My path to Christianity, Spiritually
On the surface, religion generally seems very superficial. People outside of religion tend to view it universally as culturally inspired explanations of the Creator and our world. I have learned, that is entirely untrue. There is a deep spiritual aspect in all religions, something that I have been able to understand through the full Revelation of God found through Jesus Christ. I have been blessed to personally experience the spiritual side of Christianity. I have also learned this is extremely common among Christians who engage in their faith with any level of seriousness. In all honesty, regardless if you are engaging in Christianity, any religion, or none at all, you are going through spiritual experiences whether or not you realize it.
I was an atheist for most of my life from when I was twelve years old up until I was twenty-eight. I had a variety of spiritual experiences that I did not fully deny, but I at the very least ignored the implications of them. I did not want to accept that there was an afterlife or anything else related to the existence of God.
In the first experience, my sister and her friends were in the living room when a strong sulfur smell developed in a particular spot in the room, as though something, or someone, was emanating it. We had two dogs, generally mild mannered, that broke into very aggressive behavior. They were both growling, snarling, and barking at the spot from two different angles, pinpointing a location. In the same way the scent appeared out of nowhere, it disappeared, and the dogs calmed down. I learned that this particular smell was believed to be a sign of a dark spirit.
The second experience involved a picture falling. My parents had a great big acrylic cased image hung above their bed. At the time, my mom and I were the only people home and downstairs. Suddenly, we heard a very loud “THUD” upstairs. We both looked at each other startled and slowly progressed upstairs. We quickly saw that this image had fallen onto the headboard, a clear indication of the cause of the noise. Before examining, we both assumed the cable on the back of the image broke or the hook failed. That was not the case. We found the cable perfectly intact and the hook had not failed. We both noted this to each other and hung the picture. We left the room in haste because big heavy pictures don’t just fall off a hook randomly.
The third experience was in the middle of the night. My German Shepherd slept on my bed and I woke to her growling while focusing on the door of my room. The physics felt real, unlike in a dream state. I tried to calm my dog but she wouldn’t break her focus. I kept the remote for the fan next to me, so I turned on the light. I saw a silver silhouette standing by the door. It started to walk toward me. My dog stood up on the bed while focused and lightly growling at the silhouette. Being a silver silhouette and the mild reaction from my dog, it must have not been a dark spirit. It then reached toward me and touched me. The last thing I remember seeing was my dog looking at the silhouette, the light on, and the silhouette’s hand touching my face, and then I immediately went back to sleep. When I woke up, the light was still on.
When I was about seventeen years old, I totaled my first car. I was a young dumb teenager driving recklessly and rolled the car onto the roof. I managed to get out of it without a scratch. I vividly remember getting out of the car, standing up, scared to my core, and the first thing I saw was a Christian Church. In my heart, I knew God saved me through the ministry of my guardian angel. I quickly buried this thought as though it never happened.
Despite having these experiences, I continued to deny the existence of an afterlife or God until I was 28. If I learned that someone believed in God, I considered them to be naïve and dumb, something that was made apparent when I spoke with them on the subject. I developed my disdain for religion into believing that Churches were businesses seeking to sell fake tickets to heaven in order to line their pockets. The megachurches and celebrity pastors were my main source for this.
Through time, I had more spiritual experiences, though I continued denying the afterlife and God.
It was the end of 2019. I was terribly sick and kept coughing all night. I didn’t want to keep my wife and my son awake with it, so I slept in the spare bedroom that we used as a playroom. The room had a kiddy gate at the door and I distinctly remember closing the gate out of habit after entering. I laid down and was able to sleep. At some point, I woke up. I was laying there unable to move, and my eyes were drawn to the door. I saw a dark silhouette with the figure of a human but details of a demon. I watched its hands open the kiddy gate and it walked in. I was unable to move or scream despite trying. It approached with an evil grin and touched me. I fell back asleep at its touch. In this scenario, the physics also felt real unlike a dream state. I woke up again and was able to move. I got up and left as fast as I could, through the kiddy gate I had closed, that was now open.
