The biggest evidence that I recognize of my conversion is a growing distaste for sin. My life today hardly resembles the life that I led ten years ago. I shudder at some of the past decisions I have made. I did so much for myself and so little for others. Today I make most decisions with the eyes of faith. I know that God wants me to become holy, and to bring others along with me.

And yet I still struggle. I struggle less with the grave sins and more with the day-to-day decisions with which I am faced, but I struggle nonetheless. Some days are easy. Some days are very difficult. When I look at life under the microscope, it can seem like I am not succeeding. But when I step back and compare myself now with the person I was last year, and a year before that – I see that I have made some great progress.

In my quest for holiness I have to be creative. I have to continue to seek God’s mercy and grace, and I have to do creative things to remind myself to use that grace. What works for me might not work for you because the things that tempt me are likely not the same things that tempt you. What is important, is that I keep getting up each time I fall, and I keep looking for new ways to grow in holiness. So I am converting, but I have not converted. I am dying to self, but I have not yet died to self.

My journey has not been so much an exercise of will or intellect as an experience of Divine Love. My Lord pursued me, pulled me out of sin and despair, and then allowed me to suffer – so I would become emptied and able to be filled with Him. Then He pulled me, irresistibly, into His Church where He had been waiting to welcome me all along.

The entire beautifully written and emotional story can be read at mycatholicconversion.com.

We spent almost a half an hour just talking about what grace is and where it comes from. Since then, we’ve spent a lot more time talking about how we get it, if and how we can lose it, how we can get it back, and what we can do with it. I hope that this post can be a nice summary about grace for those of you who are as ignorant about it as me.

So what is grace? Simply put, it’s God’s divine life within us. It’s really that simple. But it’s also very deep. It is God’s divine life within us. How amazing is it to sit back and reflect on that? Not only do we have human life — with all of its strengths and weaknesses — but we also have divine, supernatural life within us. Well okay, it may be a little more complicated than that.

Where does this grace — this divine life — come from? Obviously, it comes from God, but how and when do we get it? We get grace in three ways: through the Sacraments, through prayer, and through good works (doing God’s will). So we first receive grace through baptism. We continue to receive grace through prayer, the Sacraments, and by aligning our will with the will of God.

Can we lose this grace? Oh, yes. When we knowingly and willingly do things that are gravely sinful (think Commandments), we can lose the grace of God within us. Does that mean that all hope is lost? Of course not! The grace of God can be restored within us through the Sacrament of Reconciliation! God is ever-merciful. He will always restore his grace within us if we come before him with contrite hearts, confessing all of our wrongdoing.

Okay, so now we’ve talked about all the formalities — granted, at a very high level. But what is so special about this grace? Well, maybe you need to re-read what grace is — it’s God’s divine life within us! Isn’t that pretty special? Yes, but what can grace do for us? Grace can help us gain that patience that we’ve always wanted. Grace can give us courage to do something that we’ve always feared. Grace can cure alcoholism. Grace can keep us from sin.

Make no mistake, all of us who have been baptised and are not in a state of mortal sin, have a reservoir of this grace within us. God is just pleading with us all to use it! Why do we keep repeating the same bad behaviors? Why do we keep confessing the same sins? Why do we keep picking up that pack of cigarettes, that bottle, that bag? We keep getting the same results because we keep doing the same things! We keep trying to solve our own problems. At best, the most we will do is turn to friends, family, or medical professionals. They can help some people, for some things. But for the things in our life that we never seem to be able to handle, the supernatural is our only true remedy. If we consciously look to use the divine life within us, grace, for the obstacles that we face, we cannot fail. If our motives are pure — if we seek only to do the will of God — he will never deny us his grace.

We are called to live very holy lives, and most of us fail miserably. If we use the grace that is already within us, we will slowly become more like God himself. We can then act as Christ on earth — which is what he expects. If we start using his grace to overcome the small challenges in our lives, we will quickly see how successful this new way of life can be. This confidence and experience should then inspire us to use God’s grace to seek perfection. We will never attain it, and we will always fall — but we can try. When we confess our sins, we must truly be sorry, but God doesn’t ask us to promise him that we won’t do those things again. How merciful and just is that? But by his grace, we will learn to lead lives that inspire others to seek God. This kingdom was meant to be shared. By his grace it shall be.

I have been (at minimum) praying the Morning and Evening prayers from the Liturgy of the Hours.  Most of the time I also include the Office of Readings and the Night Prayer.  Sometimes it gets a little bit dry, or perhaps I’ll get distracted and lose focus, but I pray anyhow.  I find that this regular schedule builds spiritual discipline, and forces me to maintain a regular focus on our most glorious God.

