Journey Home - 2017-12-04 - Megan Silas

[Music] good evening and welcome to the journey home I'm Marcus Grodi your host for this program once again I have this wonderful privilege that EWTN gives me after all these years they allow me to sit with you and hear a story of conversion how the Holy Spirit opens someone's heart and mine to the beauty of our Lord Jesus Christ in His Church and often that's not where they thought they were going to end up but we'll find out it a little bit our guest is Megan Silas a former non-denominational evangelical make it welcome to the journey home pleasure to be here before we begin I just have to say congratulations on 20 years of the program such a beautiful ministry and I know you touched so many lives including my own so thank you well thank you it has been a wonderful privilege at EWTN is I think allowed it to keep going on and on and on but I think it's because the Holy Spirit keeps bringing guests programs so that's what makes the program possible so well let me get out of the way I can't invite you to take us on the journey all right well it's so fun to hear those classical words coming out let me get another way so yes let me begin so I was born in northern New York near the border of Canada about as close to being Canadian as you can get without actually being a citizen if I say a or pronounce things a little funny I still have a bit of that left you're up there because your family had come down or but your family gone on family always lived there my parents both grew up in that and grew up there they were high school sweethearts and lived pretty much their whole lives and still live there now so their their entire exhibit up there yeah when people say you know upstate New York and they're referring to right out of New York City I'm like okay there is a whole bunch more of the state than that and so but it was a beautiful place to grow very rural very sort of small-town feel you know just intimate communities that sort of thing and so it was a lovely place to grow up I can't say I enjoyed the cold that much but other than that it was really really nice and so the family that I was born into I'm a second child of three and my parents my mom was raised Catholic her father was an Italian immigrant and so there was actually fairly even though it's a very small town all the way up there in northern New York there was a very significant Italian community in the town that my parents grew up in and so that was very much a big part of her upbringing and so I think though it was it wasn't that there she came from a Catholic faith that was very vibrant or anything it was but it was very much a part of their culture and my dad on the other hand was raised by very devout Methodists my my grandmother was such a special beautiful saintly woman really and all through my life was a beautiful example of Christian living just one of those quiet people who just doesn't need to bring attention to themselves and just lose the faith beautifully and so he came out of that but I think as they came together as a couple neither of them had a great impulse to bring one or the other with them this was by the time they got married it was the Catholic Church wasn't saying you had to convert anymore so my dad didn't convert and my mom wasn't you know particularly attached to her faith I think growing up and sort of that post Vatican to confusion you know it was a lot of you must do this you must do that and then it just all kind of fell away so she didn't hold on to it so when I was kind of wondering well what what next shoe will fall so when I was born they weren't really doing much anything as far as practicing a faith they both claimed to be Christians believed you know in Christ but it wasn't you know a significant part of their lives now interestingly all three of the kids in my family we're all baptized Catholic because the family pressure you know if you have an Italian grandmother Italian great-grandmother living around you're gonna get baptized in one of my earliest memories actually is of my brother's baptism he's almost exactly four years younger than me and I remember it happened at our house and a priest came and baptized him on the dining room table really yeah and there's a picture to confirm that this memory is real and so it is really one of my earliest memories of his baptism but also when I was four very soon after that my parents had a real conversion experience you know which they described as being saved being born-again I kind of refer to it as a conversion experience that was extremely profound in their lives from watching TV or most church friends home meetings home Bible studies very much you know this is right at the end of the 70s when the Jesus Movement was really going and very charismatic and everything and so they had friends that were going to meetings like that and so they started going and just you know really became on fire for Christ and another one of my very early memories is we used to say bedtime prayer together you know my dad would come up and say prayers with my sister and I and now I lay me down to sleep I pray the Lord my soul to keep right you know that prayer and one night he came up and you know we're about to you know launch into the prayer he said no we're not gonna pray that anymore we're gonna talk to Jesus from our hearts now and we're just gonna pray to him like a friend and okay that's a whole new paradigm and our life then became much more ordered around church so my parents were sort of founding members one of the founding members of the church that started in our community and it was my childhood was completely infused with I you know people say evangelical some people say charismatic some people say fundamentalist I say why choose it was all of them all of them very charismatic hard-line fundamentalist I mean they were interpreting that Bible strictly women were wearing coverings on their hair you know no contraceptive some contraceptives and you know the whole nine yards so it away like looking back on it well they weren't too far from you know there's a lot of Catholic you know life belief and but so they were very engaged in that and it's interesting how my mom never really talked about her parents like response to this but I do think there are a little hands-off about both sides right the Catholic side as well as the conservative Methodists well I don't know about yeah that's probably both sides but my dad's side like it was more like they