The Jeff Cavins Show (Your Catholic Bible Study Podcast) - How I Came Back to the Catholic Church

Episode Date: April 12, 2024

Jeff Cavins continues to share his testimony of how he left the Catholic Church, but eventually returned. While it took a number of years, Jeff did come back to the Catholic Church. He outlines what brought him back and the types of challenges he faced along the way. Snippet from the Show “Always remain close to the Catholic Church, because it alone can give you true peace, since it alone possesses Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, the true Prince of Peace.” -St. Padre Pio Email us with comments or questions at [e-mail]. Text “jeffcavins” to 33-777 to subscribe and get Jeff’s shownotes delivered straight to your email! Or visit https://media.ascensionpress.com/?s=&page=2&category%5B0%5D=Ascension%20Podcasts&category%5B1%5D=The%20Jeff%20Cavins%20Show for full shownotes!

Welcome to the Jeff Kaven Show, where we talk about the Bible, discipleship, and evangelization, putting it all together in living as activated disciples. This is show 371, how I came back to the Catholic Church. Welcome to the show this week, my friend. Good to have you with me again, and we can talk about all the things related to disciples. and scripture. And today we're talking about the second part of my testimony, which I realized last week that I have not told my testimony very, very often in the last few years. In the first number of years that I came back to the Catholic Church, it seemed like every weekend I was sharing my testimony somewhere. And then I think it got to the point where people didn't realize I was actually a revert to the Catholic Church. That is someone who leaves the church and then comes back. And so

anyway, I was talking to someone just a little while ago, and they were talking about my testimony, and I said, you know, I haven't really told that recently. So last week, I talked to you about how I came back to, or how I left the Catholic Church, rather, how I ended up leaving the Catholic Church after growing up in the Twin Cities as an average American Catholic boy. And that was show 370. And this week, I'm going to talk about how I came back to the Catholic Church. Before I get going, I want you to know that all of this is in my book at Ascension Press called My Life on the Rock. And I wrote this years and years ago. A lot of things have happened since. And so next week, I'm going to be talking about how I have changed

over the last, what's it now, 30 years since I left the church, I think it is. And a lot of learning, a lot of changing. And I want to share that with you next week. So Let's begin this week with prayer, shall we? I know that so many of my friends have friends and family that have left the church and are concerned about that and certainly want them to come back to the fullness of the faith with the Eucharist, the Blessed Mother, the Holy Father, the Pope, and all the sacraments and the tremendous wealth of tradition that we have as Catholics. And it can be frustrating when your family leaves.

And oftentimes there's reasons like they were loved out of the church, which was basically my situation. Or they left because of doctrinal issues or because, unfortunately, they were hurt and they ended up leaving. And we can understand that, on the surface at least, right? That, you know, why somebody might do that. But we also have to take a look at what you're giving up

if you end up leaving the Catholic Church. Coming up this year, there's going to be the big Eucharistic revival in Indianapolis. I'll be there. I'll be speaking about disciples. at that but you know it made me think i wrote a book called i'm not being fed the number one catholic eating disorder at ascension press and i go through the whole argument of the eucharist and why why we simply cannot give up the eucharist which is the body and blood soul and divinity of jesus i'll put that in the show notes to you as well might be a nice way to prepare also

for the eucharistic revival okay let's pray the name of the father and the son and the Holy Spirit, amen. Lord Jesus, we love you, and we thank you for what you're doing in each of our lives. We also thank you for what you are doing and continue to do in the lives of our loved ones and those that we work with and extended family, neighbors. I pray, Lord, that you would guide us and direct us during this time together and that I would say what you want me to say and get across, and already pray for the fruit of this show for those who may be listening.

In Jesus' name, amen, name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Okay, so last show, show 370, I talked about leaving the Catholic Church and went through the whole process and ended up at Dallas, Texas. I ended up going to a Bible college in Dallas, Texas, as actually an institute. And it was there that I grew deeper in my love for scripture and which I had just a voracious appetit. for scripture. I went down there, went to school, then came out of school. I'm reviewing, by the way, last week. I came out of school and then went back into broadcasting school, graduated from there and ended up in North Dakota with a radio show. It was there that I ended up leaving in grand style, the Catholic Church, actually yelling at a bishop, which I wouldn't

recommend. It's just something that I think a young guy in his 20s, kind of immature, that would be me, did. And I ended up leaving the Catholic Church. And as I mentioned on the last show, it didn't go over real big at home. You know, there was no way to really explain it theologically. I just knew that I wanted to go to one of these non-denominational churches or the Assembly of God Church, which is what I chose in Valley City. And so after that, I ended up, and this picks up on the show today, how I came back. I ended up going down to Pella, Iowa, Emily, too. We went down to Pella, Iowa, and I ended up taking a radio job in Pella, Iowa, a tremendous opportunity with wonderful management, great man of God, and just a wonderful guy. His name was Doug Smiley.

