Becky Mayhew: A Southern Baprist Who Became A Catholic - The Journey Home (3-29-2010)

good evening and welcome to the journey home my name is Marcus Grodi your host for this program there's a story in the Gospels where Jesus first challenges his disciples to follow him oh they're out there messing with their nets and he tells them basically to drop their nets and to get up and to follow him they'll be fishers of men and in this radical call this radical change to move and follow Jesus now this radical call of course is not just for those disciples it's for every one of us and sometimes when we seek to follow Christ it requires sacrifice sometimes he calls us to follow him in two directions we never dreamed and that's what the journey home program is all about our guests who love Christ end up discovering the beauty of his church and are drawn home to the church usually a church we didn't ever anticipate that's what our guest is going to talk about tonight on this program our guest is Becky Mayhew she's a former Southern Baptist it's something that's about as far away from the Catholic Church this is something but we'll talk about that that oh she love Jesus Christ and we certainly share a lot in common with her Southern Baptist brothers and sisters yet the idea becoming Catholic is often the last thing on the mind of a Southern Baptist and Becky will talk about that in a moment so Becky first of all I want to welcome you to the journey home program and I was thinking before the program I wanted to thank you for the great hospitality you showed me when I was down in Kentucky that one time when we was my pleasure good Mexican food that was great that was down there visiting with our good friend Bruce Sullivan and his family and and and he's actually the one that introduced us yes so it's great to see you again good friends Bruce and Gloria all right well on the journey home you've seen the journey on program so you know where I always begin and that's to invite you to take a large step back and kind of give us a summary of your spiritual upbringing I was the firstborn child to a young couple in the ministry my dad was a Southern Baptist preacher although he often referred to himself as Missionary Baptist which would be a clue to anyone who was familiar with those words that he was very conservative or we would say fundamentalist in his house does that mean that kind of imply when he saw themselves as a missionary that he saw that everybody around him needed conversion well what I mean that this was a mission field yes yes and my mother was very devoted pastor's wife she gave her life to the ministry of being a very effective pastor's wife and she set the example for me even today I reflect on how she conducted herself and how she spent her time what her priorities were she taught me to love God with all my heart and to seek to obey the will of God and to be active in my local church and to look around for people needing my help my father was my pastor from the time I was an infant until I married and of course it was not just Sunday morning sermons but Sunday evening sermons Wednesday night Bible studies Bible School in the summertime he also was my teacher in the third grade in the eighth grade so you can put all that together and get an idea of how many words I heard him speak in a lifetime about God so they formed me to be a devout Christian the Lord was at the center of our home at the center of our lives and I had great joy in my walk with the Lord I did everything I knew to do to maximize what it was supposed to be but the older I got I was sensing something was missing and I didn't quite know what it was I began to focus it on the Lord's Supper I was dissatisfied because there was your reverence sometimes did you celebrate the Lord's Supper then as a southern back we were Southern Baptists it was just my father's eccentricity I like to refer to himself as a Missionary Baptist but we were Southern Baptist it was I don't want to give a misimpression it was reverent but there were things like slideshows with pictures for people to look at as they were preparing to to take the bread and the grape juice where the young people would give a skit on the crucifixion with their poles crossing them to make the crosses and I wanted silence I wanted contemplation and I began to realize that I was a real odd Paul among the people in my church you know I'd like to comment about that because having been a an evangelical pastor myself you know I understand what they were trying to do you're they're trying to sincerely do the best they can with the new media the new availability of things to say wow these are our gifts that we've got from God how do we use these to bring people closer to Jesus Christ so the visual images the the plays and all of that gets a kid it's all kinds of goods things sometimes the good can can overshadow the better and another question I was gonna ask you I didn't mean to interrupt your flow but yeah and you were brought up in a very conservative Baptist what was your feeling towards not just the Catholic Church but other Christians well as a child I knew the Methodists were not Christians Marcus because the ladies played bridge narrow it was in in my mind and I was scandalized although we did not use that word scandalized as a child I was skin the last when I learned that the lady who was the president of the women's missionary Union danced with her husband and the privacy of their home now it seems very bizarre but we just