The post The Way of God More Fully: <BR>In the Footsteps of Sts. Priscilla and Aquila appeared first on The Coming Home Network.

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The latest from CHNetwork

This week’s episode of The Journey Home was a great conversation with Fr. Ken Geraci, who left faith behind to pursue worldly success before a friend challenged him to reconsider his priorities.

We shared an article explaining why storytelling is such a big part of our work at the Coming Home Network.

In a featured written testimony, Christy Kellner shared how her appreciation for George Washington and the Founding Fathers helped lead her to the Catholic Church.

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CONVERTS AND CONVERSION

Detroit Catholic interviewed a woman who was inspired by the late Al Kresta to return to the Church and start a Bible study that’s lasted 20 years.

Msgr. Thomas Guarino reflected on the Evangelicals and Catholics Together movement 30 years later.

Catholic World Report revisited the story of the Prime Minister of China who became a Benedictine monk.

Gigi Duncan looked at the rise of the Catholic population in South Carolina.

And Angelus News looked at the story of CHNetwork member Michael Cardona, a former Hindu guru who entered the Catholic Church this year.

APOLOGETICS PICKS OF THE WEEK

ChurchPOP shared 9 patron saints of athletes ahead of this year’s Summer Olympics.

The Purposeful Lab podcast pondered whether Catholicism is compatible with the existence of extraterrestrial life.

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A member who’s excited to finally start OCIA this Fall after years of exploring the Catholic Faith, another member whose health difficulties are making it hard for them to meet regularly with their parish about beocming Catholic, and all our members who are hoping to become Catholic in countries where it is difficult to become a Christian  — these are just a few of the people we are praying for and working with at The Coming Home Network. Please help us continue to support those on the journey by visiting chnetwork.org/donate today!

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“Indeed, faith and hope will end when we die, whereas love, that is, charity, will last for eternity.”

Bl. Pier Giorgio Frassati

Feast Day: July 4th

The post The CHNetwork Weekly Roundup #412 appeared first on The Coming Home Network.

Long before the printing press and the availability of the written word for all to access, our ancestors in faith passed down the truth of God’s beauty, wisdom, love, and mercy toward us through their own stories of encounter.

We know of our family history through the lived experience of those who wandered through the desert with Moses, who boarded the ark Noah built, who heard about the promise made to Abraham and told their stories through the generations. We know of God’s fidelity and redemption through the stories of the prophets who didn’t sugarcoat the infidelity of man. Yes, we know the facts—the number of cubits and thread counts and all the materials that went into the creating the ark and priestly vestments. More importantly, though, these stories reveal to us the heart of God the Father, who patiently and persistently calls His children home to Himself through the ages.

We hear Jesus use stories and parables to explain and unveil the Kingdom of God to his disciples and all who would listen. Even after the Resurrection, we see Jesus continue to patiently reveal the Father’s plan to those who, having witnessed the crucifixion, still couldn’t see the fulfillment of God’s promise through the risen Christ. More than this, we begin to know the heart of Christ, the promise of mercy, and the power of the Holy Spirit, through the stories of the Gospel writers and the first apostles. We witness the fulfillment of God’s promise through the experiences of those who walked with Christ on earth and continued to preach the Gospel following his passion, death, resurrection, and ascension— often to their own earthly demise.

The story doesn’t end there, though. Through the centuries, we have the stories of countless men and women who have continued to show us what it means to live out the Gospel, what it means to love God and neighbor, what it means to pursue a life of heroic virtue in imitation of Christ. We know the everlasting power of the saving grace that lies in Christ through His Church empowered by the Holy Spirit because of the stories of the saints throughout the last two millennia. We know the truth of the faith through their experiences and testimony. And yet, that, too, is not the end.

The story continues with each of us. The goodness of God continues to be proclaimed in the movement of our own lives. The fruit of Christ’s sacrifice for us—His tender mercy and compassion and love—continues to be revealed in our encounters with the steadfast sacramental life of the Church despite (or perhaps through) our suffering and wandering.

No story is insignificant. Each one is another chapter— however long or short—in the overarching story of God, the only story worth sharing again and again.

We would love to hear YOUR story of conversion. Visit chnetwork.org/submissions to see our submission guidelines, or email us at info@chnetwork.org.

The post The Power of a Good Story appeared first on The Coming Home Network.

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The latest from CHNetwork

This week’s episode of The Journey Home was an awesome conversation with Lee and Valiree Sondeno, former Pentecostal music ministers whose experience of COVID led them to begin exploring the Catholic Church.

On the latest Deep in Christ, JonMarc Grodi and Matt Swaim discussed how the Coming Home Network responds when a well-known public figure becomes Catholic.

In a featured written testimony, Chris Kellam talked about how being fair to the Catholic Church led to him falling in love with it.

And on a new Insights, former Evangelical pastor Justin Hibbard shared an insight about the Ark of the Covenant that helped him better understand Catholic teaching on the Eucharist.

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CONVERTS AND CONVERSION

Catholic World Report profiled Bishop John Barres, whose parents were converts and had him baptized by Archbishop Fulton Sheen.

Agnes Aineah shared the story of how a Nigerian priest’s commitment to the Rosary helped convert a man out of a lifestyle of witchcraft and immorality.

Jueken Wen talked about growing up atheist in China before coming home to the Catholic Church.

Courtney Mares reflected on the addiction, recovery and conversion of Venerable Matt Talbot.

And a former Anglican priest has been consecrated as a bishop in the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham.

APOLOGETICS PICKS OF THE WEEK

Recent Journey Home guest Derek Rotty discussed some top Catholic pilgrimage sites in Washington, DC.

Jordan Haddad explored the concept of the development of doctrine through the eyes of St. Bonaventure.

And Dave Armstrong explained why the Catholic understanding of the connection between Baptism and justification is more Biblical than many Protestants realize.

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A member pondering leaving their job as a pastor to become Catholic, another member whose interest in the Church has been damaging their work in ecumenical ministry, and all our members who have officially become Catholic over the past several weeks — these are just a few of the people we are praying for and working with at The Coming Home Network. Please help us continue to support those on the journey by visiting chnetwork.org/donate today!

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“What, then? If there should be a dispute over some kind of question, ought we not to have recourse to the most ancient Churches in which the Apostles were familiar, and draw from them what is clear and certain in regard to that question? What if the Apostles had not in fact left writings to us? Would it not be necessary to follow the order of tradition, which was handed down to those to whom they entrusted the Churches?”

St. Irenaeus of Lyons

Feast Day: June 28th

The post The CHNetwork Weekly Roundup #411 appeared first on The Coming Home Network.

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The latest from CHNetwork

This week’s episode of The Journey Home was a great conversation with Monica Anyango about how her experience of single motherhood led her to return to the Church.

The CHNetwork family reflected on the conversion and witness of Al Kresta, who passed away last weekend from liver cancer.

On the latest Deep in Christ, JonMarc Grodi and Kenny Burchard reflected on the tangible spirituality of the Catholic Faith.

And on a new Insights, Alicia Baker shared how she found healing in Christ after experiencing abuse.

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CONVERTS AND CONVERSION

Remembrances of Al Kresta were posted by numerous friends this week, including Steve Ray, Matthew Bunson, Jonah McKeown, and Kathy Schiffer.

And champion cyclist Justin Koelbl shared how the witness of his father inspired his own return to faith.

APOLOGETICS PICKS OF THE WEEK

Bishop Daniel Flores reflected on hunger, poverty, and the Eucharist.

And Fr. Samuel Keyes reflected on why gardening is such a prevalent theme in the teachings of Jesus.

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A convert member whose adult children have begun to consider Catholicism, another member who is trying to reinvent themselves professionally now that they’re exploring the Church, and all our members who have officially become Catholic over the past several weeks — these are just a few of the people we are praying for and working with at The Coming Home Network. Please help us continue to support those on the journey by visiting chnetwork.org/donate today!

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“It is better to be a child of God than king of the whole world.”

St. Aloysius Gonzaga

Feast Day: June 21st

The post The CHNetwork Weekly Roundup #410 appeared first on The Coming Home Network.

Raised Catholic, Kresta left the faith of his youth as a young man in the 1960’s. As he told CHNetwork in a 2019 interview, “My parents’ generation had extolled the virtues of wine, women, and song. And my generation didn’t mind that; but we preferred drugs, sex, and rock and roll.”

In the Spring of 1969, Kresta had a series of what he called “pseudo-mystical” experiences while using LSD. Beyond the recreational highs he’d been accustomed to seeking, he began to sense a supernatural reality that existed but was somehow inaccessible to him. During the last of these experiences, in May of that year, he felt a presence that he would later describe as Marian, and that caused him to take a fresh look at the world of faith and spirituality he’d abandoned.

Kresta’s search took him into conversations with New Age thinkers, and he regained an appreciation for Jesus, but only saw Christ as one enlightened teacher among many “ascended masters.” It wasn’t until his time at Michigan State University that he began reading the Bible on his own for the first time, and the picture of Jesus that began to emerge from the Gospels stood in sharp contrast to Al’s concept of Him as a mere sage. Al found himself bewildered, and unsure of what to do next.

One day, while walking down Grand River Ave toward the center of town, he met a man handing out Christian tracts. He took one, and was struck by the first line of it: “Do you want to know why some people have trouble understanding the Bible?” It was as though God was speaking directly to the question in his heart. As Kresta put it, that was the day that he went “from believing in the Jesus of the New Age, to believing in the Jesus of the New Testament.”