would never have talked about it I'm sure in the Catholic side with a more Italian Way of being they might have got a little more words about it but um so that was you know so much a part of my childhood and interestingly enough even though there are a lot of Catholics around in my life there's still you know the family members and we also have this wonderful neighbor neighbors that live next door which were Quebec French Catholics and they had a beautiful large family and they were very close to us so I had that influence but um the experience of the Catholic that actually stands out most in my mind as a child has to do with unfortunately a negative experience where my dad as part of his you know sort of ijen evangelical fervor he also raced motorcycles and he started this motorcycle group called team Jesus and they would go around together and they would race motorcycles and sort of evangelize and as they would and you know a lot of the young guys in the town were excited about that and so they got involved and so one of the young men converted you know kind of became an evangelist and largely due to my dad's witness and one day his mother showed up at our door just beside herself what have you done what have you done to my son you've drawn him out of the church you know you are pulling him into a cult you know what are you doing just fear and anger and I was very shocked by that like as a young child like because you know I could only see my is good and and our faith is beautiful and was vibrant and so I didn't understand it at the time it's interesting because I've looked back on it now and I see like I understand her fear like now the way she kind of went about it I don't agree with but I understand the fear of her son being drawn out of something that she found so profoundly important and true yeah because your your parents probably didn't appreciate or understand where she was coming from right and vice versa yes it wasn't there wasn't a dialogue happening hearing I wasn't even able to have her because they didn't have metal file folders for each other's understanding of Christianity was a radically different exactly but what I would say about growing up in that tradition that you know and I know a lot of people who sit in this chair talk about the same thing it's just there's so much love for Christ that I grew up around joy in their faith devotion to living it passionately no matter what that meant if that meant being totally radically separated from the culture so be it because Christ calls us to this and so and there's a seriousness about them very seriousness about the Word of God real scripture study well you know just go in deep and you know it's funny when people complain about mass going along or whatever you know it's over an hour 15 and someone's losing it I like I went to two hour-long you know a services if we had 45 minutes of worship in an hour-long sermon you can unpack a lot of stuff if you have an hour-long service so there was a lot of teaching a lot of but that teaching was pretty much exactly based on whatever the pastor felt was his interpretation of Scripture and that was just as it was and it was very much in very charismatic so however the Holy Spirit guide you to interpret this is you know reasonable but the interesting thing is is that despite that it could also be very dogmatic we're well at this church this is what we do and what we believe and so but but what if the whole spirits leaving well no we believe this here but okay so they tried to have it both ways a little bit and they would have said it well this is what the Bible says right and I'm not being cynical or critical of them their understanding of Scripture this is what the Bible says and this is we were at are they not they made I've seen that they were seeing the Bible through the lenses of their own experience and then if if the people that church aren't going from Sunday get somebody visiting other places they don't know that what's being taught in that church is radically different other days sure yeah this is of reference right exactly so we so growing up in that I have to admit I never really felt home there like I did feel that there was something that was missing for me I loved worship like the music you know it's very much what we would consider contemporary Christian music now but that praise in worship atmosphere where you're you know just crying out to the Lord and in song together with is very powerful and I still appreciate that to this day but some of the charismatic gifts were a bit of a struggle for me not because I didn't believe in them but that I felt there was almost a bit of a pressure to receive him and so I know that they would have prayer over people to try to receive the gift of tongues and things like that and as a as a high school student I just I didn't have it like it wasn't coming to me and I wasn't gonna fake it so I felt a little bit like it was my failing like I something was in my faith was lacking that I couldn't receive this gift so there was that sense of discomfort but there also wasn't any sense that you had to go to church either which is interesting it was a very close community but sometimes we just think well we will have home church and read the Bible together and things like that so that sense that it is very much of me and Jesus thing even though we have this community that's tight-knit it really is about your relationship with Christ and that's all you need was part of that experience our guest is a Megan Silas those things you've just meant to all those kind of emphasize I hate to use the word danger but but you know for a small churches like that and how you interpret scripture whether we're those gifts are necessary or not to salvation right no whether it's necessary to go to church or nad or why you're going to church or or if you stood before God tonight and had to answer for your life whether it's just knowing Jesus away you know it's all dependent on that little group and we're that pastor did you have one pastor during that entire period or multiple even Oh is pretty much one pastor when we moved from one town to another town and so we ended up going to another church that had been a break off from the same church so we I had two pastors basically but they were all in lockstep so there wasn't a lot of confusion there my parents weren't moving around but the interesting thing is my I did sense that there was some discomfort on my mom's side as well I think a lot of it just