No more reason to protest: my journey home to the Catholic Church

[Music] my name is Daniel tws I live in Indiana and I have a little story I'd like to share today about uh how I entered into the Catholic church I was not was not born Catholic in fact was born uh very Lutheran from a very strong Lutheran Family my dad is one of the most faithful Christians I know on Earth he uh um prayed with us every night and read scriptures to us so I I certainly grew up knowing Jesus Christ as my savior and and and loving him and loving loving family it was it was a wonderful upbringing um but I went to school to be uh become an engineer and uh was going to take an extra year uh to finish that after four years and my parents uh proba wisely pulled the financial plug and so I I I joined the Marine Corps in order to uh pay for the rest of my school um this would have been in the year 2000 um so while I was in um I was actually overseas When September 11th happened I was in Koso at the time and uh we came back and then we were sent uh overseas then to be part of the initial Invasion force in Iraq it was during that time that I kept feeling this this feeling that I was supposed to become a pastor it was not something that I had considered before and so I asked God for some kind of sign because that would have been such a big change from what my intention had been to go and finish my engineering degree um so when I uh returned home I obviously you know greeted my wife with great joy we were very happy to be back together but in one of our first conversations she said you know Daniel I was thinking that this feeling that you're supposed to be a pastor I thought wow that's that's that's amazing okay there's my sign God I'll I'll go and um well then I called my parents and they're of course were happy to hear I'm home safely and my dad in that first con conversation said you know Daniel I have this feeling that you're supposed to be a pastor it's oh well there it is God and well I call I've got two younger sisters I call other two one of them said the same thing and and they said they had not talked with each other during this time that it was just that they but they all said that same thing so I thought well there's my sign and so I finished my degree I went to uh um the Lutheran Seminary um it was a four-year program there and after that I was ordained as a pastor and um sent to my first call which was in rural South Dakota just absolutely beautiful country the wonderful people up there and U just I absolutely loved it um becoming a pastor and and teaching Bible studies andu studying the scriptures all those things that that I I love to do uh one of my good friends from the Seminary had a call to Minnesota and we would talk on the phone often weekly or every other week just about things in the ministry or family whatnot and one day he told a funny story uh it was sad it was it was his his father had been ill for a long time passed away but um the day before the funeral he met the pastor at the viewing and and that was going to do this father's funeral and and he was a some non-denominational or Baptist background is what his father was at the time and so he talked to him and my friend told him that he was a Lutheran pastor and everything was fine well he was my friend was surprised to hear during the sermon during the funeral the pastor looked down at him and start pounding in the pulpit and saying there are some people who believe that in order to become a pastor you have to go to school you have to learn languages and and teachings he then goes on to explain how he had been a lay person and uh then the Holy Spirit told him and the next day he was a pastor when my friend told me that story you know just seems like a small story but it had such big implications to me because I recognized immediately that something was wrong with that I knew at the Seminary how much I had learned how much I had grown and and formed myself as a as a as a teacher and understander of of scriptures and and the teachings and I knew that if I didn't have that I would not have you know been as effective as I was and so I thought well what better way to prove that Lutheranism is what it should be and that this is how we're supposed to be teaching our people is to go to the very sources um even Martin Luther had the great s thing you always say go back to the sources go back to the font of knowledge and so I thought well that's a very Lutheran idea so I'm going to do that so I started with the Dake and started reading through that now it was nothing profound but immediately I came to a recognition that what I was reading there just didn't sound very Lutheran in fact there may have been some things in the Dak so this is written by the the people who were literally taught by the apostles themselves that the next thing that was written after the New Testament was completed that if I said them in front of a Lutheran congregation I might get in trouble um but it didn't it wasn't much you know and so I I kept going and and started going through turolian and and and many of the the early church fathers up through and and kept going all the way to to St Augustine and and and as I was reading through these more and more and more there there became a a growing and growing recognition that what I was reading was by no means Lutheran in fact it sounded very very Catholic now what my understanding of the Catholic church had been up until that time was just a caricature of what the Lutheran CH Church taught that the Catholic Church taught and so there was some of the the common mistakes that people believe about the Catholic church that they they worship Mary or