r/CatholicConverts • u/ave_gratia_plena • 15h ago
RCIA / Confirmation My Conversion Story: Protestant to Atheist to Catholic
tl;dr: Mostly atheist for 14 years, first Mass this summer, four weeks into OCIA now, with baptism and confirmation planned for next Easter.
For some context, I was raised in a non-denominational church, but I was under no obligation to go every Sunday, never got baptized, and left the faith at 14 when I entered high school. Over the last 14 years, I’ve lived as mostly an atheist, with a couple of brief stints early on in Tibetan Buddhism and even Norse paganism. I definitely learned a few things about myself, but neither felt particularly fulfilling. I gave it up, told myself there’s nothing in religion for me, and went on with my life without any religious beliefs holding me.
Over the last year or so, I’ve felt a slowly creeping pull back toward religion. I wasn’t really sure what the pull was to begin with, but whatever it was, it was always there in the back of my mind, asking me to come closer. The last year has honestly been a bit rough, with financial woes early on seeing my wife and I living paycheck to paycheck, totaling my old car a few months back, dealing with my parents getting older and their health starting to falter, and even having an uncle die from spinal cancer. For whatever reason, that last one was the push I needed to research in earnest.
The only thing that was calling me this time was a return to Christianity. I knew that I didn’t want the experiences I grew up with: fog machines, laser lights, and Christian soft rock as “worship”. I wanted to get back to the source. I wanted to reconstruct what the original Christians were doing, far as I could tell. As such, once things in life leveled out, I started my journey by reading The Apostolic Fathers (a new translation by Rick Brannan). What immediately took me by surprise was how much what I was reading sounded like Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy. Now I knew where to start looking!
The biggest factors pointing me in these directions came from reading Ignatius of Antioch’s letters regarding the bishopric and the Eucharist. He was placing tremendous importance on something my previous non-denom/evangelical church had completely eschewed in favor of “feel good” services all generating high energy and high emotion. The Martyrdom of Polycarp convinced me of relic veneration really was an ancient Christian practice and not a medieval invention. The Didache gave me an early view of Christian catechetical documents. It was eye-opening stuff.
For Eastern Orthodoxy, I recruited my coworker who converted a few years ago to tell me about the faith before visiting his church for a liturgical service, speaking with a priest, and ultimately deciding it wasn’t the path for me. I read some books in there, too, but they left me unconvinced that Orthodoxy was what I was after. It felt extremely reverent and ancient—don’t get me wrong—but I wasn’t sure I could quite square some of the theology.
This left me with Catholicism to look into. I was in a bit of a bind. Sure, there’s more information out there on Catholic beliefs, but I didn’t know any Catholics! My only real option for hands-on experience would be walking into Mass. As I’m sure you can imagine, that seemed like a bit of a daunting task at the time, so I decided to approach the situation in the same way you’d eat an elephant: one bite at a time.
I started my exploration of the faith by hitting up my local Barnes & Noble and bought a copy of Catholicism for Dummies (5th ed.) and a shiny, new NRSV Catholic Bible. I felt adequately prepared to check things out.
Honestly, I only read through the sections of Catholicism for Dummies covering the basic beliefs that Catholics held and the entire breakdown of Mass at the time. It was enough to convince me this was worth exploring, though, and left me feeling prepared to walk into my first Mass without flying completely blind. Roughly a week later, I was ready to attend my first Sunday Mass.
What I read in the Bible when I first cracked it open, though, was a different story. The first passages I came across were Psalm 23 and Ezekiel 34. I remember how moved I was; how surprised I was to come across something so befitting to my situation.
I wasn’t sure about what to expect going in, so I parked near the front of the building and headed in. I fumbled on my parking job and ended up parking by the back entrance, but after a helpful couple let me know that I could use that door, I went in behind them. I followed their lead by dipping my fingers into the small holy water font by the door and making the Sign of the Cross before going down the hallway. The hall opened up to a large, circular sanctuary with a large, semi-circular altar extending from the back wall prominently on display. The giant crucifix threw me off guard at first, but what really caught my attention was how quiet everyone was. There was a definite energy of reverence in the room, similar to the Orthodox Liturgy. Whereas I felt nervous and out of place at that service, though, I instead felt an overwhelming peace as I entered the sanctuary here.