had to do with almost a social thing because she wasn't maybe she wasn't homeschooling and doing some of these things that some of the other families were doing so she maybe felt a little bit of an outsider so every now and then and I've cleared this with her to make sure I was remembering this correctly I would hear her say I think I'm just going back to the Catholic Church and I would hear those words like what are you talking about because you know so much of my understanding of a Catholic Church was that the word it's dead was used a lot it wasn't so much that there was this sense that it was you know they weren't Christian or whatever but there it was dead there the spirit wasn't moving there so the idea of why would you go back to the dead church you know that was kind of might have been sort of a mainline Protestant to sometime yeah absolutely you know for sure so I mean from that perspective respectfully could have looked at yeah yeah so I went to a boarding school for the last two years of high school so that kind of moved me out of my home life so now you're again your faith becomes a little more your own right when you're making decisions about whether you're gonna go to church or not and interestingly enough when I went to boarding school I did not go to church anymore but I was a leader in the Christian Fellowship group it did not have to be you know Christian boarding school no no it was a cadet boarding school in New Hampshire and so it was just a matter of that's what I used as my sort of faith community was the student group and but it was an interesting time because I wasn't going to church I'm a leader in this Christian Fellowship group and so much of it is just you know me reading my Bible on on my own I all through my life I have been very curious about God read a lot read my Bible a lot just felt very drawn to wanting to know more now I wouldn't say that I had a prayer life that was profound though I always felt that I was lacking in prayer like I should be feeling something but I wasn't feeling anything and so much around me the externals were that people seem to be feeling a lot and I was feeling a quite a bit empty when I would pray but I just I had to go in and read the word and plus way back when and they tried to keep his speaking tongue in your face and I failed left you wondering maybe more self done about your spiritual journey yeah but I think the interesting thing is when I was in high school probably the most profound prayerful experiences I would have is that I had for some reason a love for sacred music choral music Gregorian chant these things and I had a couple cassettes and when I was feeling upset or just feeling like somehow I needed some communion with God I would take my cassette player and I would go out into the fields of the boarding school and lay under the Stars and listen to Gregorian chant so are you looking back you like maybe a little bit of a seed there I was also taking Latin all through high school that was my foreign language I was taking Latin so you know that sort of flavor works its way in so after high school move on to University and I'm pre-med so very busy at Princeton University so you know your there's a lot and I haven't been going to church anyway so I'm not gonna start going to church now but I you know what's involved in this Christian Fellowship so I started trying out a couple of Christian Fellowship groups at college and it just I was not feeling it and I remember one time there was a conversation happening and I wasn't part of the conversation but I was listening and somebody was sort of asking a bit of a challenging question and the person was responding well the Bible says the Bible says the Bible says and I sat back and I haven't listened to that and I was like you know it's a bit circular reasoning if your whole argument is based on a book that they don't necessarily accept you're kind of limited your you don't really have a lot to go from there you've come to the place where you accept this or you don't and that's the end of the story you know and that's really all I had growing up well there was no sense of any connection to history or anything like it's just that you just need that and it all will be clear and so that experience that one moment was very profound to me because it was the first time I ever actually doubted like wait a second why do I believe that's a big chunk and in the foundation if you start to start questioning the authority of Scripture right yeah you know why do I believe any of it but I didn't really go to dark far down that path it was like that scared me a little bit but it was enough to be like I don't think I want to be involved in any of these Christian groups and I'm just gonna do my studies and that's what I did you know I was focused on my studies I met my husband in at university and you know I told you know I would say you know I'm Christian in this part of them you know who I am and he's a great fine you know I'm he grew up Presbyterian so we were both kind of just Christians who weren't really doing much about it at that point after leaving Princeton and I went on to medical school and it's sort of an interesting time because my husband might he was kind of not officially but pretty much my fiancee at that point he's down in Delaware I've been Syracuse New York and so we're doing this long-distance thing and so I'm in medical school and obviously very very intense a lot of work so again I'm not going to church it's not on the schedule but the interesting thing about Medical School is I am we had a little study group it was me and three other people myself and one other Protestant guy and then two catholics a guy and a girl who were Catholic and every now and then we get into some discussions they were kind of like jovially ribbing each other there wasn't any true deep theological seeking here but it was kind of like you know you could make a joke about them and they'd make a joke about us and things like that um and I actually just recently got in touch with my friend from medical school the girl who is Catholic that's like you know what did y'all go to Mass I don't know I don't remember I had no recollection of if they were actually practicing their faith in that way of you know being engaged in the sacraments and she said oh yeah a group of us used to meet we'd walked to the cathedral together in Syracuse and hustle I had no idea but one thing I will say is that we used to watch some of these television