Convertitis: or the Problem of Being A Catholic Convert

As a convert to the Byzantine Catholic Church, I have had many conversations with converts to the Catholic Churches (Latin, Eastern, and Oriental) and these conversations have shown me that pastoral attention and continued compassionate formation of converts after coming into the Church is fundamental to keeping them in the Church.  Most converts to the Church are those coming from separated Christian ecclesial communities, other religions, or no or limited religious background, who through a long journey have fought a hard battle to become a part of the Vineyard of the Lord--a process I also had to go through as a Anglican.

But often, as I have experienced, the heart of the convert may never be satisfied even when they enter the ancient Church--a heart which constantly seeks for truth and is never satiated.  I recall after entering the Church feeling the old desire for more truth and wanted to go deeper into the Christian East and find the strictest praxis.  What happened to me was that I soon began to find those raised in the Faith to be spiritually lazy or that they did not value the Faith as I did--in other words, I soon found the same dissatisfaction I experienced as an former Anglican creeping into my experience as a Byzantine Catholic.  This dissatisfaction lead my intellect to start pursuing the writings and teachings of traditionalist Catholic and Orthodox writers--which also experienced a deep dissatisfaction with the current condition of the Church.  This fed into my pattern of seeking problems with the Church in an obsessive manner and validated my pride and natural disposition toward focusing on the negative.  

This chronic negativity started to destroy my soul as I was constantly listening to and reading the writings of those who either were heading outside of the Church or had already left believing they had preserved the Church within themselves while the institutional Church had lost or was losing the Faith.  This dangerous affliction, chronic negativity induced by a schismatic mentality, which I enabled,crept into my spiritual life and I soon ceased praying, repenting of sins, frequent attendance at Divine Services or doing works of spiritual and corporeal mercy.  I became obsessed with the commenting on blogs, watching traditionalist videos, listening to traditionalist priests criticize the Church and even at one point eventually left the institutional Church to become an online schismatic Sedevacantist--those schismatics who assert the Popes after Pius XII are Anti-Popes and the Church in communion with them is not the Catholic Church.  Becoming an online or virtual traditional "Catholic" Sedevacantist left me with no Sacraments and no local pastoral help, since I was told the local Catholic Church was without valid Sacraments or the True Faith and that I must stay at home and pray by myself and go on the Sede sites to receive the Catholic Faith.  Eventually, what happened to me was I became an angry hollow soul due to the lack of sacramental confession and reception of the Eucharist--always fighting the constant daily war against Francis and the "modernists."  I had become a wretched person: always judging others while feeling the judgement of God on my soul for my hypocrisy.

  

My soul had become dead and empty while I had believed that within myself and the little Sedevacantist fellowship I had found online that we were the True Church and were preserving it for future generations.  It was the most challenging process to come back into the Church after being brainwashed into believing the canonical or institutional Church had become a sect without Grace or valid priests and indeed the Church of Anti-Christ or the Anti-Pope. Coming back into the Church was not easy and even to this day I will visit some of the old blogs to see them in the same affliction I was in--of an almost constant despair over the Church, unceasing gossip, anger, and pain.  

What brought me out of this darkness? When I finally hit bottom and accused myself of hypocrisy and sin praying before the Icon of Our Lady, I recalled the day of my Baptism and Chrismation in the Byzantine Catholic Church.  I remembered the joy of that day and how I not only felt like I had come home but also that through the Divine Eucharist I experienced wholeness and peace. I recognized, through the help of Mary, that I had lost the joy of coming into the Church and let the old patterns of seeking and dissatisfaction resurface from when I was an Anglican--when through coming into the Church I had received the fullness of the Faith.  A fullness I had not found outside of the Church.  Recapturing this joy and memory of becoming Byzantine Catholic saved me from being lost--for which I am thankful to the Lord each day.  I had to realize that I needed to focus on my sins and not the failings of the institutional Church.  I needed to overcome the passions and be healed through relying on Our Lord in the Mystery of Repentance and the Divine Eucharist. 

It was a shift of focus toward the joy of the Lord that delivered me from the need to dwell on the problems in the Church.  I had to surrender the need to try to fix the Church.  I had to let go and recognize Christ the invisible Head of the Church will cleanse and reform His Church and that I needed to let Him cleanse me from any desire to worry about it anymore.  I had to cast all my cares and anxiety about the Church upon Him for He cares for and sustains me (1 Peter 5:7; Psalm 55:22).  From this mental disposition, given by the Lord, I am now able to be at peace and to find joy in my Catholic Faith--a Faith which had given me such joy at the time of my conversion and I pray I will always be faithful to until I meet the Lord, in communion with the Church He established.