This experience had a profound impact on me. I knew there was something out there, the “invisible”. I knew it was real yet I still denied the implications that God just may exist. I continued to loosely deny existence of the afterlife. However, this experience always had a significant impact on me.
In 2022, my great-aunt died at the age of 86. She had no direct descendants but we were close to her though my mom, who was her niece. My mom was handling the estate with the daughter of my great-uncle who my great-aunt married later in life. My father and I went to the estate during the weekend of the funeral. My mom advised us that everything left was free for the taking since everyone had already walked through. I went through and found a few things over the course of the weekend. After I had thought I was finished, I decided to do one last walk through, something I believe was the fruit of God’s grace. I went down the hallway through the rooms and then back down it for the last time to stumble across a short bookshelf, about thirty inches tall, with a few vintage family Bibles and other items. I sat there opening them, amazed with the history captured in these items.
Among these books was a King James Bible given to my great-uncle in 1952. I had previously wanted to read the Bible out of curiosity and a Christian friend of mine had suggested the King James version. Despite holding something I had been after for some time, I offered it to every one of my great-uncle’s descendants who were present. None of them wanted it. Even though I wasn’t his direct descendant, I was not going to let a family heirloom go to an estate sale. I put it in my box and took it home.
I placed the family Bibles and other books on our bookshelves and left them there without too much thought. One night, after having finished a secular book, I was up a bit late. Everyone else, including my wife, was asleep. Without a thought, I went to the bookshelf and picked up my great-uncles Bible. I examined it a bit, looking at some older letters and papers stuffed in the pages. I noticed a ribbon attached to the spine to be used as a bookmark. I remember looking at where the ribbon was, I think it was in the book of Isaiah, though I fail to remember the chapter, other than the passages not making any sense to me at the time.
After thumbing through, I returned to page one and read, “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” (Genesis 1:1). I continued reading that night. I placed the ribbon between the pages and then went to sleep. Each night, I would wait for everyone to be in bed and then I would sneak to the living room and pick up the Bible. My wife was raised Catholic, mostly culturally, and was more agnostic, thus she was apprehensive with Christianity.
For a day or two, I was held up on the Creation story. I conferred with a friend of mine asking “Do you believe the world was created in seven days?” and “Do people believe in the story of Adam and Eve?”
My friend informed me that some of the Bible is allegorical, not literal, and that a day to God is not like a day to us on Earth. He said that God created time for us, and a day to the eternal God is nothing for Him. My friend proposed to me that it was simply seven stages of creation in our mind’s eye and the word “day” is simply a descriptor of this. As for Adam and Eve, he said that he believes we all are descendants from them. We concluded the conversation when he said, “sometimes you have to take a leap of faith.”
After reflecting on his advice, I decided to try a leap of faith to see what would happen. I kept reading the Bible, eventually completing the twelve-hundred-page text, something that I historically failed to do with shorter books.
In my humble opinion, it was definitely the work of the Holy Spirit. I remember first picking up the Bible off the shelf; God’s grace was present and guiding me. The leap of faith in Genesis was my way consenting to God, allowing Him into my life through His Word. This was not without trial. There were many times I had to force myself to pick up the Bible and continue onward, something I learned can be common when God wants us to do something. He will give us the grace to make the decision, sometimes maintaining grace during our first action, and then pulling back His grace so we can prove our commitment by moving forward without His divine consolation.
Another trial included a spiritual attack from the enemy. It is important to remember the dark side of the unseen world exists, if not, they will take advantage of your ignorance. The attack occurred in September of 2023. I had been reading the Bible for some time and was trying to improve myself by trying to follow God’s commandments. My wife had not returned to Catholicism yet but she wasn’t overly dismissive of my journey.
