It’s so easy in this world to become jaded and think that everything is going to the dogs. The news makes us think that people are becoming worse and worse. Then you read about someone like March’s featured lady, Laura, and you feel renewed in your faith in humanity. Laura runs the website Healing Heart of Jesus and she’s a good woman out there doing good things. Her website is all about spreading the beautiful message about Christ’s Most Sacred Heart. Laura wants people to understand Christ’s mercy and His healing love. I highly encourage you to check her out through all the social media platforms. You can find her on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest. 

Laura lives in Texas with her husband, John. She is a member of the Secular Order of Discalced Carmelites, which is a beautiful witness to her devotion to Christ. The picture featured here is on the day when she took her “first promises” to become a member of the Order. I’m so happy to share her answers with you. 

1. Are you a cradle Catholic or convert? If a convert, where did you convert from?

I am a cradle Catholic. I am very grateful to have grown up in the Church. While there was a time in my life when I stopped practicing my Catholic faith, I believe it was the foundation the Church laid for me as a child which played a key role in bringing me back to my faith in God. It was the sacraments, specifically the Eucharist and Reconciliation, which allowed me to fully reunite myself with Jesus.

2. Who is one of your favorite saints and why?

It’s difficult to pick just one, but if I’d have to pick, it would be Saint Margaret Mary of Alacoque. She was an apostle of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and worked to prove the genuineness of Jesus’ visions to her regarding the Sacred Heart. She stayed obedient to Jesus in working to spread this devotion, even after she met with much resistance. This devotion has transformed my life, as well as the lives of countless others. The Sacred Heart of Jesus is my refuge. It is where I rest when I’m fearful or anxious, when I’ve sinned and seek forgiveness, and when I am grateful and desire to praise my Lord and Savior. Saint Margaret Mary, pray for us!

3. Besides the Eucharist, what is your favorite part of Mass?

Besides the Eucharist, my favorite part of Mass is the Penitential Act, where all His children at Mass express their sorrow for their sins and trust in His great mercy that He will forgive us. I love that we express in both words and actions (when we strike our chest three times as we say, “through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault”). It is a moment of acknowledgment before God and before everyone around me that I am a sinner, and I express with complete trust in His mercy that He will forgive me and make me whole again, allowing me to prepare myself to receive the Eucharist.

4. What is the best Catholic place you’ve visited? Where do you hope to visit?

One of my favorite Catholic places I’ve been to is the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Little Flower in San Antonio, Texas. As a Secular Carmelite, this is of special significance to me as St. Therese of the Lisieux is one of many beloved Carmelite saints! A Catholic place which I hope to visit one day is the Vatican and attend Mass. Truth be told, however, any Catholic place where Jesus is present is my preferred and favorite place to be! I am very grateful for the Eucharistic Chapel, which is available 24/7 at the Catholic Church I attend, because I get to be at my favorite place, or my “heavenly home on earth” (as I like to call it), pretty much every day!

5. What’s a myth or misconception that you hear about the Catholic Faith? What’s the truth of it?

The main misconception which saddens me with regards to the Catholic faith is that the Catholic Church is somehow “anti-woman.” It saddens me because of how untrue this is. One should just look at the esteem and honor with which Jesus and the Church hold for Mary, the mother of God, as well as many other Doctors of the Church who are women. However, I do understand what it is like to believe this false idea, as I too once did not understand the Church’s stances on birth control, the priesthood, and other related areas, when I was not a practicing Catholic. When I came back to the faith I decided I was no longer going to rely on what other people around me were saying who hadn’t completely studied the actual teachings of the Catholic Church and would seek the truth for myself. I also constantly brought my questions and lack of understanding to prayer and asked Jesus to reveal the truth to me. He always did, although sometimes it took a while, as I wasn’t always ready at first to hear and accept the truth. What I found over time, and after completely surrendering myself to Jesus, was a compassionate, merciful Savior and a loving Church which desires to keep all of God’s children close to Jesus and guide them toward their heavenly home.