Even though I’ve been out of town for the past week, working long hours, and I’ve certainly had a lot of distractions that I wouldn’t normally have at home, I have managed to maintain this schedule.  I feel like my relationship with God is continuing to grow each day.  I’ve definitely taken two steps forward.  Now I just need to be on the lookout for that temptation that might cause me to take one step back.  With a routine and meaningful prayer life, I should be able to get in a few more forward steps before that happens.

But this site is about more than just the technicalities of an RCIA program — as important as they may be. To view articles specifically related to conversion, click on the drop-down box in the right-hand column of the page and select “Conversion.”

Early on, I promised to post my own conversion story. To be totally honest, I haven’t even started it yet. I guess what’s keeping me from starting, is that I don’t feel like I’ve totally converted yet. I feel like each day brings me closer to Christ. Each day I enter deeper into the Catholic Church. And quite frankly, that’s exactly the point of Conversion for Life. Conversion never stops.

Still, I pledge to work on a conversion story and post it soon. In the mean time, if you’d like to share your thoughts about conversion — Catholic conversion — with the world, just mention it in the comments of this article. I’d love to post the perspectives of other people.

Peace & God bless!

A spiritual director is someone that you trust, generally a member of the clergy, with whom you meet regularly to help you grow closer to God.  We Catholics should confess our sins to a priest regularly, but spiritual direction is much more than that.

There is a lot of information (and misinformation) about our faith, which is readily available to all of us in this age of information.  A spiritual director can help you to understand what information is in line with Church teaching.

The spiritual director should act as your advocate, helping you to discern the Will of God in your life, and helping you grow closer to God through a form of prayer that works well for you.  The many charisms of our faith offer us many options, which can be very overwhelming.  A good spiritual director will work with you to determine which spiritual exercises, and with what frequency, you should be doing to increase your Catholic fitness and deepen your conversion.

Do you have a difficult time trying to think of things to give up for Lent?  Your spiritual director can help guide you and offer you exercises that will help you to overcome some of your character flaws — helping you to better live out your Catholic faith.

Not all priests are available for spiritual direction.  Some are just too busy with their day-to-day ministry.  Another option is to find a Catholic Brother or Sister at a local monastery.  Try to find someone who is likely to be in your area for the next several years.  I’m in the process of finding a new spiritual director right now as I’m losing my current one to an inter-diocese move.  It’s a bummer!

Considering the religious life?  Thinking about joining a third order or some sort of Catholic lay association? If you feel as though you’re ready to take the next step in your faith, but aren’t sure which way to step, spiritual direction is a great way to go.

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There is a saying that if you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans. The converse is also true. If God wants to make you laugh, he will tell you his plans for you. On April 4, 1999, at the Easter Vigil, I was received into the Catholic Church. Just a couple of years before that, if a prophet had told me that I would rejoice on entering the Church or that tears would stream down my cheeks as I went to my first confession, I would have told him that he was gravely mistaken.

I was at the apogee of my conservatism based on Randian positivism. To me, radical selfishness was the highest virtue. The pinnacle of individualism and being a self-made man were my highest ideals. The natural virtues helped to modify this idealistic positivism toward how I related with others, but it was not enough. My nose had long before achieved orbit as I looked down at those poor superstitious mortals who still believed in hunter-gatherer myths such as God.During the formative years of my life I grew up in Portland, Oregon, in an atmosphere where religion was not part of my life. Religion was a private thing that was never talked about. I knew that my neighborhood friends went to church with their parents, and they never talked about their church or about any religious questions. I also knew that our family was considered odd because of our lack of church attendance. My father to this day says that he is an agnostic or a “retired Christian.” My mother, who passed away last year, entered the Catholic Church in my high school years. The topic of religion was so private in my house that I didn’t even know that my mother had converted from Methodism to the Catholic Church until many years later.

C. S. Lewis said, “A young man who wishes to remain a sound atheist cannot be too careful of his reading.” Without knowing it, I was very careful of my reading. Growing up, I enjoyed reading, and science fiction was my genre of choice. I prided myself on choosing what was called “hard SF,” such as Isaac Asimov and Hal Clement. I read little outside of SF except general magazines on science. I also enjoyed the Sherlock Holmes stories. The character appealed to me since he seemed so in control and used the abilities of his mind and science to solve crimes. I would attempt to act like Mr. Holmes by being acutely aware of my surroundings.

