Ep 7: My Journey Home Back to the Catholic Church

My spiritual journey is tightly intertwined with my recovery story. 

In this episode, I share how it all began, how I went astray, and how I made my way back home, and how it has influenced what I do now.

I couldn't fit my entire story into a podcast episode - but here's the cliff note version with some of the biggest highlights of my journey back to the fullness of the Catholic faith.

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If you’re feeling stuck, lacking direction, or unsatisfied with certain aspects of your life, life coaching can be helpful. 

If you’re ready to move forward by examining your values, vision, and vocation and are willing to take action, life coaching can be an exceptionally valuable tool. 

Ultimately, being ready for life coaching is about being ready to invest time and effort into creating a life you LOVE!

The life God has designed for you.

If you think you might be ready, let's chat!

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome to the Catholic Sobriety podcast, the go-to resource for women seeking to have a deeper understanding of the role alcohol plays in their lives, women who are looking to drink less or not at all for any reason. I am your host, christy Walker. I'm a wife, mom and a joy-filled Catholic, and I am the Catholic Sobriety coach, and I am so glad you're here. So in today's episode, I will be sharing my spiritual journey and my reversion back to the Catholic faith. I guess it's my story, my coming home story, so I'm excited to share it with you. This will definitely be the Cliff Note version. I'll just hit on some of the major points, definitely leaving things out just for the sake of time. But every event, every person I encountered, every stepping stone along the way, god used to nudge me forward and lead me home to the Catholic Church. He was pursuing my heart the entire time, even when I felt so far away from him. So let's start at the beginning. I was born like most of us and I was actually baptized into the Catholic Church when I was five months old. I had grandparents who were very devout Catholics. My grandma was a convert and my grandpa was a revert, and then, on my dad's side, his mom, my grandma, was also Catholic and so I don't. It was kind of uneventful, other than my earliest memories were of going to church and I would. Actually I loved going to church with my grandparents. It would usually be with my mom's parents, my grandparents and my mom, and I don't remember much of the mass per se, as I did, of people watching and just kind of looking around and all those kind of things that little kids do. I have a very vivid memory of when my brother, who's about two and a half years younger than me, when he got baptized and kind of running up there to see what was going on, I went to my parents divorced when I was about five years old, almost six, maybe I was six, I don't really remember and that was really hard on our family. But you know, it's just part of my story. And my mom continued my formation and, again, my grandparents were always that steadfast presence of faith and joyful witnesses to the love of Christ and the Catholic Church.

Speaker 1: 3:21

I went to catechism classes. I really don't remember when that started but I do remember going on Tuesday evenings. It was called CCD and I went to that. My brother and I intended vacation Bible school a few times. When I was in the seventh grade we switched from public school to the Catholic school that was next door to my junior high actually, and that was a great experience. It was different and I don't really remember too terribly much about the catechesis that was offered there. But I do remember something that did stick with me quite a bit and that was a service project that we did when I was in the eighth grade. We went to a soup kitchen and we were able my class and I we were able to cook a meal and we sat with the patrons and we spoke with them and it was just a really touching experience and I think that that really lit my fire for service and ministry and wanting to serve people. But I was always shown that, especially from my maternal grandparents. They were very giving people, always doing things for others, always visiting friends who were homebound and things like that. So you know, service has always been woven into my life. But when we did that service project when I was in eighth grade, that was just really something that it just kind of made it my own and just made it real for me. It just kind of brought it all together.

Speaker 1: 5:17

So I went to the Catholic High School in my town and graduated from there. Again, I don't have a ton of memory of my catechesis there. I know that I did have a religion teacher. She was great. There were some things that she said that I don't know that she said necessarily the wrong thing, but I probably, in my teenage mind, misinterpreted it. I remember going to Mass every week and we would do like big group reconciliation sessions sometimes. So, anyway, that's something that we did in high school.

