Stevie Rojas is a Catholic writer. You can follow him on Twitter at Stevie Rojas and follow his blog at stevierojas.com
I am what’s called a revert: someone who was already a Catholic and left the faith in the middle of their life, but returned later on by the grace of God. Before I made my way back to the Church, God permitted me to wander through the desert of my own fallible will. I made choices for myself in terms of my outlook in life and in spiritual matters which caused me a great deal of stress and pain. But if God hadn’t let me go on my own to wander, I never would have seen how He was slowly and gently orchestrating events in my life in order for me to get to know Him, His purpose for me, and lead me back to the Truth, which was right in front of me all along.
The Catholic Church is a very precious gift by Spain to the Philippines and it is very much integrated with the identity and culture of the country. It’s very common for people to go to mass on Sundays, and almost everyone attended a Catholic school. Me and my family was one of the many and common. We would regularly go to mass on Sundays, and we all went to the same Catholic School. It’s one of the oldest Catholic schools in the country, so it has its fair share of history and a legacy to live up to.
It was obvious that the Church was present in my life, but I sadly never really paid any attention to her. I was numb and desensitized to the Church and her teachings because I was part of a culturally Catholic society which was also numb and desensitized to the faith. This is one of the harshest truths about Catholic Countries: The Church and the practice of the faith is so common that it is prone to being taken for granted and losing its genuineness.
When I was in high school, I began to notice how so many people around me called themselves Catholic, but practiced the faith half-heartedly, or even blindly. I could see how they weren’t sincere in their faith because their words and actions did not fit with what I was learning from Catholic School. This then made me think Catholicism was fake and superficial. I began questioning everything I was learning about the faith because it seemed pointless if “Catholics” around me were behaving in very un-Catholic ways. This sparked in me a desire to go on search for the truth and something I’d believe to be absolutely real. Because of this desire, I left Catholicism behind thinking I’d find answers elsewhere. This is where my spiritual desert exile begins, though I didn’t know it was a desert, yet.
“Father, I don’t think being a Catholic fits me anymore.”
“Care to explain?” the priest asked, with a gentle and caring look on his face.
“I’ve been having questions and I started looking elsewhere,” I answered nervously.
“Like where?” he asked with a genuine look of curiosity and concern.
“Like in Buddhism especially, and many others.” I said nervously.
To my surprise and comfort, the priest answers “Good. Keep looking, and God will lead you to Him.”
Since I attended a Catholic High School, confession was mandatory. I believe that this was the moment I walked away from the Church because it was like this priest was letting me do so. So I began to dabble with different spiritual beliefs and systems, which I now realize were my desert illusions or mirages. These would range from Buddhism to Taoism, From Gaudiya Vaishnavism (The Hindu religion of the Hare Krishnas) to Gnosticism, even from the very darkest pit of Satanism and Occultism. I was a pagan, trying to mix and match different beliefs to what I thought would be beneficial and applicable to my life.
From Buddhist meditations, to Taoist Qi Gong.
From chanting Hare Krishna, to reading and researching “Lost Gospels” that weren’t included in the bible.
From spell casting and divination, to actually worshipping Satan.
Not just a symbol or idea of Satan, but actually Satan himself.
I was becoming an enemy of God.
When I look back at this stage in my life, I see how this was the subtle beginning of a pessimistic view of life for me. Everything was starting to look bleak and it was like life had no meaning. I would also find out that because of my dealings with the Devil, I would be followed by negative forces that would still haunt me to this day.
After dabbling into these various spiritual systems, I began to feel drained. By the time I reached college, all the thinking and exploring into spirituality made me so exhausted that I just decided to drop everything and just label myself an Agnostic. I already definitely knew that I had belief in a certain god or “supreme being” and it’s existence, but I just didn’t know him, and didn’t know if I’d ever get to know him. At the very least, I felt how Atheism was never going to be an option for me because I already believed in a first-cause or first mover, and that existence wasn’t just by chance.
As an Agnostic, I lived a very secular life with little to no care about spirituality, which is actually how most people live these days. I was very worldly as I was focused on my own comfort and pleasure. I became a lover of money and fame, as my work was slowly creeping it’s way into my identity and self-worth. During this time, I was hit by an existential crisis that I would mark as my spiritual rock bottom. A simple thought crept its way to my head and it shook me to my core: “What is the point of everything I’m doing if I’m just going to die someday?”
What’s the point of working?
What’s the point of leisure?
What’s the point of spending time with friends?
What’s the point of drinking coffee?
What’s the point of love?
What’s the point of life?
I was troubled for weeks. Sleepless nights ensued wherein I’d sometimes cry myself to sleep. My girlfriend, who is now my wife, was on the receiving end of my rants and ramblings about the point of life and she was naturally worried about me, and even questioned my sanity. I felt like I was drowning in a deep dark pit of hopeless despair.
Then, God reached out His hand to me through a friend.