My first brush with religion was going with my mother to a progressive Catholic church. I was a teenager, and to please her I went to Mass. The music used during the Mass included selections such as the Byrds’ “Turn! Turn! Turn!” and “Day by Day” from the musical Godspell. I enjoyed singing and didn’t mind these songs. My mother knew the woman who headed the singing group, and I ended up auditioning and then singing with them. I enjoyed the irony of being an atheist and singing in the church.

One evening I went to the home of the priest for a class on the Church. The priest gave an overview of the Bible and how the miracles didn’t really happen but could be explained by other means. I remember thinking that as an atheist I already didn’t believe in miracles. Why should I become a Catholic to not believe in miracles? I also heard the word Catholicism used for the first time. This word somehow seemed ominous and stuck with me. During this yearlong period I never received any information about what the Catholic Church taught. The homilies were full of social justice and not much else. I was going to Communion not knowing what I was receiving. I might have laughed if I were told what Catholics said the Eucharist was, though it would have been nice to be told the truth. My parents ended up divorcing and I stopped going to Mass. I did not think that my parents’ divorce would have any effect on me. My mother sought the divorce and I encouraged my father to go ahead, that it was no problem to me. During this time I never connected my moral decline and my failing grades with what was happening at home. My parents’ divorce was in no way bitter or acrimonious, but just the split and the subsequent changes affected me without my realizing it.

During my final years of high school I enrolled in an electronics class. I enjoyed learning electronics theory and bread-boarding components and started to think about a career doing this. I ended up joining the Navy under the Advanced Electronics Field program. When I was asked what religion I wanted noted in my service record, I proudly said atheist.

While I was going to a Navy electronics school, one of the instructors invited me to his house for dinner. It turned out that he was a Baptist trying to bring people to the faith. We talked in his living room and he said some things that were attractive to me because at that point I was like a typical sailor living in party mode. I tried to join in the conversation, but the only philosophical idea that I could think of was a lyric from Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven”: “Yes, there are two paths you can go by, but in the long run there’s still time to change the road you’re on.”

This was a clear indication of my total lack of spiritual depth at that point in time, and I smile at the memory now. The night ended in a full-immersion baptism and some literature. I never saw him or the other people outside of class again, and there was no follow-up. My conversion must have lasted all of twenty-four hours. It was definitely a case of the seed planted on hard, rocky ground.

While stationed overseas, I got married in the Philippines. My wife is a Catholic, and we were married in a Catholic church. This church was somewhat of a marriage mill, and there was no preparation for marriage given. The only other times during the next decade and a half that I had entered a church was for the baptisms of my two children. I felt ill at ease during the baptismal preparation and felt a total fraud for going along with this while being an atheist. For many years I gave no thought to the idea of God or religion other than to disparage it. My wife continued in her private devotions with some prayer books she brought with her and by praying the rosary. I tried to talk my wife out of what I thought to be superstitions, but she wisely ignored me on this subject.

At the time I joined the Navy, my views were closely aligned with what is modern liberalism: The government needs to do all it can to help people and to make their lives better. But as I was traveling around the world and having a family, my views on what was important in life were changing. In the early nineties I started listening to talk radio, and it was on the G. Gordon Liddy show that I heard him state the five proofs of God as detailed by Thomas Aquinas in the Summa Theologiae. I was quite surprised at such rational-sounding ideas. I started to observe that many people whom I respected believed in God, and those who called themselves non-religious I did not agree with on many issues.

Maybe subconsciously I saw my atheism slipping because I started to work actively to shore up my atheistic “faith.” I started reading books on atheism. One book I read recommended the works of Ayn Rand. I joyfully read Atlas Shrugged, and I thought it contained the answers I needed to be able to remain both conservative and an atheist.

At the height of my new-found fervor, something happened that would change my life. I used to ride my bike to and from work. One morning, as I was coming to the end of a block, I saw a car coming directly toward me from the right. The man in the car was turning onto the main road and did not see me. I calculated that there was no way that I could avoid getting hit. In those seconds my whole life did not flash before my eyes, but only the sure thought that I was going to be killed. The car hit me dead on, and I went up onto the hood and was then knocked into the street. My first reaction was surprise—surprise that I was alive. Many people stopped, and a crowd came to my assistance and to determine my condition. The driver of the car sped away unnoticed by those helping me.

I escaped with relatively minor injuries and some stitches. This was also an end to my atheism. Facing death, I found that I did not really believe that if I had been killed that my existence would have winked out of the universe. The soul is not just some metaphysical idea.

