Rome Sweet Home

by Kimberly Hahn

  One day, Scott paused in the dining room to say, “I’m reading a lot of Catholic books these days. God may be calling me into the Catholic Church.”

  “Can’t we be Episcopalians?” was my immediate response. In the grand scheme of things, I preferred to remain Protestant as an Episcopalian than to become a Roman Catholic. He smiled as if to say he understood why I asked. Then he asked me to pray for him.

  I was happy to pray for him, but I didn’t want to talk to him about his growing convictions. At this point I wanted to shelve Scott and put his growing convictions away, out of my reach. He gently tried to share some of his questions and conclusions with me when we were on a walk.

  I said, “Scott, you are so bright. You could convince anyone of anything.”

  To which he replied, “So I have nothing to say to anyone?”

  That cut me to the quick. How could I let myself say, or even think, that he had nothing to say to me about his theological reflections on issues when our whole marriage was based on precisely this kind of sharing?

  I wasn’t exempt from wrestling with the truth just because Scott was a persuasive person. But I didn’t want to hear it. It was too scary—I had too much to lose. I should have been at least curious to know why he thought Catholicism was so biblical, of all things, because Scripture was the basis of my convictions. But I was too threatened by it to want to ask.

  I began to feel as if I were married to a man I didn’t marry. I had married a reformed Presbyterian, not just a generic Christian. However, Scott reminded me that what drew me to him was that he was a Bible-believing Christian, which he still was. He begged me to come alongside him in his study, but I couldn’t. I didn’t want to.

  Scott, after all, had been anti-Catholic—he had thought one could not be a thoughtful Christian and remain Roman Catholic. I, on the other hand, had had a more balanced approach—Catholics can be Christians, but there was no need and certainly no desire on my part to want to be Catholic. Perhaps all his study would help him be less judgmental toward Catholics and more like me. But no longer condemning them did not mean joining them!

  Scott felt that he was searching for “Mother Church” and that perhaps he had found her in Catholicism. In contrast, I was never keenly aware of a need to search (perhaps because I was raised in such a strong, evangelical family and church where that need had been met).

  What Scott now believed compared to what he had believed when we were students in college seemed markedly different. Scott saw continuity where I saw only discontinuity. He explained it using an analogy: an acorn doesn’t look like an oak tree, but it holds within itself the possibility of becoming an oak tree.

  “The convictions I held in college and seminary are coming to a richer flowering than ever before. There is organic growth, even though my beliefs look different from what they were in the beginning. I still believe the Bible. I’m still a committed Christian”, he would say.

  The analogy was plausible, I had to admit. But it was also possible he was outsmarting himself and getting into real trouble theologically.

  We sought some advice from my father, who urged me to stay connected with Scott’s studies. Even though I didn’t want to study, it would not help for us to grow at different paces.

  I finally agreed to read one book, The Faith of Our Fathers, by Cardinal Gibbons. His book was simple, yet it was making too much sense. It angered me. Catholicism could not be that clear! I got so frustrated I threw the book across the room, something I had never done before.

  No, I thought, I was just going to hang on and hope that Scott would make his way back to truth on his own. I had my Master’s in theology! Was I supposed to relearn everything, go back to the ABCs of theology? I was too busy with life to be able to do that.

  The psalmist captures my thoughts at the time (Ps 69:13, 14, 16):

  But as for me, my prayer is to thee, O Lord. At an acceptable time, O God, in the abundance of thy steadfast love, answer me. With thy faithful help, rescue me from sinking in the mire. Answer me, O Lord, for thy steadfast love is good; according to thy abundant mercy, turn to me.

  In the midst of the theological turmoil in our home, the Lord blessed us with a dear son, Gabriel Kirk, on our fifth wedding anniversary, August 18, 1984. When I delivered him, I remembered a prayer Scott and I had prayed in the middle of our first date—that God would raise up many godly men. And I thought: Lord, is Gabriel, and, for that matter, Michael, in part an answer to our prayers years ago? It sure is the slow way to make disciples, but please help us to raise them to be godly men for you.

