You do not end up in the Catholic Church by accident. Even for the cradle Catholic who strays, a full return cannot happen without a deep search. For most people that convert or revert, it’s a long story. It’s a battle. The truth is: we resist the Church. We struggle with it. But many end up in the Catholic Church because they wrestled with faith and reason for a long time before having the moment that they understood why Jesus started this Church. They suddenly stop hating the Pope, as they were often instructed to do, and submit to that authority. We dislike authority. That is our nature. That is the story in the Garden. It is often the story of our lives. Coming to love God and his Church means letting go of our preconceived notions and cultural teachings about power.

The idea of being required to go to Confession and attend Mass weekly (because skipping Mass is a mortal sin) seems ridiculous to non-Catholics, but the reason for it is solid. This is a pattern for living. Further, partaking in the Sacraments does what they actually claim they do. They make the invisible visible. This is a mystery, but a glorious mystery if you can move from doubt into assent. Not everyone can do this. For some it seems to come naturally. For some it takes years. For some, they can never fully give up the love of self, or take the leap of faith and “know” that the Eucharist is indeed the body and blood of the risen Jesus.

God bestows this gift of faith on those he chooses and who cooperate with his grace. All are offered grace but many simply refuse to cooperate. We are all given time and multiple opportunities to react to this offering, to reject it or surrender to it. This is a centerpiece of our free-will, this choice to cooperate or refuse God’s grace. So for anyone that seems to lack access to that grace, or rejects it, it is our duty to pray for them, and a good practice is to do a 9-day or a 54-day Rosary novena for your most beloved unbelieving friend. It will probably just irritate them, so you don’t even have to tell them. But praying for others is important. Prayers matter. They work. I have watched people change through prayer that goes beyond explanation. Thousands of hours of therapy fail, and suddenly a healthy prayer life heals. Yes, it’s bizarre.

Oddly enough, knowing God is like knowing any other person. The infinite and unexplainable Creator must be known just like your next door neighbor: through conversation, visits, shared experience, the journey of life, and shared meals. It’s very important he be invited to meals, and that is what the Eucharist at Catholic Mass is: a thanksgiving meal where God and his family come together. We get to have thanksgiving every week, or even every day if you live somewhere that daily Mass is offered.

Through the years, a relationship develops, but only if you develop it. No relationship in the history of mankind has flourished by two people ignoring one another. No relationship can be made with mere thoughts either, because we are both body and soul. Hence, Sacraments. Hence, the spiritual and corporate works of mercy. Hence, prayer. Prayer is essential and it works, just as conversations and phone calls and get-togethers work with real people. Action, also, is essential, as faith without works is dead. Catholicism is a “get off the couch” religion, if you’re doing it correctly.

This relationship with God: it cannot be explained fully. It is a mystery. Like the Trinity, we can never really understand it. And rather than frustrate us with uncertainty, it is a great letting go of the need to control, of the ego, of the self. While this drives modern people crazy, resting in that mystery can “unmodern” your misshapen plastic brain all by itself. This requires the step where you go into the unknown, the uncertain, the un-Google. Call is mysticism if you like. Whatever it is, it’s better than that THC or Fentanyl everyone get so excited about.

Kneeling and asking for the willingness to be willing can change everything. It’s also free, and still legal. Even simply saying, “God, please help me. Give me strength and direction today,” has altered people’s entire lives. That was the first prayer I said on my road back to building the relationship with God. And I hope and pray that you, reader, will ask, seek, and knock on that door to find out. Because it will change your life beyond any drug or experience that this world can give you. What you “know” today may change into a new kind of “knowing,” especially if you have been ignoring the one relationship that can restore you to health and make you whole.

In short, I was disenchanted from all things supernatural like the priest-hunter in the Graham Greene novel. If there wasn’t a rational explanation for something, then I decided it was absurd. Praying for people? My response to that was: Sending money for therapy would be better, since prayer is just talking to an imaginary friend. Belief in Angels? Give me a break. Devils? Sure, if they were just people with pitchforks dressed up in Halloween costumes.

Re-enchantment doesn’t mean jumping into the deep end of the pool and booking a vacation to where a Marian apparition occurred. It all starts with one prayer, a simple reach, to a power outside of yourself. You may even begin with a generic “spirit of the universe” and later get to God himself, the Creator, to Jesus, the Word, and the the Holy Spirit, the breath of life. I had to jumpstart my dead heart with the idea of an absurd “Streetlight God.” Hopefully most people don’t have to go that far downward, but it does work. If you can, just pick one person of the Holy Trinity to start with. But try all three. Some people connect with one element of the Trinity better than others. You’ve tried every flavor of ice cream, what have you go to lose? You’ve probably gone through the kama sutra trying sexual positions, but that didn’t satisfy you any more than eating Snickers bars “satisfies,” as the advertisements claim.

