standards. You went on a month-long mission trip to Zambia Africa, and you attend a Baptist school. Surely,” he told me over the phone, “God had to have had a hand in this decision.”

…

When I started at Samford University, I was a Christian Ministry major hot off the plane from Zambia. This mission trip, with a Charismatic Evangelical organization, set my soul aflame with a passion and desire to serve the Lord and share His gospel message. Within my first few weeks at college, I had taken to the streets to share the gospel with Jehovah’s Witnesses, hosted girls in my dorm room and prayed over them, and participated in multiple theological debates.

My soul had been touched with a spark of passion for evangelization that was quickly burning into a brilliant flame. My hands and feet were being used in every possible way I could muster as the hands and feet of Jesus. Having come from a public high school, the natural incorporation of faith in the classroom struck me as the richest spiritual and intellectual food.

And yet…

And yet, I was slowly starting to feel immensely burnt out and theologically confused. A dialogue with a friend who swore up and down I must be a Calvinist (and was shocked when I revealed I deeply disagreed with Calvinism) left me feeling slightly at odds with the Christians around me. My mission trip, though deeply fruitful and one I had very clearly been called to by the Lord, had offered some far-fetched theological views such as baptism in the Holy Spirit¹ and the ability to go entirely without sin.² These left me altogether disoriented as someone who was raised with great faith and little theology– or perhaps a better word would be clearly defined theology.

I knew my basic Protestant (Baptist leaning) beliefs: Once saved always saved, Sola Scriptura, believers baptism, etc. But, I slowly began to realize I wasn’t sure why I believed these things. I had always been taught that these things were true but I was beginning to ask myself why I believed that they were.

Classes only furthered this challenge. In my first and second semesters, in a class on classic literature, we read works by Martin Luther and John Calvin. I found myself disenchanted.

“These are the men we look up to?” I seemed to ask myself.

When reading Catholic documents from this time, classmates would strawman Catholic views and I found myself playing ‘devil’s advocate,’ annoyed at their lack of understanding. Perhaps this should have been one of my first signs I was deviating from the path my parents had laid out for me.

Later, in my second semester of college, in a Christian Ministry class, a classmate raised their hand to ask a question about 1 John 5: 16-17.

“Dr. Peterson,³” he asked, “doesn’t this verse insinuate you can lose your salvation?”

He asked the question I was too scared of.

I looked down at my Bible where I had marked the same thing, wondering what my professor would answer. Over the course of the year, he was a man I had grown to deeply admire. He seemed solid on theological matters and I deeply trusted his judgements. I felt he would surely have a wise answer to this question as he always seemed to.

“Well,” Dr. Peterson stated, “that is a slippery slope.”

My head turned to the side. A slippery slope?

“I mean if we say you lose your salvation then there comes the question of what does that? What qualifies as making us ‘lose’ salvation?” he responded.

I’m not sure if I knew it then– though, I certainly know now– but the Catholic Church held the answer to that question.

What I did know then, was that the answer felt insufficient from a Bible scholar and left me feeling deeply unsatisfied. Somewhere far off in the concaves of my mind, I was beginning to deconstruct the Protestant Christianity I was raised in.

Other questions inevitably came up. Things I had thought about for years. I had been deeply convicted about birth control a year or two earlier and found the fact the Catholic Church mirrored that stance fascinating. In fact, I found the fact that up until the 1930’s every church across denominations was vehemently against birth control fascinating. I had listened to many Catholic political and social commentators for years and, for the first time, I started to consider some of the things they said and why it was that I liked what they had to say.

Other things happened too. One night, I was at a church Bible study and at the conclusion of praying my hand came up to touch my forehead and I froze.

I had instinctively gone to make the sign of the cross.

Nothing had prompted it.

No thought. No mention of Catholics. No premeditated action. It just happened. I had not made the sign of the cross since I was 11 years old at a less than one-year stint at a Catholic school. While I shook this moment off as nothing other than a weird coincidence, I now undoubtedly feel it must have been a move of the Holy Spirit. It was a physical movement prompted by a spiritual call.

…

In the midst of my spiritual turmoil, I was a month out from my first semester of college ending and my time at a Christian camp as a counselor starting. Immensely burnt out from school and in a state of spiritual confusion, I felt ill-equipped to guide any young girls towards the Lord when I had entirely lost my vocabulary to describe my faith. If hard questions came up, I worried I would fail to answer. So in very un-Madisonlike fashion (because I strongly believe in honoring commitments) I told the camp I would be unable to serve with them.