Kresta spent the next eighteen years in various capacities of Evangelical ministry, serving for five of those years as a pastor. But questions that arose about authority, the interpretation of Scripture, and a host of other issues eventually led him back to the Catholic Faith he’d walked away from decades before, and he returned to full communion with the Church in 1992.

However, as a former Protestant pastor becoming Catholic, he faced many of the issues that are common to clergy seeking a home in the Church, such as difficulty explaining the decision to leave Protestant ministry, experiencing the reality of being a member of a congregation rather than a leader of one, and wondering how to use the gifts and talents of a Protestant ministry background in a Catholic context.

Al shared his experience of journeying from cradle Catholicism through agnosticism, the New Age, and Evangelical ministry back to the Catholic Faith on CHNetwork’s flagship program, The Journey Home, which airs on EWTN television and radio and for many years was hosted by Marcus Grodi, who had also been a Protestant pastor before entering the Catholic Church. Al appeared on the show in 2004 and 2007, and also joined the program in 2017 for the show’s 20th anniversary special. He also appeared as a guest on Marcus Grodi’s radio program, Deep in Scripture.

In the weeks since Kresta’s initial diagnosis, the radio show that bears his name has continued, with Marcus Peter of Ave Maria Radio filling in as host. Peter, who was a guest on The Journey Home in 2021, shares a number of things in common with Kresta; he too went from cradle Catholic to unbeliever to born-again Christian and Protestant preacher before returning to the Catholic Faith. As such, he identifies with Al’s journey in a special way. “He and I shared such similar journeys, albeit in different ways. Having his influence was invaluable to me,” said Peter.

Peter also noted that Kresta’s mentorship helped him, as a convert with Protestant leadership experience, to see the world through a more thoroughly Catholic lens: “He challenged me to expand my capacities. I used to focus only on preaching the truths of Scripture for the salvation of souls. Al showed me how applying those same truths to history, art, politics, science, and current events had an equally powerful salvific effect in the lives of Christians.”

Please join the Coming Home Network in giving thanks for the extraordinary life and witness of Al Kresta, and praying for the repose of his soul and the consolation of his family.

May the souls of the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, Rest in Peace.

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The following is a video testimony that Al recorded for CHNetwork’s Signposts series in 2019:

The post The CHNetwork Family Remembers Al Kresta appeared first on The Coming Home Network.

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The latest from CHNetwork

This week’s episode of The Journey Home was a great discussion with Matt and Rachel Sheils, two former Salvation Army officers who became Catholic.

In a featured article, Matt Swaim looked at the story of a Baptist convert and Civil War veteran being considered for sainthood.

And on a new Insights, Dr. Benjamin Lewis, a former Methodist, shared how he began to develop Catholic sympathies.

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CONVERTS AND CONVERSION

Catholic News Agency followed the story of Sr. Mary Rose Chinn, a convert and former Journey Home guest who has been camping her way along one of the Eucharistic Pilgrimage routes.

Chris Stefanick interviewed recent Journey Home guest Kailash Duraiswami about his path from Hinduism to Atheism to Catholicism.

APOLOGETICS PICKS OF THE WEEK

Daniel Payne looked at what the Church has to say about the idea of “green burials.”

And Clement Harrold posed the question: if Catholics are right about Mary, why isn’t there more about her in the Bible?

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A member trying to choose between Catholic spiritualities, another member thinking about going back to school now that they’ve become Catholic, and all our members who just entered the Church over the past several weeks — these are just a few of the people we are praying for and working with at The Coming Home Network. Please help us continue to support those on the journey by visiting chnetwork.org/donate today!

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“Christians must lean on the Cross of Christ just as travelers lean on a staff when they begin a long journey.”

St. Anthony of Padua

Feast Day: June 13th

The post The CHNetwork Weekly Roundup #409 appeared first on The Coming Home Network.

The post Br. Joseph Dutton: <BR>A Baptist Convert on the Path to Sainthood appeared first on The Coming Home Network.

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The latest from CHNetwork

The June CHNewsletter is out! Read it here.

This week’s episode of The Journey Home was a great conversation with Alan Webb, a record-holding runner who shared what led him to Catholic Faith.

In a featured article, Matt Swaim reflected on the conversion of the Ugandan Martys, whose feast day is June 3rd.

And on a new Insights, Ken Hensley discussed why sharing conversion stories is such an important aspect of the mission of CHNetwork.

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CONVERTS AND CONVERSION

Gerard Figurelli shared some of the books that were most influential on his journey back to the Church.

And the Boston Celtics will be led into the NBA finals by coach Joe Mazzullo, a lifelong Catholic whose faith has become more focused since his father’s passing.