Speaker 1: 6:09

High school is when things really kind of started. The uptick in my drinking. Well, drinking started then, but it really escalated and continued to escalate all the way through my senior year. When I graduated from high school, I was going to a local college, a local university that I was accepted into. I was going part-time, but I really wasn't into it. I started hanging around some people that I worked with and just partying and drinking and making all kinds of poor choices, and so, needless to say, my faith was really non-existent. I didn't think much about it. I didn't go to church regularly. I think I probably just went when it was, you know, special holidays, like maybe Mother's Day, easter, christmas. I always I have always, always, always, loved going to church on Palm Sunday. That's like one of the days that, even when I didn't go like through the rest of the year, I almost always went to Palm Sunday Mass.

Speaker 1: 7:28

So when I was in my recovery after I started, I was far away from Jesus. I didn't really need God. The only time that I really only that I really ever prayed or cried out to God was when things were not going well. I would just beg for things to happen. I felt like my prayers just fell on deaf ears and I really didn't blame God at that time because I, you know, I wasn't living a life to glorify Him in any way and I was doing quite the opposite. And so I didn't blame Him for not answering my prayers or for, you know, not receiving graces that I wouldn't have called them that at that time, but that I wasn't receiving graces to accomplish or attain the things that I wanted to. I didn't feel like I had a purpose. I was just kind of floating around and, honestly, really just existing. Um, it was kind of it was a really hard time. So I say often I've lived a life without Jesus and I've lived a life with Jesus and I can tell you 100% that there is much more peace and joy when we put Christ at the center of our lives, and I wish I had known that back then, but I didn't.

Speaker 1: 9:01

So I went to AA and I really appreciated how we would talk in the meeting meetings about a power greater than ourselves, how God was mentioned a lot. I didn't like the term higher power, but you know, people are at different levels or different parts in their spiritual journey. So I came to understand that that is why that they just didn't say God. But I felt God's presence often and when I would tell my story in AA I would say you know, if it were up to me, I probably wouldn't even be sitting here. But I know that God carried me into these rooms and he has taken away my desire to drink. I cried out to him and asked him for that and the desire to drink was removed from me and you know it was such a miracle and so beautiful and that really ignited my spiritual journey, even though I still had a long, long way to go. That really just incandled that flame and allowed some of God's grace to penetrate my soul and just start my journey.

Speaker 1: 10:36

I began working at an awesome family owned jewelry store and I almost didn't apply there. But I kept being urged like you need to apply hair, you need to apply. I was like no, I just didn't feel worthy really to work there, because it's upscale there. As I said, they're family owned. They've been in my town for a long time and I just didn't feel worthy to work there. But something thankfully, probably the Holy Spirit just nudged me and I was like, fine, I mean they're not going to hire me, but I'll put in a resume. And I did and they hired me and, oh my gosh, that was life changing for so many reasons.

Speaker 1: 11:32

But one of the main reasons is that I was surrounded by a group of just the most supportive, encouraging, loving, faith filled women and it was exactly where I needed to be and they just glorify God with their life and that is what I wanted to do, like I saw that and I wanted that. I also saw my grandpa. After my grandma had passed away, you know, he took such good care of her and then he spent his life just serving others and just being a joyful witness and I wanted to be like that too, like anybody that met my grandpa. They would come up to me and tell me what a wonderful person he is and all of these ways that he had touched their lives, and I just remember thinking like he is so special and he is, you know, does all these things, but he's so quiet about it, he's so humble, like nobody would assume that at all, and I just kind of wanted to emulate that, and so that was something always in the back of my mind to strive for, to be like my grandpa, to be like these women that I worked with.

Speaker 1: 13:17

So I started going back to church, but I didn't go to a Catholic church For some reason. I felt very unworthy. I guess I've heard it say that the Catholic Church is not a museum for saints but a hospital for sinners, and I didn't hear that until I started going back to church, and so I kind of wish that I had known that, because I just always felt like, oh, the church does it. You know, I'm not good enough to be there, they don't want me there. So that was like a really just negative thought that I had about the church, and it was very untrue had I realized that just going to the sacrament of reconciliation and starting the process of, you know, clearing out those, all those mortal and venial sins, and that would help me get closer to Christ. But it took me a long time to get there.