Tentatively, I went home for the summer unsure of what it held. I did not know where I would work or if I would even have a job. Surely enough, in His goodness, the Lord provided me with a job at a slow boutique where the owner allowed me to read, write, or watch TV if the shop was empty. This left me with an average of six empty hours a day to explore…

And explore I did.

Dozens of pontifical documents, hundreds of hours of theological videos watched, Reformation documents, and Reformation responses. I took in so much information I felt that at times I was drowning. But, I was drowning across the Tiber. The water burned my lungs but I was fighting my way across.

A turning point emerged when I learned about the Eucharist. I thought to myself: “If a church as large and long-lasting as the Catholic Church claims to have my Lord, blood, soul, and divinity, well… I need to understand.”

Growing up Protestant, I had no idea what the Eucharist was or meant. I only knew a symbolic communion. But when I read the Early Church Fathers it was clear my “symbolic” communion was nowhere near their imaginings.

As St. Ignatius of Antioch said,⁴ “Take note of those who hold heterodox opinions on the grace of Jesus Christ which has come to us, and see how contrary their opinions are to the mind of God. . . . They abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer because they do not confess that the Eucharist is the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ, flesh which suffered for our sins and which that Father, in his goodness, raised up again. They who deny the gift of God are perishing in their disputes” (Letter to the Smyrnaeans 6:2–7:1 [A.D. 110], bold added for emphasis).

In this moment, I was the one who was contrary to God. I was the one denying His flesh, though I had no awareness to acknowledge it in the first place. I was deeply convicted that I needed to continue to understand– to press on and learn more.

And yet… the Eucharist made so much sense to me. If I believed my God could part the Red Sea, bring the dead to life, and take on human flesh then certainly He could take on the form of bread too.

Once a week after work, I would call my sorority Chaplain, the same sweet girl who became my confirmation sponsor. Claire, one of the only faithful Catholics I had ever encountered, asked me questions with gentle ease and fervor of heart.

At one point, she asked me once what I thought of the Eucharist, and when I responded, “It makes sense! I have no problem believing it,” she told me that I had all I needed. Even though I didn’t see it that way at the time, it was true.

To know and to believe in the Eucharist leaves you nowhere else to turn.

…

By the end of summer, I was 85% convinced the Church had it all right and about 95% sure that the leftover 15% was my Protestant misunderstanding. When school started in the fall, I began attending a Catholic parish.

But, within a few weeks, this fell apart.

I missed the former community of my Protestant church from the past school year. I also felt like a spiritual outsider on campus. I felt like I was harboring some sort of horrible secret– like I was a spy in a foreign land.

To feel like less of a spy, I caved and began going back to my Protestant Church. I distinctly remember whispering to God, “No. No, God it is too hard to be Catholic. If this is what you want for me you will have to be a lot clearer. I just can’t do it.”

For three weeks I attended that Protestant Church and my heart ached to go to Mass. I couldn’t help but feel something was missing– perhaps someone. I plugged back into the Bible study I had been a part of from the last school year and found myself strangely unable to attend with required events always happening the night of the study.

At the same time, the Lord was at work. I remember one night dejectedly and half-heartedly whispering a prayer where I asked God to make things clear if He wanted me to become Catholic. A long story I will keep short here but that you can read elsewhere on Catharsis, the Lord answered my prayer in miraculous and altogether convicting ways. He so directly answered me that I was unable to ignore Him, despite the way I so wished that I could.

And I was heartbroken.

The Lord was calling me to a place I wanted nothing to do with. Despite my attraction to the liturgy, the lifestyle, and the general movements of Catholic faith, actually being a part of that was terrifying and life-altering.

Sitting on my roommate’s bedroom floor, I sobbed, telling her all my fears and concerns about becoming Catholic. Reflecting now, I realize the sum of these fears was desolation. I worried that becoming Catholic would leave me on an island alone, stripped of community, family, friends, and the longing of my heart to one day have a family of my own. These fears were ill-founded and yet profoundly real to me at the time.

Even while I logically knew that the Lord would not abandon me in obedience, my heart refused to accept or trust in that. Nonetheless, I knew what I needed to do.

I needed to obey.

I began to attend Mass again which– while a joy– was accompanied by continual wrestle with the Lord.

Soon after, as I decided I needed to officially leave my Bible study at my Protestant church, I was invited to a Catholic Bible study with FOCUS.⁵ I was also introduced to the missionary who would eventually lead me through OCIA,⁶ something I knew I needed to do but had been unable to because of scheduling conflicts.