that that you know whatever the Pope says at any given time is perfectly true and we have to you know do all these things and and so I decided to actually purchase a Catholic catechism and started reading through that um so again this is my I I dedicated my first half of the day to just um again still reading scriptures time in prayer and now with studying the early church fathers and uh instead of reading the the book of Concord and and the the small catechism of Luther I just started reading the Catholic catechism just to see and what it was that the Catholic Church taught and I still have this catechism to this day and I still read it a lot and it's so I love doing this because I go back at the time I was highlighting in red all those things that see this is bad this is what the Catholic church that the Catholic Church teaches that is against what we know of you know from scripture and and so these were in there and so to this day I still go back and I I kind of smile and I thought you know hey this is it's such a beautiful passage now but at the time you know cuz that conflicted with my Lutheran understanding of things I highlighted it red and so I still I still like those passages when I come across them today but there was something about the Catholic catechism that I really liked the Lutheran catechism is is very short and it it kind of just covers the basics about the Lord's prayer about communion baptism things like that it's it's very short but the Catholic catechism has everything in it um if you haven't read the cath catechism of the Catholic church I strongly encourage it it's a beautiful work and it covers everything not only the the things about theology about Christ about the church but there's huge portions about how we should even live together as as Community even as Nations it kind of says that if you know if we are who we are as followers of Christ it actually affects how we live together in our Nations how we act as as a people together and so it's it's a wonderful work in that sense so for me I really that that that that Drew me in uh very strongly at that that time and I I that that was really meaningful to me so as I contined to study uh the the church fathers I kept coming to a realization that there were some pretty significant differences between what I was taught as a Lutheran and what I was teaching to my people as a pastor and with what the early early church was saying themselves and it started me to wonder how the Lutheran came to the conclusions that they did especially when they directly contradicted things in the early church fathers and one of the things that came very early to me was was a question of mine is who was Luther what was Luther what was his role and if he had a certain role in the church how did he get that role because it it became to the point that inside the the Lutheran documents if there was a place that that Luther contradicted say what St Augustine said the Lutheran Church would go with what Luther said if Luther uh contradicted something that tertian said they would go with what Luther said or every one of the church fathers it would always go back to what Luther said even if it was in direct contradiction to the teachings of the church the historical faith that was believed at all times and in all places at least in the in the amongst Christendom and so I asked myself the question what was Luther what was he he spoke he railed against the pope and how that that that idea of a Papal office was not scriptural that it was used for great evil and yet what Luther was taking on him um for him self as far as an authority to be a teaching authority of the church was far greater than I realized that the pope ever had for himself he was able on his own to knock down the number of sacraments in the church to just baptism in the Lord's Supper knocking out all the other ones on his own he was able to on his own change the number of books in the Bible I mean taking out um all of the what I always understood the Catholic Books of the Bible but um then my realization through the subagent that they were there and at least the Bible that Jesus would have quoted from the Old Testament scriptures that Jesus would have quoted from had the other books of the Catholic church in them and so what gave him the authority to make such sweeping changes within the church and yet that was an authority that he was not willing to Grant to the one that was actually uh given the keys uh that was passed down from St Peter through the popes up to his day and so that became a very difficult question for me and I started then uh reaching out to some of my other Pastor friends and asking him that question and the the the general Lutheran answer to that is that he is he's kind of another church father or he was just very intelligent or that he you know knew his Bible so well that he was able to to do these things up to an including that you know there's some that would say that he is a a prophet that's kind of pointed out in the Book of Revelation and so not many people go that route but there's there's quite a few different options for that but especially the idea that he was a church father that's kind of what it came up to but if that was the case still why would he be able to contradict other Church fathers and have that that teaching authority over them um however you know for what he was taking he was a kind of a super Pope and and what he was so that was a a something that was really leading me along in uh um trying to find out why Lutheran Doctrine was so in contradiction to what was taught in the early church at that time I was really having more and more of a fascination with the