I love him. He's a brother in the Lord, and he's done, along with his dad and his brother have done tremendous things for Christian radio in Iowa. Well, I was a program director with a morning show there, and I really enjoyed it. I started to sense a call on my life to teach scripture, and I didn't know exactly how that was going to be, but it really all started, to be honest with you, by substituting for somebody else in a Bible study. I had this radio show, and I was part of a Bible study with some locals there in Pella, Iowa. And I went there, and then the guy that was leading it, I think he had two masters, degrees in theology and Greek and just a real brainiac, smart guy, lovely guy. And he was gone for a

couple of weeks and they asked me if I would substitute. And I thought, oh, man, I can do well behind the microphone, but I don't know about in person. And so they asked me and I finally said yes and I ended up teaching. And as a result of that, things were going well. I mean, you know, people are saying, oh, I really like that teaching. I thought, well, that's, that's really good. well I did a few more teachings and the guy that was leading the study talked to me one day and we were down at a dam outside of Pella, Iowa. We were on a picnic of all things and he came up to me as we were walking around and our wives were getting ready back at the camp and, you know, the picnic camp, that is.

And he said to me, he said, have you ever thought about being a teacher of scripture? And I said, well, I don't know about that. I may, you know, I enjoy radio and that kind of a thing. and I like to study a lot. I do. And he said, well, you do a good job at teaching. I just want you to know there might be a gift there if you thought about being a pastor. I thought, pastor. I was raised Catholic. That doesn't quite line up with me. I'm not a pastor. And anyway, what he said really stuck to me. And I started to think about it. And the more that Emily and I prayed about it, the more it seemed obvious to us, at least at that time, that I should pursue that. So I'm made plans to go back to another school, this time in Bradenton, Florida, and I went through a summer training school for pastors. And when I was done with that, I went back up to Iowa, and I was then ordained twice, actually, two different organizations, one in Iowa and another one in Rockwall, Texas. And it was a guy called Larry Lee, and he ran Church on the Rock in Texas there, Rockwall, Texas,

this great big movement that was taking place. And he ordained me with that organization there. And then after that, I ended up coming back up to the Twin Cities. And I became the pastor of a pioneering church in Minneapolis, St. Paul. And it was for seven years that I pastored this young church that was growing and doing quite well, actually. And our church got was involved in food pantry and clothing, Emily talked. Hebrew in our church, and it was just a lot of great people. I really enjoyed those years. After seven years of being a pastor of a non-denominational church in the Twin Cities,

I had an opportunity to go to Dayton, Ohio. Now, to explain this real briefly, why did I go to Dayton, Ohio? Well, while I was a young pastor, and I started as a senior pastor at 25 years old, And as I had a deal about my way of studying, which was, I think, unique for non-denominational pastors. And that was that I really studied seriously. I know I went into Hebrew and the languages and I studied early church fathers. And I became really, really involved in this movement that was taking place about studying the Jewish roots of Christianity. So I ended up becoming very tight friends with a guy called Dwight Pryor at the Institute of Judeo-Christian Studies out of Israel. And then there was a chapter in Austin, Texas.

Well, anyway, that brought me into a whole decade of studying with some of the greatest scholars in Israel around the world. And I was hooked. I started to see Jesus as the rabbi, the greatest rabbi in the history of the world who was, better than any other rabbi because he was God. And so that made all the difference. So anyway, I studied the biblical roots, the Jewish roots of Christianity. And man, that was so wonderful, but it was very different from the average non-denominational church. It had a tradition to it.

It had a background, a way of thinking, and a way of dealing with certain topics, you know, whether it's righteousness or whether it is heaven or whether it's teaching, the whole world view, you know, the yoke of the rabbis, what it's called Matthew 1129, take my yoke upon you. So anyway, I got so deep into this. I was so excited. It made such a difference in my life. And then I moved to Dayton, Ohio, and Dwight, my friend, was out there.