Speaker 1: 14:25

So I started going to a Baptist church in town that one of the ladies that I worked with went to and it was a great church, like. They had great Bible teaching, there was lots of fun music, they had all kinds of ministries. It was so welcoming and inviting and I just really enjoyed going there and so I would go there, actually with one of my other friends who worked with me, and we would go every Sunday and we really liked it and I thought, man, when I have kids I'm gonna come here and they're gonna be able to go to all these kids programs they have and it's gonna be so great. But one Sunday we were there and I guess it was communion Sunday, and they had never done this when I had been going. I don't know how often they did it, maybe once a month or I don't, maybe once a quarter, I don't. I have no idea.

Speaker 1: 15:28

But I was sitting there and they were talking about, you know, the Last Supper and all those types of things, and pretty soon I saw these silver platters being passed through the congregation and on these platters were literal saltine crackers. So we are instructed to take one of the crackers, which I did kind of hesitantly. I was kind of like what is this? And then I I think I ate it, ate the saltine, but not at the right time. I don't even remember. All I know. All I remember now is leaving that service and being like I can never go back there. I can't explain why, but I can never go back there.

Speaker 1: 16:26

It just lacked the sacredness and there was something missing, but I didn't know what it was. I know now that it was true, the true presence of Jesus in the Eucharist body, blood, soul and divinity. But at that time I couldn't really articulate that. But I think it's so interesting that the gifts of the Holy Spirit were at work in me and that I was able to kind of discern that that wasn't right but that I needed to seek out what was. So I started doing that.

Speaker 1: 17:07

But then I was with some friends and one of the gals and I we were just kind of having fun and we were singing like some little Bible songs and one of the other people that we were with. I don't even know how it came up actually, but something came up about that I was that I'm Catholic. I said that I'm Catholic because, even though I wasn't actually practicing my Catholic faith, I always identified myself as a Catholic. Or I would say I'm Catholic but but I would say these things and then and identify myself as a Catholic. And the other gal that was with me, the person, asked her are you Catholic? And she's like, oh no, she's very, not like anti-Catholic. She was and is, and so that kind of got me thinking like well, why did she say it like that? Like what is wrong with being Catholic? So I actually started Googling it and I found things like Catholicism is satanic and like all these like bad things about Catholicism, and I was like what? So I started really deep diving into Catholicism and seeking out answers.

Speaker 1: 18:38

Now, I did this kind of reluctantly because I didn't want. I was kind of afraid, like the more I found out, what if it wasn't true? What if? What would that mean? And it was kind of scary. But I persisted anyway and I was so happy to find out that every time I had a question, every time I was met with an opposition, every time I struggled with anything, I was able to find solid answers. And the thing was, the beautiful thing was that there's 2,000 years of church history to back these things up. Right, so I started listening to Catholic answers like constantly. I really started to try to learn more about my Catholic faith.

Speaker 1: 19:39

I watched I don't know if any of you have ever watched the Journey Home program on EWTN, but I was obsessed with it. Like the very first time I watched it I was like why am I watching this? It's kind of interesting, but it kind of looks a little boring. But it wasn't boring at all. Like once I actually sat down and started listening to these people talking about their faith journeys. I mean atheists, jewish people, protestants of every shape and stripe, catholics like me who were raised Catholic and had fallen away from the church and come back. These stories were inspiring, they were beautiful and they provided so much hope and encouragement for me. I kept watching the stories and doing all these things and just tried to learn as much as I could. I was very on fire for it and I felt just like the Holy Spirit prodding me forward constantly During this time.

Speaker 1: 20:50

So I had gotten married when I was 25 years old. That didn't last very long. It ended up in divorce. I married my husband when I was 30 and we had we were not married in the church, but I had an annulment from my first husband and then, when my husband was received into the Catholic Church which is part of our story we had our marriage convalidated. But what happened was the first time that I went to reconciliation after being away from the church for a long time. I thought I would just like bebop myself in there to tell my sins, get absolved, leave and be good to go. But what happened was I had not gotten an annulment from my first husband, and so the priest was like, sorry, I can't absolve you. And I was like, what can you even do that? But I mean he can, because it's in the Bible who sins you are forgiven are forgiven and whoever sins that you retain are retained. So they have the power to forgive or retain sins. And so he didn't. But he said once you get an annulment, then I can give you an absolution. So I was like, well, yeah, I need to do that.

