www.happycatholic.org - Brett's Testimony

Brett's Testimony

My name is Brett Rickard. I am married to the most beautiful woman on earth and we have 4 wonderful children together. Our youngest has Down’s syndrome and is the absolute star of the family. My very good friend, car pool buddy, and personal Catechist - Thoi - asked me to write my conversion story so here it goes. Borrowing from C.S. Lewis (and adding a little) I might call my story “Surprised by Joy … and kicked in the pants sometimes too”. I was mostly a good kid by all observable standards so I never experienced a particular moment where I dedicated my life to Christ. Rather God’s hold on my heart has accumulated over my life through moments of grace and times of challenge until these last couple years when I have absolutely fallen in love with Christ and His Church.

I was raised by loving parents who sent me to Holy Family Catholic Grade School and Servite Catholic High School in Southern California. I especially remember the nuns and priests I had as teachers very fondly. I can’t say that I learned my faith very well. That was mostly due to my comfortable middle class upbringing and the resulting lack of interest in the details of my Faith. I remember my Mother trying to get me to be an altar boy and later to join the high school youth group. I rather rudely rebuffed her with a worldly “I-don’t-need-those-crutches” type of attitude. I could be quite a pain when I wanted too. I did absorb some from all the scripture reading at Mass because I surprised myself by debating a little bit with an evangelical friend I knew in college who challenged me.

I have never left the Catholic faith and I have attended Mass every Sunday for almost all of my life. I am sorry to say that I did not take advantage of the sacrament of confession for very long stretches of that time but still received Holy Communion. My faith made little difference in my everyday life. I was pretty much a functional atheist.

Throughout my growing up I have had many moments of grace. I can only explain them as a particular feeling that didn’t come from me but entered my heart and seemed to say “this is good, you should follow this”. The first came when I was driving to the dump with my father. We were discussing my younger brother who gave my parents a difficult time while growing up. I hated him at the time for disturbing our family so much. My father pointed out to me what Jesus would do in this situation. That He would forgive and pray for my brother. For some reason this touched me in a very deep way. I think the Holy Spirit was telling me I had a whole lot of forgiving to do.

The second time came while I was working at my first job. I was wondering if abortion is ever allowable. I was leaning towards the thought that it is a necessary evil to help the mother-to-be out of a tight spot. A genuine but misdirected sense of compassion. I expressed this to my friend Tim. He told me in no uncertain terms that abortion is always evil and never a good choice for anyone. His strong stance made me realize that there is absolute truth and that I hungered for that. Not that I thought so clearly at the moment. When we were talking it was just a strong attraction to the truth that I sensed his comments were rooted in.

Eventually, I met my beautiful wife and we decided to get married at St. Mary’s by the Sea Catholic Church in Huntington Beach, California. Fr. Johnson was the pastor there. Now to look at him he looked very stern and foreboding. We started attending Church there. It was very obvious that he loved to celebrate Mass. The reverence and orthodoxy drew many people to that little church. Before Fr. Johnson had become pastor they almost closed the parish due to lack of attendance. After Father took over you had better get there early or you wouldn’t find a seat. I also attended his Tuesday night lectures on the Catholic faith. Wow, what a sense of peace. This is what I needed and the Holy Spirit was really letting me know it.

I would like to back track a bit right now to talk about a few of my kicks-in-the-pants that I received on my way to conversion. They mostly have to do with sex. In high school I had a physical relation with my girl friend. She was in love with me but not me with her. Of course, this ended very badly with her heart broken. It was then I realized how powerful and dangerous sex is because of the bonding that happens. In college I was the one with a shattered heart. She was so wrong for me in so many ways but I fell deeply in love. It would not have happened if we did not have that physical dimension in our relationship that bonded me so firmly to her. It was a very dark time in my life. Thoughts of suicide even went through my head on occasion. During my college years I also remember a conversation about abortion with my good friend. Basically he said, “If my girlfriend gets pregnant then we’ll get an abortion. I like kids but I’m not ready to be a father. I have to get through college and get a job first.” This seemed wrong to me but I had to agree that I would probably do the same thing. This conversation made a big impression on me and it has stayed with me since then. I was starting to realize how shallow and selfish I was. I say “starting” because I still pursued physical relations with my girlfriends. I went to Sunday Mass pretty faithfully during all this time but my prayer life was nonexistent and I was luke warm in my faith (and that’s a bad thing to be if you read what the Bible says about it). Even so, God is merciful because he still worked with me where I was though I was pretty much drifting through life with no purpose or direction other than graduation, a good job, and pretty girls.