programs and that were funny you know but very farce kind of things and there was one that where they had Jesus as a character it was a cartoon and there was something it was very negative like making fun of Jesus and I remember that the guy was a Catholic he's like that's not okay and that is more than anything like impacted me that there's something profound you know about the boundary that you don't cross when it comes to Jesus you know so I look back on them but you know there was I don't remember ever talking about the Eucharist or as much as they clearly were devoted their faith they weren't in any sense trying to say why don't you come and check it out so in medical school you probably encountered medical ethical questions did that ever I'm up in the religious issue did and an interesting that happened early earlier on like I had the abortion is hearing things like that came up and I was staunchly pro-life my ethics were right down the line you know traditional Christian all through medical school just never deviated from that despite the fact I wasn't really involved my faith engaged in it but I was still you know reading the Bible every now and then trying to say prayers before I went to bed every night but usually fell asleep because you're so tired you know it wasn't being lived out in any dynamic way but so it was just kind of in that like slow simmer but interestingly enough after I got out of medical school and in the end decided not to practice medicine and went to you know I decided to just I didn't want it for my life but as my good we got married my husband and I ended up getting married in an Episcopal Church simply because I was definitely gonna have a Christian wedding when I really care was gonna happen so we pretty much picked the cute church that we thought was pretty decision-making factor on that one so we're married and you know we have our first child and interestingly enough a lot of times when people have their first child that's like brings the back to faith yeah but I was like okay I'd never stopped thinking about it it was faith for me was something it would almost haunts me like it's like this is the important question if you don't figure out anything else in life this is the one you've got to figure out and I hadn't figured it out so I decided I'm gonna start trying to figure this out but when you try to do it under your own ability and not because I'm gonna see God in prayer and ask the Holy Spirit to infuse me with this grace no I'm gonna intellectually try to figure this out so I just really started thinking pondering and questioning and I pretty much thought myself and agnosticism because I just can't really came down to the fact that I was like I look at a devout Muslim I looking at about Jew I look you know all these people who are devout they think they're right they think they have the truth what makes me think that I have the truth just because my parents taught it to me just because I have a book they have a book who says oh yeah you know I was I remember once having to read philosophy I had not studied it and then having to read it again and somebody asked me what you learn from philosophy Isis well the one thing you learn about philosophy is an awful lot of really intelligent people get it wrong I mean that's the history of philosophy you know yeah you know there's a lot of angles out there and if that's what you're looking at like you said if you're just looking at that it can be very discouraging yeah I mean the psalm comes to mind only not unto your own understanding I was leaning pretty heavy on my own understanding at that point I remember like sort of throwing out some of these ponderings to my husband and he looked at me in his very stoic and engineering kind of mind and said so your problem is you don't really quite understand what God's thinking I was like yeah that's that's kind of it and he's like good luck with that you're not gonna figure it out why you did bothering so I once I got at that point we moved to Texas we were living in Philadelphia at the time we moved down to Texas he started working as a engineering professor at Texas A&M and I'd stopped working at that point and I had a daughter and now you know I'm just I'm gonna do the mom thing but I was it was very interesting for me because I'm in this agnostic State and I'm convincing myself that I'm good with it like in fact in Ray's little freeing because I'm just I've decided I'm not gonna question anymore I'm just gonna say I don't know and being good with that and I so I stopped praying which is that's the first time that was the only time in life that I had just stopped praying I would always kept trying before but there was one time I a day I would pray just because I felt like I had to pray with my daughter and by we had a we had another child after that not that long and so I felt like I needed to give them a chance at faith because even though I had convinced myself I was okay I realized what I'd lost there was a sense of loss and I also didn't like to talk about it my agnosticism I would talk about it with a couple friends I knew had a similar bent and I was okay without I didn't like talking about it with people of faith and it wasn't because I was ashamed of it it was because I was afraid I might cause someone else to do and I didn't want to do that to someone like I was like I know that words can be powerful and if you lead somebody down that path I don't want I don't want that to be on me so it's kind of quiet about it and just sort of let it let it be and it was and my husband and he was like whatever you know he's just kind of let me take the lead on that I'm thinking maybe that's a good place to pause for our middle break out here because there you are there I am the Bible had not been opened during this time no stop reading the Bible okay so that would even the one source that you get based your faith on up till then you know was kind of set aside and I'm just gonna figure it yeah I mean I've been to medical school break they say this that I I had come to the point where I wasn't sure if God existed but if I could get to that point I would be a Christian like I don't know if that made sense but it was like okay if I can get to plank I believe in God then I'll be back go back to being a Christian but it's the I'm not sure about the whole thing at this point all right well sometimes that's what God has to do to get our to eat all right come back in a second we'll pick it up there [Music] [Music] welcome back to the journey home I'm your host Marcus Grodi and our guest tonight is Meghan Silas you were saying that you are an agnostic but if you could come to believe in God you would say to me that's one of the definitions between the agnostic and atheist absolutely I would never ever have said I was a theist because for me at that point it was basically it's humorous to think you've got it figured out so to say one thing true not you know it's for sure you got it because in my mind I was like okay if there's a God he's so big so awesome so unknowable that for any human to say I've got it figured out is just you know beyond the pale and you were going to keep praying with your children because you really hoped that they would have what you used to have right yeah it was a little bit of that that phase yeah praising worship so to give him a chance so that's where I am at and at that stage in life I you know I had fairly new to the community that we had moved into and after a couple years started making friends and things like that interestingly enough all my friends said that being Catholic no it wasn't that what just worked out that way but that wasn't something that during this period of time it was a big impact on me it just it was and we didn't really get into it that much and I didn't you know like I said I wasn't really talking about my lack of faith much so it wasn't an issue and but I did start to become very very close friends with one particular person and during this period she developed some medical issues where she had debilitating migraine headaches I mean just the kind that you're in a dark room for hours on end and then you have like things that continue afterwards like dizziness and things like that she had four kids and you know I just I loved her so much as a friend and I wanted to help her as much as I could so I was sort of serving a lot in that capacity but also you know when you have sort of trials like that that you go through with people it does I think increased your intimacy and you have lots of conversations and so I you know even though I had sort of settled this agnosticism I still really didn't let it go the faith question was still always something I was wanting to talk about and she was a very strong Catholic not the kind that's like really super evangelical with their Catholicism that's just out there you know preaching it to the world but she lived it solidly I knew it was very important to her so we'd have a lot of questions back and forth and I'd ask her you know the things about her faith and and everything and she was always great about answering them and I think really wonderful about if she didn't know the answer I'm just saying I don't know but I'll figure it out for you I'll get back to you that kind of thing which is great and so she appreciated my desire to be more of a probing kind of thing and didn't take it personally that I was like attacking her or anything because that wasn't my intention I just wanted to know more because really not because I want to know more about the faith itself I just want to know her more yeah and it was part of who she was and so in that stage I said you know I'd really like to kind of mass with you because this is an important part of your life and I'd like to experience that with you I had been to Mass in my life a couple times do have family functions or things like that didn't it wasn't anything that was memorable or impactful to me so so one day she calls me up she's like okay you want to go to Mass with me today's the day I want you to kind of mask me today I went this morning and it was a great homily and I want you to come look great so Evan went feast of Corpus Christi that's the mass she says she wants me to come too so you know okay feast of Corpus Christi and you know I'm getting a big ole homily about Christ in the Eucharist and his real presence there and is this sort of thing where I knew the belief of transubstantiation that Catholics held and never gave it a lot of thought just kind of good okay and so in my life never really pondered it but you know I'm at this mass and now there I'm I'm seeing the importance that they're placing on this that it's not just this isn't just one of their beliefs this is the source in summit of their faith and their you know they're believing this receiving this and so I thought okay well I need to look into this a little bit because I don't really where the divergence happened cuz interesting enough I mean you know there's Catholic you know there's Protestant and the why the how at that point had never really occurred to me never thought to question and it's interesting when you think about your foundation which was a very fundamentalist church the Bible seriously alright we didn't talk about John six very much no I remember the hearing about so that got me to start reading about the Reformation I just want know what happened and interestingly enough when I was in high school I had a very strong conviction at one point I don't know where it came from I think I would read John chapter 17 at one point in high school I read it that they maybe want that they maybe one and I thought wow he's really serious about this one thing and I thought this month I came into my head in high school if there is anything that breaks Christ's heart it is the division in his church I never thought to question why the division was there or reached out to a Catholic or anything like that I just thought that breaks his heart that was it but so now I'm back here and I'm looking at the Reformation I'm reading and I'm here you know I kind of knew about Luther but now I'm hearing names like Zwingli and yeah and you're learning about how Calvin differs from Luther and all these sort of things wow there's a lot here to unpack and things really weren't as straightforward as I always thought they were you know I started thinking oh I'm not sure Luther really originally really wanted it to go this far and I really see a lot of other influences here beyond besides just theology that were at play that led to this breakage and then I also thought okay I didn't want to look at the Eucharist and how that changed within Protestant belief that it became a symbol instead of a real presence and I really did come to appreciate the historical belief of Christ's presence in the Eucharist did I believe it no but I came to respect it in a way I hadn't before it wasn't just missing it any longer and I thought you know wow that's