BONUS: Emily Porter's Road to Coming Back Home (Awakening)

In this special episode, Emily Porter shares the story of her journey away from the Catholic Church and, ultimately, of coming back home. After years away, Emily found herself drawn back through her daughter’s journey through OCIA, rediscovering the truth of the Catholic faith, the Sacraments, and the community she had always missed.

Her story is not only about returning to the local community in Whitesville, but of coming home to the universal community of the Catholic Church, "which is the ultimate sense of community, is it not?"

It doesn’t matter how long you’ve been away from the Church or if you have a lot of questions about coming home—we need you here.

To learn more about the Awakening Program at St. Mary of the Woods, visit our website HERE!

Transcript

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SPEAKER_01 0:09

Hi, friends. Welcome to this special bonus episode of Catholicism 101, Forever Learning and Living the Faith. I'm just so excited today because as we prepare to kick off and begin our awakening series, as we invite those who have left the faith or walked away from the church or just simply fallen away, as we prepare to invite them back, we want to share stories of our own parishioners and just of people who have made it a priority to come to Mass on Sundays to just be joyful in their experience of our parish community out here at Whitesville. And so really we're just sharing stories of faith and praying that our stories resonate with anyone who may be listening. So today, um, I have my friend Emily Porter with me today. So Emily, would you like to introduce yourself?

SPEAKER_00 1:09

Okay. Like you said, I'm Emily Porter and I'm from Whitesville. I've lived here all my life except for the first four years that my husband Hank and I got married. I've got three daughters. Uh, two of those daughters have gone to Trinity High School. I'm a graduate of Trinity High School, as is my husband, Hank. So um I've been around St. Mary's my entire life. Ah, beautiful, beautiful.

SPEAKER_01 1:34

So I I want to ask you, why do you make it a priority to stay engaged in your faith and go to mass on Sundays?

SPEAKER_00 1:41

Well, it's it's not a simple answer. Um we're supposed to, first of all. Uh and then I didn't for a long time. And now I do uh just because I feel called to go to church on Sunday, but also my daughters, two of my daughters, two of my three daughters now belong to St. Mary's, and it's very important for them to go to church as well. And um so I I feel like it is something that um is important to me, it's important to my girls, it's important to Jesus for for me to be there on Sundays. So I try not to miss. Actually, I don't, I don't miss. Uh I'd go somewhere else before I would miss a Sunday if I'm out of town or anything like that. And I wasn't always that way, but I'm definitely that way now.

SPEAKER_01 2:41

Yeah, that that's so beautiful. Thank you so much for sharing. Um, and and I do want to say uh my experience with you, how I came to know you, was when you decided to come back to the church. And uh, if I recall correctly, your your daughter kind of prompted that. Um, she was kind of ready to join the faith and go through OCIA, correct?

SPEAKER_00 3:02

Yes, yes, that is correct. She uh, my daughter Faith, which is my middle daughter, um, she was interested in in the Catholic faith. And so whenever she decided, made that decision, um, she was trying to decide who her sponsor was going to be. Um, she was considering a couple of different people. I at that time had not fully, I was coming to church with her, but I hadn't made my confession in order to be able to come back to I was a little scared, actually. I was, I don't know why I was scared, but there was just this thing that was keeping me just a little fearful to make that plunge in order to be able to be fully back at Mass and be able to participate in the Eucharist. Um, and probably make that confession too. I don't know. It was just a scary process, but I was considering it for a long time, actually. Um, it my consideration probably started, I don't know, maybe throughout the whole time that I was away from church, actually, from from St. Mary's, but whenever my youngest daughter Audrey joined the church, which was I don't remember exactly what year that was, but that's been at least three to four years ago. Um, and like I like I say, I was thinking about it at that time as well. But whenever my daughter Faith was going through the process and she was trying to decide on who her sponsor was gonna be, um, I was even more um, I don't know, like deciding to get over that fear and actually make that step to make my confession and come back to mass. And so whenever she asked me to be her sponsor, that's definitely prompted me to go to go on and do that.

SPEAKER_01 4:58

Yeah, I I remember whenever uh you all had contacted me uh and I you came in and I got to meet with you and um we were discussing all of this. Uh those are the things that make my day. Uh and even though um I don't always get to see the the inner workings of everything going on, uh, I I I I get kind of like a front row seat to witnessing a lot of the exterior changes that happen. Um and so that's been just so, so beautiful. And so I thank you for sharing uh not only with me, but with all of those listening. Uh and so I do want to know also, you know, you talk a lot about the community of St. Mary, and that's a big thing here. Community is huge here. And so, has how has your experience of community here at St. Mary really just impacted your faith?