Now back to my impending marriage. I’m not sure how but around this time I listened to Janet Smith’s tape “Contraception: Why Not”. Another “Wow” moment: that tape was an epiphany for me. I immediately saw the connections between contraception and divorce, abortion, STDs, plummeting morality, and depression. I know it wasn’t me. It was grace that opened my eyes. I convinced my now wife to accompany me to an NFP course given through CCL (Couple to Couple League). The teaching couple is a wonderful, down-to-earth, married couple with 7 kids. My wife connected with the female teacher right away (she’s a real softy for real, down-to-earth type people!). I think the fact that they followed God’s plan for marriage and volunteered their time to teach made them very powerful channels of grace to us. I also connected with our teachers as well as the philosophy and theology behind the method that they presented. Once we started using NFP I noticed that my wife literally became more beautiful each day. Every single day I fell more in love with her. Even when she drove me crazy or when we would have a big fight (go figure)! Actually I’ve heard the same story from a lot of other people too. If you do things the way God intends the grace and blessing just pour in – and I don’t think I’m exaggerating as I’ve experienced it in my own marriage.

One further moment of grace: after we had our first child Quinn, I went around asking people what type of contraceptive they use. I know, I know that sounds like a crazy thing to go around asking but that’s what I did. I asked one mother that question and she told me that they had five kids and are completely open to however many children God would bless them with. What great faith this woman had! And she was a Protestant! Now all the people at her church are very good people, but like most Protestants today, they have no problem with any kind of contraception. This was the Holy Spirit telling me that NFP can be misused and the important thing is to find out God’s will for your life and family size and act accordingly. If you do that God will take care of all your needs.

My wife is not Catholic. She is a very good Christian, and was baptized in the Baptist faith. She has agreed to raise our kids Catholic and go to Church with us. As you may imagine this difference in religion causes friction sometimes. I remember when we were dating I said I would raise my kids Catholic but I wouldn’t mind if they switched to any other religion later in life. Funny how having kids can convert you. After we were married my wife casually suggested that we attend the local protestant Bible Church because they have more exciting services and fellowship. Well that was like a knife through my heart, straight out my back, and then a couple more times through for good measure. The weird thing is that I was surprised by my reaction. I couldn’t have predicted it. She also challenged me saying “What is so different about Catholics? I don’t see you behaving any better or volunteering or anything”. This was God’s way of telling me to not take my faith lightly and to start growing. So I started volunteering for prison ministry and children’s Sunday school at our parish – St. Catherine’s in Morgan Hill, CA. I still didn’t know my faith that well but it was a start. I think it really prepared my heart for what happened next.

At the time I was taking the Caltrain to work and I had a good friend named Bob (not his real name). Bob goes to a “non-denominational” church in town that has a pretty strong anti-Catholic streak running through it. One day he was very agitated and upset. He immediately showed me this paper with two columns: on the left was what the Catechism of the Catholic Church states and on the right was Bible verses that “refuted” the Catholic teaching. He yelled at me about all the standard objections: “Catholics added books to the Bible”, “Purgatory is unbiblical”, “Catholics try to work their way into heaven”, “You should only confess your sins to God, not to a man” “the Mass is full of man made traditions and false rituals” “You worship idols” “You worship Mary” etc. I was very taken aback. First because we had been on very good terms and I never expected such a sudden outburst. Second because it was a lot all at once and I didn’t really know how to answer any of it. I had the presence of mind to narrow the debate to purgatory. I said I would respond within two weeks. So for the next two weeks Bob looked at me with a “what a poor deluded Catholic” look every morning. I foundered around for proof on various web sites. The evidence I found was logical but I wasn’t too convinced myself because I had a very shallow knowledge of my faith and didn’t see the bigger and deeper theology out of which purgatory naturally comes. So I showed him my evidence, he wasn’t convinced, we yelled at each other and that was that. After a couple months he apologized for his behavior. All this left me with an urge to find out more about my faith. I was just a little scared that he was right, but I didn’t know what to do.

That’s when I sat with Thoi (and his lovely family) at the annual volunteer appreciation dinner. I was there with our then 3 kids. I knew he taught RCIA and I found out he worked close to me. This was my chance. I enticed him to carpool so I could throw all those Protestant objections at him! He could refute them and teach me in the process. So for about a year I hammered him with “THE PAPER” and …. he very easily refuted all the claims. Not only that, he also taught me far and beyond anything I was bringing up. I am now amazed at how deep, how heart-breaking-beautiful, how profound, wise, and loving our Catholic Faith is. Thoi taught me about the Real Presence, Eucharistic Adoration, Confession, Communion of the Saints, the Doctrines about Our Blessed Mother, the Body of Christ, the origins of the Bible, the nature or the Magisterium, the Priesthood and on and on. He also turned me on to Fr. Corapi … WOW what a preacher. Thoi also introduced me to many good books like “The Lamb’s Supper” by Scott Hahn, “Catholicism and Fundamentalism” by Karl Keating and many others. Fr. Corapi’s DVD on confession convicted me, returned me to the sacrament of Confession and got me and my kids going at least once a month (some months I need it so much I go every week). The sacrament of Confession really helped me conquer some addictions and disordered attractions that had grown over the years. Not that I’m perfect but my progress has really surprised me – when I do fall this sacrament and grace are there for the asking. “The Lamb’s Supper” is amazing. That book made me see the Mass in all its glory as the intimate joining of the celebration and adoration of God that goes on in heaven continually and forever. Fr. Corapi’s 48-CD set on the Catholic Faith and the Catechism are absolutely fantastic. He teaches in such a clear and easy to understand manner as well as being completely faithful to the Catholic Faith as taught by the Magisterium. What a joy to have such clear and true guidance!

