Changing Tracks: Kimberly Hahn

[Music] hey friends how's it going welcome to changing tracks today we have Kimberly with us how's it going Kimberly Kimberly is from United States it's a great privilege to have you here with us today welcome it is a privilege for me to well can you introduce yourself a little tell us what you do about your family your life sure okay so I'm Kimberly Hahn and I was born in 1957 to Jerry and Patty Kirk Jerry is a pastor he fell in love with my mother while he was finishing up his his studies and has been a pastor all his life till retirement and so for my mother and father living the faith understanding the faith sharing the faith was a part of my life from the very beginning they prayed for me before I was born and I am confident they have prayed for me again today they fed me the Word of God right along with my peas and potatoes and there there was a unified light of prayer and faith not Catholic but Presbyterian and so I can't remember a time that I did not believe that Jesus existed that he was God I know time that I questioned whether or not the faith of my parents was true but there was a moment in seventh grade when I heard a very powerful message about the cross and the fact that my sins put him there and I was convicted deeply in my heart it was a profound conversion reflecting back as a Catholic I know that I became a child of God through my baptism and it was it was just a true change of heart and direction now from little from second or third grade I wanted to be a minister like my dad so again I didn't go from not believing to believe it but it took I knew on a new passion and I graduated from high school intending to go to college and after college go to seminary and become a pastor I do have a number of gifts similar to my dad and so I could see I could see myself doing what he did so I went out to college Grove City College and in my junior year began to be challenged by Scott Hahn and a few others where does the Bible teach that a woman can be ordained and I really wrestled no one had challenged me on that my father was a pastor in a liberal Presbyterian denomination and he was just happy that as an evangelical really believing in the scriptures that I might want to pursue ordination he encouraged that because he wanted to have more conservative women serving instead of the more liberal women who were coming through seminary but I came to a conviction against whether or not women could be ordained and and so as College progressed into my senior year Scott and I began to date I had always wanted to marry a pastor as well as be one and Scott was definitely heading off to seminary so I thought well I really was convicted God couldn't be calling me to something that he didn't allow but I could still be a pastor's wife so we got married at the end of the summer and headed off to gordon-conwell Theological Seminary [Music] what was your attitude towards Catholicism what was your vision of the Catholic faith like I thought that you could be a Catholic and a Christian but I had no idea why you would want to be I certainly had never heard of anybody converting to becoming a Catholic but I also had no sense of talking to Catholics and trying to convert them I believe they could be a Christian and and and that was just weird like in separate worlds but I I didn't doubt whether or not there were believed they were believers my husband came to faith and was really trained in Calvinism so he really thought that any Catholics that were actually Christians were probably just sort of mindlessly going through the actions without thinking about it because if they really got it they would realize how idolatrous it was and and the best thing that he could do would be to convince a Catholic to leave the Catholic Church he believed the Westminster Confession even all the way to the end of seminary which would say that a pope is an antichrist and so for him the idea of even thinking about Catholic things was unthinkable I mean it was like why would you waste your time which is the horrible thing to say but I mean that is where he was now the one thing that was different is in seminary I studied for an ethics class we had to pick a current issue and I had been doing a lot of pro-life talks where I got questions about contraception and I would say to people oh you're mixing things up we don't need to talk about contraception that's before and abortions occur after conception and then gently some people shared with me that the IUD which is embedded into the uterus does not stop and then from developing and so abortions can occur and also that the pill has two functions one is to suppress ovulation which it does about 95% of the time five percent of the time it doesn't and the other action is to damage the sides of the uterus making it inhospitable to life so that if a life is conceived that child also will be aborted so as I began to see there was crossover it wasn't this clear-cut difference between contraception and abortion and I would had this class offering I decided the issue I was going to study was contraception [Music] after studying this were you reaffirmed and what you believed it did you discover something new for you for your life for your faith how did things develop after came home my husband said what what issue did you choose because many people would choose like nuclear war I don't know euthanasia other other contemporary issues and I said contraception and he said that's not even an issue what are you thinking and I said well you know it's related to my pro-life Thaksin I can get course credit for it so I'm going to pursue it a group of seven us met seven of us met in the back of the class and I guess this one guy thought he was sort of the leader and he said I'm looking around I don't think they're any Catholics here was non Catholic seminary and he said so the issue is on whether or not contraceptions right or wrong and hopefully we're all pro-life so maybe just the barrier methods are the only kind of could be used by Christians and of course we've done no study we had and I said what why are you talking about Catholics now I had a lot of Catholic friends I had never heard that the Catholic Church did not support contraception and he said well Catholics oppose contraception I said why he said there are only two reasons number one the Pope isn't married and number two they're out to make all the Catholics they can in the world I said I can't imagine a Catholic who would give those answers really that's the reason and he said if you want to know what they think and why you look at it I couldn't care less so I took you know challenge accepted and I looked around for resources I found Humanae Vitae I found a very important book by dr. Kitley called sex and the marriage covenant and John kept Lee in the book gave all kinds of reasons that I had never thought of in terms of why contraception was fundamentally anti marriage and anti-life he