didn't dance at least at that time that was a long time ago when I was a girl now you find Southern Baptists dancing all the time but anyone who played cards or except old maid but they couldn't be a real Christian so the Catholic Church ever come up and I heard that about the worst thing a girl could do would be to marry a Catholic and I asked what is a Catholic well they worship idols and they pray to Mary and I said well where are the Catholics in this town and I was told well we don't have any here so I thought okay I'm safe there's no danger one of these bizarre folks there was just no we had no Catholic friends no Catholic acquaintances we grew up thinking that they were bad people who worshipped idols and it was just sad yeah just sad but it is interesting that the Lord was using the Lord's Supper as you know John the Cross would talk about the dark night of the soul well this was kind of a very small little dark night in the sense of an emptiness using the Lord's Supper in your life as a seed of emptiness to say there's more I was craving something and and I talked to more than one minister about it I even typed a very long letter to one Minister expressing my sense of discomfort at at the movement and people singing solos while I was trying to prepare for what was a very intimate profound thing for me and I was told well I respect what you're wanting but it isn't what others need or want and we need to address their needs so that was one thing that that I became aware of and I began to want more formality in the service as the Southern Baptist Church was moving toward even greater informality and I felt sort of like a misfit I saw other changes in my life for some odd reason I began to want physical representations of my faith in my home I think there must be a rule about size if you know like at Christmas you could have a nativity set if it was small but if you had a great big Mary there might be questions but the Baptist bookstore had these little white or off-white statues of Jesus depicting scenes from his life and before I knew it I had six of those and they were displayed on my mantle and I just drew strength and comfort from seeing them in my home and then I was buying religious paintings and hanging them on my walls and one day I was walking through my dining room and I made the sign of the Cross and I thought this is strange making the sign of the Cross well by then something very surprising had happened I had prayed for 28 years that my son would find a beautiful Christian woman with whom he could worship the Lord and serve Jesus and that together they could rear their children in a Christian home he married a Catholic lady I was shocked she was wonderful precious I respected her and liked her immensely but I was not prepared for a Catholic daughter-in-law even when you got married and your husband of the same faith my husband was reared as a free will baptist he was we were very similar except he was in Armenian and I was Calvinist I believed in eternal security he believed in the possibility of apostasy and that also once in a while over coffee well my father and he exchanged writings for twelve years arguing back and forth and so I became very familiar with some of the troubling verses in Hebrews that a lot of Southern Baptists don't pay any attention to Hebrews 6:4 and you know if it's your daddy and your husband who you're gonna root for and I I spawned 'red those passages myself and I I just decided okay I'm just going to be agnostic on this issue and I'll wait until I get to heaven to find out which of the two men is correct because I can't figure it out so I just sort of set it off to the side and even when I taught Sunday school I would say here's the Southern Baptist position on this issue my father always said this my husband always said that and I'm still not sure which of the two is is correct because I was in an either-or mentality not a both and neither in an or situation in one of the most important issues though salvation yes and can you lose it can you lose it or not is the big question very big question yeah I remember my own days of seminary when I was at or evangelical seminary people would fight over that issue over and over and I don't know people who lost friendships never spoke to each other ever again because of that issue and they're both based on on their love for the Bible their love for Christ and there was an American soul so he wasn't open to the Catholic Church by any means your husband no no so it really was just your daughter-in-law was the first I well my husband was a university professor a philosopher he had a doctorate in philosophy and so I moved a great deal from my narrow fundamentalist childhood into adulthood living with a with a masse a brilliant professor and a philosopher I minored in philosophy in college we were in a university town we were invited to dinner parties at the homes of other university professors as a brand new professor's wife I was scandalized when I was offered beer no liquor at all in my background or my husband's background but that was the first year and I was a professor's wife for many years and so I became I don't want to say sophisticated but I was no longer shocked that Christian women could play bridge or that Christian men and women might enjoy a glass of wine with a fine dinner so I'd changed a great deal and I had met people of various races and religions including Catholics William F Buckley had come to the University to give a conference and one