Funny How I Became A Catholic

[Howie]

I grew up something between a baptist and a penticostal. I had always been told by my parents that Catholics were of the devil. At the age of 19 I suddenly got a strong desire to spend a summer reading the bible all the way through and pray. I did nothing more than read the bible and pray all day from the time I woke up to the time I went to bed. I did not go to church at the time and I just wanted to get my own feeling for what God was. After spending several weeks reading the bible (king james version) I decided it was time to go to church. I held my beliefs and never told anyone assuming they believed the same I did because of what the bible said. After a few months someone asked me what I beleived about receiving communion and I told them that I believed that when you receive communion, it is really the body and blood of Christ. They got a good laugh out of it and in time people bagan asking me other questions such as being a pastor(which is something I had wanted to do). I said that I felt that it was a good thing for them to remain a virgin and never marry. I never got this conclusion from a catholic but from what I felt in prayer and reading the bible. Within time I could see that I was in the wrong place and people did not accept my beliefs. My mom was talking about me to some of my distant relatives and told them my problems in my church. Funny thing is that the people she was talking to were Catholic. They asked me to go visit with them and I did. It did not take long to see that all that I learned from prayer and reading a protestant bible lead me to believe what the Catholic church already taught. Within 6 months I had received all my sacraments from a priest that became a very good friend of mine. He did all the teaching on his own twice a week and helped me along very fast. I never considered becoming a priest until my Godparents told me that I should consider it due to how I wanted a life of celebacy and service to the church along with my love for the Eucharist. Sort of funny how I could come to a Catholic conclusion from a protestant upbringing and bible.

[Brother Adam]

Welcome to the Phorum Howie. You are in good company. My wife and I converted from the Baptist faith through Bible study and theological study.

[MichaelFilo]

Howie, those are my favorite conversion stories. Using the bible to reach the Truth. Again, it's beautiful in that it shows what an unbiased reading of the Bible can lead to.

God bless and good to have you here,

Mikey

[homeschoolmom]

That's kinda how HSdad and I ended up converting, too. We were confronted with Catholicism and we decided to read through the entire NT while trying to keep an open mind. We skipped the Gospels as they were pretty familiar (having just studied them)... Read Acts, Romans... Got to about Galatians and signed up for RCIA...