that's if you believe that it is a big thing and it does have support in historically so that's sort of where I'm at and my friend is still suffering and at that point I went away to my family I had a beach house and my in-laws and we would regularly go to three weeks in the summer and so it really broke me up to leave her in that situation that she is suffering so much I felt so helpless I'm going to have fun just play in the sand and surf and she's there are still struggling and I thought what can I do there's nothing I can do and I thought well I could try to pray there's like a try so I tried and I felt like I was talking to myself I was just there's nothing here I'm not I'm just going through the motions it was empty and I was like well I tried so the next day I go out to the beach with my daughter who's how old is she at the time it's just seven seven at the time no 8 8 and we're walking on the beach and we're looking for shells and everything and she picks up a shell you know there's like little mud clams that little and they dig down in well she found a little shell that was one of those but it was open and but it was still together which is rare to find this it was like little angel wings right and it had like this purple raised you know emanating from the center and she my little daughter held it up to me she said mom isn't this beautiful and I looked at her and I said yes isn't it amazing that happens by chance that just came out of my mouth and it's at that moment that in that sort of way that's very hard to describe but if you've had it you know it the Holy Spirit just talked to my heart and said no it's not by chance I made it I made it all and it's time for you to come back and I was I mean I don't you don't really know how to deal with that in a moment and I just like okay that was something and so I you know went back to the beach house and I kneeled on a foot of my bed and I just started to try to pray again and it was a very different experience this time I wasn't praying I was getting a talking-to and what the Holy Spirit was saying to me was I know you want to help your friend you can't do that only I can do that but you can come back it's time it's time and I was like yes Lord okay okay that's all it took all the agnosticism all the questioning all the doubt yes Lord it's interesting that what the Lord used to awaken you was the the moment of you being a channel to your daughter mmm of what you believed mm-hmm he took you to utter this yeah this unbelief to your daughter and that's what he use right and it's interesting you know today at Mass we read anyone who's leads someone astray it's better a millstone would be tied around their neck and in uttering those words to my daughter I was leading her astray and God stopped me and His mercy he stopped me and I'm so so grateful for that so but that's not me becoming Catholic that's me saying I'm back to being a Protestant and I'm ready to go back to church and so I can't I told my husband I was like all right you know we're going back we're going back to I didn't start going to church again we should go as a family and I told you know my Catholic friend I believe in God again thank you so much for the role that you played in that and she was happy and everything so I started you know what any good Protestant does when there look you know I'm gonna come back to faith and start one church I did the church hopping all right it started look going to the different churches checking them out and I realized you know what what's the difference between these I mean they have different names but do I know anything about what defines Methodist spirituality what defines Presbyterian luther in any of these so and I started researching what do Protestants believe within their own faith in seeing like these differences and just sort of coming okay well I don't like that I don't agree with that about it so okay well this one sounds good but as we were going as a family and going to these different churches it just didn't feel right I didn't it didn't feel I was waiting for that click okay this is the church home the church home you know that's what everyone's looking for right the church home I wasn't finding it and my husband he's very like he's not super emotional he's is pretty you know laid-back and he's kind of just goes with the flow he's an engineer and so you know he was just responding and yeah I kind of like that I don't really like that and so it's always talked to my friend and I was like you know just none of these are really working for me and she's like well you ask a lot of questions about the Catholic faith have you really ever considered becoming Catholic and it's like no no you know my husband's process and I'm Protestant that's just such a break from you know I just really know so she kind of left it but then she came back at me and she said well you know I talked to you about you to my uncle who's a priest and he said maybe you should read this book called a home sweet Rome by Scott Hahn because he's you know kind of struggle with a lot of this stuff and you know converted but you know my answer some questions you have and that's like okay so I'm very impatient like if somebody gives me something recommendation like that I'm not gonna like wait till I can order the book on Amazon or something I'm gonna I'm just gonna Google you know Scott so what comes up what do you think comes up Marcus the journey home his episode first episode a journey home so I watched it on YouTube that night and you know I'm listening to what he has to say yeah okay talk to some about purgatory which was interesting to me because that was one of the questions I had because that was one of these teachings that I was always taught the Catholics just made up and so you know he had some good points about it and now that was old but if nothing was really it wasn't really me until right at the end and he said something and I'm paraphrasing because I don't remember it exactly but he said something when I was a Protestant I used to think that a personal relationship with Christ was everything and now I feel why would you want to settle for just that those words were shocking to me why would you want to settle for a personal relationship with Jesus Christ how could there be anything better than that what is he talking about so I went to bed that night with out of my mind now previous my friend had mentioned going to our CIA not to become converted but just to get the information