of our friends had transported him to the airport and had enjoyed one-on-one conversation and came back saying do you know what I believe William F Buckley is a Christian Wow if that Catholic is a Christian there must be others yeah there must be other Catholics who are Christians so you know the horizons were extended and my outlet broadened and I moved a great deal from that original fundamentalism another thing that that puzzles me that I usually don't put together conservative Baptists and philosophy you know I'm saying because usually that's the traditions of man you know the the scriptures that always talked against the traditions of men and the philosophies of man that a lot of Baptist universities have no philosophy teaching or classes at all well it was an unusual situation there was a State University but the head of the philosophy department originally I think had been the only faculty member and then he had the opportunity to form it and pretty soon we had it was a combination philosophy and religion department and for the most part that people were evangelicals that didn't remain the case you can't do that in a state university but for many years most of the members in that department were evangelicals but after my husband's death I went through profound grief of course I was knocked to my knees God used that pain to help form me and prepare me for what was going to come I had the openness to some of the scriptures that a lot of Baptists haven't dealt with because of my husband's Arminianism and his conversations with my dad and as I mentioned I had this craving for the Eucharist although I would never have used the word Eucharist and I wasn't if you had asked me what is it that you think you're supposed to get from it I wouldn't have said grace because we didn't speak in those words but I knew that was supposed to be getting something and I began to pray when that when the minister would stand and say now we understand that this is only symbolic I would privately ignore him and say in my own prayer to God God come to me give me what I'm supposed to get from this another change I saw in myself was an attitude toward Authority I had been arrogant somewhat of a lone ranger and you know people vote on things in the Baptist Church and I was always faithful I I I sing in the choir I sing solos I taught an adult ladies sunday-school class forever but if some other program came up like a stewardship campaign or a building program or a new policy that I didn't care for I just quietly looked the other way and did my thing and was not supportive as I should have been of the leadership well all of a sudden I found myself thinking I really should support these young fellows you know they were not that much older than my son at that point and when we got a new group of pastors in I decided I was going to turn over a new leaf and when they began certain things that I didn't really care for I went in for a private session with them and gave them my support and and I was very surprised this was happening because this was a real change in me and I didn't know at the time God was preparing me to accept Church authority in the Catholic Church but I just had this sense that I needed to humble myself under the leadership and work with the group in a cooperative spirit instead of hanging back and being the Church of Becky when my son married this Catholic lady Sheryl I thought okay if I'm going to make a Baptist of her and have my grandchildren reared as Baptist I need to find out what she believes so that I can formulate my arguments against it she pretty outspoken in her Catholicism or was well gentle about it I'd say forthright sensitive candid open but but not in-your-face she was as I would want her to be it's a good Catholic very devout parent who became my friends her brother was a priest he became my friend because the families were together for celebrations and so forth so I had the opportunity to not only get to know a Catholic family but to become family with a very devout Catholic family and that was a real eye-opener they had a peace and a joy that I wanted there was something in them that I wanted and the question was how do I get it by while remaining work and the more I studied Catholicism the more I realized I had been misinformed badly about a lot of things in my childhood concerning Catholicism and I realized there weren't as many discrepancies as I had thought and that some of the discrepancies were not insurmountable there were some that seemed insurmountable but I was able to talk privately with my daughter-in-laws brother and another friend and by the way these were gentlemen from the fathers of Mercy her near where you live yes 11 miles from where I live and when my daughter-in-law came to visit I would go to Mass with her out of love for her and to set an example for my son that he should be going to church with his wife and then she would visit my Baptist Church with me and so I didn't know the danger I was in sitting through all these masses and then I would ask questions of her brother and another friend when they would come home two fathers of Mercy at Christmas and summers I would take them to dinner we would talk all through dinner go out come back to my house for another three hours discussing the Catholic Church so I had a rare opportunity God was so generous to me to be with Ruth and yes just one-on-one conversation your first experience with the mass must have been a radical difference than all of your Southern