I think I taught Thoi a bit too. I had become more and more fascinated by the effects of contraception on society, as well as the teachings of the late Pope John Paul II with respect to contraception and the Theology of the Body. If you are interested in this then listen to anything by Christopher West or Janet E. Smith – they’re both great. I turned Thoi onto Janet Smith, Natural Family Planning, the Couple to Couple League (who promote NFP among other things) and CCL’s great magazine “Family Foundations”. Overall I have to say that I got the better part as Thoi knows so much.

One of the things that just blow my mind these days is the following. In about 1968 when Pope Paul VI wrote Humanae Vitae condemning contraception he was denounced by just about everyone in the known universe – both inside and outside the Church (except for exceptional people like the future Pope John Paul II). He stuck to the Church’s almost 2000 year old constant teaching (not that the Holy Spirit would allow anything less) and even made predictions in the encyclical about lowering of morality, less respect for women – both physically and emotionally, government coercion in the use of contraception. As I look around I see that these predictions have all come true.

Just think about it . For one thousand nine hundred and thirty years up to the 1930 Anglican council at Lambeth all Christians, everywhere, for all time had denounced contraception as evil. (Keep in mind contraception has been around well before Christ. The first Christians were very well aware of it as it was quite common at that time.) After 1930, within a short period of time, almost all Christians denominations had changed their beliefs on this and followed the trend set by secular society. Either all those Christians from 33AD to 1930AD are right or … they were all wrong (everyone, everywhere, and for all times) and we “brilliant” modern people have discovered some new moral teaching within the last 80 years which finally corrected all those centuries of erroneous teachings. Hmmmm .... Sounds just a little fishy to me.

Now if the Catholic Church can get contraception right despite condemnation from everyone, and everywhere and extreme pressure to change its teaching from within and without … I came to realize that I can trust the Catholic Church on any other question that I may have about my Christian Faith.

One last thing, our fourth child was born with Downs Syndrome. Matthew Thomas is the most cherished member our family. It seemed like a cross when he was born, but now he is so much of a blessing that it is hard to describe. He brings our whole family to life. This has led me to investigate the Church’s teaching on suffering, and that teaching is so deep. Redemptive suffering, uniting our crosses to Christ’s to bring down grace and transformation, has been such a blessing for our family and me personally. I have had other crisis that I can’t get into here but by uniting those (offering them up) to Christ I have always come through and I am never alone as I pass through them. It isn’t my will but obeying God’s will, Him working through me when I unite myself to Him, that gives me peace and hope even in the darkest hour.

Okay, okay, just one more thing. I did meet Bob again and we agreed to continue our debate on purgatory. I started out by basically copying John Martignoni’s talk on purgatory (http://www.biblechristiansociety.com/download). Bob wrote back with various rebuttals. The main thrust was that Jesus has redeemed us and purgatory denies the completeness of that redemption. I wrote back effectively refuting (in my humble opinion) all his arguments. I agreed that Jesus has won the grace for our redemption by his infinite sacrifice. However, we still have free will; free will to reject the gift of redemption or apply it to our lives so that we are purified over time and can enter heaven when we die. If we are not fully purified when we die we still rely on that redemptive grace to complete the final purification. This happens in that state which is after we die and before we enter heaven. Here’s the main part of what I wrote (this is actually from a Jimmy Akin article):

“… Remember: Purgatory is simply the last stage of sanctification. Sanctification in this life involves pain, "For the Lord disciplines him whom he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives. . . . [And] For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant" (Hebrews 12:6, 11), yet no one says that suffering in this life infringes on Christ's sufferings. In the same way, the suffering during the final sanctification in no way infringes on Christ's sufferings or implies they were insufficient.

Quite the contrary, the fact is that the suffering we experience in sanctification in this life is something we receive because of Christ's sacrifice for us. His sufferings paid the price for us to be sanctified, and his sufferings paid the price for the whole of our sanctification -- both the initial and final parts. Thus it is because of Christ's sacrifice that we receive the final sanctification in the first place. If he had not suffered, we would not be given the final sanctification (or the glorification to which it leads), but would go straight to hell because “nothing unclean shall enter (heaven)” (Rev 21:27) . Thus purgatory does not imply Christ's sufferings were insufficient; rather it is because of Christ's sufferings that we are given the final sanctification of purgatory in the first place.

If the above is not true -- if it is not true that “the suffering we experience in sanctification in this life is something we receive because of Christ's sacrifice for us.” -- then Col 1:24 doesn’t make sense: “Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake and in my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the Church.” What? Christ’s sufferings are lacking? By no means. Christ’s sufferings were completely sufficient for our redemption. Christ, the Head of the Body, is perfect. It is His Body, all of us men, that need completion. All of us who are in His Body may add ours sufferings to His Body, in order that the fruits of His redemption may be applied to the souls of men. “

... ... And I remain one very Happy Catholic.

Brett Rickard, December 2008.