“If I believe that Jesus started the Catholic Church, why would I go anywhere else?”
As my dad spoke those words, I did not know this would be the moment my life changed forever. There was a me before this moment, and there was a me after this moment. With these words, I changed from someone seeking to someone found.
Growing up Non-Denominational Christian
I grew up in a non-denominational church that had branched off of the Church of Christ in the 80s. My grandparents and a few of their friends were founding members. I’m not quite sure what their exact reasons were for the split, but the joke was always that they wanted to play the guitar. (The Church of Christ is notorious for their lack of instruments in church services.)
In this church, I grew up surrounded by family. I had my literal extended family with lots of aunts, uncles, cousins, and even great-grandparents, but also my spiritual extended family. I always knew I was loved by my family, others, and God. Sunday Bible school and teenage youth gatherings defined my childhood and adolescence. They not only told me I was loved by God, but also gave me the opportunity to know Him better as someone to have a relationship with.
Growing up non-denominational, I didn’t understand why there were different denominations.
If we all loved Jesus, why were we all going to different churches?
Church Shopping
Once I got to college, I was free to experiment, not with what people normally experiment in college, but with Church denominations. I tried all of the campus ministries to try to “find my people.” My roommates in college were also from different Christian backgrounds. We had several discussions about what makes each one unique. I visited the Baptists, the Methodists, the inter-denominationals, the Episcopalians, and even the Catholics.
With these experiences, I viewed it all from an outsider’s perspective and learned only from a distance. I ended up going back to my home church most weekends in college since that was where I felt the most safe. When I did go to church in my college town, I would attend the traditional Methodist service with my Methodist roommate. For some reason I enjoyed a more liturgical service even though I grew up with a very casual church environment.
In my Junior year, I had the opportunity to study abroad in Spain. With my Art History professor, we traveled around to several Catholic Cathedrals. While beautiful, impressive, and old, I viewed them as relics of the past. They were a version of Christianity that is no longer active. Of course I knew that Catholics still existed, but from my perspective, it wasn’t alive and active anymore.
I had an experience visiting one cathedral where I felt God’s presence. I walked into what I thought was just a cool monument from the past with a museum of Christian art, yet I felt the same sense of the Holy Spirit that I would feel on the second night of a youth retreat. No music was playing, it was the middle of the day, but it was the same feeling. I didn’t think much of it, though, just “that’s funny,” and moved on with my tour.
Seeking Truth
The year I graduated college, I got married, and my husband and I attended the church I grew up in. My dad encouraged us to not feel like we had to go to this church just because our family was there. We took his advice and considered going to other churches and for a period of about six months.
We were looking for conviction and community. While I was still feeling comfortable at my church, I wasn’t feeling spiritually fed, and our community there was really just my family. If we were going to church just for our family and not to be spiritually fed, why were we going?
Unfortunately, we didn’t find either during our trial run. We tried various churches, but nothing felt right. During this time I discovered that I didn’t actually know what I believed outside of “just Jesus.” While I did experiment in college with different denominations, it was all intellectual. I didn’t feel challenged to truly analyze what I believed about Christianity.
In choosing a church, I knew we were going to be also choosing what we believed. The only problem was I didn’t know what I believed.
At this point, we had decided to go to Spain for a school year for my husband to earn his master’s degree. It was a couple years away, but after we would get back, the plan was to settle down and then “church shop” again. Until then, we planned to continue at the church I grew up in.
God had other plans.
I felt unsatisfied at my church. It had undergone a lot of community changes since covid, and I realized that I didn’t know what I believed about the faith. I was intimidated to try to figure it out for myself through research and reading the Bible. I wasn’t a Bible scholar. How was I supposed to know that I was reading it right and not taking away the wrong things? I wanted to know the truth, but I didn’t know how to get to it.
Finding Truth
On Easter in 2024, we were at my parents’ house after church eating lunch. We were talking about church since at that point it was an ongoing conversation for me.
The last pastor we had at our church left a couple years prior and had recently become an Anglican priest. We really liked him and that he didn’t shy away from teaching the truth even when it was not popular. If he liked the Anglican Church, maybe we would too. Also, my dad was clearly interested in the Catholic Church after finishing a full year listening to a Catholic priest reading him the Catechism, but we were still protestants after all.
I said, “how about we all go to the Anglican Church?”
My dad said, “if I believe that Jesus started the Catholic Church, why would I go anywhere else?”
With those words, scales fell from my eyes. I felt the Holy Spirit hit me like I had never experienced before. I instantly knew I needed to be Catholic.
It truly felt like someone had finally turned the lights on and I had a direction to run. I knew that I needed to get home and start listening to the Catechism podcast. This is the fountain of truth, and I needed to drink from it.
The argument that Jesus started the Catholic Church is a great apologetic argument, but I wouldn’t say it is the most effective. Even my dad said it not actively intending to become Catholic. (Although he did end up entering the Church the following year). That is why I truly believe the Holy Spirit was working in that moment and chose those words to unlock my heart and unveil the truth.
Trusting God and His Church
The following week, I binged about 100 episodes of the Catechism in a Year. By the second day, I was thoroughly convinced we needed to be Catholic and with each episode I found the truth I had been searching for my whole life, even when I didn’t know I was searching.
One of the first days, I ran across the paragraph of the Catechism that says, “Jesus asks for childlike abandonment to the providence of our heavenly Father who takes care of his children’s smallest needs” (CCC 305). I always knew I needed to trust God with my whole being and let Him take control, but I never knew how to actually do it. The Catholic Church is our Mother who makes that act of trust real. Just like we can point to God as our Father, we can point to the Church as our Mother, and by trusting the Church and its teachings, we are trusting God.
No longer did I need to try to figure out what the Bible meant for myself, I now had a Teacher and Mother who had gathered all revelation from God for me, and all I had to do was receive.
God is so good that He gave us our Holy Mother Church to teach and guide us always to Himself. Of course the Church is made up of humans, which is to say it is imperfect, but what it teaches is true, trustworthy, and “the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it” (Matthew 16:18 RSV-2CE).
For Madeline’s full story, check out her full interview on YouTube.