A Why am I Catholic? post, inspired by the work of Webster Bull.

Last week, a reader emailed me regarding the label “convert” and asked me to explain my thoughts about it.  To be honest, I hadn’t thought about it much.  Here are some of my thoughts, excerpted from that email.  Feel free to share yours in the comments!

I think EVERYONE goes through a conversion experience; for some of us, it leads us across the Tiber; for others, it keeps you IN the Tiber. But I think there’s a time in your 20′s when the world goes topsy-turvy and all of a sudden, life matters in a whole different way.

I have never thought of the word convert as negative.

For some of us, life was bad before we found the graces of the sacraments. For some of us, there are things we needed baptism to erase and to hear the voice of Jesus actually say, though the priest, “You are forgiven.” I did some bad things in my life before being Catholic, nothing I want to share or talk about (I tell that to God pretty much daily:  “Please don’t make me share THAT!”).

I’m OK with myself today because of the hospital that is the Catholic Church and her sacraments.

Maybe I’m a bit dramatic or an exception, but I don’t think it’s bad to draw a line in the sand, to say “BEFORE converting, I was this person; AFTER converting, I am this different person.” I am washed clean. I am new. And that is a miracle of the first class.

How must Paul have felt, on the road to Damascus? He wasn’t bad before, was he? He was just following the Law. But in doing that, he was persecuting Jesus Himself. He couldn’t see that, though, until after his conversion, until after that moment of grace.

And, to me, that’s what conversion is — a series of moments of grace.

That’s the other thing…conversion is ongoing. Everyone thinks it’s so neat that I’m a convert, that it’s my secret to Catholic success. Little do they know how much I struggle with things like yelling at my kids, accepting help from friends, remembering to take the anti-depressants that make me a nicer person. They don’t see me threatening to quit the parish project that no one really wants to see me quit, getting my feelings hurt by someone’s suggestion for improvement, procrastinating and wasting time for no good reason at all.

Tomorrow, I pray to be better than I am today. Yesterday, I don’t think I was as good as I am today. And that’s not just happy-crap talking. That’s the truth.

THAT is what conversion is to me.

A Why am I Catholic? post, inspired by the work of Webster Bull.

It’s a question that can be asked a variety of different ways:

WHY am I Catholic?

Why AM I Catholic?

Why am I Catholic?

Why am I CATHOLIC?

As I sat in the middle of a downpour last weekend, cheering despite the rain dripping impossibly into my nose, I had this question running through my mind.  The question I was really trying to answer was whether the answer changes when the intonation changes.

I don’t think it does.

Once I answer the Why part of the question, the rest of it falls into place.  To answer the Why, I have to know who I am, what it means to be who I am, and what it is to be Catholic.

I’ve been examining this question, in whole and in parts, for eight-plus years.  It started while I was in RCIA classes with Father Pat and has continued to today.  I thought I’d know the answer after the Easter vigil Mass in 2001, when I gave in and actually went through with the “becoming Catholic” thing.

Nope.

I’m Catholic, I guess, because I needed something.  There was something missing from my life, though I couldn’t tell you just what that was.  When I first felt the appeal of Mass, I attributed it to the human need for ritual.  As the appeal grew and as I slowly began to wonder if this was The Place For Me, the need for something started to feel filled.

Am I Catholic because I found my Something?

I’m a sinner, and I always have been.  Though I’m striving to be a saint, I have a lonnnnnnng way to go.  What better place to seek refuge than the hospital for sinners (cf Mark 2:17)?  I’d rather be in a hotel, mind you, one with a heated swimming pool.  But before I get there, I have to be a saint…and the saints were all born human and had to struggle through this life.*

I’m Catholic because now that I’m here, where else is there to go?  I’m Catholic because I don’t know all the answers.  I’m Catholic because it only takes a word for me to be clean again, despite my best attempts at dirtying myself.

Why am I Catholic?

I’m still learning the answer to that, and that’s probably one of the reasons I am.

*In case you haven’t heard the saying, this is based on the reference to the Church as a hospital for sinners, not a hotel for saints.