I didn’t know where to go to church. I’d been stuck for months.
By the spring of 2005, I was one of those people who call themselves Christian but live secular lives.
Until one day. I was fed up. I was angry. At God. At the Baptist minister. At my father. At myself. At nobody in particular.
Something happened as I was driving home from work on a Friday afternoon in March of 2005. I was trying to decide where to got to church on Sunday. This was my usual routine, but I never had an answer. I was stuck.
I remember shaking my fist at God while I was driving and saying out loud, maybe to God, “I just want more of Jesus.”
That’s all. I felt I’d already done every bible study, every retreat, every home group, every conference, blah, blah, blah.
I just wanted more of Jesus. I didn’t know where to go to get any more of Jesus than I already had. I was embarrassed to call myself a Christian, yet still be experiencing this feeling of lack.
Immediately I heard a voice in my spirit saying, “You know, if you were Catholic, you could (potentially) have Jesus every day.”
I knew that voice. I recognized the voice. It was the Holy Spirit. God. He didn’t repeat himself. That’s how I knew. And I also knew enough about the Catholic church by this time, because of conversations with some of my Catholic friends, to know that they had mass in some churches every day, and that the priest would not be the judge as to whether or not I was disposed to receive communion.
I almost had to pull the car over. At first I thought, “O Crap! I have to be Catholic, now? Are you kidding me?” That’s how I talk to God. Then, after a moment. . .”Wow. . .now I have an excuse to be Catholic. . .Cool!”
I started to plan, still making my way home. I thought, “I’ll just jump through all their little hoops, but I won’t really have to change the way I believe, will I?” It hadn’t occurred to me yet that at some point I’d have to say, “Amen” in order to receive communion. And I only had a vague sense then that in order to become Catholic, at some point, they would probably ask me to make some kind of oath. (God has been so patient with me.)
The next week, I started looking up things on the internet like, “How to become Catholic.” That’s how I found out the acronym RCIA, although I still didn’t understand what it was, exactly. I called the closest Catholic church, St. Helen in Georgetown, to find out how to join this “RCIA.” In 2005 the RCIA classes didn’t start until August, but by then the Baptist church in Bertram had called me back to service to direct a children’s musical for Christmas. I wanted to do it, and it was on the same night, Wednesday, as RCIA, so it also gave me an excuse to put off Catholic formation for a while longer.
Apparently, I wasn’t ready for more of Jesus. At least not yet.