And so I became the pastor of that church. and he was one of the elders. I continued my studies. And I want to remind you, I didn't leave the Catholic Church for theological reasons. I was loved out. I could not have argued my way

out of a paper bag if I had to as far as why, you know, reasons why I did that. So I was loved out. Okay, so that brings us to Dayton, Ohio, and I'm doing all of this study, and I am really into it. Then I started to study

right around 1990, 1991. I started studying in earnest the church fathers. Now by the church fathers, I mean those fathers in the early church first 400 years or so

like St. Ignatius and going all the way up into the time of Jerome and St. Augustine and we had other great, great doctors of the church in the early years

there, Sierra of Jerusalem, others. And I started studying them and something happened to me. Now, maybe this has happened to you. I don't know, or maybe it's happened to somebody in your family. Maybe you're listening to this thinking,

I'd like to get sort of an inside look at what's going on with my brother. Well, when I studied the early church fathers, I noticed a number of common denominators that were taught in that early church adhered to, believed, doctrinal. It was dogma. It was the faith that they believed. and I'll share those with you in a few minutes. But those four things, there was four things, I should say.

There's many, many more. But there were four major things that were taught in the early church consistently across the board that I, in my non-denominational church, had absolutely nothing in common with. Nothing. Nothing. I didn't have anything in common with that early church other than we love Jesus. Yay. But we didn't have any structure that was the same.

We didn't have anything in common as far as the basic teachings of the church. Don't get me wrong. We had a wonderful fellowship. We got together every Sunday and we worshipped God for half an hour or so. And I spoke for about an hour, 45 minutes to an hour every Sunday. We had an altar call and took an offering and all that. But that was pretty much what we did every single service when we got together. but I certainly didn't share the common teachings of that early church.

You know what happened to me? A hit, I would say a crisis of faith. And I thought to myself, wait a minute, if I consider myself today a born again, saved, biblical New Testament Christian, and I don't have anything in common with the early church, the first 400 years, oh my, what am I doing? How do I know these things are true that I'm doing? And I'm teaching. By what authority do I have to teach these things?

Am I right? Am I leading people astray? How do I really know that I'm right? How would I know that? This brought on quite a stirring in my heart as to, oh my gosh. And then I started to realize I wanted to be part of that church. Now, at this point, I'm not seriously thinking about Catholicism at all, really. I mean, that was a no-no for me based on how I left the Catholic Church.

You know, my dad and I did not part in a really good way. And so everything that was Catholic was sort of represented by what happened between my father and myself and the rest of my family, to be honest with you. Well, I started to study this more and more. And let me tell you the four things, let me tell you in just a moment, the four things that really caught my attention, that started to bring me back to the Catholic Church. We'll talk about those in just a moment.

You're listening to The Jeff Kaven Show. Hi, my name's Father Mike Schmitz. I wanted to let you know about an exciting announcement that could revolutionize the way you listen to the Bible in the air and the catechism in the year. Ascension has released a new Bible and Catechism app called the Ascension app. Now, here's what you get.

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Just go to the app store and search for Ascension app. I am telling you, if learning about the Bible and the catechism is important to you, then this app will change your life. Welcome back. Talking about how I came back to the Catholic Church. Last week was how I left the Catholic Church. Now how did I come back? Before the break, by the way, if you do want any kind of notes that I have, if it's not for this show, the future shows, all you have to do is text my name, Jeff Kavins. One word. Jeff Kavens, and you can text it to the number. You're ready for this? It's so biblical. The number is 3-3-7-7. Love it.

3-3-7-7. We'll get you on board, and you won't have to stop jogging and write things down or pull over on the side of the road to write down a scripture or a catechism reference because by the time you get home, they'll be in your inbox. All right.

So I left off before the break, and I mentioned that there were four things that really caught my attention about the early church that I had nothing in common with in this New Testament modern non-denominational church. Number one was the concept of the Word of God being scripture and tradition. All right. Now, as you probably know, the Reformation was really built on two pillars. You had Sola Scriptura, scripture alone as the means of divine revelation, just scripture alone. And the other one was faith alone, Sola Fide, faith alone.