  Gabriel’s first year of life was a busy time. Besides caring for our two little sons, many good activities consumed time which otherwise might have been study time to resolve the issues between Scott and me. I led three Bible studies, chaired the community pro-life group and helped found Life Advocates on the Grove City College campus. Scott shifted from full-time college work to part-time work with youth at two churches and the college. He also began work on his doctorate at Duquesne University. Though it was a Catholic institution, he usually found himself being the lone defender of the Catholic Faith in class.

  Jn the midst of the busy-ness, Scott was still studying. As I realized that the Catholic Church was not diminishing in Scott’s interest, I began to feel the weight of what we would lose should Scott become Catholic. All kinds of dreams that previously we had shared would have to die—being a pastor-and-wife team, Scott returning to teach at Grove City College or Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary and both of us traveling a circuit to speak on the reformed Protestant faith.

  One night Scott told me he had begun praying the Rosary. I couldn’t believe my ears! I didn’t even know he owned one. This study and now practice of Catholicism were getting serious.

  A friend of ours from seminary, Gerry Matatics, challenged Scott’s theological direction. To Scott, I referred to him as my “knight in shining armor” who was going to save me from this fate. Gerry pursued Scott for lists of Catholic books. I was so grateful for that, especially because Gerry was so much like Scott—a person of conviction who really wanted the truth, no matter what.

  But I’ll never forget the night Scott came back to the bedroom after talking to Gerry for several hours and told me how excited Gerry was about the Catholic books he was reading!

  All I could do was weep. My “knight in shining armor” was getting tarnished! If Gerry could not stop Scott, I couldn’t imagine who could.

  When Gerry arranged a meeting with Dr. Gerstner, I found my hopes soaring, only to have them dashed upon hearing Scott’s report of the meeting.

  Since the beginning of our relationship, Scott and I had grown and changed together, at least in minor ways, in our convictions. But by Scott’s continuing to change and my refusing to change, we were both starting not to trust one another. The foundation of trust in our marriage was being shaken tremendously.

  After one particularly agonizing day, I said to Scott, “I would never consider suicide, but I have begged God today to give me an illness that would kill me so that I can die and have all the questions laid to rest. Then you could find a nice little Catholic girl and get on with life.”

  Scott was devastated to hear me express such anguish. “Don’t ever say or even think that again! I don’t want some nice little Catholic girl. I want you.”

  This was the beginning of the “winter” of my soul. I remember where I stood in our living room when I felt the joy of the Lord depart. Except for a few brief times, it did not return for almost five years—a lack I had never before experienced in my life. The joy of the Lord that had been my strength and had encouraged my spirit had been blocked by my refusal to be open to study or to read or even to talk. I felt as though I were facing a wall that I did not know how to get over and was not sure I even had the will to try.

  “Lord, the joy is gone. Who are you? I’ve known you all my life. I thought I understood you, but now I don’t understand anything. Are you the God of the Catholics o
r the Protestants? I’m so confused.” There did not seem to be an answer.

  6

  One Comes Home to Rome

  Scott:

  It was a mutual but difficult decision to move to Milwaukee to begin full-time doctoral study in theology and Sacred Scripture. I discovered that fall semester, in seminar after seminar, how true and beautiful Catholic doctrines could be and how compelling and practical the moral teachings of the Church were with regard to marriage, family and society. 1 heard myself speak up for the Catholic Faith even when Catholics wouldn’t.

  There were several Catholic students who did speak up for their Faith, and at the same time they were living and enjoying it. I shared an office with one of them, John Grabowski, who took me to his parish and introduced me to the eucharistic liturgy. Through John, I also became acquainted with an exceptional Catholic institution called Franciscan University of Steubenville, where he had studied theology as an undergraduate. He told me all about their emphasis on “dynamic orthodoxy”. (Little did I know I would find myself teaching there five years later.)