This time, and in the future, try a new position called “kneeling.” That is, kneeling before God. It does wonders. Surely on a sleepless night you can take five minutes to start a new relationship that isn’t centered around your phone. You are not a moth, so you stop acting like one. Stop buzzing around bright lights and screens, as if that’s all you were made to do. If you are like most people today, you are mesmerized by the dancing light of a screen. After all, entertainment is not your end goal. It is a distraction from your fears: of death, rejection, abandonment, and shame. All of those fears come from a lack of relationship with God. You’ll sleep better once you start dialing up God in the middle of the night, because he’s always there and doesn’t need sleep.

The thing is, once the relationship begins, you learn that you are never alone, or rejected, or abandoned. You have a perfect family that you’ve been neglecting. Sure, your earthly family has flaws, or isn’t perfect, or makes mistakes. That’s because they are compromised humans. They are compromised, but not broken. All of us were ejected from the Garden for our own good, so that we would not remain in a permanently fallen state. The family that you have here is the earthly family that has been given to you to love. That is the trial and test, of course, and as soon as you start seeing those people as redeemable, compromised creatures that God loves, they look different. But even if those people are not around, you are never alone, and here’s why…

You are never alone because God is always present and available. If he does not feel present to you, then he is letting you walk, just as a toddler who is learning is allowed to fall. He wants you to walk and carry the cross, but he has not abandoned you, ever, just as a loving parent doesn’t let their toddler destroy herself. The parent will pick her up when the time is right. God is doing that in your life, in different ways.

If your earthly father is controlling, you may have a problem with the idea of a heavenly father. Thus, kneeling may seem too much to give up, since submission makes your blood boil. But the father in heaven isn’t like your earthly father. He doesn’t coerce. He doesn’t force. He invites you.

If your earthly father was a “deadbeat dad” who abandoned you, you may not like the idea of forgiving a father. But again, this father has never and will never abandon you. Only you can abandon this father.

The father that we all want is this kind. He is the father who runs out to meet the Prodigal Son. He is the father that weeps when his children disobey but allows them chance after chance to come back. He is the father that never leaves you but also won’t coddle you, because he wants you to grow. Don’t confuse your earthly father with the Father in heaven.

So you have a loving father, but you also have a brother. If you are baptized and believe, or if you ask for belief, you have a brother in Jesus. He will pray with you. He will be beside you in prayer if you ask. Like the St. Patrick prayer, he will be in you, around, above you, below you. Further yet, you can “put on the mind of Christ” and let his thoughts become yours, and if that seems impossible, open the Gospel and see his words and life, or do Lectio Divina in the Hallow app if you don’t like to read. So now you have a loving father and a loving brother (also your savior), both who are perfect, who can help you fight the spiritual fight. They will show you how to live. One will father you and one will guide you. You have navigation from headquarters and boots on the ground to walk with you.

There is more. What family is complete without a mother? The beauty of Catholic complementarity is that we don’t have to pretend men and women are the same. Sometimes we need a mother, and sometimes we need a father, but we need both. We are whole when we have a relationship with both. We know that men and women are not the same, despite what the modern media tells us. Sanity is sometimes as simple as stating the obvious. The genius of femininity is that it is not male. It is something different and wonderful.

The Blessed Mother, Mary, is your mother. You have a perfect mother and she will pray with you, any time, any where. And her prayers go straight to the top, as no one intercedes ahead of Mary. From the cross, Jesus looked down and said to Mary, “There is your son,” referring to the Apostle John. To John, he said, “There is your mother.” The Church has always held that Jesus, right then and there, from the Cross invited all faithful into the holy family. If we are brothers with Christ, then God is our father, and Mary is our mother.

There is more. There is another earthly step-father for you other than your biological one, and his name is Joseph. His moniker is the “Terror of Demons” because of how he protected Mary and Jesus, taking action when the dreams and warnings appeared. People often consecrate themselves to Mary and/or Joseph. Why? Because they love their family and want to grow closer to them.

“What does it mean for a person to be consecrated to St. Joseph? Well, it basically means that you acknowledge that he is your spiritual father, and you want to be like him. Total consecration to St. Joseph means you make a formal act of filial entrustment to your spiritual father so that he can take care of your spiritual well-being and lead you to God. The person who consecrates himself to St. Joseph wants to be as close to their spiritual father as possible, to the point of resembling him in virtue and holiness. Saint Joseph, in turn, will give those consecrated to him his undivided attention, protection, and guidance.” (from the Consecration to St. Joseph)

And lastly, the saints. We have the saints, a larger family, who can intercede and pray with us. I ask for St. Peter and St. Anthony of Egypt to pray with me, as well as St. Dymphna and St. Mary Magdalene. It’s a co-ed team of prayer, every day. And there are thousands of saints to ask for intercession, and even Rafael and Gabriel, the angels that we have come to know through Sacred Scripture.

When navigating this world, sometimes you need a father to guide to, sometimes you need a mother to help you, and sometimes you need your brother to fight off a dragon. And still, sometimes, you need just to be still with the Holy Spirit - that unexplainable breath of life. The simple prayer of “Come, Holy Spirit,” opens us up to God’s grace. No matter what you need, you need to be open to your heavenly family, because that is your perfect family, your family without wounds, without identity lies. Knowing and building a relationship with that family will help you grow in relationship with your earthly family.

You are never alone. When I heard someone say that in the past, I assumed they were schizo, but today I know exactly what they mean.