All right? Now, that's what the Reformation was built on. And to be honest with you, there was most of that time away from the Catholic Church. I didn't care about all this stuff. I just wanted people to know Jesus. But the older I got and the more mature, hopefully, that I got, these things started to matter that what you teach does matter because eternity is part of the equation it's the equals to it's on the right side of the equals to you know it's equal to and i thought man

this is really important these things and so i discovered that the early church considered the word of god to be sacred scripture and sacred tradition now i didn't make that up and the catholic church didn't make that up. In fact, it was even before Jesus that the Jewish community considered the Torah to be the written Torah and the tradition. They believe that in Mount Sinai, Moses received the written Torah, yes, but he also received the oral Torah. So don't let anybody lay that on you that Catholics made up this thing about, you know, scripture and tradition being the Word of God. That's the way it was in the Old Testament coming into the New Testament. And it's what Jesus was raised with. And it's what Paul was raised with as well. And you can see

this in the scriptures where Paul talks about obey the written word and what you heard from us. And so all of that is part of the Word of God. Now, when I understood that, wow, did that open up things for me. I started to see a much bigger picture of God's revelation rather than just scripture alone. There was more to this. And scripture alone, get this, scripture alone is not even scriptural. There's nothing in the Bible that says scripture alone. Nothing. Now somebody will say, well, the word of God is good for teaching and encouragement and, you know, exhortation. Yes, it is, but it doesn't say anything about scripture being the only, the only means of divine. revelation nowhere and i challenge anybody listening find it write me about it it's been 30 years now

since i come back nobody can find it there isn't anything there isn't why because there isn't in fact it says scripture and tradition tradition means to pass on pass it you know pass it on to the next generation so when that when i realized that i thought wow man i i've been going all this time without understanding what these early church fathers are even talking about. Although I heard many non-denominational pastors teach some of these traditions that the early church believed, but they taught them as insight that they got in their study. A little disingenuous. But, you know, when Augustine comes up with something or Jerome came up with something,

well, and you present that as a non-denominational pastor, what you're doing is you're actually sharing what the Catholic Church teaches as part of the sacred tradition. So, anyway, so that was number one, and I liken this to a puzzle. You've put together jigsaw puzzles, no doubt. In a jigsaw puzzle, you typically will open the box up. You'll look at the top of the box. That's what the puzzle is going to end up as. And one of the first things that most people do, unless you're just a little different,

is they go for the edges first, the four edges. and that's what I did. And the idea that the Word of God was Scripture and Tradition was one edge. Now, on the second edge to this puzzle was the papacy. Now, I know right away that when my Protestant friends will hear this, they'll say, well, I don't see that in Scripture. Well, one of the reasons that people don't see things in Scripture is because they were never taught to look in Scripture for these things.

And once you open yourself up to the realization, that there's more there than I've been taught, then you start to see more in there than you're taught. And I went through Bible school and everything else, but I never heard anybody talk about this. And that was that in the Old Testament, in the kingdom of David, there was a position in the kingdom called the Al-ha-Bayet,

the al-Bayet, that is the one that's over the household. Ba'it is house, the one that's over the household. and this isn't just a phrase it's an actual position it's the prime minister and so the idea and you can read about this you read about the uh the job description for the albaid the one that's over the household you can read about it in uh Isaiah you can read about Isaiah and I'm going to put these some of these in the show notes for you and uh I believe that's Isaiah 22 you can read you can read that and it goes through this whole description of the role of the prime minister. So what I think I'll do here, just a second, this is so important. Let me just grab my great adventure Bible here. Okay, Isaiah 22.

Let me just read this to you. This is in Isaiah 22 verses 15, and we'll just see how far we get with it. Okay. What I'm reading to you now is, I'm reading to you the description of the al-habait, the one who is over the household. And it gives very specific instructions as to what his role is. And by the way, this is, again, this isn't something we made up or anything. This is something that's just simply part of salvation history.

Okay, so it says, now this is going to be the denunciation of one prime minister and the bringing in of another. Shavna's going out. Eliakim's coming in. Here's how it goes. thus says the Lord God of hosts Come go to this steward to Shevna who is over the household and say to him

What have you to do here And whom have you here That you have hewn here A tomb for yourself You who hew a tomb on the height And carve a habitation for yourself In the rock Now listen to this

Behold The Lord will hurl you away violently O you strong man He will seize firm hold on you and whirl you round and round and throw you like a ball into a wide land. There you shall die, and there shall be your splendid chariots. You shame of your master's house. I will thrust you from your office, notice office there, and you will be cast down from your station.