I wish that my conversion had been as sudden as Saul’s blinding light, but my new thoughts only percolated slowly in my mind and brought me to a general theism. I believed there was a God, and I had no idea what I should do about that information. I knew that I should be going to a church. It would be difficult to find someone as ignorant about Christianity as I was. I knew there were different churches and I had no idea what might be the difference between a Protestant, Catholic, or Mormon church.

My love of singing was also connected with my love of Christmas carols. At one time during the Christmas season you could turn on most radio stations and hear these carols. As it became increasingly difficult to find these songs played on the air, I ended up listening to the local Protestant radio stations to hear them. I also started to listen to the messages they had between the songs. My previous atheism and stoicism had not prepared me for all the mistakes I had made in life, and now I was ready to admit that I was a sinner and that I was in need of a redeemer.

When Christmas ended, I continued to listen to their broadcasts and learn about who Jesus was. I read a large number of books from prominent Protestants with a smattering of books from Catholics. I also started to read the Bible, and I made the mistake most beginners make by just trying to read from Genesis to Revelation. I still had a pagan view toward religion. When reading the Bible, I thought that something supernatural would occur to prove that it was true and that God existed. Since I was reading the Bible using only my own frame of reference, I also reinvented many heresies as I went along. One of the items I noticed while listening to Protestant radio is that the person speaking one hour often would contradict what someone else said earlier. Despite my previous experience with the Catholic Church, I started to do some deeper reading on Catholicism.

I had just retired from the Navy, and my family moved to Florida. I found a Catholic bookstore and bought a Catechism and some other books. Reading the Catechism I was greatly excited by what I found. I saw that what the Church taught was consistent with what I had observed in life, and it was presented as a coherent whole. I had a residual sola scriptura attitude that I had absorbed from society. I understood via the media that any serious Christian thought must be in the Bible. I was concerned that part of what I read I did not also see directly in the Bible.

Fortunately, we had moved to an area that had a Catholic radio station and also had EWTN on cable. The questions asked and the answers given on Catholic Answers Live were an important part of my intellectual conversion. Being in the military, it was easy for me to come to understand that the Church needs a hierarchy and a magisterium to proclaim the truth. The military has written instructions for just about everything, yet we constantly had to interpret for others what they meant. Sometimes we would have to query a higher command to ensure that our interpretation was correct.

I saw that there had to be a living Church to protect doctrines and to interpret and teach them without error. As times passed there had to be a way to address new questions as they developed: By using just Bible study, it would be quite difficult to answer questions with any authority about topics such as in vitro fertilization and cloning.

The founding fathers of the United States understood this problem when they wrote the Constitution. They knew that the Constitution could not interpret itself, and they set up the Supreme Court to do this. Of course, this system breaks down if the Supreme Court makes an interpretation inconsistent with the founders’ intent. Because of original sin, no human organization can keep from falling into error. It is only through the Holy Spirit guiding the Church that we are assured that the Church is not teaching error.

As Augustine said, “I would not believe the Gospels if it were not for the Church.” This was the very Rosetta stone that helped me to believe in the authority of the Church and to accept all that it teaches. Instead of looking at an issue like contraception and wondering if what the Church taught were true, I had the attitude that I accepted this doctrine as true and that I needed to learn why it was true. I have come to appreciate the great and glorious treasure of what the Church has taught through the centuries. The intellectual underpinnings of our faith are something that we can never exhaust, and at times we can come to a deeper understanding of those teachings.

With this understanding, I was ready to enter the Church. Since the Easter celebration was close, I had to wait and attend the next session of RCIA. My wife and I also started to attend daily Mass. My yearning for the Eucharist increased, and having to stay back while others received Communion was difficult. Finally the day arrived; I was received into the Church and confirmed.

After receiving Communion I realized that, both figuratively and literally, I had spent forty years in the wilderness and had now entered the Promised Land. I also knew that just as Israelites still faced many battles upon entering the Promised Land, I also would face spiritual battles in the years to come.

Writing a conversion story is difficult, since it has a beginning and middle but not truly an end. Our conversion stories do not end truly until our deaths, when hopefully we hear, “Good and faithful servant, enter into the joy of your master.” To go from the desert of atheism to knowing and loving God through his Church is a joy that words can’t express.

Jeff Miller

My immediate reaction was one of shock and fear.  I mean, did he seriously want me to wear this huge Catholic bling in public?