especially his explanation of natural law which I'd never heard of before was I think among the most compelling ok didn't all of these reasons did they help you to draw closer to the Catholic faith to have reasons to approach the Catholic faith so all of these arguments are swirling around I met with a seminary and it was single and I said you know let me run my ideas by you and I ran them all by him and he said wow so you've gotten rid of the contraception and I said well not yet but I mean it does seem to make sense doesn't it you know and he said well yeah I mean talk to Scott about that you've got a you've got to change something and I said you know so you're reminding me of the adage of the of the chicken and the pig who were walking down the street and the pig says AHA Farmer Brown is just such a good caring farmer we should give him a gift and the chicken says let let's give him a ham and eggs breakfast and the pig says for you that's a donation for me that's total commitment and I said to the seminarian you know you're not married and I go home and I convince Scott we could throw out the contraception I could be pregnant tonight you know I mean what I don't know how quickly this all works but it could happen and he said well is it true or not so I went home and I talked to Scott he couldn't believe where I was coming - yeah so he didn't follow you in the process right oh no because I wasn't sharing a lot and of course he was very busy with his own studies and but but then when I really began to share with him and I said look here's here's a book that I read called birth control the marriage covenant why don't you read it and he he told me later he said it's the only book he's ever thrown across the room because it was making way too much sense and then we began to find out other things like before 1930 not one Protestant denomination of any kind allowed contraception for any reason and yet 1930 the Lambeth conference of Anglicans in England sanctioned contraception just in the extreme case of life of the month and now you look at the Protestants nominations almost all or on record pro-abortion not just Pro contraception and as you as you looked at that history I how did the Protestants stay on track well I found another book written by a Protestant quoting Calvin Luther swingley I mean all these reformers who were adamantly anti-cult reception and I realized my faith tradition even as a Protestant historically was open to life and was anti contraception so bottom line we had to make a decision and Scott came to an agreement with me and he said well should we just put it on the shelf and I said no we're convicted we're throwing it away we're done and he was like okay it was April 1st and I wrote in my journal I don't know if I'm being a fool for Christ or just a fool but Lord we're gonna follow you and you know it it changed something very important [Music] could you tell us some of like the most important moments of your conversion and also could you tell us like help Scott became Catholic before you did right or am I mistaken so could you clarify this for us and just tell us about those moments or give us some more details about them when I remember where I was when he came through the room having read some things on liturgy and he said we may be headed toward the Episcopalian Church and I just he walked out of the room and I sat down in a chair and really cried because my uncle was Presbyterian pastor my father was a Presbyterian pastor Scott was a Presbyterian pastor at that moment and one of my brothers was studying to be a Presbyterian pastor and I thought Lord I do not want to be Episcopalian and then we returned to Grove City so that he could do more intensive study because he felt like he couldn't teach at a seminary at that point he just wasn't sure what the truth was enough and so he took a job back at our College which freed up his evenings to study in again he a couple about a year later he walked through the room and he said we may be headed now we hadn't become Episcopalian we were still Presbyterian but he said I have to tell you we may be headed toward the Catholic Church and without and I wasn't joking I just said can we please become a biscuit and it was so traumatic I mean here I now have my Master of Arts in theological studies I was busy with one child and pregnant with a second and here he is telling me there aren't two sacraments there seven and the two I think I understand I don't and he'd begun to pray the rosary which was just unthinkable to me it was one night and I was went to bed early and he came up and he said he was so full of what he had just studied and he said do you know that right now we are surrounded by Marian the Saints and the angel said all I could say was not in my bed No and so he wanted to pursue doctoral work was accepted at Notre Dame and at Marquette but chose the Marquette program and as we left he said now I want you to know I won't do anything rash it'll be four years before I become a Catholic if I become a Catholic and and and that was kind of our understanding me it was a real pledge and it was that next Easter ten days before Easter that he came to me and he just said I don't know what to do because I had begun attending Mass in the morning at Marquette and he said I know that's Jesus I know it's the Eucharist I feel like I am sinning against light by not becoming Catholic and and he said I know I promised you four years but I need you to pray about releasing me from that promise and so I went into our bedroom and really cried really cried out to the Lord because I knew this was a dramatic change for us and and his becoming Catholic even if I never became Catholic ended the opportunity I would have to be a pastor's wife so it had it had deaths of dreams for me with no resurrection in sight but I also believed his heart that he was at a point the I needed to release him so I came out and I said okay I will let you pursue this and I said but I want you to know you have abandoned me and he went in our bedroom and I knew that sound it was the rosary beads jingling and he headed out to take a nice little walk with Mary and have a conversation yeah well the nicer wasn't the two of us so that became that began a four-year real push and poll there were there were moments of lucidity that things made sense and I would say I can see this I can see that and then there were times that I felt like I was being sucked into a void like it's only making sense because I'm giving up the struggle because I'm not fighting against him to pull him back to the truth and in the midst of this you know we have two little children then I'm expecting our third baby what to do what to do and so at one point I wrestled I wrestled with how this third little child should be baptized and in fact when I saw the pregnancy test the first thing I saw was oh I'm pregnant and the next thing how is this child going to be baptized I mean and I never talked