  Another doctoral student, Monica Migliorino Miller, inspired me in a couple of ways. First, she would hear me in class sounding like a Catholic; later on she would gently but firmly challenge me to follow through on my Catholic convictions. Second, through her courageous commitment to pro-life rescue work, Monica motivated Kimberly and me to get involved ourselves. As a result,: Kimberly and I found much-needed common ground as pro-family activists in fighting abortion and pornography throughout the Milwaukee area.

  I wrote papers defending and arguing orthodox Catholic positions. I wrote up my arguments on Matthew 16:17-19 in a thirty-page paper entitled “Peter and the Keys” for a course on the Gospel of Matthew. The professor, who was Protestant, cross-examined me for over an hour but said he found no fault with the argument.

  Some of my non-Catholic friends felt that it was a glorious vision God was giving me, though they had no idea where it was leading me. It was capturing my imagination as well as my intellect.

  I wrote another paper, one hundred pages long, entitled “Familia Dei: Towards a Theology of Covenant, Family and Trinity”, in which I synthesized the results of more than ten years of research on the covenant. It was making more and more sense; if covenant means a family in which members share flesh and blood, then Christ instituted the Eucharist to enable us to share the flesh-and-blood bond of his New Covenant family, the Catholic Church.

  Father John Debicki, my priest-friend in Pittsburgh, put me in touch with Layton Study Center, an Opus Dei center in Milwaukee. The friends I made there—both the priests and members—introduced me to a practical approach to prayer, work, family and apostolate that drew all the strengths from my evangelical experience into a solid Catholic plan of life. There I was taught and encouraged, as a layman, to find ways to turn my work into prayer. One of the married members, Chris Wolfe, was constantly challenging me to place the highest priority on my interior life.

  Finally, the conversion process was becoming, supernaturally, a romance tale. The Holy Spirit was revealing that the Catholic Church, which used to horrify me so much, was really my home and my family. There was an exhilarating sense of homecoming as I discovered my father, mother, my older brothers and sisters.

  Then one day, I made a “fatal blunder”—I decided that it was time for me to go to Mass on my own. Finally I resolved to darken the doors of Gesu, Marquette University’s parish. Right before noon, I slipped quietly into the basement chapel for daily Mass. I wasn’t sure what to expect; maybe I’d be alone with a priest and a couple of old nuns. I took a seat as an observer in the back pew.

  All of a sudden lots of ordinary people began coming in off the streets—rank-and-file type folks. They came in, genuflected, knelt and prayed. Their simple but sincere devotion was impressive.

  Then a bell rang and a priest walked out toward the altar. I remained seated; I still wasn’t sure if it was safe to kneel. As an evangelical Calvinist, I had been taught that the Catholic Mass was the greatest sacrilege that a man could commit—to resacrifice Christ—so I wasn’t sure what to do.

  I watched and listened as the readings, prayers and responses—so steeped in Scripture—made the Bible come alive. I almost wanted to stop the Mass and say, “Wait. That line is from Isaiah; the song is from the Psalms. Whoa, you’ve got another prophet in that prayer.” I found numerous elements from the ancient Jewish liturgy that I had studied so intensely.

  All of a sudden I realized, this is where the Bible belongs. This was the setting in which this precious family heirloom was meant to be read, proclaimed and expounded. Then we moved into the Liturgy of the Eucharist, where all my covenant conclusions converged.

  I wanted to stop everything and shout, “Hey, can I explain what’s happening from Scripture? This is great!” Instead I just sat there, famished with a supernatural hunger for the Bread of Life.

  After pronouncing the words of consecration, the priest held up the Host. I felt as if the last drop of doubt had drained from me. With all of my heart, I whispered, “My Lord and my God. That’s really you! And if that’s you, then I want full communion with you. I don’t want to hold anything back.”

  Then I remembered my promise: 1990. Oh, yes. I’ve got to regain control—I’m a Presbyterian, right? right! And with that, I left the chapel, not telling a soul where I had been or what I had done. But the next day I was back, and the next, and the next. Within a week or two I was hooked. I don’t know how to say it, but I had fallen head over heels in love with our Lord in the Eucharist! His presence to me in the Blessed Sacrament was powerful and personal. As I sat in the back I began to kneel and pray with the others whom I now knew to be my brothers and sisters. I wasn’t an orphan! I had found my family—it was God’s family. Suddenly, 1990 seemed very far away.

