Change

Over the last six months or so, I have been taking myself through a denominational change. The first three months, I researched myself before I decided I was serious enough to talk it over with my husband. Thinking back on it, that was silly because my husband should have been present from the start. I may have given him little signs of what I was going to ultimately ask of him but I don't know if he took them too seriously or even noticed. It's easy to get distracted so I don't blame him if he didn't.

We are currently going through the conversion from raised ELCA Lutheran to E-free to now, Catholic. The big "C". A denomination I had been raised to loathe by my mother. A denomination I was raised to think was high and mighty with their noses in the air. Yes, we are joining. Sorry, mom.

My dad was raised catholic and most of his family are practicing catholics. My mom was raised Lutheran in our home ELCA church. When my mom was a Junior in high school, she and my dad became pregnant with my oldest sister and decided to get married before she was born. Good thinking. The original plan, as far as anyone knows, was for my parents to get married in the catholic church and for my mom to convert, which was going along as planned until something happened that completely turned my mom away from the church with a bitter hate that no one has been able to figure out. There are many times I wonder if my dad even knows what the reason was. In short, the plan to turn catholic was torched and my parents got married in the Lutheran church and my dad became lutheran. Growing up, it was never asked why or how or if dad would have preferred everything to have gone as planned. Around mom you just didn't bring it up.

So imagine my surprise when I realized that the catholic church was where my family and I belonged. Oh, boy. It would be nice if Hallmark made a greeting card for me to send to my mom rather than tell her in person because she is not one afraid to smack. Or scoff. Or disown. That may be a bit dramatic but needless to say, I am dreading tell her about our decision to convert.

Here's how our journey began. We moved to Holdrege three and a half years ago. One of the preparations for moving was to find a daycare as we had two young children at the time. I had heard good things about Trinity daycare at the E-free church here in town and decided to take a look. I liked what I saw and figured we'd need to find a new church too so why not start there?

It was different from what my husband and I were used to as we were both raised ELCA and attended ELCA in Grand Island with no real need to feel to look elsewhere. So when we began to go to Trinity, we found that we really enjoyed it. The pastors were great, the music was modern, and everyone was extremely kind. That was where we made our church home.

Two years later, we had our daughter, Nora. My biggest worry during my pregnancy was where were we going to have her baptized? Trinity's head pastor came from a baptist background and they did not believe in infant baptism. Why? I couldn't really tell you. I think because they believe it to be an adult decision to become a child of God rather than have someone else do it for you. I was somewhat embarrassed because I really couldn't come up with a good reason of why I wanted her baptized as an infant so badly. It was mostly because I was raised in that thought.

Before she was born I tried so hard to tell myself it didn't matter if she was baptized as an infant or not and I would immediately feel like an idiot because of course it was mattered if she was baptized or not! I kept telling myself that she's a child of God no matter what. Or that children that weren't baptized such as miscarriages or SIDS were surely in heaven with the Father. But something in me just couldn't shake the fact that if at all possible, it needed to be done. So finally I decided to talk to our pastor and see what could be done about her being baptized after she was born. I had the argument of in the days of Jesus Christ, all were baptized in the homes of the followers, no matter what age. I felt that as BJ and I were believers, that our children are as well and should be baptized as such. We already had backup plans if they would deny it but I really wanted her to be baptized in our church.

I met with pastor and he took it to the church board which they surprisingly allowed for us to have her baptized. The only stipulation was that it needed to be outside church hours and we would have a dedication during church hours. I figured as long as she got the water and the sign of the cross, I was good with that. I was also hoping that through this, the light bulb would turn on and our church would maybe begin infant baptisms. It didn't happen. In fact, soon after during church, baptism as an adult was mentioned in the sermon and I couldn't help but think that it was geared towards us a little.

Then more questions were raised. I realized Oliver was getting closer to the age of understanding and taking communion and wondered what Trinity's policy was on that to get the response of it being our responsibility as the parents to decide when they were ready. Again, I didn't like that response. I began to question confirmation, again not something practiced at Trinity. With every question, I would try to tell myself I could live with my kids not experiencing that and everytime I would feel this urge of "Yes. Yes it does matter".

I talked to BJ about it, not very in depth but more of trying to get his thoughts on what I already felt to be right. He agreed that it was important to him and maybe we should look into other denominations. Where do we start? With every denomination we looked at, we came to the realization that we wanted stability and the only church that provided stabiity was indeed the catholic church. The church also taught what I felt strongly about such as pro-life, non-conformity to society, etc. I didn't know how BJ was going to respond and I was very nervous to talk to him about it. Surprisingly when I brought it up, he was open to it. He did admit that it caught him off guard but he was willing to talk to our close friends who went to All Saint's Catholic Church and get some information from them.

So began the eventual decision to convert. We spoke with Father this last week and went to our first mass as followers and not as aliens. Am I disappointed that I can't participate in communion, yes. But communion in catholic terms is so much more than what I had been raised as communion to be. It's the eucharist. The actual presence of Christ in the bread and the wine. Taking communion anywhere else would seem wrong as we learn more about the teachings of the church.

I'm not going to lie, it's not going to be easy. There have been numerous times I've told myself, "never mind, I'm good where I'm at" but again, that urge for more comes into play and it's very hard to ignore. Our first mass attendence was frustrating and intimidating because we don't have the prayers memorized and they don't exactly give you a verbatum bulletin that you can figure out where the service is heading or what's going to be said. Add 3 kiddos to the mix and not a lot of learning can be done. We have signed up to take classes and we have received the Catechism (which is completely intimidating!) so we are all in. Not many people know our decision. We're sure to be getting questions as we go further into this journey which I'm not sure if I'm prepared for. I've been more concerned about telling my parents than anything. I pray that my mom has an open mind to it all and ignores her tendency to become defensive. I pray she knows this was not a decision to hurt her in anyway. I pray she will listen and be supportive. Come to think of it, maybe I'll tell dad first...