My Journey to Catholicism Part 2

Christmas of 1990, my husband and I packed up the little we owned and threw it in the back of a U-Haul truck.  We attached our Honda to a trailer in back, sat our yellow lab puppy in the front between us, and we drove away from Albuquerque with our destination as Miami, FL.  We left Albuquerque with temperatures in the 20's and snow on the ground and arrived to Miami with temperatures in the 90's!

After some time at the local community college, I figured I'd shoot for the best Miami had to offer...or so I thought.  I dug in my heels and set my sights on the University of Miami.  UM was making things a little difficult for me though - having to change my major a bit, costing a lot more money, not promising any financial aid other than loans, and having to take longer than I thought to graduate.  I dug in my heels though and fought even looking at another lesser known university called Barry University.  It was a private Catholic university.  I wasn't sure I wanted to be Catholic yet, and I wanted to make sure I made that decision on my own - not from outside pressures.  I decided, however, to meet with an advisor from Barry about seeking an education degree from them.   They made it so easy for me...of course!  Not only was the tuition less, but I would graduate sooner, I would graduate with the appropriate degree, and they would give me grant money and loans to make my life even easier.  How could I say no?  God was calling.

Because it was a Catholic institution, I was very excited about the requisite religion courses because I could kind of take up what I left behind at UNM...and Barry was forcing me to take them, so the big decisions were which ones do I take?  I had loved my Reformation class at UNM, but where would I go from there?  I believe Barry required me to take two religion courses and one ethics course.  Why would I sign up for the average freshman theology class when there was a whole theological world out there waiting for me?  I signed up for "Old Testament" first.  I felt like this was out of my comfort zone since most Christians - especially Protestant Christians - don't grow up knowing a lot from the Old Testament.  I knew pretty much nothing, and boy did I learn!

After my first year there, my husband and I were invited to visit my in-laws who were then living in Turkey.  How could we pass up such an invite?  We knew we didn't want to fly from Miami to Istanbul without staying over somewhere, but where?  Europe's a big place!  Ah yes, something was calling us to visit Italy...namely, Pope John Paul and the Vatican!  In May of 1993, we flew from Miami to Rome and stayed in Italy a week before flying on to Turkey.  If I were to say that visiting the Vatican was just an amazing experience, I would be understating it by a mile.  It was life-altering.  It was the first time in my life that Jesus' life, crucifixion, and resurrection made sense.  All the stories from the New Testament came to life and they were living there at St. Peter's Basilica.  We sat in mass with Pope John Paul, stood in awe of the Sistine Chapel, and took a bus out the famous Appian Way to a lesser known catacombs (early Christian burial place underground now manned by a Japanese priest who spoke eleven languages and was our personal tour guide).  Those experiences brought those early Christians right into my life...like they were still alive!

After a week in Italy, we landed in Istanbul...or Constantinople as it once was called.  We were only there one day, so we decided to see the famous Hagia Sofia, once a great Catholic Church that was now a Muslim mosque.  The icons and artwork showed so much detail of how the early Christians viewed Christ and his mother, Mary.  Sadly, the faces were mostly scratched and the icons made from mosaic tiles were crumbling apart.  That also brought to light the attitudes of the Turkish muslims towards their early Christian roots.  We traveled throughout Turkey for a month and one could look at where we went and think we were on a pilgrimage.  The truth is that Turkey is so rich with Christian history that it's difficult to go anywhere and not see early Christianity staring you in the face.

We drove to Ephesus and saw John the Apostle's church, to a hilltop above Ephesus that Mary made as her home immediately following Jesus' crucifixion, to Tarsus (Paul's birthplace), to Cappadoccia - a city carved into the mountains that housed early Christians fleeing from persecution, and finally to Antioch to see Peter's first church - a cave carved into the mountainside with a giant stone altar and an escape route on either side.   It was easy to see the danger these early Christians were faced with on a day to day basis.

Upon returning to Miami, I had to sign up for an ethics class.  I didn't sign up for Ethics 101, I decided to sign up for a junior level ethics class entitled "Biomedical Ethics".  My husband thought I was nuts and warned me against the class and I'm sure he thought it would be the class to destroy my gpa.  I can tell you I was the only non pre-med or nursing student in the class.  So, I made sure I sat in the front row and took notes like crazy.  Why biomedical ethics? Who knows! Again, it just sounded interesting.  What did we talk about?  Um, hospital rights - namely Catholic hospital rights - patients' rights, physicians' rights and obligations, abortion, euthanasia, etc.  Man, I had no idea how that course would set the stage for what I'm doing now!

My last semester, I had one more religion course to take, so I signed up for a senior level theology class entitled "Sacraments and Liturgy".  First of all, any well-versed Catholic knows that those two topics are our faith.  They are what the Church was founded on and what it stands on today.  Well, unbeknownst to me, I was the only person to sign up for that class other than a senior whose major was theology.  The course would be taught by a deacon, and he called me to his office to meet with me and find out why I signed up for the class.  He was extremely skeptical of my intentions.  He told me that if the class was too difficult for me and I decided to drop it, the entire class would have to be dropped and I'd basically be messing up this other girls' coursework.  I assured him I could handle it and of my purest intentions...to learn as much as I could about the Church before I graduated.  He accepted!  I graduated from Barry University summa cum laude with a 4.0 gpa in elementary education.  The hunt was on to find my first teaching job!