Baptists worship experiences yes there were very many a slideshow is going on the reverence I loved the reverence I loved the pageantry I loved the beauty the beauty and you know we were taught that Catholics didn't know much about the Bible and to hear when on a Sunday Mass when the priest would elevate the scriptures and do this little march over to the way we would call it the pulpit and the baddest faith there was it was it was a big deal hey we're gonna read the Bible and they read a lot of Bible did you stand at the Baptist Church when the gospel was read you did okay because a lot of Protestants of course don't you know but it was a lot of Scripture and so one by one I started working through these issues that were troubling me I began watching EWTN found journey home and watched many of the journey home episodes and in one show you had the website address at the bottom of the screen and I found the forum the coming home network international forum I began watching our reading that and was really drawn into that and I liked it that I could read it and nobody knew that I was reading it or how many hours I was spending reading it and I had a lot of my questions answered they're a lot of help there without anyone knowing you know I'm glad you mentioned that because sometimes we wonder you know when you to manage a forum like that it takes a lot of time and a lot of very skilled people and but you don't always know whether it's making a difference in people's lives well it made a tremendous difference in my life and of course now I have moved to from being one of the lurkers who's not even a member to being a member who participates and answer some of the questions that come in and if you don't mind while we're speaking about it I'll just put in a little plug we have Dave Armstrong is a wonderful apologist and we're so fortunate to have him right there someone of that caliber is really the coordinator and we have David Emery who is the network helper who is a master of spiritual theology and answers questions on a personal level that most people wouldn't want discussed on the open forum and together they Shepherd a lot of us and teach us what we need to know beyond just the basics of what the church wants us to believe assuming that maybe on the on the screen there might be a link actually to the forum in case anyone's interested well it's out yeah to go ahead and check that out how long did you lurk probably about two years and then I couldn't stand it anymore I I wanted to ask my own question so I finally bit the bullet one night and and and joined although I waited until after I had already been confirmed did you chose to do that I I resisted I watched the funeral proceedings for John Paul the second twice that's a lot of hours watching Catholic doings on television and then I was enthralled with the selection of the new pope and I had heard a lot about Cardinal Ratzinger I had seen his one-on-one interview with Raymond Arroyo and and was delighted when he was selected when he came out on the balcony in his new attire and held his hands up there was a supernatural thrill of the Holy Spirit that said to me this is the head of the church and I thought I said okay from now on I will pay attention to what he says so I tried being a Baptist who paid attention to the catholic pope and that was a strange state which didn't work really well regulus we're gonna take a break right now because that's a great place to pause you know a Southern Baptist trying to take attention and listen to the catholic pope because immediately now it's not just gonna be our minion Calvinists in a lot of the theologies you're gonna have to examine right and that's what we're going through so let's take a break and we'll come back won't pick up there welcome back to the journey home our guest tonight is Becky made you and thank you in the middle of your journey the allman remind the audience that this Wednesday at 2:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time on EWTN radio I want you to tune into deep in Scripture my guest this week will be Curtis Martin good friend he's the president of focus fellowship of Catholic University students he'll be joining us to share a verse he never saw that's this Wednesday 2:00 p.m. Eastern Time it's also read at 9:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time on EWTN radio so I'll see you then all right Becky let's pick up where we left off you were describing yourself as a good faithful Southern Baptist to all of a sudden now is at least listening to the catholic pope it's not the usual thing for a Southern Baptist a very strange place to be I had had this craving for something more in the in liturgy and formality in whatever it was I was supposed to be getting and felt I wasn't getting from the Lord's Supper feeling a new willingness to be cooperative rather than solitary in my walk with the church and with God recognizing the Pope as the head of the Christian faith on earth but I did not at all want to become a Catholic I had I had suffered much adjusting to widowhood I was very lonely grief grief stricken for several years and my family my mother my sisters had been my rocks my support I don't know how I would have made it without them and we were always intensely close a very close family and at the heart of that closeness was our shared walk with God and I knew how hurtful it would be to them I couldn't imagine looking at my mother by then in her 80s and saying guess what mama I couldn't do it but