Speaker 1: 22:14

I went through the process and got an annulment, and then my husband and I had twins. They were such a blessing and we, of course, as a Catholic, I knew I needed to get them baptized, so we got them baptized. We went through baptism classes and that was so good for me and my husband. My husband wasn't raised Catholic even though he was baptized Catholic, so we learned a lot there. I thought we would just go in, get baptized, it'd be easy peasy, lemon squeezy.

Speaker 1: 22:49

But the deacon and the priest laid down some, like you know, truth bombs for us. Like you have to agree to raise these children in the Catholic faith, you have to provide this instruction, and so on and so forth. You know I was really committed to that when we were. We had trouble conceiving children and I remember one time after another negative pregnancy test, just crying out to the Lord and saying, please, lord, if you give me children, I promise to raise them to know you and love you and serve you. I don't know how to do that, but I know you will help me and he has. He has just guided us and protected us and put people in our lives that have helped us to form our children in the faith.

Speaker 1: 23:47

So we had our twins baptized when they were about five months old and then, when they were about the age to go to school, I really wanted them to go to a Catholic school and my husband was like, well, I went to a public school and it was fine. I'm like, can we just go and see what it's about? So we did, and there's a parish attached to it. So we went to church there a few times before, you know, just to kind of check things out. We went to the school. My husband was so impressed with the school and the students there that he was like okay, we got to do this. I don't know how we're going to financially afford it, but we have to do this. So we did that.

Speaker 1: 24:29

And shortly after my husband decided to go to our CIA and so he did that and he was received into the church and, as I said, we had our marriage convalidated and then we were both brought into the fullness of faith at that time and our journey has just expanded leaps and bounds since then. So our sons being in the Catholic school really helped not only form them but form us, because they would come home and say, hey, mom, did you know? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Or we went to adoration. Okay, I am a cradle Catholic and I had no idea what adoration was Like. What do you do there Like we just pray, like oh, so you go for prayer service and they're like no Jesus is there and I'm like what?

Speaker 1: 25:29

So these are all things that I've had to like learn along the way and I would say that the past 10 years have really helped, helped my husband and I grow in our faith. It's helped us be better parents. It's helped our marriage, like before my husband was received into the church you know, we had a good marriage. It was, it was okay, but we had, like a lot of things that we had to deal with. And then, after he was received into church, after our marriage was sacramentalized. Honestly, if I hadn't experienced it myself, I don't know that I would understand it, but it transformed our marriage and I'm not being dramatic or exaggerating. It literally transformed our marriage. It transformed our lives and so we started incorporating prayer as a family and we still do that. We are very involved in our parish and we love it. It just makes us feel like part of a big family. My husband I both come from not super big families and so it just makes us feel like part of a really big, amazing family where you know we've just been welcomed and loved on and encouraged and supported through our entire you know, this entire time.

Speaker 1: 27:06

And so something else that happened that has kind of propelled me to do what I do now, which is coaching, is I attended a workshop that was put on by the St Catherine of Siena Institute, sherri Weddell and another lady I can't remember her name, but she was really great too. They came and they led a workshop, called, called and gifted, and it was about charisms. I had never heard of charisms. I kind of thought it was a little new, agey and woo woo. But you know what? It absolutely was not, and I knew that if my parish was bringing it, that it had to be, you know, solid. So I attended it and I'm so glad I did, because that just gave me a huge appreciation for not only my own spiritual gifts but also the ability to recognize them in others and to Tell people, like I want people to know, like you have a purpose. God is calling you and he's empowered you and equipped you with spiritual gifts, and so that since that day, that has really been on my heart and so I've been trying to kind of flesh that out with. I have my own digital marketing business and and.

Speaker 1: 28:35

But I wasn't feeling very fulfilled doing that. I felt God calling me to something else. I tried to start a blog I've joined, like these Catholic professionals, groups and all these things but it wasn't until last year when I started working with a Catholic business coach and she started showing me how to really invite the Holy Spirit into my business, which then overflowed into my life. Oh, I should mention too, about six years ago I helped start a Catholic women's Bible study at my parish and that also was just critical in being steeped in the word of God, because I didn't really know it and I didn't really understand it and was also quite life-changing and Actful and that has given me so much knowledge and courage and just the support and love of these women in this Bible study group and fellowship. It's actually the largest ministry that we have at our parish, okay.

