In hindsight it was inevitable. But at the time I couldn’t think of anything more calamitous than becoming Catholic. I was studying at an Anglican seminary, Nashotah House in Wisconsin, when my wife and I began to examine the historical and scriptural arguments for Catholicism.
I discussed them with my classmate Will. Together we read John Henry Newman’s Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine. Will was a faster reader than me, and he finished first.
“Can I come in?” he asked one night, knocking on my door. I invited him into the living room. “I believe,” he said. Will’s eyes were bright with emotion though he looked worn, pale around the gills. He opened to the last page of Newman’s book and read the invitation to convert to Catholicism:
Time is short, eternity is long. Put not from you what you have found; regard it not as mere matter of present controversy; set not out resolved to refute it, and looking for the best way to do so; seduce not yourself with the imagination that it comes of disappointment, or disgust, or restlessness, or wounded feeling, or undue sensibility, or other weakness. Wrap not yourself round in the associations of years past, nor determine that to be truth which you wish to be so, nor make an idol of cherished anticipations. Time is short, eternity is long.
There was an awkward silence for a moment. “I believe,” Will said, tears streaming down his face. “I’m going to become Catholic.”
The thought nearly stopped my heart. As Will was to be ordained in less than a month, we knew this decision would cost him everything.
The next day, Will called his bishop to share the bad news. They spoke for several hours, and for several days afterwards Will didn’t leave his apartment. At last, curious, I went to visit him.
“Look, Catholicism is not true,” he said, somewhat testily. I blinked. “How so?” I asked. “My bishop asked me if I was called to be married to my wife, and I said yes. He asked me if I was called to be a priest, and I said yes.
And then my bishop reminded me that if God had called me to both marriage and the priesthood, and if Catholics don’t allow priests to be married, then Catholicism cannot be true.”
I nodded, and walked back to my apartment with a heavy heart. I was trembling slightly, with both fear of the unknown and a childlike wonder. Over the leafless trees the sky was crowded with clouds noted with a streak of blue watercolour. My breath vaporised on the bitter air.
At first, it seemed that Will had a point. But the more I thought about it, the more subjective his reasoning seemed. The truth of Catholicism does not rise or fall on an individual’s sense of personal calling. It’s either true or false. As the implications of this realisation began to settle, I realised that I too had to make a decision. It was a matter of covenant faithfulness.
Just the thought of becoming Catholic made me break into a cold sweat. My scalp felt electrified. It was a matter first of love – better to receive God’s love and better to love him back. What did it look like to love God? “If you love me, you will keep my commandments” (John 14:15). When someone loves God, he obeys him.
I tried not to panic over the mounting problems becoming Catholic would create. I sighed, suddenly miserable at the thought of what was happening to me, and how inauspicious the whole dreadful thing had been. But deep, deep down beneath the dread I felt a smouldering hope.
When I arrived home, my wife, Brittany, was reading in the living room. I walked down the hall and collapsed on the couch and told her that things weren’t looking good. We would have no home. After so much preparation, people would understandably feel ill-used. My reputation was at stake. The truth shone out clearly, but the way forward was dark and foreboding.
Exhausted, I put my head in my hands. Brittany came and sat on my lap and kissed the top of my head and hugged me, wordlessly.
The news soon spread that I was becoming “a papist”. People questioned my motives. Many classmates felt that I was rejecting them personally. Several Anglican bishops spurned my overtures of friendship, and nearly everyone let me know one way or another that I was converting for some subjective reason – because I was a perfectionist, an idealist, or had some other personal problem. Never before had Matthew 10:34 hit so close to home: “I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.” It was a very lonely time in my life.
Heartbroken and afraid, I knew then that my quarrel was not with Anglicanism. It was with my own heart. There was no time for dithering. Brittany and I were bone tired, and we had a child on the way. Though this simple act of obedience seemed so impossible, I knew that we needed to become Catholic. I called the priest of a nearby Catholic parish. Though it was late in the year, because of our unusual formation and catechesis, by the grace of God we were allowed into the RCIA (Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults) process.
Before becoming Catholic, I had always thought I had no choice but to grip my Bible tighter and leave one denomination for yet another. But there were more things in heaven and on earth than were dreamt of in my philosophy, more to the story than I had ever imagined, more to the Kingdom and more to the cost.
Tyler Blanski is an author, musician and public speaker. This is an edited extract from An Immovable Feast: How I Gave up Spirituality for a Life of Religious Abundance (Ignatius Press)
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