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"I believe, help my unbelief"

As a convert I remember a specific moment that the Eucharist moved me to trust that the Catholic Church is the true Church and fullness of faith. I was at Easter Vigil in 2014 to see what it was all about. I had been exploring the faith for several years but had never accepted God's call to become Catholic. No one else in my family was Catholic, so it was tough for me to make that plunge and step away from the protestant faith I had been raised up in. At the Easter Vigil Mass I saw Jesus being raised up in the Eucharist before my eyes, and in that moment of my inner prayer of, "I believe, help my unbelief" I began to feel a great longing for Christ. I knew He was truly present in the Eucharist and I desired to receive Him. After Mass I cried the whole way home, vowing my life to Christ through becoming Catholic in 2015 no matter what. I am forever grateful for that Easter Vigil Mass and the way Christ revealed Himself to me, calling to my weary heart to leave what I knew behind to more fully experience His love.
 

"I felt love flood my entire being"

I would say that my experience with the Eucharist didn’t really begin until high school. My parents stopped going to Mass when I was still young, but they still chose to send me to Saint Monica for grade school. When I was at Hackett I was invited to me a sacristan and was getting more involved in the daily life of the Church. One day when I was closing the Chapel for the day I felt that there was just a presence. I looked to the sanctuary and just felt a tremendous and overpowering sense of love flood my entire being. It was the most profound feeling I have ever had.
 

"I physically felt the immense presence of Christ"

I am a cradle Catholic and until my early-thirties was pretty ignorant about my faith. I had great, smart and faithful parents and knew going to Mass was important but that was about it. Truly, I never gave it a lot of deep thought.

In the early 90s, then Father Martin, showed up in our parish and changed my life. All of my priests until that time were good and holy men and did their very best but Msgr. Martin really knew how to hit my heart with a clear and meaningful message about our beautiful Catholic faith and how it was to be lived. I recall clearly one Sunday Mass serving as an Extraordinary Minister of the Eucharist and physically feeling the immense presence of Christ and the enormity of what I was doing. I will never forget that feeling as long as I live.
 

"I got on my knees, closed my eyes, and started to pray and just listen."

I was born and raised Catholic. By Confirmation, I was just going through the actions and not thinking much beyond I’m stuck in Mass for an hour a week and getting angry any other time I had to go. In high school, I really didn’t believe in much, but after wearing a cross that my mom gave me as part of a Halloween costume, I kept wearing it and viewed it as a positive symbol in my life. I viewed the Bible as something that has been around forever and must have some truth in it. I got involved in a faith young adult group in college over at St. Thomas Moore. I connected with people and it helped grow my faith, especially after befriending one of my current best friends, Justin. My faith grew but there were still lots of dry spells where I just felt like it was pointless, though I continued to reflect and pray every evening before I went to bed. I was hired as a Catholic school teacher in 2016 and viewed it as a way to teach faith in my daily job, but still felt like I was just lacking something. We had an all-day professional development at Hackett Catholic Prep high school all about faith formation and catechesis. I was bored and didn’t want to attend anymore when I met a lady who had just finished a presentation. I was late to my next section after having lunch with one of my friends who worked at the high school away from everyone else. She asked me if I would help her carry some things to her car. I liked helping out so I had no problem with it. She asked me my name and where I worked, just making casual conversation I thought. We got to her vehicle and she handed me this small book of daily meditations for the month of November (the month we were in). I thanked her and went to go find somewhere I could wait out the rest of the session I was late for, since it was way too late to enter by this point. I found myself going into the chapel. I was never into Eucharistic Adoration or being by myself with the Lord in a closed setting. I got on my knees, closed my eyes, and started to pray and just listen. I heard someone enter the chapel behind me. I didn’t open my eyes to see who it was. I heard her pass by me and light a candle. It was the lady from before. She said my name, “Anthony”. I looked up and she pointed to the candle saying, “This is for you”. She then walked out of the chapel and I completely lost it, sobbing my eyes out knowing that this random person whom I’ve never met before was praying for me, not caring what I had done or thought or anything like that. I eventually composed myself and sat back down in the seat of the pew I was in. Looking at my watch, I still had about 20 minutes left before people came back together. I decided to read the booklet the lady gave me to pass the time. I opened it up to a random page and read this; “Caught between his longing for holiness and his desire for pleasure and success, a brilliant teacher sat in a garden and wrestled with a choice he felt powerless to make. The peaceful setting was a stark contrast to the turmoil raging in his heart. Ashamed, but unable to leave his life of selfishness, Augustine broke down in tears. In anguish, he poured out his frustration over his sins. But in the midst of his weeping, Augustine heard a child’s voice chanting, “Take up and read; take up and read””. At that point I just looked up at the cross in the chapel in disbelief. This page just described everything I was going through literally 5-15 minutes prior to reading that. If that wasn’t divine intervention, I don’t know what was. I still go through dry spells here or there or get discouraged, but my faith has never wavered since that point and I still have the booklet, which I keep in my classroom to share with students from time to time.
 

"MY LORD, MY GOD"

My road to the Eucharist may be unusual to some and similar to others. I was born and raised in a Dutch Protestant family, that attended service regularly and I had years of catechism. I was baptized and confirmed in my Dutch reformed church. When I met and dated my wife who was Catholic, we often went to both my service and the Catholic Mass for three years. When we married, I converted to Catholicism because I wished for us to be one faith though my experience lacked the depth of the true faith and even though I converted, I didn’t have a true RCIA background that exists today. To say the least, I was Catholic in traditions of the Mass but shallow in the depth of what I was doing. Twelve years after our marriage, my wife and I experienced a Catholic event (Marriage Encounter) that became an epiphany for me. I was drawn in to the FULL EXPRESSION of the Mass and suddenly at the Mass I saw the true Eucharist. It was a MY LORD, MY GOD MOMENT. It wasn’t like the short film, “The Veil Removed” moment but it was significant to me all the same. From that point forward, I have constantly tried to fill in the empty spaces of my Catholic knowledge with trying not only to practice and live my faith but also to be the person that Christ has called me to be (extremely difficult). I love my faith and can’t think about not being truly Catholic. Let me end with the story of the two set of footprints in the sand with Jesus walking with me and I know he’s there. But I’ve also had times when I’ve thought I was on my own and there was only one set of footprint in the sand. That’s when Christ said to me in prayer, “That’s because I was carrying you”. I know it sounds trite but for me it has proven true over and over again.