Now, before I move on to the next verse, which is verse 20, just a quick reminder. The role of the prime minister was to run the kingdom. if the king were sick, dead, or away. And so if the king's going to be gone, who's going to be in charge back home? Well, it's the Ahabahit. It's the prime minister. That's so important. But there's one thing that the prime minister gets, and it's coming up here shortly,

that changes the whole game. Okay, so verse 20, in that day, I will call my servant Eliakim, the son of Hilkiah, and I will clothe him with your robe, and will bind your belt. on him and will commit your authority to his hand. And he shall be, here's one thing, he shall be a father, a papa, to the inhabitants of Jerusalem into the house of Judah. Now get this, and I will place on his shoulder the keys of the house of David. He shall open and none shall shut and none shall open. And I'll fasten him like a peg in a sure place. And he will become a throne of honor to his father's house, and they will, I love this, they will hang on him

the whole weight of his father's house, the offspring and issue every small vessel from the cups to all the flagons, and it goes on. So it gives this description, and it says he's going to be a father, all authorities given to him, and get this, he is going to, going right back to that, I will place on his shoulder the keys to the house of David. Now, the keys are important. Somebody is in charge when the king is gone. So you come into the New Testament. And what do we see? Well, we see all the things in the Old Testament that are being fulfilled. All of them are being fulfilled. And so we have to ask ourselves, well, who is the prime minister in the New Testament. Well, that can be answered very easily. Who's got the keys? Who's got the keys?

Well, that's answered easily as well, isn't it? Matthew's Gospel. Jesus takes the disciples up to to Cesarea, Philippi, up by Lebanon. And he says, who do people say that I am? They say, well, some people say you're John the Baptist, some say Jeremiah, one of the other prophets, John the Baptist, perhaps. Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. And then he says, but who do you say that I am? And Peter steps forward and says, you are Christ the son of the living God. And Jesus looks at Peter and says, Blessed are you, Simon Barjona, for flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but my father who is in heaven, and I say to you, you are Peter, you're rock.

And upon this rock, I'll build my church. And I give you the keys to the kingdom, which you bind on earth is bound in heaven. What you loose on earth is loosed in heaven. That's juridical language. The Sanhedron had this authority, and Jesus is now placing this on Peter. I didn't make this up. This is scripture. This is the tradition from the beginning, from the very beginning.

That's the kind of thing I was studying. Now, the third is Mary is the queen mother, the intercessor and advocate. And I'm not going to go into that in great detail. We've got some other shows on that, but that was the third thing for me was the fact that the queen mother in Hebrew the Gevera, the queen mother, the one who is the intercessor and advocate for the people, she sits on a throne to the right of the king.

Pretty important. So when you come to the New Testament, you ask yourself, is there a Gevera? Is there a queen mother? Now, in the Old Testament, the queen mother was not the wife of the king. That's a Western thought. In the east, it was the mother of the king

because some kings had more than one wife. And so the mother of the king had a very special role. She was an intercessor and an advocate. And I'll do a show on that sometime, just all on that. And I know I've done several in the past here, after 370 some shows. But that was the third edge, the fourth edge, and the final was probably the most important for me.

And that was the Eucharist. that in communion, we as a Protestant non-denominational church, we believe that when we had communion, we could have bread and Welch's grape juice and we could simply remember what happened 2,000 years ago. The early church didn't have a Welch's doctrine. In the early church, they didn't have a grape juice doctrine at all or a wonder bread doctrine.

They believed that the bread and the wine in the mass on the words of the priest changed into the body and blood, soul and divinity of Jesus. That's what they believed. And everybody believed it for almost a thousand years. And then somebody started to bring questions up about it. And then by the Reformation in the, you know, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, uh, in the reformation, that's, that's when we see this major split from this. But that's, that's over a, that's, that's a, that's, that's, over, you know, 1,500 years difference. And so I thought, oh my gosh, that early church really believed this. They died for it. It was in councils. It was in everything that they lived.

Why don't I have this? Why don't I have a queen mother? Why don't I have the papacy? Why don't I have scripture and tradition? Why? Why? Because in the Reformation, everything changed. Did it need some change? Oh, yeah. But not these things, for sure. Not the pillars to the historic church. And so once I had those four together, guess what? Everything started to come together so fast like a jigsaw puzzle.