God wouldn't leave me alone and the more questions I raised with my daughter-in-laws brother and another priest the more answers came and the more grace came and my eyes were opened and things I thought I could never embrace I found myself intellectually able to embrace them and spiritually able to embrace them until the Holy Spirit began nagging at me and nagging at me and I would say alright I'm not having anything to do with anything Catholic at this point no more EWTN for me and no more reading literature no more looking at the forum for me just you know ok the Pope's the head of the church but there's no way I at my age with my background can become a Catholic finally I found myself prostrate on my living room floor weeping saying God I will do whatever you want me to do but you can't seriously be asking me at my age a widow who needs family support and needs this church network and this support of pastors and the Sunday School ladies who came to the funeral home and sat there front and center all during visitation to support me how can i betray all these people i just and i would weep and pray and weep and pray and then reach a certain level of peace by saying I'll do what you want me to do I just don't trust that I am correctly interpreting what it is that you want me to do because it just was too bizarre at my age finally I couldn't stand it anymore after a few more sessions like that and whatever the price is well for me or my loved ones I have to do I have to follow the truth I became convinced it was the truth and that God demanded it of me and there was no option but to walk forward so I emailed my daughter-in-laws brother and I said I need to make an appointment with the priest the Holy Spirit is demanding that I become a Catholic so he referred me to a father's of mercy priests that he thought would have time at that point to work with me and he asked me to my surprise to come that very evening and you can imagine I'm driving out to a religious community of priests and then I found myself in a little room having a one-on-one conversation with a priest and I told him I've come to put myself under your authority I want you to Shepherd me into the Catholic Church well he wanted me to go home after think about it this is a huge decision we're going to move slowly and I said I want the Eucharist tonight and was distressed that I could not receive Jesus then I had a lot to learn but he did take me into the little chapel it was the small more modest chapel at father's of Mercy at that time and he directed my attention to the tabernacle and he said we believe that this is Jesus physically present if you believe that it would be appropriate to genuflect and to say some private words of devotion to Jesus but don't do it if you don't believe it I stood there for a few seconds then I said this is really this is really step up to the plate time so i gen you feed and said Jesus I love you and then he made the sign he dipped his hand in holy water and made the sign of the Cross and prayed some prayers over me in Latin and for a few days after that the Holy Spirit's presence was so powerful I was just overcome with weeping and praying it was quite quite something the fathers of Mercy were so good to me so generous I went out twice a day I drove out there every morning for morning prayer and Mass and then I would drive back in the afternoon for Holy Hour benediction and then I met with my catechist each week sometimes twice a week and after a few months they decided that I was ready in the meantime early on I I wrote my pastors and the ladies in my Sunday School class and explained what had happened and why I could not continue as a Baptist and I am happy to report that that they were kind and generous and supportive it was not so easy for my family they were heartbroken and it was extremely difficult and painful for them and for me we're both your parents still alive I had lost my father as well as my husband and father-in-law but my mother was still living and still is and my sisters and nieces and brother-in-law and it was just very difficult for them I I know you we have some other you know common friends were they involved with your life at this point well thank goodness for Bruce Sullivan when I was going out to the fathers of mercy at the beginning I was so alone so alone hungry for Baptist handshakes and claps on the back eye contact and chitchat about what's going on in your life and then there was cultural adjustments but Bruce Sullivan was there for coffee and doughnuts along with his family and he was someone from my country and he was such a help to me in making the transition from being a Baptist to becoming a Catholic he and Gloria and their family drove all the way from their farm to Russellville for my confirmation that meant a great deal to me I mentioned to the audience that birth Sullivans been on the journey home program a number of times he's a former disciple of Christ Church of Christ minister reared southern Bedford Southern Baptist music he came from the familiar comes country in fact his his conversion book is one of the books that the coming home network publishes in case anyone's it's available through ewtn religious catalogue if you want to find out more about his journey but but he was one that God had dropped into your life yes a hand to hold on to so that I didn't feel quite so alone there were two ladies at the fathers of Mercy who took me under their wing and showed me how to be calm a Catholic matron rather