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I would like to tell you about my journey in faith:
It all started sometime in the summer of 2006. I spent the night at my friends house and he invited me to his church that Sunday. I thought why not and decided to go. (BTW he’s Catholic.) So I went to church with him and I thought “Wow! I really like the Catholic church service!!” and so I went to Catholic mass every other Sunday then it became every Sunday that summer. That fall, I asked the Priest how can I become a Catholic and he told me about the RCIA class and so I went to RCIA classes the spring of 2007.
It was a beautiful Easter service!! The candle lights, the sermons, everything!!! I was waiting for this day after much studying of the Catholic faith in the RCIA classes. I was baptized because after much looking into my previous faith, they thought it was illegitimate. (the reason being is that I used to belong to the Reorganized Church of Latter-day Saints now known as the Community of Christ. Since this Church had ties with the Mormons, they decided to re-baptize me.)
Problem is, I didn’t look for other church doctrines to make a final decision on whether or not i should become a Catholic. I just agreed what the Catholics said about doctrines.
Nevertheless, it was a wonderful ordeal of joining the one,holy, catholic and apostolic church. I decided to get involved in the Church. I went to confession as often as I can (mostly for the same sins, unfortunately,) the Vacation Bible school as a helper, and i helped out with Alter serving. I always enjoyed doing this and I tried every Sunday to do so. After a few months of this, I thought God was trying to tell me to join the ministry; to become a priest. So I thought “hey, that’s pretty neat!”
Then it changed that winter.
I met my girlfriend (before we became boyfriend and girlfriend,) and we started to hang out often and did activities with each other. I told my girlfriend that I was Catholic and she told me that she’s a Lutheran and that her father was the Pastor of the LC-MS Lutheran church she attended. It didn’t bother me that she was a Lutheran. One Sunday, she invited me to her church and I decided to go. (Prior to this, my step father told me that the Lutherans, especially the LC-MS Lutherans, were very close to the Catholics in teachings, etc.) I really enjoyed the service.
That spring of 2008, I was heading back from state journalism with a 3rd place medal for editorial cartooning. I was texting her asking her questions such as “are Lutherans allowed to marry Catholics?” She responded “Yes but they rather have both couples be Lutheran because it’s a little bit easier dealing with stuff” or something of that sort I couldn’t remember. It’s been a year since this reading this text. Then at that moment, I started to think, should I change my religious ideas for her?
She told me that I shouldn’t. I even think I shouldn’t change for her. I should change only for myself. Later, her father had a class called “Introduction to Lutheran Spirituality.” It truly was a wonderful class and I did learn a lot. After a few of these classes, Pastor gave me the Book of Concord as a gift. I asked how could i repay him but he insisted that it’s a gift.
Then it began to get worse for me. I didn’t go to confession thinking that should I be sorry for having thoughts of becoming a Lutheran and leaving the Catholic church? I thought these thoughts of questioning the Church were either sinful and needed to be confessed or normal. I didn’t go to mass because of these thoughts which in return I couldn’t accept communion.
One day, the local priest came to my house, (he doesn’t live too far from me,) and asked me if I can go on a walk with him. We talked about mostly the main doctrines of the Church and discussed the Reformation as well. I thought that this talk was helpful, but also frustrating (since I still had these thoughts of leaving.) I still was confused about some dogmas and I still held on to some Lutheran and Catholics ideas; it was a breaking point for me.
I was looking around on the web and found out about this website. I found the discussions helpful and decided to have some questions answered by joining.
I wanted to have these questions answered before I made any final decision of leaving or staying.
I hope everyone at aboutcatholics.com can help me. I do feel terrible for questioning the Church in the first place and I hope that people won’t look at me like a heretic or a traitor but rather as a friend.
I’m so sorry about my thoughts, words and deeds, and may God bless you all.