The enemy did this one night when my wife and I got into an argument about parenting. We are blessed with a beautiful marriage where arguments are rare. On this particular night, we were having a challenging time with one of our sons. I took him into our room where his bed was and was trying to get him to lay down. I escalated into yelling, a poor choice. I had locked the door because he kept trying to get up and leave, understandably. My wife had a fleeting thought that I was hitting our son, something I have NEVER done. Her sister lives with us and she remembered hearing my wife verbalize this though. My sister-in-law had no clue what she was talking about.
My wife went over to the door and started yelling then began kicking the locked door. I swung open the door and we began yelling aggressively while staring deep in each others’ eyes. While I was yelling, I had an out of spirit experience and I thought to myself, “this isn’t us,” not in the sense that this is unlike us but that it was in fact not us yelling at each other, rather it was the enemy taking us over to try to escalate the argument to the point of no return. I separated myself for a moment so I could calm down and then returned. I told her what I experienced and she experienced the same. While I was calming down, the enemy was making the accusation that I was unworthy to be a follower of God since I was acting so harshly, even saying “what good does it do for you to read the Bible when you still act like this?”
In review, it was clear that the enemy attacked both of us directly. We consented to the enemy by not dismissing thoughts and instead accepting the ideas. Our actions continued this trend, resulting in consenting to a level of possession, a pattern we later learned about from various exorcists online. The enemy was trying to prevent me from growing close to God, probably because 95% of men who convert into Christianity lead their wife and children as well as other family members into the Faith.
Some time after this, I saw the demon from my sleep paralysis episode. I was getting ready for work. Everyone else was still asleep in the house and the playroom was empty. I walked to the bathroom which is adjacent to the playroom. The door to the playroom was open and out my peripheral, I saw a dark yet defined silhouette, the same silhouette I had seen before. I knew I was not equipped to confront anything so I scurried past to the bathroom. The hairs on the back of my neck were stood up. I walked past the room again and into the kitchen. After calming down I decided to go and look. The silhouette was no longer there and nothing in the room looked like something I could have confused it for. I walked by that room countless times in the past, I highly doubt it was an optical illusion or a trick of the mind.
At some point during this time, I was at work. My wife stays home with the kids. Our second son would take his naps in our bed. My wife texted me saying she heard footsteps in the room, but when she went to check on our son, he was fast asleep. Then shortly after that, she heard him wake up frantically screaming. She immediately ran in there and found him closer to the foot of the bed, with the sheets drug with him, while he was pointing to his ankle. She said her first thought was that someone, or something, had dragged him. The enemy was clearly upset at my pursuit of God.
After all this, I continued onward in my readings and worked to amend my life. My wife went on her own journey as well. In November of 2023, I was working when my wife texted me asking if we could go to Catholic Mass that weekend. I was not ready to go to a Church for myself, I did not want to be Catholic, and I had no clue why my wife was asking this all of a sudden since she had taken little to no interest in Faith at that time. Later that day, she explained that she had a conversation with her friend about the conservative friendly community offered by Church groups, something we were seeking for our children in this secular world.
We agreed not to go to Mass at that time, but my wife continued seeking God. Staying true to her Catholic roots, she decided to learn how to pray the Rosary. She was praying, reaching out, asking for something that would help her accept and embrace God. I was still reading through the Old Testament without any prayer life.
One night, she came out from the bedroom wide-eyed and full of energy. She said, “I was praying the Rosary and I smelled lilies!” We didn’t have any flowers in the house nor did we use any air fresheners or wax melts. I replied with, “Okay…and what does that mean?” She told me that lilies are one of Mary’s flowers. I saw it click in her eyes. She understood what I thought I understood. She accepted God is real and Christ is King. The only reason she experienced the presence of the Blessed Virgin, aside from praying the Rosary, is because Mary is indeed the Blessed Virgin and Mother of Jesus, who is Our Lord and the Son of God.
I was happy and excited to see it click in her eyes. I thought we were on the same level finally, something I found was incorrect. She printed out prayer sheets and introduced family prayer sessions. She found a ministry offering free Rosaries and ordered Rosaries for us all. She printed some Catholic images and happened to find some Catholic figurines, including one of Mary, at a thrift store. I was entirely uncomfortable.
