As of this writing, I have 53 days until I am confirmed into the Catholic Church. An astonishing thing for many reasons. Mainly because I never thought there would be a day I would become a “heretic” as I formerly believed – but there are much more nuanced reasons than that. I have learned a lot of things since my conversion began in 2025. It has been a very long road, despite only being a year of my life. Within that year I have felt many emotions. I have ingested many details about the Church Christ founded. It has led me into deep prayer, it has led me into a pew on my knees, and it has led me here writing something. Catholicism not only changed my life in terms of morality, daily living, and actions committed; but it has thrust me into a world filled with rocks to push and riddles to solve.
Conversion carries a weight I was not prepared for. I did not believe this because I thought I would be different – I was wrong. I am in month 10 of my shift to Catholicism, and I am just now feeling the weight of entering the Church. I feel pressure from all angles and sides – despite those pressures directly coming from myself alone. Not one soul has made it harder to enter the walls of the Catholic Church. Not one person has made something difficult to accept. This is mainly because Catholicism is rooted in truth, rather than shifting personal opinions. That is what I loved about the Church as a 23-year-old man. I loved the idea that I could simply learn and know that it’s truthful because it is led directly by the Holy Spirit. A brave claim, that without basis or proof, would be empty. But as Christ’s tomb 2,000 was empty years ago – the Church is not. Through years and years and years of persecution, thought, and unwavering faith, the Church stands today as a beacon of hope and light for the Christian world. Knowing this now, I question why I was never a Catholic before. There are obvious answers, my family’s extreme Protestant roots, the trouble of submission, and blatant ignorance of truth. Conversion has proven to challenge me to not be completed by intellectual assent, but surrender to grace without fear of unworthiness.
The pressure of conversion does not come from someone knocking on your door with a name plate that says “Sister Blank”; or someone leaving a note on your car that says “Was Jesus God?”; or posting Tik Toks about how cool your light show was; or even telling people that Pastor Craig has the BEST sermons. Catholic conversion is knowing you will have to change, you will endure hardships, you will intellectually be challenged, and you will suffer daily. But on the other side of that struggle is the abundance of life, joy, and peace. The Church houses community, humility, reverence, and most importantly, the true Body and Blood of our Savior, Jesus Christ. It is not a double edged sword. It is not work based faith. It is hard, it can be grueling; but it is more fulfilling than anything else in the entire world. The Church founded by Christ and entrusted to the Apostles touches all corners of the world – and we expect anything less?
The troublesome area I have encountered is the problem with converting intellectually before converting morally. Obviously I hold to the teachings of the Church – and of course I believe them to be morally binding truths rather than relative. But when converting, you encounter something that is dangerous. The information at your disposal is something to marvel at, yes; but in the same sentence, it can create something that has placed me within the rut I currently reside in. I know not the truths I hold in my heart because I do not know if I have lived them fully. I am an unbaptized man, holding to the truths within a Church that holds Baptism very highly. I am an unconfirmed man, holding truths within a Church that holds Confirmation very highly. It is not rocket science to say that I do not have experience living a sacramental Catholic life. It would not be false to say that I truly know the entirety of the fruit of Catholicism. What I have now is a love for God, a love for the Church, the desire to learn, and a hunger to be better. I don’t have the Eucharist, Baptism, or Confirmation – I will soon – but I do not have those things currently.
My fears are elevated when we enter the realm of where I have chosen to make a living, support my future family, and create a legacy that reflects and emulates the eternal greatness of the Church. As a writer – an aspiring Catholic writer – it is incredibly difficult to write things about the Church without bias or a lack of understanding. It is extremely difficult to have serious weight in any conversation simply because I am a convert. And yes, we have many Catholic converts who are doing amazing work within apologetics right now – Catholic converts are often taken less seriously until there is reliable proof of their fruits. That is to be expected, and frankly, you cannot blame someone who has lived within the Church for their entire life for not trusting someone who has lived it for less than a year, two-years, or even three-years. I, on the other hand, have been in this for less than a year and lack sacramental life – so it’s entirely different. I can confidently and honestly admit this hurts my writing. I am prone to developing a bias or a false understanding. I have intellectually accepted the Church as the truth, I have learned and listened to many different aspects of the faith, and I have certainly taken all of it with the utmost seriousness. But yet, I still lack the understanding to delve deep into what makes a Catholic a Catholic: The blessings of the sacraments.
The struggles of myself do not fall onto the Church itself – but me, the man, Rocky. I allowed myself to sink into a deep fear-driven paralysis. While I was caught up in the aspects of intellectual and “student-like” thought of the Church, I lacked the grounding of Catholic life from the sense of living it daily. Part of that is my own lack of understanding of how different life would be, but also just the lack of living it. I allowed this to hinder my writing. I reluctantly would sit and write a few pages about some Catholic topic and I would delete it immediately following the last period in the piece. I built up this fear and standard that was impossible to beat and meet. On one hand, I was incredibly scared of writing something that was not truthful and created division within the universal Church; and on the other, I felt like I had to internally reach a level of moral and personal standing that simply isn’t possible. By doing these things, I failed to understand a great and old principle within the Catholic Church: We do not earn worthiness through moral performance. In a sense, I am reaching a form of Pelagianism – which eliminates the need for Christ’s sacrifice. I am undoubtedly going to be bad – that is proven. I am going to make many mistakes; but does that mean that I shouldn’t work toward the plan I think God has for me? I look at St. Augustine, who was incredibly sinful – but he’s a saint. He was entirely wrapped up in sexual desire all while being this great Catholic mind. He delayed his Baptism from fear of not being worthy. He believed in Christ, accepted Christ, but he failed to live it morally. The most impactful thing is that St. Augustine publicly admitted his failures. He distinctively shows that honesty about sin – about fears and failures – can be incredibly powerful to those in need of guidance. That doesn’t make someone disqualified from grace, nor using their talents to glorify God. If I can take anything away from him, it’s that he was open about his sin – and the Church reveres him for it. Confessions is still a very revered book within the Church. But by far the most important thing to learn from St. Augustine is that grace leads, not the human will. By the grace of God am I worthy, not by the doings of myself. Not by the writings I write, or the ideas that I have. Only through God am I worthy of being saved.
This could be seen as a positive – it could be seen as a great thing that I am writing this without that experience. We need people to write and speak about pre-confirmation, pre-baptism, and pre-first communion. If there is no one a convert can relate to, what’s stopping them from turning away? I have been very, very blessed with a great host of people within the Church, so I have never gotten cold feet on this entire year-long-journey – but someone else might. In my discouragement of writing, I am reminded that people like me are needed: non-Baptized, non- Confirmed, and no Eucharistic life. Not because they are important enough to be a focal point, but because at some point the people who are not in that sacramental life will be in sacramental life. The experiences that I’m having may not be valuable to a cradle Catholic, but they could be to a convert. Or it could shine light to a cradle Catholic about the struggles of conversion, and thus lead them to becoming more welcoming or accepting of those entering the Church.
I can speak for myself in saying that I have a long way to go – decades to go. I cannot and will not figure this out in April. However, it will lead me into a life that will have its difficulties but is fulfilling. The sacrifices I make will not only fuel my love for Christ, but strengthen the words I write to glorify him; and thus, by the great hand of God, bring others into his beauty and enter the Church in which I am now blessed to call home. And despite my struggles with the weight of conversion, hopefully I can make someone else’s burden light as Christ has made mine. As this path is reaching its conclusion, and I step toward it unfinished – I have learned entirely that is how grace intends me to arrive.