Catholic Church based on what I had been reading in the catechism and I was I was going to some different Catholic blogs at the time as well just trying to learn more and more what the Catholic Church taught um and so there definitely was was an interest growing in my mind um that combined with what I was reading in the church fathers but it was during that time that a pretty significant thing happened um and that was I found out about the rosary I mean I wouldn't say found out about it you kind of most Protestants know there is such a thing is a rosary and we had seen them before but I hadn't really given it much thought um but one of the things that I like to do during that time in my time of prayer is I would um oftentimes my office was right next to it I would go into the the church and just I like to to kneel and and and just and do my prayers there it was just very peaceful now obviously the lutherans don't have the the the body of Christ there in in a tabernacle or of anything of that nature um but it still was just a peaceful place for me to go and pray but sometimes it was a you know as we we often do we have difficulty with our minds wandering and and I always wanted something that I could just you know kind of keep track of where I was and sense prayer beads of something like that and so as long as I was already kind of dabbling and reading in and different things of the Catholic Church um I thought I would uh try a rosary so I received my first Rosary actually from my wife which is a a kind of a story on its own she's having a parallel story at the same time that I'd like to touch on as well but I printed out just a sheet from the internet about how to pray a rosary and had that sheet in front of me and started going through it um now from a Lutheran perspective there's a you know some little difficulties uh at least the Hail Mary the first half of it I think any Lutheran or Protestant can pray no problem you know Hail Mary full of grace the Lord is with thee blessed art thou amongst women blessed is the fruit of thy womb Jesus all of that is purely from the Bible you know we're hearing it from you know where St Elizabeth uh our lady visits St Elizabeth uh from the Angel's greeting to Mary no problem but it's the second half of of it where we're actually asking Mary for her intercession that you know a Lutheran for so long is is taught that we only pray to Jesus we and and and that that that was a difficult thing to do and so just to ask for intercession that second half was but I I went ahead and tried it anyway and uh and went through and and it it was difficult but uh but made it through and I actually started doing that as a a habit um almost immediately it it was it was very uh became very important to me and uh as I as I continued my my journey through this and uh that that Rosary was kind of always alongside of me and I I became I began praying it every day and asking for wisdom uh especially if there was any if I had anything that I was asking for was it was show me the truth um and lead me to where that I'm I'm supposed to be because I I loved being a pastor I loved what I did I loved the the time in prayer and study and I couldn't imagine doing anything else um but I wanted to follow the truth and was becoming more and more convinced as I was as I was going through this that there may be some some serious issues with remaining in the Pastoral Ministry at one point in time even I um sat down with my father the the strong Lutheran strong Christian man of God um love him dearly and I told him some of the problems that I was having and he said you know lent's coming up during this time why don't you try stopping everything Catholic stop praying the rosary stop reading anything Catholic stop reading the church fathers just you know and just you know go back to to what you know you know maybe you're just getting too overwhelmed with these with one side of things and so I thought you know that was a that was a a good idea a good suggestion and so I did that um even stopped praying the rosary there was something really fascinating happened I had this just constant feeling in my mind this constant pull back to the rosary I I didn't pray it I didn't pray it but it it never stopped it was like our lady was just pulling me back into this and and it was it it was very interesting you know and uh and I that was very telling to me and so after lent was over I really you know jumped back both feet into it the fact that I could not go those you know 40 days uh without praying that Rosary um was was just was really cool and I think that was just something that that was really convincing me uh that you know where I was going was the right place to be I got to change gears a little bit too because I think there was something very fascinating happening at the same time so I'm in my office I'm going through all of these things and uh my wife I didn't know how she would respond to what I was learning so I started perhaps just dropping some little hints and some things like that and and occasionally to get something you know well that's a little weird for a Lutheran Pastor to say but okay you know and but she really wasn't uh um wasn't real open to it so I was I was very careful I didn't want to unload because I had spent you know months and at this time years even studying and that was what was bringing me to this other side but all this time uh my wife was having her own she didn't know it at the time but conversion experience as well um she was invited by a friend of hers to be a part of a women's group and they read works of classic literature so each month they would have a different book um they would