Hermitage Note: Pursuing Grace

I can count on one hand, with fingers left over, the number of times someone has emailed me regarding Psalty Catholic. I received one of those emails a few days ago. The correspondent wrote,

“I just discovered one of your vids on YouTube and plan to listen to more. I’m curious how when you were seeking to draw closer to “Jesus” you would leave the Protestant denomination and connect with the RCC? I can’t imagine seeking more organized religion to learn more about how to be like Him.”

I appreciate the email. I also appreciate that it comes from someone who has spent decades in the independent Protestant Christian arena.

It is not easy to provide a simple and concise answer to the question. Though to some it may appear to be something that came about “all of a sudden”, the truth of the matter is that it was a process that was drawn out over several intense years of prayerful study and discernment. The decision to convert to Catholicism was the fruit of years of attempting to carefully follow the Holy Spirit as I discerned his will for my life.

“Then Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.”[1]

The truth of his word will make us free. It will also, in making us free, turn our worlds upside-down and inside-out. Especially when we are open to the historical fullness of the truth and interpret “these modern times” according to the fullness of truth contained in “those historical times”. Modernity does the opposite. Modernites look at the past and conclude that we are far better off now in these liberated times and that the moral and liturgical norms of the past are antiquated and out of date.

Discovering what it means to live Sacramentally, understanding and giving proper place to the Seven Sacraments, certainly had something to do with my conversion. Realizing the divinely instituted hierarchical apostolic nature of spiritual authority built into the Church had something to do with converting. As did discovering the importance of expressions of Christian monasticism.

These three areas were never part of my former Protestant experience … an experience that came to its conclusion in the independent charismatic arena … an experience that left me utterly disillusioned and deeply wounded emotionally and spiritually. The aforementioned three are, in fact, generally rejected and condemned by the fundamental evangelical world.

Throw in our veneration of Theotokos [hyperdulia], the Saints [dulia], this place called Purgatory where final purification takes place, and a lot of fundamental evangelical Protestants have a tendency to flip out and throw fits in protest. I understand because I spent decades doing likewise. But, as the scales began to fall from my eyes, it grew harder and harder to kick against the goads[2] that Christ put into place to keep his Church headed in the direction she should be going.

I recall a conversation that I had with the priest who was over the RCIA program at the church where we took the nine-month course and were received into full communion in the Catholic Church at the Easter Vigil in 2007. I mentioned to Padre Johnny that I needed a lot of grace in my life. His response was, “You’re going to discover more grace in the Catholic Church than you ever imagined possible.”

He was right.

He’s still right.

Everything about this “organized religion” is designed to assist seekers in discovering, experiencing, and communicating grace.

[1] John 8:31-32 [2] Acts 26:14