Gently. Kindly. Patiently. The Lord met me.

My heart while fragile was gently cradled in His hands, nurtured and watered until I was ready to be placed down and grow roots.

And slowly but surely, as my roots grew, and I grew more steady. I began to share my little secret with close friends. I told them all I had learned and all that the Lord had done and was met with deep kindness.

As I grew in confidence, so did my fervor and conviction. Ever so slowly my 15% was dwindling to 14%, 13%, 10%, 5%, until it was nearly 0%.

…

It is hard to characterize the following time in mere words, though I did in other posts I have written– which I invite you to read if curious. But I think the best word to describe this time would be a Heavenly courtship. In the following months, the Lord courted my heart through His Church. And at some point along the way, as one does in courting… I fell in love.

It was not one distinct moment but rather a compilation of moments.

The more I loved His Church the more I trusted God– and the inverse, the more I loved and trusted God the more I grew to love and trust His Church.

By December, I was walking in a new boldness and confidence in sharing my newfound faith despite the fact I had not fully admitted it to myself yet.

In fact, my love for the Church and my assurance in it was not fully realized until one day in December. In the back of my mind, I had known that I would eventually join the Church. Despite my hesitation– perhaps like the hesitation of a bride– I knew deep down that the Church had won my heart. I just wasn’t ready to admit it yet. Or better yet, I had not admitted it to myself yet.

One evening during Christmas break in a conversation about Catholicism my mom remarked, “It sounds like you are growing more sure you will join the Catholic Church…”

Without missing a beat I responded, “I am going to be joining it.”

It wasn’t until after I responded that I realized the truth of my words.

I was sure.

Sometime in the new year, I was going to join the Church.

…

When New Years Eve came, I rang in the New Year by going to SEEK⁷ Conference in Salt Lake City, Utah. And while much happened, the most beautiful was my encounter with the Lord in the Eucharist and the community that stemmed from it.

I came back to Birmingham with a multitude of wonderful devoutly Catholic friends who enraptured me in steadfast waves of love. Every movement and motion that they had in my direction felt like an outpour from the Father.

When I was confirmed this past week, it was those same dear friends who showered me in love and joy at joining the Church. And even friends and classmates who were not Catholic came and enshrouded me in love.

The Lord has done an immense amount in so large and so short a span of time in my life, but I hope to conclude with this:

The One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church is what it claims to be. There is freedom and deep joy found in the gift of reconciliation. There is an abundance in this place. I invite you to come and taste and see that the Lord is good. Come and feel the embrace of Mother Church.

It is not easy.

No.

It was not.⁸

But it was profoundly beautiful and I am revelling in the bountiful gifts that have come from this.

I am deeply assured that this is where the Lord called me. I am certain.

And if you feel the call, I pray you will lean in and listen.

After all, you don’t jump from a non-denominational charismatic to Catholic overnight at a Baptist University.

But if the Lord so tells you to jump, you do.

My confirmation! On the left is me (Madison) and to my right is my confirmation sponsor, Claire.

1. “Baptism in the Holy Spirit” refers to the theological belief that after initial conversion and baptism, one can receive an additional outpouring of the Holy Spirit that usually results in spiritual gifts (most commonly associated with speaking in tongues). This theological belief is highly tied the the Charismatic movement in Christianity and Assemblies of God.

2. I am not sure what the formal name for this theological belief is but it stems from Bible verses such as Galatians 5:16, 1 John 3: 9-10, Romans 6:6-7. The belief is that if one is “in step with the Spirit” they can entirely overcome the desire/ action of sinning and therefore will no longer sin. This of course ignores verses such as 1 John 1:8 which reminds us that if we claim to be without sin we deceive ourselves.

3. Name changed for the protection of this professor’s identity.

4. For more check out: Churchfathers.org

5. FOCUS stands for the Fellowship of Catholic University Students. FOCUS missionaries serve and equip Catholic students to live out their faith while also reaching out to non-believing and Protestant students.

6. OCIA stands for the Order of Christian Initiation for Adults and is the process one undergoes to join the Catholic Church. These are typically done through a parish, my case is incredibly atypical.

7. SEEK is a conference put on by FOCUS for college students. Many speakers come and give talks for a series of days and Mass is given each day. If you are familiar with Passion Conference, this is essentially the Catholic version of that.

8. I expand a lot more into the hardships and challenges I faced in my other articles and would encourage you to read those if you haven’t already! I think they give deeper insight into this experience than a mere summary can.