I didn’t know how to pray. I thought prayer was supposed to be in private, on knees, with hands clasped. I didn’t know how to talk to God. I was worried my wife was worshipping Mary, a concern the Protestantized culture of America tainted me with. I even thought my wife was going to leave us to become a nun.
With time, I calmed down and saw her flourish in her role as my wife and the mother of our children. She wasn’t running away. I was still uncomfortable with some of the Mary stuff but I didn’t hold onto my concerns. She mentioned that I should pray the Rosary but I was dismissive. I thought the Rosary was for women and that men don’t need Mary.
We started going to Catholic Mass in January 2024. We tried one Church that did not work for us but then walked into a beautiful Church we would soon call home. I was still trying to resist being Catholic. I asked my wife if she wanted to check out the Greek Orthodox Church near us. She declined and said she was not going to be anything but Catholic. With that, I settled into that matter of fact. In hindsight, the Holy Spirit was not guiding me to Orthodoxy and clearly wanted me in the Catholic Church.
We continued attending Sunday Mass. My wife prayed through the intercession of Saint Joseph to soften my heart to the Rosary and to help my prayer life. On the way home from Mass in April 2024, my wife mentioned the Rosary again, in a way that was more of a challenge towards me. I finally accepted and asked her to teach me that night. After the kids went to sleep, she taught me how to pray the Rosary. I resolved to wake up early the next day and pray it in the quiet of the morning. I fully attribute my openness to the Rosary to my wife’s prayers for me. If it was up to me, I would have resisted, but I could feel God’s grace helping me to overcome my apprehensions.
I woke up, made my coffee, and picked up the free plastic Rosary beads. I found a website online with some meditations to use. I picked up the Rosary and made the sign of the Cross, ready to just pray a bunch of Hail Mary’s without any special feelings. After getting through the initial prayers, I began the joyful mysteries.
No sooner than the third Hail Mary, I had to pause. I had to pause because I was choked up. I had to pause because my eyes were so wet, that water was rolling down my cheeks. I had to pause because I was under the softest, sweetest, most comforting, embrace I had ever felt. I was being embraced by my mother, our mother, the Mother of God. It was a feeling I had never had before, a feeling that would have brought me to my knees if I hadn’t been sitting. I continued praying in this state while Mary maintained this warm embrace around me. She had been waiting for me to reach out.
I finished praying the Rosary while everyone was still asleep. Not long after, with my cheeks still wet and speechless, my wife woke up and came out. She was concerned when she saw me. She asked if everything is alright. I fought through myself being choked up and said “…she hugged me.” In this moment, my wife was blessed to see it click for me. I was still reading in the Old Testament, but at this point, I knew Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, because that is the only reason Mary has the touch that she does.
I continued reading the Bible while my prayer life flourished. I participated in family prayers very well while my wife and I grew in the Faith together. I learned more and more about the Christian Faith and the Catholic Church. I also learned about non-Catholic Churches. Ultimately, everything points to the Catholic Church being the one true Church. My mom started to join us at Mass starting Easter of 2024. She and I had not been baptized prior so we planned to sign up for Sacramental Prep to be received into the Catholic Church.
I was excited to share my newfound Faith with my mom, something she was happy to see but apprehensive. She was worried I was going to lose my zeal and move away from the Faith, something that she has since disregarded. I preached my love of the Rosary to her. With time, my mom began praying the Rosary infrequently.
Our Church has a group that prays the Rosary before 8am Mass on Sundays. My mom decided to go to the Rosary service. She was kneeling in an isolated spot praying the Rosary when all of a sudden, she smelled a strong scent of roses. It caught her off guard. She stopped for a moment and looked around only to find no one was near her nor had anyone walked around her, so she knew it wasn’t perfume. She also did not see any flowers near her. She thought to herself, “well if that scent was really you Mary, then please make it known.” Not a moment later, as she described, she felt an injection of the scent of roses into her nose. My mom accepted this as Mary telling her that she was there with her. My mom, caught by surprise, opened her eyes and saw the floor tile seeming to point in a direction. Her gaze followed the tile up to the Crucifix hanging on the altar. My mom realized Mary was telling her that she, Mary, would point my mom to Jesus, addressing a concern my mom had with Mary in this Protestantized country. I was blessed to watch my mom’s prayer life take off and her faith rocketed with it.
