Encouragement in My Faith

Daily writing prompt

Describe a positive thing a family member has done for you.

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I see my mother as the most influential person in my life. And though I often cite evangelicals who were a big influence on me, I think my Roman Catholic mother was probably the biggest influence on me regarding my faith in Jesus.

When I became an evangelical Christian when I was 18, my mother was worried. I’m from a Roman Catholic background. Back in 1980, many Irish people knew little about evangelicals. You’d see various groups that we knew as “cults” around town spreading their messages. Evangelicals did the same, but they adhered to historic Christian teachings. You could classify them as Protestants who, unlike liberal Protestants, stuck to the fundamentals of the faith. Changing your religion was an odd thing to do and maybe still is.

Anyway, leaving the Roman Catholic church was upsetting for my family. And even my friends, who weren’t particularly devout, saw it as a strange thing to do. Maybe that’s one of the reasons why I put it off for so long.

When I told my mother, she asked me to visit the local priest with my both of parents, which I did. He dealt with it very well. Everyone went away happy. I suspect that he told my mother that it might be just a phase. It didn’t turn out to be just a phase. My mother soon came to accept my decision, and though she remained a Roman Catholic for the rest of her life, she was happy to make use of evangelical resources, such as Daily Light, and she attended Catholic charismatic meetings. These were similar to our own meetings.

And as the years went by, I realized that she was a big influence on me in terms of religion. She had a deep love for Jesus. She had little interest in all the theological debates between Catholics and Protestants.

Back then, because evangelicals stress the need to come to personal faith in Jesus, I tended to see anyone who didn’t go through the evangelical conversion experience as a mere nominal Christian. But as time went on, I realized that many have a genuine personal faith, but don’t have a desire to take the radical step of leaving their denomination as I did. Perhaps it doesn’t seem as radical nowadays. I don’t see all Roman Catholics as believers, but neither should I assume that all evangelical Christians are. But I do believe that each of us need to come to personal faith in Christ. And I see evangelicals as more correct doctrinally and their churches as more helpful for spiritual growth. They certainly were a great help to me.

As a teenager, I was searching for the truth. I was happy to leave many Roman Catholic doctrines behind, but it teaches Biblical truth in addition to Catholic traditions. But many people have little interest in getting all the doctrine right. They just trust their leaders. Perhaps people in the past didn’t have the same resources available to them as we have nowadays for investigating. Many had Bibles, but the Roman Catholic church warned people against reading it without the church’s guidance. It’s true that you could misinterpret it. Yet, that’s less likely if you study it in depth and listen to a range of opinions.

My mother used to love watching films on the life of Jesus, and that was passed onto me. Currently, I’m watching The Chosen on Amazon Prime. Much of it is fictional, but it gives me a feel for what life might have been like for the disciples. And it takes me back to movies about Jesus that I used to watch as a child, such as King of Kings, The Robe, and Ben Hur.

My mother passed away last year and all the wonderful memories of her came flooding back. I regret that I was arrogant and defensive at the time of my conversion. But I’m pleased that she came to understand where I was coming from. And I came to understand her perspective.

Here are couple of hymns that we used to sing when I was a Roman Catholic: