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Why should we work towards knowing God?
"Hell lasts a long time." - Kristine Franklin
My name is Karen and I'm an "adopted" Texan. My native-Texan husband, Michael, our daughter, Christine, and I live in Houston. Prior to becoming an at-home mom, I worked as a librarian for a major business consulting firm here. I still do some research in response to questions I receive from another Catholic website, yet most of my time these days is spent caring for our toddler. There is no doubt that she is our "supreme gift from God."
I grew up in St. Louis, Missouri, being blessed with wonderful, Christian parents. I was raised as a Southern Baptist and regularly attended church and Sunday School. My parents' Christian example and my study and memorization of Scripture from those times continue to help me enormously in my faith journey.
By the time I entered college, I found myself drifting from these spiritual roots. I began not only to question some of the things I had been taught but also succumbed to the lures of secularism and relativism. After travelling down numerous false paths, "doing my own thing," a decade later I began to feel God tugging me back to Him. Of course, He had never left me but I had left Him. In my case, God had to hit me with a "two by four" to get my attention!
After God got my attention I vowed to pursue the truth at any cost. Even so, I didn't become a Catholic right away.
I transfered to a Catholic college in the Chicago area to complete my graduate studies. In my last semester, and by the grace of God, I felt a strong desire to explore the Catholic faith. Unlike Catholicism, Fundamentalism seemed to carry an undercurrent of anti-intellectualism that really turned me off. I had many questions left unanswered by my childhood faith, or answered in a way that just didn't ring true to me. I sensed that Catholicism would provide more robust answers.
I began to read, read, and read. I read the writings from the early Church fathers, Catholic theologians (some loyal, some not), philosophers, and apologists. I learned a little bit of both Latin and Greek. I read conversion stories. I studied Church history. From that, I realized just how ignorant I was of it, and in particular, discovered how the Bible that (we) Protestants use is actually a Catholic book because it was the Catholic Church who determined the books to be included (the Canon). Nowhere in the Bible does the Bible define itself! That said, one comes to realize that the New Testament grew out of a preceding tradition, and therefore it cannot be understood rightly unless it is seen as a deposit of these traditions of the early Church. I read catechisms and especially Scripture. And I was AMAZED over how the Catholic faith is deeply-rooted in Scripture! Overall, I developed a deep appreciation for the Church's immense contribution towards intellectual, cultural, social, and mystical advancement in the world.
As John Henry Newman once said, "To be deep in history is to cease to be a Protestant."
Sometime during the middle of my research, I made a leap of faith by contacting the nearby parish, inquiring about how I could begin my entrance into the Catholic Church. After an inspiring and inviting conversation I had one afternoon with the parish Religious Education Director, I was admitted into the RCIA program already in progress.
Thus commenced the beginning of "My Journey Home."
Today I continue to read, study, and learn more about the faith. It's a process, nurturing your Catholicity, and each day I fall in love with the faith all over again.
When you begin to explore the topics on this website, you will discover that my conversion didn't just happen on a whim, overnight, or certainly without much thought. As do all Catholic converts, especially those from fundamentalist roots, I took great personal risks by becomming a Roman Catholic. I didn't know what would happen. Would I experience rejection from family? Would my life turn upside down? Who would I become?
Well, my family certainly didn't reject me. And my life didn't exactly turn upside down, at least in a negative way. I am fortunate but not all are. No matter what, I wouldn't "go back" for anything. I cannot because I have absolutely no doubt that the Catholic faith carries the "fullness" of the Christian faith. Explore my site and see what I mean.
Truth matters, so doctrine matters.
Come home...
 
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| Favorite Saints Aquinas (c. 1225-1274): Thomas Aquinas became the greatest theologian of the Middle Ages. His work strives to reconcile faith and reason as far as possible, making clear both the limitations and the uses of reason. He is a Doctor of the Church.
Augustine of Hippo (334-430): A black Numidean and raised as a Christian by his mother St. Monica, Augustine later converted to Manicheanism. He was torn between the lure of the world and the call to holiness. After his baptism in 387 by St. Ambrose, however, Augustine went on to become the most brilliant exponent of the Christian view of history. A literary genius, and a most able bishop and administrator, he molded the structure of the church in Africa and the mind of the church in the West. He is known as the greatest of the Latin Fathers of the Church.
Catherine of Siena (1347-1380): The youngest of twenty-five children, Catherine began to have mystical experiences at the age of six. She resisted all of her family's efforts to persuade her to get married, and devoted herself instead to prayer and good works. Her reputation for holiness grew enormously, and she attracted a wide following who called her "Momma." Catherine was actually a third-order Dominican (layperson) who was very much in the world, having successfully urging, among other things, that Gregory XI leave Avignon and return the papacy to Rome. She is a Doctor of the Church.
Dominic (1170-1221): A Castilian, Dominic spent his early years living a studious and contemplative life as an Augustinian Canon. His bishop chose him as a companion on a mission to Languedoc, where the Albigensian heresy was established. Dominic decided to combat the heresy by establishing an order of knowledgeable preachers who would explain the gospels accurately and forcefully. This order is known as the Order of Preachers.
Elizabeth Ann Seton (1774-1821): The first American-born saint, Elizabeth Bayley came from a well-connected New York family. Left a widow with five children, she was ostracized by her family and friends when she became a Catholic in 1805. She moved to Baltimore and established a religious community called the Sisters of St. Joseph, laying down the foundations for the parochial school system in the United States.
John of the Cross (1542-1591): Son of a Castilian silk weaver, John became a Carmelite monk but felt called to a different life for intense prayer and contemplation. Instead of joining the Carthusians, John was persuaded by St. Teresa of Avila to help her reform the Carmelites. They and the other reformers were met with strong resistance, and John was imprisoned. John was also mistreated by both the unreformed and the extremists of the reforming party. It was during this trial that he wrote some of his most beautiful poems. In the end, John of the Cross became a poet, mystic, and "spiritual psychologist" whose works are read worldwide even today. He is a Doctor of the Church.
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