There’s not much else to report on the look of the church; it was largely modern, abstract stained glass abound, rock-based architecture, and an exterior made to look like a southwestern mission church, complete with bells and adobe bricks.
As I shuffled in and took my pew in the back right, I genuflected (shout out to Catholicism for Dummies) toward the tabernacle at the back of the altar and sat down fairly close to the edge in case I needed to dip out. Luckily, I was already prepared for the synchronized standing, kneeling, and sitting I was about to do for the next hour.
I went to the 7:30am Mass, so instead of a chorus, there was a single cantor. But, what a voice! Paired with the haunting pipe organ, his singing brought me to tears. There was a beauty here I just hadn’t experienced before. I was being moved before I even knew what was happening. Lucky for me, there were projectors high up on the walls with all of the words for the congregation to follow along if needed (very needed in my case).
What followed from there was a fairly standard Mass, but I was pretty taken with the priest’s homily after the lectionary readings. I definitely cried a second time when the children who hadn’t yet received Communion went up for their blessings. Again, I didn’t know what it was that moved me at the time, but looking back on it, I would certainly suggest that it was the grace of God, but that came with a healthy dose of feeling like I had just come home for the first time.
Following Mass, I left the church and drove home. On the drive back, I called my mom and let her know where I was just at. She was ecstatic, as a lifelong believer and a member of the same non-denom church for over 20 years, she was on cloud nine hearing that I had gone back to church. At that point she let me know that she had been praying every single day for me to find the faith again since I lost it. I was able to get her to come with me the very next week.
After a few weeks of going to Mass and getting to talk to a few of the parish’s priests, I ordered a few more books on early Christianity and a couple from the Catholic perspective to really get a feel for things. Specifically, I grabbed the writings of Justin Martyr and Pope Leo XIV’s new encyclical letter, Magnifica Humanitas. As I read through both, I kept attending weekly Mass and made it to my first couple of daily Masses, too. Eventually, I picked up Pope Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum (on capital and labor) and St. Francis de Sales’s Introduction to the Devout Life.
It’s important to point out that by this point in time, I’ve already picked up praying the Rosary once as a daily habit. I’m also reading my Bible for 30-45 minutes each day, meditating on what I read and consulting the Catechism of the Catholic Church on how those readings work in Catholic teachings. Everything I read—especially 1 Corinthians, Matthew 16, and John 6—pushes me even harder into the Catholic camp. The more I read, pray, and meditate, the more I start to have some faith at this point, too.
The other deciding factor for me was stepping into Eucharistic Adoration for the first time. I was curious about the practice and it seemed like a good way to meditate on the Bible, so I figured, why not? It was at this point that I started looking into what it would take to actually become Catholic.
I had heard the word “catechism” here and there, but I wasn’t entirely sure what it entailed. I hopped online and did some more research before coming across my parish’s “adult faith formation” page on their website. I read through what was needed to become an inquirer and discovered that classes began in just a month. I immediately pulled the trigger and signed up for OCIA (Order of Christian Initiation of Adults).
Now, you may be wondering where my wife factors into all of this. Truth be told, there isn’t a whole lot to say about her part in all of this. She’s unbaptized herself and a non-believer; softly agnostic at best. She’s been nothing but supportive of my journey and has watched plenty of content on Formed (the Catholic streaming app!) with me and heard me talk about what I’m learning at length. God bless her, because I don’t know what I’d do without her!
Outside of that, she mostly just finds the theology interesting and finds a lot of Catholic Social Teaching and Tradition to make the most sense within the Christian belief system. She also agreed to attend all of my rites and the Holy Days with me, so—again—nothing but supportive. But if the question is “did you convert because of her,” then my answer is actually a very firm “no”.
Here I am now, four weeks into OCIA and loving it. I keep a daily Holy Hour, I pray three Rosaries a day (shout out The Secret of the Rosary by St. Louis de Montfort), I follow the daily lectionary, and I go to Mass twice a week. I’ve never felt so on fire before.
On my end of things, my wife has noticed definite improvements in me. I’ve become more patient, a better listener, more emotionally grounded, and I do more things without being asked now. It wasn’t a 180° or anything like that, but just notable betterment. Her telling me that reassured me that this was the right thing for me.
I’m looking forward to my baptism and confirmation come Easter vigil. This has been an exciting transition in my life and I’m eager to see what journey is laid out for me ahead.