and she'd given me this list of the top ten reasons to be Catholic and I looked at that list I'm like oh good half of these or reasons I'm not gonna become Catholic so put that on the back burner but I went to bed that night and that what he said just was really haunting me and I just just started it just sat there and and then again the Holy Spirit just really was started to speak to my heart and brought to mind John chapter 17 just out of the blue John chapter 17 that they may be one remember that remember how you felt that that was hurt Christ's heart let's think about that if you were gonna design a church where Christ is the center and unity is paramount what does that church look like and all of a sudden the Holy Spirit just walked me through the top ten reasons to be Catholic oh I understand I understand that's why that's why and then finally what do you think number one is the Eucharist I'd always thought well God could do that if he wanted to but why would he what's the point and I in that moment I realized oh in my faith you've always been we are united by the Holy Spirit but human beings aren't just spirit their spirit and their body and Christ is defined as a second person of the Trinity by his incarnation so if we're truly gonna be united to each other as brothers and sisters and to Christ we need to be united both in the spirit the body his body oh my gosh you're there you're actually there there right and it was overwhelming I was like what do I do with this why do I do this and again I got out of my bed so this actually happened in bed midnight to 3:00 a.m. I remember watching the clock a little bit I'm in Dyke to 3:00 a.m. this is all going this is all going I got out of a 3:00 a.m. I kneeled down in my bathroom and I said Lord what do you want what do you want for me I want you to become Catholic yes Lord yes so it was kind of fun actually to go tell my friend this because I could sort of messed with her a little bit I have to admit I brought the sheet with the top ten reasons to be Catholic and we went to a coffee shop and I tell her about it and I was like so I went through all my pre-conversion arguments as to why these were a problem for me and then I said but that was before last night and then I walked her through every single one and why I understood it and why I felt it was true and this was the faith that I wanted to embrace the net the NS like why don't we sign up for our CI a cuz I'm gonna become Catholic that she's like so I wasn't currently I asked her I mean what were you really surprised were you super surprised she's like well I was but I wasn't because I prayed so hard that it would happen so it was just beautiful so that was the istari RCIA and everything and did you share it with your husband during every well I you know took a little bit of time and I shared it with him and he at first he was just confused by it cuz we've been doing this church hopping thing together we were doing this together and at first he was just confused and then it was became very hard very hard for him because really I think in the end he felt like he was kind of like this is something were united in as a family and now you're choosing something that I don't want so you're choosing and I talked about the unity and all that he's like but you're choosing unity of with the church over unity with me and so for a period of time at the beginning of our CIA I was like okay well let's just kind of give it a go and if it really isn't gonna work out if it causes so much trouble cause so much strife between us you know maybe I won't do it but the problem is every time I'm like uttered those words maybe I won't do it I start to cry now I'm not a crier like I'm not one of these women who tends to cry a lot and so this was very disturbing for him and me but this would happen and so one day I just realized I have to I have to and as soon as I just admitted that to myself and then admitted to him I said I don't know what's gonna how this is gonna work out but I just trust that God isn't gonna call me to something that's gonna be bad for my marriage so he said okay you go you do but I'm not involved kids aren't involved and I was like okay I'll do what I have to do that's when the she kind of dropped in the sense that a month later I found out that I had breast cancer and then three weeks after that we found out my husband had recurrent testicular cancer and it's just the evidence of God's providence and his timing that he brought me where I needed to be in time for when I really really needed him and I can tell you that during that period of time as difficult as it was both with our health and our marriage I felt so upheld by the grace of God he was so present to me all those years of feeling empty in my prayer life were gone and there was a joy and there was a power in it because I knew that the way that I would live out my faith could then be a witness in these circumstances which were very dramatic that I could have confidence in God's love that I trust in him and that he would carry me through it and he'd really just did upheld me and even now look back on this time which is very hard with sort of a wistful nosov that intimacy I felt with the Lord during that time and so something I'm thinking a little bit of the chain of suffering because the woman that awakens your heart herself I was dealing with the same yeah indeed so so eventually you know go through the year and it was a hard weight you know very hard waiting when you really believe in the Eucharist you've just longed for it your hunger for it and I I think that that is a blessing in a way you should always know you don't want to take it for granted and you can remember that hunger of how much you longed for it and when I receive Christ for the first time the only word I ever can use is erect to me I just it was like just on the day that Christ's passion when that veil was torn I feel like the veil between heaven and earth was just ripped and that he was so present to me it's such a beautiful powerful way and oh how I just was so much joy so much joy and so and I did feel home for sure that feeling of finally being where I'm I was meant to be felt it and so over the years you know my husband's still not in the church but he has come around to being so much more accepting and comfortable with it two years after I came into the church my children were baptized Catholic and now we live out that life very beautifully and he's you know he's just the one who would be