than a Southern Baptist nature and I'll always be grateful to them at my confirmation there were 12 priests from the fathers of mercy who came they were very busy getting ready for ordination but they came anyway and laid hands on me and after that I thought well there's I can't mess up I can't mess up after all these priests have taken the time to come and lay hands on me I've really got to give this my best shot at being a Catholic immediately after my confirmation the Holy Spirit surprised me by laying a whole new burden on my heart I thought I'd get a break you know widowhood was such an adjustment my son married that was an adjustment he was my only child and then I had to become a Catholic I thought I'd get a little rest but no immediately the Holy Spirit was more more and more I want more and I thought what does he want God what what do you want from me I've become a Catholic what what is it that you want well in in my mind I couldn't think of any reason he would be bothering me unless he wanted me to be a nun this older lady and it was just very strange and now it was a time of confusion and to make it worse I won't mention names but someone who had become very important to me in my new walk as a Catholic got into some trouble and and it was just a very painful time for me and at this time God brought two people into my life to rescue me one was a the famous Catholic scholar father Stanley yaki and just how bizarre that a man like that God would drop into my life in Kentucky but is he had a friend who helped him with his books proof read all of his texts and everything and was like a son to him and that man had been my late husband's good friend on the internet and they were in the American cryptography Association together he wanted to meet Larry's Widow and he talked his friend father Stanley yaki into accompanying him to Kentucky to meet Becky Larry's widow so here these two gentlemen these two Catholic Dillman one a very famous priest and scholar came to visit me and we spent two days together visiting Lincoln's boyhood home and my husband's grave in his offices and and father yaki became a very dear friend and someone I could call and say what about this I I had been confirmed but I needed a go-to person and of all the people in the world that God would give me a man like that to go to with my questions and I thought about asking him to be my spiritual director but he thought it was better if we just maintained a friendship father-daughter sort of friendship and so I thought who can I get it to to help me figure out how to become what it is God wants me to do because he's still not satisfied and I looked on the forum and there was my answer David Emery was writing these eloquent profound posts that were very much like what Thomas a Kempis had written in imitation of Christ and I thought here's someone alive and breathing who has the heart of what it means to be the best Catholic you can be and so I asked him will you teach me I'm trying to do the will of God I think I know what I'm supposed to believe but I don't know what am I supposed to do with all of this now how do I proceed I'm kind of lost and bless his heart he agreed and we correspond it on a weekly basis and and here I had these two men father yaki and David Emery and they helped me reach what one of my goals had been and coming into the church and that was to achieve some holiness and some humility yeah if you know anything about Father yaki he did not suffer fools gladly and he never hesitated to tell me when he thought I was a fool and when I would tell him I think maybe God wants me to become a nun he would say what makes you think you are so special that God would ask something that special of you what people never talk to me like that in the baddest tradition and David Emery would feel free to say well it doesn't look to me as if there's much evidence of solid virtue in your lives do you not know who I am I'm the baddest preacher's daughter the Deacons wife a sunday-school teacher all the preachers know I'm holy and God bless them yes it was tough they were tough they were both very tough and there was a lot of suffering involved and reaching some level of humility and holiness but that's what it's all about you don't learn that as a Baptist but I was learning it with their help as a cap Oh another common friend I want to make sure to ask you a question about was it at this point in time that good old father Ben Luther got involved with your journey I knew a father Luther through Bruce Sullivan because he had been instrumental in bringing Bruce into the church I talked about father Martin was there we're talking about a contemporary brother men former himself former disciples of Christ brought up an unconverted than them in it I met him at a Marian shrine conference went and introduced myself because my maiden name was Luther and it turns out that we are distant cousins and that was a good feeling it was like wow I have a relative even though a distant relative a family member who is in the church I'm not the complete only one of the Luthor family who is in the Catholic Church he took me under his wing and I learned that he was the spiritual director for the OCDs group the secular Carmelite third order which was meeting in Owensboro once a month and David Emery suggested that I check that out that maybe that's what God was wanting of me and so father Luther and I became friends and before I knew it he had asked me to serve on the Marian shrine committee and so I