read this this book everything from you know dovi to Wendell Berry there was just a whole bunch of really neat books that I loved I'm I'm a huge reader and so I thought that was really neat and so she got to go um with them once a month then they would meet and the neat thing about this was all the other people in the group all the other ladies were catholic and uh you know but this was uh one of just reading classic literature so there was nothing you know particularly threatening about that and so once a month when we got together at um one of the ladies houses she lived out in out in the country at a beautiful Farmhouse she had I believe seven kids there was another woman there that had eight children another that had six uh two more that had five and one that her friend only had three um but it was funny amongst that group we who in with our five children had one of the smaller families in it but it was really cool because all the dads would um serve lunch and watch all these kids and that gave the mom some time to go in a back room and they would discuss the book they would read and and they would spend as they were often do some of the time talking about the book and much of the time talking about being a mother and a wife and homeschooling and all that things like that so um but she loved this group and uh um she told me later that one of the things that struck her was about how all of these women lay women were showing signs of the faith that she had never seen amongst the Protestant side of things not in the Lutheran Church not anywhere else every room of their house had had some sort of religious icon or a crucifix or a picture of our lady or a saint every room and she realized at our house you know we of course had a Bible in the living room and I think we probably had a cross somewhere else but it wasn't it wasn't nearly to that level the way that these women she said were able to just bring the faith into everything that they did their teaching their speech their uh you know how they went about their lives she was so impressed she hadn't really said that but later on as I was going further in my journey and I started to share with Shaina you know I think that the Catholic church is the true church it's the church that was started by Christ it's the church that was there from the beginning and started sharing these things with her she was obviously resistant at first you know since just because my livelihood and our home and everything that we loved was tied up in this Lutheran identity but she at the same time said that these women that she had been spending so much time with and they were becoming such close friends were such a powerful witness to her that she was seeing that there was something about the Catholic church that was drawing her as well so actually it was her that um at this time then after you know some of these discussions we were having many discussions about it that she actually bought my first Rosary for me that I was that I was using in my office and so she was coming along and and as we discussed more and more things and I would show some of the problems theologically with what the Lutheran Church taught and how that compared to what the Catholic Church taught um some of the things that we believed that the Catholic church was actually teaching and how the catechism said no this is actually what it is it's a much more nuanced understanding or or or completely different than what the Protestants thought the Catholics taught um as those things came on and on she became um more and more understanding of the truth of the Catholic church and she became very enthusiastic about it and um um we started even sharing it with our our Catholic friends and they were very encouraging about it and um and and very helpful there came a time then that it was a period of suffering in this as we both knew what we believed that that Jesus and our blessed mother were leading us to do um we this path of trying to follow the truth find trying to follow the history of the teachings of the church which was unbroken uh from the time of Christ up in until now um in the Catholic church but you know was such an overlay of something totally foreign to it in the Protestant side this period of suffering really we defined it as trying to keep one foot in both camps um I was trying to be very faithful to what I had pledged as a Lutheran Pastor to teach Lutheran theology so in my Bible studies in my sermons and things like that I was still teaching Faithfully what the Lutheran Church taught I was not trying to be a a a cryp to Catholic in this and and and try to to do anything of that nature because I believe that would go against what I had pledged to do and and would have been not fair to the the people in my congregation but at the same time I was studying so much behind the scenes and uh um in this I think there were some good opportunities during that time to correct wrong teachings about the Catholic Church uh in those Bible studies and in different con uh conversations with various Lutheran so I think that was helpful but it it was still very difficult uh to try to to to live both side so we knew that at some point in time we were going to need to make a decision what I decided to do was approach um especially four of my very close pastoral friends uh good uh theologians all of them in the in the Lutheran Church and uh and and a couple more um that just that I didn't see as often but I approached all of these men with what I had found um and I asked them look I don't want to be right please find a place where you can say no Daniel here it is you're wrong this is what it actually is and I and I could