Fortunately we agreed that I could wear a light jacket over the top of it to make me feel a bit more at ease.

The purpose in this whole exercise was for me to feel what it might be like to be Simon of Cyrene, the man who helped Jesus to carry his cross.  Simon certainly endured some physical challenges hefting the cross up to Calvary, as I did wearing this heavy brass crucifix all week.  While my experience was nothing in comparison to Simon’s, I did feel a little bit of discomfort, and I was constantly aware of the burdensome weight around my neck.

But I’m sure Simon also experienced some embarrassment and uneasiness.  He surely felt some shame at being associated with this condemned man.  Jesus and those being crucified with him that day were kind of like outcasts to those passing by.  Wouldn’t Simon feel some embarrassment at being associated with this group?

Since I kept my cross fully hidden throughout the week with a fleece jacket, I had no need for embarrassment.  I will say that I was very conscious of its presence, especially for the first day or so.  When I got to work, I hurried into the restroom to check myself out in the mirror.  I could notice a slight bulge from the crucifix, but I was fairly certain that nobody else would pay any attention.  Just to be sure, I turned the crucifix so that the corpus was facing my chest.  Even though it was more uncomfortable that way, it was better hidden, and that was my primary concern.

I made it throughout the entire week without issue.  I even managed to whip my son at H-O-R-S-E and P-I-G a couple of times on the basketball court while wearing it.

So what did I gain from this experience?  I learned that I lack a lot of confidence when it comes to my faith.  My conversion to the Catholic faith didn’t involve any burning bushes, and I wasn’t knocked off my horse like St. Paul.  My conversion has been slow and steady.  Though I now fully embrace all the teachings of the Church, and have for some time, I still don’t feel comfortable trying to defend these beliefs.

I can talk with other Catholics all day long, and I think I’m better informed about the truths of our faith than the average parishioner, but I still have some sort of fear of confrontation.  During the entirety of Holy Week, my biggest fear was that I might have to explain to some non-Catholic why I was carrying this cross.  I would have preferred that my focus be on the great sacrifice that was made for us all.

I’m not sure why I have this fear, and I’m not really sure that the reason matters at all.  But the fear definitely matters.  God has done a lot for me in this life.  He has broken me down, and is building me back up.  I’m certain that He isn’t doing this so that I can sit back and enjoy my faith in secret.  So I’m going to work on this fear.  I’m going to confront it face to face.  I’ve got a spiritual director with a mean streak, and I have a feeling that things could get interesting.  I’ll keep you posted.

It was as though conversion was some sort of an accomplishment. Completion of RCIA was, for me, too much like a graduation ceremony.

In the years following my formal entrance into Holy Mother Church, I began to read biographies of several saints. I started to notice a common thread in the lives of many of them. While some, like St. Francis of Assisi or St. Ignatius of Loyola, did have powerful conversion experiences that changed their lives, these experiences were just the beginning of a lifelong conversion process.

St. Francis had a powerful experience in which Jesus on the San Damiano Crucifix spoke to him. This quite obviously caused an immediate change in the priorities in his life. But he was not all of a sudden converted. His spiritual journey was not complete. Rather, it had just begun. It was not until the latter part of his life that St. Francis really experienced mystical gifts such as the stigmata.

The lives of saints such as Francis were marked by an ever-increasing devotion to prayer. Only through a commitment to prayer and the Sacraments of the Catholic Church can we hope to better know our living God. Experience has shown me that any attempt to discern and obey the will of God is well rewarded. This is exactly what Conversion for Life is all about. Conversion is a lifelong process, not an accomplishment. How fortunate are we to have such a bright Light to guide us?

What about me? Well, basically I’m a convert. Converts to our faith come from many different backgrounds. Some come by way of a Protestant denomination. Others, like me, are converts of extreme proportions. I was raised without religion, and I spent my adolescence and most of my twenties as an atheist. My conversion still surprises me to this day! I’ll share more about my story as time becomes available.

I have been using the web as some sort of a creative medium almost since its inception. Much of my use in the past was to promote messages that were quite negative. Now, I’d like to give something back. I want to help the surfers among us who are searching for truth.

I hope that in time, I may play some small role in the conversion of a few souls – for the greater glory of God.

I am a Roman Catholic. I follow the teachings of the Church, the Holy Father, and my local bishop. If there is anything on this site that appears to violate the teachings of the Church, it is by mistake or due to my own ignorance. Please don’t hesitate to educate me.

Conversion is a lifelong journey. Won’t you join me for the ride?