Everything had its proper place. And I was standing there like, wow, wow. Oh, my, oh my, what am I going to do? so I was kind of blown away and so what I ended up doing and I'll make this a little quick but what I ended up doing and if you want to hear about this more in detail in the future just let me know send me a note you know the Jeff Kaven show at ascensionpress.com love to hear from you so when I started to see all of that I was convinced that I needed to pursue it who in the world believes these things still? What church believes these things? And I landed on the charismatic

Episcopal church. And I found out about them and started to pursue that. Maybe I could be a liturgical priest, you know, a priest in a liturgical tradition in the charismatic Episcopal denomination. They have the liturgy and so forth. And of course, I didn't know everything about it at that point. is the direction that I was going. I just knew that I wasn't going to be Catholic, that's for sure. And so I ended up approaching them, and they accepted me. And as I was leaving my interview in Kansas City, I picked up a book on one of their tables called Evangelical is Not Enough by Tom Howard. I read that book on the way back on the airplane, back to Dayton, Ohio, and I loved it. I thought, man, this guy is, he's becoming episcopalian, you know. And I got to

the very end and he said, because he was, he was an evangelical. And then he became Episcopalian. I thought, yeah, this is so good. And I read it. And the last page said, you know, that I wrote this book. I think it was like in 1997. And I became Roman Catholic in 90. What? You say what? Oh my gosh. That threw me. When I got home, I looked up his number. I called him. I talked to him. What's going on? How'd you do that? He told me. And I thought, And I thought, oh my gosh, that same thing has happened to me. And he said to me, he said, there's a couple of people I'd love for you to meet. One is some guys that just went through this themselves.

One was Marcus Grotai and the other was Scott Hahn. And so I wrote those names down, never heard of them before anything. And I just kept studying. And I ended up talking to Marcus Grotai, called him up one day. And I told him what was happening to me. Now, he started his show on EWTN the same month I started Life on the Rock. Because he was a convert. I'm a revert.

And I was talking to him and he said, well, who's your childhood pastor? And I said, well, he's a bishop now. And I don't do so well with bishops. You know, because I yelled at that bishop of North Dakota. And he said, well, where's he a bishop? And I said, well, he's a bishop in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. And he said, Bishop Dudley? I said, yeah.

He said, he's amazing. You need to call him. So about a few days later, I ended up calling Sioux Falls, South Dakota. And inside, I'll tell you what, there's a whole lot of shaking going on because I'm thinking, what am I doing? What's going to happen here? Catholic? And I kept thinking about those four edges of the puzzle. And the only one that perfectly fit those was Catholic, Catholic, Catholic, Catholic, Catholic.

No, no. But I ended up calling and I called Sue Falls, and the lady answered, and she said, of Sioux Falls. And I said, is Bishop Paul Dudley there? She said, just a minute. Now, you don't normally do that, but I did. And the next voice that came on was the voice of my childhood pastor that I had not heard since the end of eighth grade. He got on there. Bishop Dudley, Bishop, Jeff Kavins. Jeff Kavins. How are you? And I said, well, I'm good. He said, your father's Robert, right? I said, yeah, yeah, yeah, how are you doing? And I said, well, you know, pretty good.

I'm a Protestant pastor now. And he said, you are. How did that happen? I told him my whole story, and he said, can you come out here and spend a couple days with me? And I did. And while I was out there, it was about three in the morning, and I was in a chapel off the side of my room, I got on my knees, and I said to God, I said, look, I'll do this. But I'm going to have to give up everything for this.

And it was at that night. That night, I made the decision that I would come back into the Catholic Church. The next day, Bishop was taking me to the airport. And as we were parting ways, he looked at me and he said, Jeff, do me a favor. He said, what's that? He said, don't come in unless you can embrace Mary as your mother. Jesus gave her to you at the cross. And I thought, oh, wow, that was one that I was dealing with.

So I said, okay, and I went back to Dayton, Ohio, and I knew it was time. I told Emily, and Emily at first was like, oh, wow, I'm not sure if I can do that. And I said, I'm not going to ask you to. I'm going to ask you just to seek God. Read what I read, pray as I prayed, study as I studied. And I ended up meeting with my elders, and I told them what was happening and that I was going to become Catholic again. And that shocked everyone. and the church started a prayer meeting for me.

I wouldn't be deceived. And it was difficult. And I remember standing up as my last talk in front of the church, and I was crying as I gave a one-hour apologetic message as to why I was becoming Catholic. Yeah, I love those people. You know, converting is not just theological. It's relational to.