June and July of 2024 was a significant month for my spiritual development. For Father’s Day, my wife gifted me the book, “Imitation of Saint Joseph.” Growing up, I enjoyed reading but the habit died after fifth grade. I had tried reading here and there, generally unsuccessfully. I finally picked up the Imitation book and began reading. I fell back in love with reading and enjoyed the book. I knew my wife had other Catholic books and I inquired if there was anything she had on Mary. She handed me “True Devotion to Mary” by Saint Louis De Montfort, something I later learned is an unapologetic book about Mary where Saint Louis De Montfort grabs the reader by the neck to dunk them into the mysteries of Mary. His writing about Mary made me fall in love with her and I was able to truly understand her place in relation to Christ. The more I practiced his teachings about Mary, the more I found spiritual fruit in my relationship with her.
During this time, I also met Mary under her title “Our Lady of Sorrows.” There are many names/titles applied to Mary such as “Our Lady of Lourdes” and “Our Lady of Good Counsel.” Some of those titles are devotional towards a certain aspect or petition towards her, while others are in reference to an apparition of Mary such as when she appeared to Juan Diego in 1531. Our Lady of Sorrows is in reference to the sorrows Mary experienced with Jesus during her mortal life. When I say “I met Mary…” it is because of the spiritual fruit I found in praying the Rosary of Mary’s Seven Sorrows.
For some background, I learned about Our Lady of Sorrows and researched briefly. There was a significant appeal to me, probably rooted in my history of depression and ironically, my love of heavy metal music. I printed out the prayers and resolved to pray the Seven Sorrows Rosary the next morning. I sat there with pages in hand ready to track the prayer count on my fingers. I began praying while meditating on her sorrows. For a man, I tend to be in touch with my emotions but I am not always brought to tears. However, during these prayers, my eyes progressively got more and more wet, and eventually, as her sorrows progressed through the prayers, I even felt a stabbing pain in my heart that made me clench my heart. While I know I could not handle the full pain she went through, I know in my heart I was given the opportunity to take some of those pains on myself to relieve her heart. One does not have that experience through simple recitation of prayers.
I have since prayed Mary’s Seven Sorrows almost every day. I do not have the same emotional reaction each time, God knows I cannot handle that each night. These devotions cannot be forced and do not happen without God’s grace. There are countless devotions within the Catholic Church. God will draw each of us to the devotion He needs us to have for the mission He has for us on earth.
We Catholics also have a practice called “Adoration.” In Adoration, we adore the Blessed Sacrament, the Eucharist, which we receive for consumption every Sunday at Mass. During the Mass, the hosts, commonly referred to by non-Catholics as “cracker” or “wafer,” are transubstantiated into the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Jesus Christ. Transubstantiation is the moment the hosts and wine are consecrated and become the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Jesus Christ, veiled by the appearance of the hosts and wine. At this point, Jesus Christ Himself is on the altar in the Real Prescence of the Eucharist.
“In the most blessed sacrament of the Eucharist “the body and blood, together with the soul and divinity, of our Lord Jesus Christ and, therefore, the whole Christ is truly, really, and substantially contained.” “This presence is called ‘real’ — by which is not intended to exclude the other types of presence as if they could not be ‘real’ too, but because it is presence in the fullest sense: that is to say, it is a substantial presence by which Christ, God and man, makes himself wholly and entirely present.” (CCC 1374)
There are many eucharistic miracles attesting to this fact, such as in Lanciano in 750, cataloged with many Eucharistic Miracles by Saint Carlo Acutis on his website www.miracolieucaristici.org. “A monastic priest doubted whether the Body of Our Lord was truly present in the consecrated Host. He celebrated Mass and when he said the words of consecration, he saw the Host turn into Flesh and the Wine turn into Blood. Everything was visible to those in attendance. The Flesh is still intact and the Blood is divided into five unequal parts which together have the exact same weight as each one does separately.”
