By Fr. Victor Feltes
I love Catholic conversion stories because they always have happy endings. Toby, a friendly acquaintance of mine, recently shared with me this great story of how he became Catholic. He is a 42-year-old, married father of three in Colorado who entered the Church at the Easter Vigil of 2006:
“I was fairly young when my parents stopped taking me to the Dutch Reformed church (my uncle is a pastor in one). So I had mostly no religion, but a little. In high school, I suffered terrible migraines that would make me vomit. One day, in the middle of upchucking, I prayed to ‘the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob’ to make it stop and if he did I would worship him. I have not had a migraine since—not even a little one. But a lot of people claim this God as theirs, so I had to figure out how to worship him.
So, every Sunday through high school, I went by myself to the closest church, a Calvary Chapel. In college, I tried other churches to see what seemed right, but nothing did. I ruled out Islam (since they do not claim all three patriarchs) and Catholicism because of my Protestant biases. So I looked at Judaism. I did a lot of research about the existence of Jesus and was convinced to try Messianic Judaism because I was convinced he was the Messiah. However, that also seemed empty. So I gave up. I lived a hedonistic life deciding that, though I believe, I would never know how this God really wanted to be worshiped.
Now midway through graduate school, I bought saint candles simply for décor (and because they are so cheap). One day, returning from vacation, I put a stone turtle souvenir I had just bought on my desk next to it, and took a shower. Coming back the turtle was in pieces on my desk. I looked up the saint, and the first webpage I found said Saint Jude was known for was casting demons out of statues and causing them to crumble. So I lifted my bias against Catholicism and attended RCIA (classes for joining the Catholic Church) and it fit. Things made sense in a way they didn’t elsewhere.
So, it took years and multiple miracles, but here I am. The Lord had to drag me to our Faith in a way that I could investigate the claims with an open mind, and not with the biases I had built up. It required a lot of changed views, but my journey left me docile. Two miracles and learning my own discernment was terrible can do that!”
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