Having been re-enchanted, the invisible spiritual world is now as real and palpable as that rock in my shoe. If you come to believe in Jesus, then you come to know, and one thing that comes along with it is the awareness of your own sin, but rather than being a horrible thing, it can be a liberating thing. You can’t get found unless you were once lost. It’s an entirely new kind of freedom, but not a freedom to do what you want, but a freedom to follow God, as best as you can. And you want to do it. It’s not forced! Never forced. That is one of the miraculously weird things that happens once you know you are a sinner and come to love and know God. Sooner or later, you come to know that angels and demons are also as real as that rock in the shoe. Once that happened, I began to see why and how the world and individual people behave as they do. The faith of an atheist doesn’t allow for miracles, or spiritual lives, or souls, or partaking of the divine nature.

The faith of an atheist really offers only half of life. It offers nothing that I want to take back, because I have discarded my anti-depressants, I haven’t drank in almost seven years, I have zero desire to scroll porn (because people have souls and are not objects), I pray for my enemies and enemies of the Church. Daily, I meet with whole people of faith that astonish me in their own miraculous underdog comebacks. I start and end my day with prayer and gratitude to God. What more could I possibly want? (If you’re an atheist, you scoffed there, and that’s ok. If you’re a Protestant, I probably lost you back at my “faith alone” rant. To both - I’m sorry, but this is my blog site, and this is my body and soul story. There are many things I admire about Protestants, but I believe that Christ’s Body in the world is the Catholic Church.)

The strangeness of it all is this: it all fits together. All of it. Somehow, someway. The bizarre storytelling and miracles and parables and Marian dogmas and relics and Sacraments - they all bake into something perfect and unendingly satisfying - a bread that never stops feeding you. That is, I believe, what Jesus meant when he said, “I am the bread of life.” Hence, the Eucharist at Mass is food for the body and the soul. It is food for the faithful. It is a meal with God himself. The tie that binds is Jesus. “Love God. Love others. Let’s all get together and eat my body. Do this in memory of me.”

I recall reciting the Nicene Creed as a teenager and skipping certain elements, mostly the ones that required supernatural belief, which means a large portion of it. As the years went on, when I had to attend a funeral or wedding, I started to notice that certain elements had become less difficult to accept, as a rudderless life had tossed me about so much that I reached a state of openness. Through the use of alcohol, I had moored my ship on many rocks, on islands of ideologies and empty pursuits. Of course, this process of getting to shore meant getting both the rudder and the sail working together, not against one another.

Switching metaphors, I’ll move over to Chesterton’s “lock and key” example. For me, it was not that one single grand moment made all the difference, but many small moments that carved away untruths and honed edges down. I could not open the door using the key I had, because the key just hadn’t been fully prepared yet. At first the key was just a cylinder that did not fit the keyhole at all. But over twenty years, with many books and life experience, the grinding of the search shaped the key, until one day I tried the key again, and I felt the thunk of the lock as it sunk into the center.

A stick might fit a hole or a stone a hollow by accident. But a key and a lock are both complex. And if a key fits a lock, you know it is the right key. (From Chesterton’s Orthodoxy)

Perhaps you know the feeling. When the key fits, you think it’s the right key, but if haven’t yet turned the deadbolt, you’re still not certain. I’d had that feeling before, but the key wouldn’t turn. A key seemed to have the fit, yet I still couldn’t open the door. With modern versions of stoicism and epicureanism and humanism, I felt I’d had the key before, but none of those could turn the bolt. But then this time, when I twisted, the bolt moved. Then I had to decide, did I really want to open the door? Because I knew that opening the door meant the change of everything in my entire life. This is what Catholics call “cooperating with grace.” Even if the key has been given, and the door unlocked, each of us must still choose to open that door. The mystery of why God gives us trials and temptations in life is clear to me now: they key that we need to unlock the door needs to be shaped, and God shapes the key using these struggles.

Of course, I had to open the door. After all, I’d spent a long time looking for that key and having it shaped. So what other choice did I have? How could I go back to the prior attempts that left me locked out? None of them had made me happy.

If you have been given the key, you may think there is no choice but to use, but God does not coerce or force us to do anything. He wants us to open the door voluntarily, but he doesn’t fling it open for us. He just gives us the key. And then opening the door, the treasure is there, the one that makes sense of all the struggle and searching. This is the key we are all looking for. If you haven’t gotten the key fully shaped yet, you still might, given more time and experience. But you have to come back to the door now and then to test the key, because that is the game that God is playing with us. He’s doing something in your life, but you may not understand it until much later.

So that is my take on coming to faith. As Jesus said, we are only drawn to God if God draws us. This is confusing, but if you feel drawn, you should set down your busy life and try the key again. Free will is a powerful thing, because God beckons us but we have to take action. If the beckoning happens, then you are likely being called. If you ignore the beckoning, you may miss the opportunity. “No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me; and I will raise that person up on the last day.” (John 6:44)

Now, most people today have a real beef with the Catholic Church, so let me take some time to comment on that. Everyone seems to have this in common, especially Catholics themselves.

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