Posted March 11, 2024
I’ve been putting off writing this blog post for 2 (almost 3) years now. There is a good reason for why I did that. Part of it was that I didn’t know how to put my experience into words until now, and the other part was just procrastination. So now I feel like I finally have the experience and knowledge to write about something that is very important to me.
In the past I have never really been a religious person, nor have I really ever liked religion. I always either found it silly, meaningless, or something between those two. In high school I was something akin to Agnostic, I didn’t fully believe in God, but I wasn’t really sure. In middle school I was a proud Atheist who had a smug satisfaction “knowing” that God did not exist. So take my word when I say the events within the past few years of my life completely took me by surprise.
Ok, technically I’ve been a Catholic for the last 2-3 years and I got confirmed last year, but I’ve been putting off “officially” saying anything until now. I was actually considering Catholicism when I originally started this blog all the way back in November of 2021 (my first blog post), but I didn’t start taking it seriously until sometime in 2022. For me, it seemed like it all happened very quickly.
“But did you consider religion xyz?” –Probably Someone
I actually did consider quite a few. I considered different forms of Christianity like Anglicanism, Orthodoxy, and even Baptist1. I even considered things like Islam, Buddhism, and even Hinduism briefly. However, I never found a intellectual tradition that truly rivaled Catholic tradition2. I also personally looked for the religion that I thought was 100% true and Catholicism seemed to fit that bill. It should go without saying, but basing your religious decisions on anything else besides truth (like personal preference) is a very small brained move.
I didn’t really have a bias either. I used to hate the Catholic Church, but I soon grew to find out that my hatred was very much misplaced. As Venerable Archbishop Fulton Sheen put it:
“Not 100 people in the United States hate the Roman Catholic Church, but millions hate what they think the Roman Catholic Church is.” –Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen
This very much encapsulates the essence of what stopped me from converting to Catholicism in the past. I hated what I thought Catholicism was, but I soon came to love what it actually is.
After being invited to the Heaven Tree webring almost a year ago, I decided to accept the invitation last month. Now I didn’t wait a year to accept the invitation just to be rude. I waited quite a while because I was not sure if I really wanted to identify as a Catholic or even as a Christian for that matter. It really took me the last year to solidify my identity as a Catholic and to accept it. So I sort of think that joining this webring is me cementing myself as a Catholic.
Not much about my blog or YouTube channel will change…at least in the short term. I might post more stuff about theology or other topics related to it, but as always I don’t really have a specific direction for my blog or channel. I just post about whatever I feel like saying and that’s the way it will probably always be. So don’t be surprised if things change over time.
I am very grateful for my conversion and all that it has brought me. DEO GRATIAS.
“Late have I loved you, Beauty so ancient and so new, late have I loved you!
Lo, you were within, but I outside, seeking there for you, and upon the shapely things you have made I rushed headlong – I, misshapen. You were with me, but I was not with you. They held me back far from you, those things which would have no being, were they not in you.
You called, shouted, broke through my deafness; you flared, blazed, banished my blindness; you lavished your fragrance, I gasped; and now I pant for you; I tasted you, and now I hunger and thirst; you touched me, and I burned for your peace.”
–Saint Augustine of Hippo