began having my adoration time there at the shrine in Bowling Green and having some conversations with father Luther and singing my relationship with the Blessed Mother blossom not just okay pray this prayer pray this prayer but she became a part of my daily life and a part of my prayer life and he's been a wonderful friend we actually have an email that I thought I'd bring in at this point because you're just talking about how the Carmelites and the others have really enriched it David Emery and such as an email from Mary Beth from Texas writes I'm a cradle Catholic and often find it difficult to pray and don't feel close to God does miss maybe you have any suggestions for how to deepen my relationship with God and enrich my prayer life well I would begin with adoration it's hard to be spending time before the exposed Blessed Sacrament if if you sit before the Blessed Sacrament and just talk to Jesus as if he's really there because he is truly there if you're alone I I would bow kneel sing I've been known to sing to Jesus read scripture and become very quiet on the inside the Holy Spirit will guide those who are wanting guidance so if you go to the right place which is a silent place where Jesus is physically present and you sit quietly and say Holy Spirit teach me you will you will get the guidance that you need it may be that you need to see a priest it may be that you need to get a spiritual director it may be that you need to talk to someone knowledgeable in the faith about which books would be most helpful for you maybe something by boiling like difficulties in mental prayer or this tremendous lover right one other possibility is to look for sin in the life if there is sin unconfessed sin an absolved sin then there's not going to be intimacy or affective rich prayer you have to take care of the sin which might even just be pride you know I mean I mean that might be the main set the major sin well maybe it's pride that standing right in a way of recognizing the shortcoming Thank You Becky I know that the hard thing about taking a whole story and condensing it in a short time we have in the program what was the most difficult was there a most difficult doctrine or idea that you had to get over in your journey into the church there were two things that really were hard for me others I struggled with but got over them without a whole lot of difficulty but I didn't know what to do about the fact that my father my father-in-law and my husband were all ordained men and I couldn't figure out what what do I do with that they're not priests they weren't priests but they were ordained they were men of God they had a call I didn't want to show disrespect for their life's work by becoming a Catholic and saying that doesn't count because you weren't a priest and I spoke about this to my two young priest friends one evening and one of them said every calling by God is special and every life's work under God's Direction is special they were called to hear confessions or to make the Eucharist possible they weren't priests but they were called by God to be shepherds where they were and well of course that was easy and it fell into place the other things were some of the Marian doctrines I struggled with perpetual virginity and the assumption and the coronation and I had one by one gotten everything else resolved and then these things troubled me and I finally decided I know the Catholic Church is the true church I know the Holy Spirit is demanding that I become a Catholic and part of it is accepting whatever the Catholic Church professes to be true and teaches so I just have to accept it realizing the church knows more about it then I do and take it on faith that eventually I'll come to understand it better so I pick tchard it as jumping into the arms of a parent expecting the parent to catch me okay taking it on faith so that that last bit of the Marian doctrine I took on faith it's amazing those two issues are often the two big issues that all the clergymen that the coming home network deals with all the time and there during the faith I will you I want to make comment really quickly a month on the first issue brought up because you know having been an ordained Protestant minister myself what did that mean what did that mean like you're talking about and we don't a lot of time to go into it but I wanted to comment that there's kind of three sides to it there's what God is doing and wanting to do there's what the the person themself is discerning and vowing to do and then there's what the leaders did when they laid their hands on well God's mercy and grace we know he calls and the sincere commitment of your father and your husband to follow God now the men that laid hands on a made up may not have had any particular authority to do that whether those at ordination had any particular you know sacramental aspect but we know God's side and your husband's side just as all our guys on the journey their vow they made to serve Jesus and just hearing God's call was really the most important aspect we look at Protestant orders but again I wish we had more time Becky so thank you so much for joining us on the journey so thank you god bless you and you continue to walk serving Christ and thank you for joining us on this episode of god bless you see you

Channel: EWTN

Views: 33,747

Rating: 4.8378377 out of 5

Keywords: Catholic, EWTN, Christian, television

Id: 2FI2LHAof2U

Length: 56min 23sec (3383 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 11 2015