SPEAKER_00 5:50

I I cannot even tell you how important it is, actually. Um, it's funny. I have a friend that I talk to every day who actually well, I don't talk to her every day, but very, very often. And she also um used to go to St. Mary's. She she graduated from Trinity with me, she's a classmate. But I know that she and I have talked about um church over the years for different reasons, and in the interim of me leaving St. Mary's and start, what I did was go to a different church. My husband and I. So my husband and I, whenever we first got married, we moved to uh the Rough River area. That's where my husband is from. And um I was no longer going to St. Mary's, and and I'll go ahead and put in here that the reason that I decided to leave St. Mary's, there was some upheaval in the church at that particular time, not St. Mary, but the the Catholic Church as a whole. I think it was probably around um 2001, 2002, and there was um everything going on with some abuse in the church. And I was very bothered by that. And combined with my husband is not Catholic, even though he went to Trinity, he was raised Baptist. So he was not going to church with me. I was going to church on my own with the girls. Um, and then we had moved away, and so I was away from my community basically during that time. And so we made a decision as a family that I wanted my girls, well, I wanted to go as a family. So we ended up going to a local church whenever we got married to call it a church of Christ. And um that so so it was multi, there was lots of decisions in that the there was the upheaval going on in the church. I was married to someone who wasn't Catholic um either. And then we were away from the community. We were away from my community of Witesville and St. Mary. And the all of those things affected my decision to start going to the Church of Christ in a little community called Yaeman and raising my girls in that. Um, I think being away from my community allowed me to kind of have that separation. Um, and it's what I always missed too. So whenever I went to this other church, whenever I went to the church of uh the Yaiman church, even though that was like a little small community church and I liked all of the people there, and I um I I was still always missing my community here throughout. So we we did belong to that Yaiman for probably seven years of our marriage, and then at a certain point we decided to go to another church, but it still was a church of Christ um in Owensboro because we were considering like what we needed for our daughters. We wanted them to be in Sunday school, we wanted them to be able to have um that connection that I had always gotten through St. Mary. I I wish that I could go back in time and realize that I should have brought my girls back here, but you know, you live and you learn. And um, anyways, through whenever we went to that church, we um I still was always missing my community here. And um, I did not recognize how important it is, but I know in talking to my friend, that's what I would tell her. I liked my church okay, but I was missing above above everything at that particular point. Um, I missed my community of Saint Mary. I just didn't get that anywhere else, even though the people were great. I don't want to say that, you know, everybody was great, but being immersed in this community of Saint Mary is so special that people don't understand it unless they've been a part of it.

SPEAKER_01 10:07

So the community aspect of the Catholic faith and the Catholic Church is huge. Um, and especially out here, I find that to be the driving factor uh for so many people. And so um, and it it's just a nationwide trend right now, too. We we see all of these people converting to the faith, and one of their top reasons it's always listed is because they're longing and searching for community in a culture in a day of isolation. Um and so I do kind of want to go back to OCIA just for a minute, of you know, you having the the opportunity to sponsor faith. Uh and so I would really love to know um going through OCIA as a sponsor, as you have just come back into communion with the church and uh brought come back to the sacraments, what was that experience of sponsoring faith like an OCIA? Uh, and how did that impact your own faith?

SPEAKER_00 11:06

Well, I would say it was very, very, very um important and um informative. It actually, so I whenever I was growing up, I went to St. Mary's and to Trinity, you know. So my my family is Catholic, my mom and dad are Catholic, you know, my grandparents, etc. Um, but even with that, even though I had a Catholic education, I think whenever you're young and you're getting that Catholic education, you're just trying to pass a class sometimes, you know, you're just you're not well in my case, anyways, I'm not saying everybody is this way, but for me, I it didn't mean as much to me to learn about it as it did whenever I had just rejoined the church and was going through that process with my daughter Faith. I think that it would actually be something very uh beneficial for anybody that is coming back to the church, not even just anybody coming back to the church, but for people who have been lifelong members of the church, there are things that I learned through the OCI process that I don't know that I would have learned without going through the OCI process. So I think that's um I don't know. That was that was very informative, beneficial to my process of rejoining the church.

SPEAKER_01 12:30

Ah, beautiful, beautiful. Thank you so much. Um, and just the last thing I want to ask you too is um just and I I already hear some of it coming out, but what encouragement or what kind of invitation would you like to give those who have left the church as we just reach out for them to come home?