like all right yeah all you need to get going to mass it's time to get ready to go and everything so you know I appreciate his heart and how he's just come to be supportive and accept my faith and so it's been a beautiful journey because the time you had said that after your journey there was some important well it was really more that the sense of after that moment of conversion there this held things and you just realize how I don't know how I would have gone through it without him you know in the entire period through four surgeries my husband's surgery his chemo I had one moment of fear it was night before my mastectomy and I kneeled on the florist Lord I'm afraid he's just it's just there for you you know I'm thinking about that issue of suffering because when you're outside the church there's so many opinions on how you fit your faith together with the suffering and how do you understand God's will for your life and why is why is he doing this but the Catholic understanding of that suffering is important part of our walk with Christ absolutely in fact I've come to seek suffering as the most profound intimate invitation from Christ if you think about some of the holiest men and women of our faith they were given profound suffering and we're able to unite it to Christ in a really beautiful way and so in fact this the passionate and stations at the cross is probably the most deeply held devotion I have is to walk with Christ and his passion daily remember his passion and and feel the love that comes through that just the knowledge of all he does for us and all the love he has for us the fact that you and I are on this airway right now on televisions because of the faith of a woman named Mother Angelica who was also a woman that she dealt with suffering I've said and trusted in the Lord's controversy with that saw that as a part of her journey that she was willing to offer up and set forth for this network right and so we're very grateful that we have an email from Carrie from Alabama okay what can I say to my non Catholic friends who don't see the multitude of Christian denominations as a big deal they think that the variety assures that everyone can find a comfortable home as a Christian and don't believe that the lack of unity is necessarily negative okay well I would say sit with your friend open the Bible and read John chapter 17 all the things that we get worked up about in our faith as far as you know abortion gay marriage euthanasia all these things Christ didn't pray specifically for those things but if you read John chapter 17 which is called the high priestly prayer what does he say that we may be one they may be one praying for all of us that they may be one as you the father and I are one that they may be one why so that the world may know that you sent me the unity is that visible representation to humanity of our his divinity of the Church it you cannot separate him and that separation it is it a hindrance to our witness to Christ he didn't desire it this it is against his will to be divided and I feel that we should all long to be together I think if you are just fine with the fact that there's these separations if you're a Catholic and you're like it's cool you know we all love the Lord he's sad it hurts his heart and we should desire to reach out and and bring that sense of unity together because he wants it so much because he and if we see ourselves as truly brothers and sisters not just in the spirit but in the flesh and blood of Christ Jesus and the Eucharist who are we to try to deny that to those who they already love Christ but they're missing out on the biggest part of what he wants to give us fully himself it's the lack of charity yeah and we know that especially since Vatican 2 the Catholic Church has been very committed to being in dialogue with our separated brethren with the goal of reaching the unity and that ought to happen I'm not sure what ever happened in our lifetime at that level but we have to the unity that you witnessed to was the witness of that friend of yours who was suffering that share her faith with you was willing to be with you to answer your questions was willing to say well I don't know that I'll do a little bit more work yeah but I think the most important part about that aspect of the story it isn't anything that she told me anything that she taught me any of that it was love that's what converts hearts to go in and say I want I want to love you with Christ's love and the work of conversion that's the work of the Holy Spirit our job is to love that's what he says over and over again and if you're a Catholic and you truly believe in Christ presence in the Eucharist to love another is to desire for them to experience that to our lady love her I never had any trouble with her as soon as that night came and I understood why we have Saints and what that how that unites us and how we have these that cloud of witnesses that are interceding for us that we're never separated from those who you know just simply aren't present to us physically but they're still very profoundly present to us spiritually and so never I didn't have to struggle with that at all in fact I kind of joked around as like I did eventually read Scott Hines book and I thought it took him a lot longer to get to that and it took to me so thanks Holy Spirit it was a nice quick journey this is a maybe a lot of question to ask on television but dealing with your own suffering because of your surgeries and all that were you able to offer that up and understand that as a absolutely and I think I've looked more and more have come to see that as I said as a an opportunity like my spiritual director likes to say it's beautiful to think of the Cross not as something that you're carrying but something that's pressing you closer to Christ and if we could all just look at suffering as that opportunity to be even more intimate with our Lord because he is the suffering servant and to know him is to know suffering that's a beautiful way older thank you so much for joining us on the journey home and sharing your journey and prayers continue with you and your family and thank you for joining us on this episode of the journey home I do pray that megan's journey is an encouragement to you to trust God god bless you see you next week [Music]

Channel: EWTN

Views: 24,812

Rating: 4.8073654 out of 5

Keywords: JHT, JHT01595

Id: TO1DjEJl7Ow

Length: 56min 10sec (3370 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 04 2017