And it has an impact on people. But I knew that if the body and blood of Christ was the Eucharist, I needed to do this. There was no, there was nothing that. I could say is better than that. And so I said goodbye to that church. And Emily and I went to Stubinville because my bishop wanted me to and I got the Stubinville to get their master's, get a Catholic degree this time. And while I was there, I was asked to teach scripture. But before I went to Stubinville, and I'll end with this today, there was a tremendous healing

in my life, in my father's life. I was ready to as a pastor, one of my last things that I was going to be doing was leading a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. And I'm on my 64th pilgrimage now. But that was one of my first ones. And I was getting ready. My mom and my, my mom came out from Minneapolis to Dayton to watch our daughter, Carly, while we were there. And it was, on the night before I was to leave, I got a call in the two something, two 37, two something like that in the morning. And I, we didn't answer it. But I heard the answering machine pick it up. And they said that it was Southdale Fairview Hospital in Edina, Minnesota, my father had had a heart attack. And I thought, oh, no. I got up. I told my mom, I called back there to see how he was.

We couldn't get in touch with him. After about an hour, we finally got in touch with him. And I asked him, I said, dad, how serious is this? And he said, we don't know yet, Bob. And he said, do me a favor. And I said, sure, what? Take care of your mother and your sisters. and I said, oh man, this is serious. I made arrangements to fly back. My dad had his second quadruple bypass, about 60 years old. When he came home from the hospital, I was staying at their house, and he came home, and it was that first morning home, and we all were sitting around the breakfast table.

And I knew it was time for me to say to my father what I'd wanted to say. I hadn't talked about this since I had left the church or even left home. And I looked at him, and I said, Dad, I need to. I needed to talk to you about something. And he said, what is it? And I was choked up. I couldn't even say anything. He looked at Emily like, are you guys in trouble?

Is there some problem? And she just shook her head, no. And he waited. And I finally said, dad, I've been doing a lot of studying. And he said, well, Bob, you've always done a lot of studying. You're always in that Bible. And I said, I've been studying and I want to come home. He said, what?

I said, I want to come home. I want to come back to the church. He looked at me and he said, wow, you don't know what this means to me. And I said, I need to apologize the kind of son I've been arguing and so forth. And I said, I apologize. And he looked at me and he said, as long as we're getting things off our chest, he said, Jeff, I need to say something. I said, what's that?

And he said, do you remember the night before you left home? I said, yeah, that was the night that he hit me. He said, I'm so sorry. I've thought about it all these years every day. I don't know why I did it. But it was what you said after that that has just killed me all these years. And I didn't know what he was talking about. And I said, what's that?

And he said, you looked at me and when you're on the floor and you looked at me and you pointed at me and you yelled, I'm no son of yours. And you're no father of mine. And I said, I'm sorry. so sorry and we were able to hug each other and there was total forgiveness and so after that powerful healing and reunion with my with my father everything came together in a marvelous way my entire story and it wasn't it wasn't until actually that i was at stubenville and i was taking courses and teaching introduction to scripture that scott honed had told me he said you

should write a book. You should write a book about your story. And of course, I didn't even think at that point that it was really a story worth telling, but, you know, everybody's story is worth telling. You've got a story. I've got a story. And nobody has a story like you. And you might think that your story is bland or nobody would be interested. But you'd be surprised at how many people are interested in your relationship with God over the years. Well, I've taken a lot of your time today. So what I'm going to do is I'll pick up from here next week. And there's anything I need to say before we get into it. We'll do it next week. But next week I'm going to be talking about how has my life changed since coming back to the Catholic Church? And there's a lot of changes

that took place. I'll tell you what, I'm going to talk about some of the things that the Lord led Emily and I into, but I'm also going to talk to you about theologically and just even emotionally how my life has changed since coming back to the Catholic Church, a decision that I have never, ever regretted and have been eternally thankful for. I will be eternally thankful for the beauty of the church and the provision of Christ in the church. Again, if you want to get any of the show notes, all you got to do is type my name, Jeff Kaven's, text it to the number at 3377. Let's pray. Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Amen. Lord Jesus, we love your. so much, and we thank you for the journey that all of us are on at different stages in our life. I pray for those who are listening that are really seeking and have questions. I pray, Lord, that you would continue to lead them into the fullness of truth. In Jesus' name, amen. Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, amen. Love you. God bless you. Keep praying for me and I'll pray for you. Thank you.