SPEAKER_00 12:50

I think you just now said it. Um I actually just saw, so you had made a post on Facebook about the um awakening, is that what it's called, in the invitation to come back to the Catholic Church. And I saw uh a friend of mine on Facebook, uh Peggy Duval. I think Peggy goes here, I'm not 100% sure. Um, but Peggy shared your post and said simply come home. Period. That's it, come home, period. I think that that would speak to lots of people. It is that sense, it's not only uh I also want to say that through the OCI process, um, it has um, I don't know, awakened within me that desire to learn more about the Catholic faith, even beyond OCIA. There's a lot about the Catholic faith that I did not understand in the history of the Catholic faith and um the righteousness of it, basically. And so it's not just that sense of coming home that I think is important. I mean, that that's what meant them, that's what drew me in to begin with, but um it is also I feel like right to come home. It is I I did not realize it before, even though it was my uh truth. I didn't realize that it is the truth and how it was how the Catholic uh the Catholic faith was or the Catholic Church was established, um, and how we can trace our history back. Uh it's just now it feels more right than it ever did. It wasn't just about coming home, but it's about how right it is to come home.

SPEAKER_01 14:42

Yeah. I I think you hit the nail on the head. Definitely hit the nail on the head. Uh, I think oftentimes we have a feeling of homesickness, uh, and that might get disguised as other things, or we might try to fill it with other things or say, oh, this can be my new home. And and sometimes that is the case, right? Uh, but when it comes to our home of faith, uh, there's there's just nothing like it. And I do want to say that uh you you had mentioned, you know, looking back, you wished you had just kept your girls up here, right? Um, but I also want to acknowledge you wouldn't have had the experiences in the same renewal and faith that you've had uh if you hadn't had left for a while, right? Uh and so I think one of my favorite things about our faith, and I I always talk about it in OCIA, is how the Lord will allow us to write all these crooked lines that are not necessarily what he would have liked for us and what he would prefer for us. Um but he takes them and he makes them something really beautiful. He brings about something just greater from them. And so, yeah, just thank you so much for sharing your story and and coming in today. Uh yeah, it it's just always a joy to talk to you and hear your story uh and and just continue to learn more about you and your heart and your faith.

SPEAKER_00 16:06

You added about it being not just St. Mary, but the Catholic Church. And I think that part of why you feel that sense of community is um the structure of the Catholic Church and the fact that uh on a on any given Sunday, you can be anywhere in the world and you are going to hear the same readings. It's you're gonna be participating in the same mass. So I was here in um Saint Mary for Mass this Sunday while Faith was in Rome at St. Peter's Basilica for Mass. She was able to sit in the front row of Mass. Now, and she right before that, she had been able to uh the Anchulus first, and then um she said she they they couldn't understand everything he was saying, of course, uh, or anything that he was saying, but it was still just the the uh the majesty almost of being there and being able to participate in that. But then they walked from there to St. Peter's Basilica, and then she was able to, you know, sit in the front row and attend Mass. Now she didn't think about it until afterwards, the fact that the Mass was going to be in a different language. Um, so she didn't know what the readings were, but it still was a power, it was still powerful for her to be there. But she knew that she would be able to go back to her hotel room and look what the readings were and uh understand what was happening during that math. And then it was the same thing that was happening at mass here at St. Mary that the rest of us were going to. And you can get no more um larger sense of community than that, where you know, she is in Rome, Italy, across the globe, and I'm here, her mom's here in Saint in Little Whitesville, and taking part in the same mass. So it's pretty that is definitely the ultimate sense of community, is it not?

SPEAKER_01 18:11

Oh my gosh, a hundred percent. Yeah, I'm I'm so glad you brought that back up. Uh and I'm glad um, yeah, I'm very glad that you brought that back up because that's huge. I think that that's sometimes yeah, when we try to talk about community, I think sometimes we get hyper focused on the small one we're in. Um, but we all want to be part of something that's bigger than ourselves. And so I I do believe that we find that in the Catholic Church. Thank you again so much, Emily, uh, for coming in today. This this has just been so beautiful. Uh, and I know that we we began with prayer uh and just praying that whoever is hearing this, um, maybe the Lord has been kind of poking them and giving that uh that feeling of, hey, maybe, maybe, maybe you need to look at going back home. And uh so we just hope and pray that if you hadn't had that poke yet, maybe this is that poke. Um, or maybe this can just be an encouragement uh that you're not alone and the Lord writes straight with our crooked lines, whether or not we know we're writing crooked. Beautiful. Well, thank you again, and I hope all of you have a blessed day.