to Scott about it which was really good because I didn't know I didn't have a choice that because he became Catholic all children would have to be baptized Catholic and truly I don't even know how I could have processed that but as I prayed and prayed and prayed and prayed until she was about eight months along maybe seven months along I I just came to a conviction that is the spiritual leader of our home and the fact that I did believe in infant baptism even though I didn't believe what Catholics believed about infant baptism that it was important that that this child would be baptized Catholic so I told him and graciously he did not tell me anything different he just said okay okay I'll talk to the priest and I really didn't know if the priest would even treat me as if I was a Christian and we went to her baptism I did ask for it to be private and not public because I really didn't know how to handle being stared at by hundreds of people who wonder what is her mental condition but she doesn't get with the program but I was unprepared for how beautiful that liturgy was and I know I did argue in my heart over a couple things when they went into the litany of saints I was like oh geez so worried about them and then and then the priest explained who was actually Monsignor brusca would soon became Bishop breast quits of Lincoln Nebraska he was explaining baptism matters like a home that's not that that isn't baptism but anyway here we are and and really it was everything I would have prayed over her you know the anointing and that she would speak the gospel to others so she would hear the gospel and respond and and just it was just so beautiful that when we left the church I said in my heart to the Lord I don't know what you've done to him but you've done something in me and my heart was open in a different way my dad had challenged me earlier that summer he said Kimberly you know what I sort of it casually asked do you pray the prayer I pray everyday Lord I'll go wherever you want me to go say whatever you want me to say do whatever you want me to do and give away whatever you want me to give away and I I answered him a bit sarcastically I'm not no dad I don't pray that prayer these days just really why and I said because I would be telling Christ that I would be willing to become a Catholic which I am NOT I will never become a Catholic he said I don't think God would ask that but he said you know you really can't tell God he can't be Lord of your life he said honey you need to pray if you can't pray that prayer you need to pray for the grace to pray that prayer when did you finally enter in the Catholic Church so I entered Easter Vigil 1990 on on Ash Wednesday I dropped off my children that my sisters I was heading up to Steubenville to look for housing because God had been hired by Franciscan University and I liked the tradition Catholics had of giving up something for Lent so I was praying and I said Lord what do you want me to give up you know should I do dessert should i do pop major things sadly probably and and I really didn't hear a voice but I sensed that he said why don't you just give up why don't you give up you and because Scott wasn't there and he wasn't the one saying it I really really believe it was the Lord and and so I began to really consider that and and I prayed the rest of the trip I walked into my in-laws house where I was staying overnight and I said well I know I told you at Christmas I wasn't going to become a Catholic anytime soon but I said it's gonna be this Easter my mother and obviously what what my father-in-law said that's so sweet honey and so the next day I looked for housing and then Scott called from a conference out in California and he said there are a lot of people here just curious just curious about where you are and things and and I said I would ask but he said no pressure nope he'd finally learned the difference between him and the Holy Spirit and I said I recounted what had happened in the van and I said it's gonna be this Easter and he he took back a lot of tears and he said I had given up that we would ever be United that's a Catholic family and it was a very very sweet time it was a very sweet Lent but then I had to tell my parents and become separated in communion from my entire side of my family and even though they've never questioned whether or not we're Christians it is so bittersweet it is so painful to not be able to share the riches of the truth of the faith to not be able to reveal to them what belongs to them as Christian people you know the teaching authority of the church and the peace that it gives us not just to have an inerrant Word but to have an infallible guide in the church the Saints the Angels to know them to talk to them to ask them to pray for us in in the communion of saints and then the moral authority of the church and the United teaching of the church a United liturgy you know my my brothers and my father could all preach on the same Sunday and never preach on the same passage and we can be in Ireland my children scattered throughout the states and we're all hearing the same scriptures and praying the same prayers Mary as a gift from our Lord and you just go on and on and these these are the treasures that were mined by virtue of my baptism my birthright and I felt like I went from renting a flat in the downtown dangerous area to owning the estate at the end of the road and I didn't know if it was mine so the pain has changed there's such joy and being Catholic such a beautiful shared life all of our children know and love the Lord and love the church the three that are married married faith filled Catholics and are open to life with 15 grandchildren we have so far two of our sons are studying for the priesthood and our remaining son is 18 who I don't know what his calling will be but I know his heart for Christ and so we are a united growing Catholic family but our relatives are separated brethren and I would love to see on this side of the veil an opportunity to share more of this treasure of the faith God knows Kimberly thank you for sharing your testimony with us it will surely be a light to many who are living in darkness Thank You Kimberly thanks for being here with us today [Music] giving in to God does not mean that one gives up on the past on the contrary it means that one embraces the Catholic faith denying oneself is above all an act of humility of kneeling down before God and before our lady as well there's no doubt about it this testimony and the story of the conversion of Kimberly's husband can be found in the book that they wrote I'm going to read the title to say it correctly Rome sweet home it is a beautiful story that we should all have on our bedside table so thanks for being here thank you [Music]

Channel: HM Television (English)

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Id: w6XgdTIBIQY

Length: 28min 4sec (1684 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 18 2019