Returning back to Adoration, I had heard about Adoration but had not visited the Adoration Chapel at our Parish. I went with my son one day expecting to stare at a wafer with no impact, however I had a beautiful experience where I felt the presence of Christ. I was in awe during that time and knew God was truly present in the Eucharist. One does not experience that staring at a piece of bread.
During my journey, I reached out to our Parish to sign up for Sacramental Prep (OCIA) to be received into the Church. It was April of 2024 and I was told he would note down my information but sign-ups didn’t begin until July or August. After getting into July, I had not heard back from him or seen anything regarding OCIA. I thought to myself, “I should reach out.” I reached for my phone to follow-up in email just in case I had been forgotten by Deacon. Immediately, a thought came into my head
“Don’t”
It was sudden. I hadn’t spoken a word. It stopped me in my tracks. I doubted it, reached for my phone again.
“Don’t”
Clear as day. I was new to discernment and didn’t even consider that it might be the enemy. It made no sense and I took longer than I should have to discuss with my wife. This went on for a week or two. After I mentioned it to her, she immediately reminded me God would not keep me from the sacraments. As soon as I listened to her and thought of that, the veil was lifted, everything was clear and went on smoothly.
There were many moving parts. I was not accustomed to hearing the enemy so directly. I was aware the enemy could not hear my thoughts, however my priest reminded me they are angelic by nature and much more intelligent than we are in our mortal bodies. They also communicate with each other to share intelligence faster than we can imagine. They read our auras, actions, and cues better than our closest family members can. Thus, they could see what I was thinking without actually reading my mind. They tried to keep from the Sacraments.
This relationship with the Blessed Virgin continued. Towards the end of OCIA, we had a series of three “Scrutinies” which are best summed up as “minor exorcisms” to help during the spiritual warfare as we approached the Sacraments. My mom and I were going through OCIA together to be baptized and fully received into the Church. During the Scrutinies, we both had our battles with the enemy. For me, I was in a state of desolation which is a lack of spiritual consolation from God. God permits us to go through waves of consolation and desolation to build our relationship with Him and to go grow spiritually. During this time of desolation, Mary was perfectly quiet. I felt as though I had made a mistake. I had thoughts that I could not go to Mary, as though she was off limits, even angry with me. Mary would never be angry with someone devoted to her. It all came together one night when I was thinking about all this. It was though these were various puzzle pieces that came together to spell “Mary doesn’t love you.” The moment I saw this, I knew how ridiculous it was and the veil was lifted. Once you recognize that the enemy is the source of something, the activity stops. They are rats who do not like to be in the light and scatter to the darkness.
There are many other spiritual experiences I could list out. Spiritually speaking, this is common among Catholics who practice with even the slightest intention. I am not special nor is anyone else who experiences the spiritual side of Christianity special, you just have to try to connect to God humbly. God is a fountain, not a vending machine, meaning you can’t work with Him with the intention to seek spiritual consolation, He wills it when He determines based on you. Additionally, pride needs to be kept in check, we are to humble ourselves before the eternal God.
If you want help with spiritual development, you can consult a priest or deacon for spiritual direction. Unlike other religions that require “teachers,” we have spiritual directors which is more than simple semantics. They guide us on our individual journey to help us discern spirits while giving us the tools to navigate this world and its spiritual side. They do not withhold knowledge until reach a certain phase, but they do give us the tools we need for the given situation, tools that are typically integrated into our spiritual life, interwoven with our physical life, to be utilized constantly.
Theologically and spiritually, I realized we all are choosing a side. Whether or not we know it, we are all in a battle, trying to fill a God shaped hole with earthly pleasure. I was fighting on the enemy’s side for far too long, until I realized the truth. Which side do you think will win?
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