Speaker 1: 29:40

So, anyway, I started working with my business coach and started inviting the Holy Spirit in, and I thought I was hiring her to help me Figure out what to do and how to grow my digital marketing business. But instead I finally, finally, finally heard what God was telling me, and that is that he wants me to Be a Catholic life coach. He wants me to help Catholic women and, more specifically, he wants me to help Catholic women who are in recovery, who maybe have a spiritual journey similar to mine, where they are Catholic and they love their faith, but maybe they're having trouble coming back to the church because of feelings and of unworthiness, shame, guilt, whatever that is. And then I also Just want to share with everybody how how our spiritual guilt gifts help us work together, because my family and I are in ministry. We see a lot of the same people doing most of the work, and I would love to see more people doing work, not just for extra helping hands, but just so that they can use their spiritual gifts as well, because we all have our unique spiritual gifts and when you use them with Other people who have different spiritual gifts from you, it just can Just explode a ministry and that's what we've seen with my Bible study the three the other two women who I Coordinate the Bible study with all three of us are completely different, with very, very different spiritual gifts and, thanks to the Holy Spirit, we've been able to grow this ministry and touch so many lives.

Speaker 1: 31:41

We're not touching them. God is touching them. God is being able to speak to these women and feed them in a way that they've just been Desiring for so so long. So now I get to work with women in recovery or women who aren't sure if their relationship with alcohol is serving them. Is it keeping them from God? Is it Keeping them from doing the work that God has for them? Is it keeping them stuck? There's all of these questions, and I just help women kind of flush that out. You don't have to be an alcoholic to decide to live an alcohol-free lifestyle or To at least reduce your alcohol intake, so that you can live a life that is fulfilling and and that you're doing the will of God and you're able to hear him when he's speaking to you. So that's one of the things that I love to do.

Speaker 1: 32:50

In fact, I'm so excited because this week I get to, I have the opportunity to give a talk to a group of Catholic educators and some pastoral staff about ways to build their relationship with God and lean into the gifts of the Holy Spirit so that they can go out and create missionary Disciples, which is what you know. That's part of what they are called to do. And then in a week I'm giving a Holy Spirit workshop where I'm going to just Talk about, like how we're set apart and how we're not just created for this life but, more importantly, to dwell with God in all eternity, and we'll be reminded that we were all created by God out of love for purpose. And I'm gonna give like a spiritual take, a spiritual deep dive into spiritual gifts and talk about how God equips us for every good work and and how he never calls us to something that he hasn't equipped us for. And then I'm going to give like a spiritual gifts assessment and yeah, it's gonna be fun.

Speaker 1: 34:07

And then, like, the last part of the workshop is gonna be on Building relationship with the Holy Spirit, because the Catechism states that no one Comprehends the thoughts of God except the spirit of God, which means that we need the Holy Spirit to help us hear and understand what God is saying to us. During this session, we'll be discussing how prayer and regular reception of the sacraments empower us to resist temptation, so and that really helps us conform our will and our intellect to God and helps us just to live a joy filled life and, you know, do God's will. So I'm pretty excited about that and I'm so grateful and I feel so blessed that, um, God is guiding me. He's been leaving me just like all these little breadcrumbs to follow. I feel like, and um, it's really starting to Like. My mission and my purpose is really becoming so clear and being illuminated and I just really see all the ways that God has worked in my life, even, you know, in those super early days all the way to today.

Speaker 1: 35:26

Well, that does it for this episode of the catholic sobriety podcast. I hope you enjoyed this episode and I would invite you to share it with a friend who might also get value from it as well, and make sure you subscribe so you don't miss a thing. I am the catholic sobriety coach, and if you would like to learn how to work with me or learn more about the coaching that I offer, visit my website, the catholic sobriety coach dot com. Follow me on instagram at the catholic sobriety coach. I look forward to speaking to you next time and remember I am here for you, I am praying for you. You are not alone.