My Journey to the Church

I am very fortunate and thankful to have finally realized my full faith in Christ, which has inevitably and steadily lead me to the Catholic faith and a closer relationship with Jesus Christ. 

From a very young age I have been determined to walk my own path in my personal, professional, and spiritual life.  I didn’t choose my interests, education, professions, or religious beliefs because of being born into them or due to family or social pressures, expectations or traditions and that hasn’t changed.  I have always chosen my path in life.  But something always seemed to be missing.

Finally, in July 2010, while sharing the faith of someone I love like a son while on vacation in Italy, I began to recognize that my walk with God was clouded over by my own sense of self-sufficiency, arrogance, and independence.  Shortly thereafter I discovered that there was a path to investigate the Catholic Faith much more fully.  That path is the Right of Christian Initiation for Adults or RCIA. After becoming fully engaged in the RCIA program I was able to choose to enter into full communion with the Church as a new Catholic.  The RCIA process helped guide me on my journey and expose me to more information about the Catholic faith than I ever imagined existed.  I am an endless “why” person and I asked a lot of questions of the outstanding RCIA team, Father Richard, my Catholic friends, and I did a lot of reading in the Catechism of the Catholic Church and other books on Catholicism.  I was very pleasantly surprised to discover that all my questions had good solid Christian answers that made perfect sense to me and were all founded in the earliest Church traditions from pre-Biblical times or in the Bible itself.  The more I grew to understand the Mass, the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, and the global practice of our faith, it was very clear that, through His immense grace and mercy, God has drawn my heart back to Him and his Church once I was open to his love.  In His patience, He simply waited for me to recall the grace He had granted me and it is where I was meant to be as a true Christian.

I still have a great deal to learn and I continue to seek a deeper understanding of our faith through prayer, attending weekly Mass, attending Father Richard’s Saturday lunch programs, participating in the new Catholicism Project, reading, engaging in theological discussions and, maybe most importantly, spending personal time almost every Saturday with Christ during Adoration.

The journey has literally made me a better person and the calling that brought me to the sacrament of initiation has meant an indescribable spiritual rebirth for me and with the continued love, guidance, support, and forgiveness of my family, friends and the Catholic community I will spend the rest of my life trying to build a closer relationship with God through Jesus Christ and the Catholic Church.  -David