6. Why do you love being Catholic?

There are so many reasons I love being Catholic. I love that I can go to Mass anywhere in the world, participate (whether it’s being celebrated in a language I understand or not), and receive the Eucharist. I love the healing and restorative power of the Sacraments. I love the rich tradition which spans throughout the Church’s history. I love how we celebrate the saints and their devotion to Christ and ask for their prayers and intercession. I love that we …

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This year, I’m focusing on stories of former atheists that converted to Catholicism. How each person comes to Christ is unique and special, but especially interesting are those that go from no belief in God, to becoming members of the Catholic Church. For January, I interviewed Barry whom I recently met on social media. Originally from the Seattle area, he now resides in Baton Rouge. His story is the stuff of movies; truly a remarkable journey. It’s not just that Barry came into the Faith and believes in Christ; he puts his faith into action. He is the Associate Director for the Office of Evangelization and Catechesis in the Diocese of Baton Rouge. He visits with imprisoned men in his area, where he brings hope and encouragement by sharing Christ’s message. From a near death experience, to studying Buddhism in the Himalayas, to overcoming alcohol/drug addiction; this is a compelling story of a search for Christ. If you are like me, you’ll find Barry’s story quite remarkable.  

1.  Were you always an atheist or did you leave the faith and become one?

I am from a typical Pacific Northwest (Seattle area) family who is in a sense “post-Christian.” What I mean by this is that I was raised in an environment that didn’t even bring up the question of God, or of the Christian faith. We had some neighbors invite us to a Disciples of Christ Protestant ecclesial community and my sisters were baptized there, but I never really thought about the meaning of it and didn’t understand it. I didn’t have a feeling about it one way or another, it just wasn’t even on my radar. I had never heard anyone in my family discuss God or speak as if there was such thing as God, and so I definitely never experienced any sort of witness to Jesus as the Christ.

So, I was, in a sense an accidental atheist from the start. I wasn’t the type of atheist who was once Christian and rebelled against the faith intentionally and deliberately, rather, I was one by accident, by circumstances. I didn’t even have a rudimentary language for talking about ultimate reality, my origin and end, first principles, virtue and sin, or good and evil. And I definitely didn’t have a vocabulary for talking about God or knowing what the orthodox Christian faith taught in respect to the existence and attributes of the Creator or that Jesus was the Son of God and that the Church communicates Him.

Like the young Augustine, I sought out my completion in the world, in transient and sensual things. I didn’t know of any other way. I do remember, nonetheless, a time of greater innocence when my conscience alone communicated a sense of right and wrong, but by 15 or 16 years old this was largely clouded out by worldly clamors.

2.  What was it that started to open the door for you, as far as considering the faith?

When I was 22 years old, I was critically injured in a car accident and had to be resuscitated. I had a near death experience. This radically changed my understanding of the meaning of life. Upon awakening from the NDE and since then, I have been involved in two primary tasks: Awakening to the gift of life and purifying my own life of attachment to sin. That path was intuitive to me after the accident and NDE though I wasn’t Christian. So I began a very intense period of spiritual searching, studying religion and philosophy. I studied both in school as an undergrad and graduate student, as well as in my personal life.

Like many in my socio-cultural demographic at the time I was more immediately drawn to the study of Indian religions, in particular Buddhism. For about five years, from 22-27 I studied it intensely in retreat and academic settings in N. America and India. I went as far as taking the five vows of a lay practitioner: 1) Abstain from killing 2) Abstain from fornication 3) Abstain from lying 4) Abstain from stealing 5) Abstain from intoxication.

It was in this milieu where I first began to exist in relationship to a transcendent source of morality and live as if my life had ultimate purpose. It was also in these contexts where I originally learned how to fast, how to be still and silent, how to meditate for long periods of time, how to renounce transient things for the sake of a transcendent goal. I also learned in this context, from a western Buddhist nun, of the moral horror of abortion. Up until that point, I though abortion could be justified. I also learned that mastubation, fornication, porn, intoxication, same sex acts, etc., were morally evil and very harmful (yes, even though everyone was doing promoting them as good and healthy!).

For the first time in my life I met men, usually Tibetan Buddhist monks (some nuns too), who were virtuous. This was very different from the men I was used to. And so, I would say, they were my first real formators in how to be a man. They taught me that a man isn’t a slave to his passions but rather gains mastery over them. The asceticism of these men was impressive, but their gentleness and kindness was even more impressive. I have always thought that if our own Christian faithful sought Jesus even half as intensely as these men sought liberation from suffering according to the path of the Buddha we wouldn’t have a priest shortage and the emptying out of our parishes in the West (I will leave that for another time).

I was in India, studying at the Library of Tibetan Works and Archives in Himachel Pradesh or the Himalayan Province, when I began to turn toward the Christian faith in earnest. I was studying Tibetan language and Buddhist Philosophy in a place called McLeod Ganj where the Tibetan government was and remains in exile. In a sense, …

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