  Day after day, witnessing the entire drama of the Mass, I saw the covenant renewed right before my eyes. I knew Christ wanted me to receive him in faith, not just spiritually in my heart, but physically as well: onto my tongue, down my throat and into my whole body and soul. This was what the Incarnation was all about. This was the gospel in its fullness.

  Each day after Mass, I spent a half hour to an hour praying the Rosary. I felt the Lord unleash his power through his Mother before the Blessed Sacrament. I begged him to open up my heart to show me his will. “Lord, is this your supernatural call, or am I just caught up in some intellectual escapade?”

  Things were beginning to speed up. Gerry called two weeks before Easter 1986 to announce that he and his wife, Leslie, were going to join the Church at the Easter Vigil.

  I was stunned. “Gerry, I can’t believe it. You were supposed to stop me from becoming a Catholic. You can’t beat me to the Eucharist!” It hardly seemed fair.

  “Scott, I’m not going to pry into your reasons for waiting, but God has already shown us enough to convince us to become Catholics this year.”

  So I went to the Lord in prayer. “Lord, what do you want me to do?” I remember praying that and thinking, I wonder why I haven’t asked you that before now? “Lord, what do you want me to do?”

  I was utterly taken aback when, to my surprise, I felt his response back to me, “What is it, my son, that you want to do?”

  That was easy. I didn’t have to think twice. “Father, I want to come home. I want to receive you, Jesus, my eldest Brother and Lord, in the Holy Eucharist.”

  It was as if the Lord quietly replied, “I’m not stopping you.”

  I felt exhilarated. It’s impossible to describe. Then I realized that I had better check with the one person who was still trying to stop me. So I went downstairs to find Kimberly.

  I said, “Kimberly, you’ll never guess what Gerry just told me. He said that he and Leslie are going to join the Catholic Church at Easter—in just two weeks,”

  Kimberly answered warily, “So what difference does that make?” She could see right through me.

  “Well, I was just praying and ask
ing the Lord for guidance. . . .”

  “You said 1990, remember? You promised. Don’t spiritualize your promise away.”

  I reluctantly acknowledged her point. “Yeah, I remember, 1990. But ever since I started going to daily Mass, I’ve felt Christ calling me to himself in the Holy Eucharist.”

  She listened quietly, deep hurt written all over her face.

  “Kimberly, I don’t know how to say this, but I’m afraid that I’ve reached the point where to delay obedience would be disobedience. Would you please pray about releasing me from this promise?”

  At that point we felt pain that words cannot describe. After a time of prayer in another room, she came out and hugged me and said, “I’ll release you from your promise, but I want you to know that I’ve never felt so deeply betrayed—so abandoned—in all my life.”

  It was hard for both of us.

  Later that night I earnestly prayed, “Lord, why would you reveal your family to me and take me away from mine? Why have you shown me your Bride, the Church, and wrenched me apart from my own?”

  During that time of prayer, the Lord seemed to say, “I am not calling you in spite of your love for Kimberly and the kids, but precisely because of your love—and my love—for them. Scott, you need the fullness of grace in the Eucharist in order for me to love them through you.”

  “Lord, why can’t you tell her that yourself?” I asked.

  I went to visit Monsignor Bruskewitz, who was then pastor at Saint Bernard’s Church. (He has since become Bishop of Lincoln, Nebraska.) Saint Bernard’s was the most orthodox and vital parish in the area. So I hoped that it would become a spiritual home for me. I was not disappointed.

  Monsignor listened to my long theological odyssey. Being a trained theologian himself, he could appreciate the study and the struggle. He let me know that there would be no obstacle to my joining at the Easter Vigil. However, he was an astute pastor as well, so he recognized my need for some practical counsel.