This friend of mine contacted me and wanted to meet up for lunch since he lived far away and we haven’t seen each other since our college days. I was excited to see him, so we decided to have lunch together. On the day of our meeting, while enjoying lunch and after casual discussions about work and life, he shared with me that he started taking Jesus and the Bible seriously. With the initial skepticism, but with a lot of curiosity, I asked him how and why. He told me he left Catholicism behind and joined a local Evangelical Church. He then invited me to attend one of their services, and I thought “Well, I haven’t given Christianity a try, so I guess I’ll check it out!” It’s funny because I was born into Christianity but NEVER even knew it. It was right under my nose, but I never even bothered to take a look at it. At this time I decided to pick up Christianity as if it were something completely new to me.
I got to know Jesus a lot more thanks to the Protestants. It was during my time with them that I convinced myself of the truth of Jesus, His teachings, and His divinity. I was delving into reformed theology, and was in awe of God’s majesty and sovereignty. As I was becoming so invested in Christianity, I was also becoming very rigid to the point of being hostile towards friends and family. I didn’t like the division it was causing in my life, and so I left Protestantism behind, and went on my way with much more knowledge of Jesus and a great appreciation of the Bible.
As I fell away from Christianity, I began to pick up on my dabbling with various spiritual systems again, but it was at this point that I knew for a fact that Jesus Christ was someone very important in my spiritual life, but going back to Catholicism or a Protestantism was the last thing I wanted to do. The only thing left for me this time was Gnosticism and the Occult. These two can be easily related with one another because they both had their own subjective opinions on the words of Jesus Christ. They are two of the most deceitful of all the illusions, for the simple reason of how it is masked as Christianity, but it is really a deception of the Devil himself. They seek to restructure God’s words, to the tune of the serpent in the book of Genesis. As a Gnostic/Occultist, I was practicing spell casting and divination, and was under the wrong impression that these skills were the works of God.
I was living a very Pagan life, I got engaged to my girlfriend. Since we live in a Catholic country, it’s an automatic and unquestionable that marriage meant marriage in the Catholic Church. As we were fixing requirements for marriage, we learned that my fiancee hasn’t been a confirmed Catholic yet. We had to fix that, so we went to her parish, which is the Shrine of Mt. Carmel so that she could attend a one-day seminar and interview before her confirmation. I was allowed to attend with her, and so I did, and I was listening intently because any topic on Jesus Christ was interesting to me at this point, and it didn’t matter who was talking about Jesus.
What I noticed was that I was internally answering questions thrown at her that were in line with the truths of the faith. There were questions about Catholic doctrine such as purgatory, praying to the saints, the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist and many more. At that moment, inside that shrine, I suddenly asked my self “What the are you doing? Isn’t this where you ought to be?”
As I looked back at my life of spiritual seeking, I started to realize how everything I was doing was in fact a search for God. I saw the spiritual desert God was leading me through, and more importantly, I saw and felt God with me all along. I was blind to Him! I then saw the road pointing me back towards Rome: Towards the Catholic Church, and this was when I began to study the Catholic Faith like how I would any other belief system - with true curiosity and passion! The longer I studied the Church, its history and its timeless teachings, the more I felt like I discovered a treasure chest which contained all of my heart’s desires. The Church Fathers, Sts. Thomas Aquinas, Augustine, Irenaeus, and Papal Encyclicals, I gobbled them all up! When I saw everything at my disposal, which Jesus Christ through Church FREELY GAVE to humanity, I couldn’t believe what I so angrily walked away from.
As my inquiries and studies piled up, I began to learn the most interesting things.
I was starting to see how Buddhist meditation was preparing me for contemplation.
The Taoist mindset of Wu Wei or “doing without doing” was preparing me for Abandonment to Divine Providence.
My repeated chanting of “Hare Krishna” was preparing me for appreciating the beauty of the Rosary and the Jesus Prayer.
My stint with Protestants made me appreciate Scripture and Jesus.
My interests in Occultic rituals was preparing me to appreciate the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.
I was starting to see how the Fullness of Truth was in fact in the Catholic Church!
The moment I saw that, I immediately went to confession to ask God for forgiveness, and to let Him know that I wanted to come back home. What scared me the most was having to confess devil worship but I was already convinced that I had to do it. When I mustered up the courage to let it out, I was surprised to hear the priest thank God for another repentant soul. When I heard the words of Absolution, I felt the heaviest weight lifted off my mind and shoulders and I began to live the Catholic faith authentically and not culturally.
This is why I owe my life to Our Lady of Mount Carmel and choose to wear the Brown Scapular without fail. Because it was at her shrine that I realized how I left home, only to find my way back into it by God’s grace. I am also an Opus Dei Cooperator, since they provide me with some much needed companionship and spiritual direction as I walk with God and His Church.
Today, I still continue to study the faith with the same passion and fervor that I had for other belief systems. The difference now is that I am not on a wide road that leads to a dead end, but on a narrow road that leads God Himself. I also have a dream of getting a Ph.D on Catholic Theology in the hopes of being able to teach it one day, because I believe Catholic Schools could really use more teachers that are truly passionate and sincere about God and their faith.
I end my story with a nod to that priest who told me to go ahead and search for God. He was right after all! I sought, and I found. And what I found, has been right in front of me all along.
“God is at home. It’s we who have gone out for a walk.” - Meister Eckhart
He has criticised them again.