Harbor Springs, Michigan (Catholic Online) - (Note from the Editor in Chief - I count among the greatest joys hearing of sincere Christians who are drawn by the Splendor of Truth and the work of the Holy Spirit into the full communion of the Catholic Church. Nancy and John DaMoose are old friends. She recently wrote to me and shared her beautiful story of coming into the full communion of the Catholic Church during the 2012 Easter Vigil. As I considered editing this story for length, I found myself unable to do so. It is simply too wonderful just the way it is. As we approach that great Easter Vigil when so many will receive the Sacraments of initiation, we should pray for all of them and thank the Lord for the treasure of the ancient yet ever new Catholic Christian faith.) 

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Hello Deacon Keith,

Greetings in the name of our Risen Lord!  I am delighted to have reconnected with you, and am anxious to share with you how that happened!  In order to do so, I'm afraid I must infringe on some of your valuable time, so I must beg your patience here. If you are able to bear with me, I am quite certain you will be blessed by what I have to tell you.

A few weeks ago I was researching Catholic doctrine online (I can't remember now what the particular issue was) when I happened onto Catholic Online. I read a few of the daily entries and was, quite frankly, moved by the wisdom in what I was reading. Finally, I stopped to check out who had written the entries, and lo and behold, I saw that it was you! I was amazed - no so much by your wisdom, but rather by the fact that the Lord had clearly led me to your site.

I must admit that at first I was tempted to think that it was all a coincidence; but in the days that ensued, I came to understand that it was indeed the Lord who led me to the site in the first place; and He did so in order that I might share some news with you.

The long and short of it is that John and I have converted to Catholicism; we were confirmed during the Easter Vigil last April. It was the end of a very long journey, particularly for me; and I must tell you that this has probably been the most life-changing, life-affirming thing I've ever done!  I am speaking more of myself here, as for John our conversion seemed to be a very natural process. 

He was baptized in the Catholic Church - his mother and sisters were Catholic.  His father was Episcopalian, and John spent his youth attending church with him. But because of his baptism, and the influence of his mother and sisters, he always considered himself a Catholic of sorts.  For me, however, 'Catholic' was just never even on my radar screen.  It's not that I was ever anti-Catholic, as I certainly was not. To be perfectly honest, I just never really even gave Catholicism a thought.

My mother was raised a Catholic, but left the Church when she married my father in 1941.  Her mother was very devout, so much so that she refused to attend my mother's wedding in the Congregational Church.  After that, the two barely spoke; and for my mother, the door to the Catholic Church was closed forever.  She wasn't particularly bitter, but rather, she simply decided that if a church would prevent her own mother from attending her wedding, then she wanted nothing to do with it. 

I grew up in that same Congregational Church.  I was baptized there at the age of five, and from that day on never doubted the Lord's love for me.  After John and I were married in 1968 (we recently celebrated our 44th anniversary), we chose the Episcopal Church for our family. We remained there for over 20 years, but finally left in 1990 when we began to understand that humanism had made its way into the pulpit. 

We spent the next 20+ years 'church hopping,' always in search of the truth. During that time we attended mainstream Presbyterian, Willow Creek, Baptist, Congregationalist, Reformed, Non-Denominational, and Evangelical Presbyterian Churches - joining each one along the way in the hope that we had finally found our church home.

During those years, we grew more and more disenchanted with 'the church' - not with the Lord, mind you, as we grew to love Him more and more as we continued to seek His presence in our lives.  For me, 'disenchanted' doesn't really begin to explain how I felt during our quest. Truly, I began to be depressed just thinking about having to go to church on Sunday morning; and I began to think of excuses not to go on those Sundays once a month when Communion was being served. I also grew discouraged by the church's apparent disregard for the trials my family faced.

Yes, my two young children were being guided along the right path by their youth pastors, but when it came to John and me, it seemed that the leadership in ...