APOLOGETICS PICKS OF THE WEEK

Jimmy Akin hosted an “Ask Me Anything” episode of Catholic answers, where he addressed everything from the diaconate to the dating of Easter to the identity of the Nephilim.

And a Catholic astronaut finally got to go to space this month at age 90!

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A member praying their spouse will share their interest in the Catholic Faith, another member whose adult children are considering joining them in the Church, and all our members who just entered the Church over the past several weeks — these are just a few of the people we are praying for and working with at The Coming Home Network. Please help us continue to support those on the journey by visiting chnetwork.org/donate today!

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“If you are an ardent reader, seek not brilliant and erudite texts; otherwise the demon of haughtiness will strike your heart. But like a wise bee that gathers honey from flowers, so also through your reading obtain healing for your soul.”

St. Ephrem the Syrian

Feast Day: June 9th

The post The CHNetwork Weekly Roundup #408 appeared first on The Coming Home Network.

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The story of the Ugandan Martyrs is a powerful account of heroic faith in the face of persecution. All of them were young men, some of them teenagers. And all of them knew that their conversion to the Catholic faith would likely cost them their lives.

In 1879, the king of Buganda, Kabaka Mukabya, invited French Catholic missionaries into his kingdom. He had no interest in Christianity himself; he was more interested in the educational opportunities the missionaries might bring. What the Kabaka did not expect was that the message of the Gospel would have such a powerful impact among his people.

When Mukabya died, and his son, Mwanga, claimed the throne, he allowed the missionaries to continue their work, but he quickly became angry with the way that the conversions were affecting his royal court. Mwanga wanted the young men and boys who served in his court to submit themselves to immoral acts with him, and because of their newfound faith, these young converts refused to participate.

The head steward of the palace, a 25-year old convert named Joseph Mukasa Balikuddembe, pleaded with the king to not force these acts upon his pages and servants. In response, the furious Mwanga had Joseph beheaded, and his body burned.

Witnessing this martyrdom, a young catechumen named Charles Lwanga, who was in charge of some of the royal pages, felt compelled to approach the missionaries, from whom he urgently requested and received Baptism, despite having seen one of his own friends and fellow court attendants die that very day. St. Charles Lwanga was baptized on the same day that St. Joseph Mukasa was martyred: November 15th, 1885.

Mwanga’s attempt to intimidate through violence was inffective; even more young Ugandans from his court sought catechesis and baptism. Christian teachings against sexual violence, polgyamy, and inhumane treatment of prisoners only made Mwanga more and more angry with these new Christians. The tide was turning toward the Gospel in his kingdom, and he chose to act swiftly and decisively against it.

On May 26th, 1886, Charles Lwanga, who had only himself been baptized a few months earlier, baptized a group of young pages, including a boy named Kizito, who was only 14. Later that day, Mwanga returned to his compound after an unsuccessful hunting trip, and looking for the attendants of his royal court, found that many of them had left to go pray together. Outraged, Mwanga locked down the palace, summoned all his pages, and commanded each of them to admit whether or not they were Christians. Those who were, answered in the affirmative, including the 14 year-old Kizito, who had been baptized only hours before.

Mwanga condemned them all to death. The young men were tied together and marched 37 miles to a wooded area. As they marched, Charles Lwanga, who had catechized many of them, led them in prayer and reminded them of the catechism lessons he had taught them. Kizito, the youngest of the group, kept up their spirits with songs, and even laughter.

When they reached the execution site on June 3rd, the prisoners were rolled into straw mats and fed into a fire. In all, sixteen young convert men were martyred that day, including Charles Lwanga, who had baptized many of them. As he was being burned, Lwanga is reported to have said to his executioners, “It is as if you are pouring water on me. Please repent and become a Christian like me.”

In 1920, Pope Benedict XV formally beatified a large group of these martyrs who died under the reign of Kubaka Mwanga, and in October of 1964, Pope Paul VI canonized them. Their feast is celebrated on June 3rd, the date that Charles Lwanga and his companions were marched to the fire.

Catholics were not the only ones who suffered persecution under Mwanga’s rule; several Anglican converts were martyred as well. As with the Catholic martyrs of Uganda, the Anglican calendar also observes their feast on June 3rd.

The courage of Sts. Joseph Mukasa, Charles Lwanga, Kizito, and their companions is extraordinary. For all who follow Christ on the path of conversion, there is a cost. Sometimes that cost includes confusion or opposition from loved ones, or even having to start one’s life over from scratch. But the courage of the Ugandan Martyrs, who requested baptism knowing it would almost certainly cost them their lives, is a powerful witness to all of us who are praying for the strength to follow God’s will, however difficult it may seem to us in the moment.

The post The Ugandan Martyrs: Conviction, Conversion, and Courage appeared first on The Coming Home Network.