just go back to doing what I love to do so we would discuss at at Great Lengths um our different understandings and I I really posed them uh two big questions that stood out one I uh was who is Luther um what was Luther what was his role what gave him that teaching Authority I I you know really came to the conclusion that Luther was a super Pope that you know was able to by himself change teachings of the church and he always claimed that he you know went back to the early church and that me was not true and I showed that and and in many cases I showed where the Lutheran fathers were misquoting very intentionally the church fathers uh over and over taking things out of context uh and and and so that was that was one of my big arguments um the other question that I came to my Lutheran friends about is actually probably the number one reason I'm a Catholic um people have asked before if there's just one single reason and for me it is the the existence of the office of the papacy and if it wasn't Luther what I also realize is that there somebody has to become that ultimate Arbiter of what is in and what is out U probably If we're honest most people that line runs through themselves they are their own Pope um but but for others it you know it might be Luther it might be Calvin or zwingley or one of the other um one of the other Protestant fathers or in many non-denominational congregations it changes when they get a new pastor and without a pope it is complete an utter chaos uh there are I mean depending on how they're counted between 20 and 30,000 different denominations there's over 6,000 Lutheran denominations alone and this to be this understanding you know going back to that original thing that made me think about my my friend at his his father's funeral where the pastor got up and said that people think you you need to go to school in order to be a pastor when all you need is the the leadings of the Holy Spirit to get up and preach this chaos this every person being their own Arbiter of truth I knew was a problem and so the Catholic Church um they also obviously we have a pope but this Pope was given instituted by Christ and it's an unbroken line over the 2000 years since then that we still have the same Pope and so this is the one thing if anything else is why I believe I'm a Catholic it's because I can know without a doubt that I'm within this this visible Church on Earth that those who are following Christ following our lady ultimately just knowing that we're inside the authority of the the church and that uh when huge questions of Doctrine come and go there is somebody that says this is the way that it is um between the church and the councils it has kept the truth and we can know what it is the truth if you're Protestant and what I was doing at the time is you have to constantly weigh every single bit of Theology and try to determine looking at scripture or looking at other things is this the right one or is this the right one and it's it's tiresome I went to my my friends with these questions um ultimately they admitted they did not have answers to them and uh and they even after I left and became Catholic they still continued to meet from time to time and even invited other ones in I know at least one of them now also is a is Catholic but at least I I wanted to bring them these questions other of them thanked me just to say that they were better able to articulate their own faith at the time so and I'm I'm I'm glad about that I I told them don't mischaracterize what the Catholic Church teaches if you are going to believe that you know still since you know since the 16th century when Luther said we need to split with the Catholic church if you still have that reason for split for another year go ahead but every year ask yourself you know do we still have enough that is separating the church that we should continue protesting if not come back and so every year I I encourage them to ask themselves that and so at least one of them has has said no we don't have that reason anymore and um he's he's come to join the the mother church as well so my wife and uh five children and I moved back to uh near where we grew up in Indiana we wanted to find a parish that was faithful uh Orthodox boldly Catholic I thought if I'm uh leaving so much on this side I wanted to find one that was very very intentional about being C Catholic very proud of that and and we found a wonderful Parish here um in uh in this part of Indiana and uh um so we went through this would have been um 2015 I left and then in uh we started rcia almost immediately at Easter Vigil my wife and I and our five children all uh received our the sacraments that we were missing and and we entered the church at Easter Vigil 2016 and it's a it's been a wonderful Journey continuing just uh my uh love love of the the rosary and the teachings of the church and especially spending time in front of the Blessed Sacrament that was something that I looked forward to even before I was able to do that but to do you know a holy hour and and just know that Jesus is present that's been a very powerful thing for me it's something that you know sadly there's so many tools that our uh Protestant brothers and sisters don't have the our our our lady the uh intercession of the Saints of the you know time spent in the presence of the Blessed Eucharist it's just it's it's a um i' I've really enjoyed all these you know and helped me tremendously these tools these gifts that are given to us in the Catholic [Music] Church

Channel: franciscanfriars

Views: 161,225

Keywords:

Id: 59hbb-kZgHo

Length: 27min 41sec (1661 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 30 2023