First Things RSS Feed - Jennifer Mehl Ferrara https://www.firstthings.com/author/jennifer-mehl-ferrara en-us Copyright 2025 First Things. All Rights Reserved. ft@firstthings.com (The Editors) ft@firstthings.com (The Editors) Mon, 20 Jan 2025 16:57:00 -0500 https://d2201k5v4hmrsv.cloudfront.net/img/favicon-196.png First Things RSS Feed Image https://www.firstthings.com/rss/author/jennifer-mehl-ferrara 60 Becoming Catholic: Making It Hard https://www.firstthings.com/article/1999/01/002-becoming-catholic-making-it-hard https://www.firstthings.com/article/1999/01/002-becoming-catholic-making-it-hard Fri, 01 Jan 1999 00:00:00 -0500 In its section on music, the Catechism of the Catholic Church quotes St. Augustine: “How I wept, deeply moved by your hymns, songs, and the voices that echoed through your Church! What emotion I experienced in them! Those sounds flowed into my ears, distilling the truth in my heart. A feeling of devotion surged within me, and tears streamed down my face—tears that did me good.” As a former Lutheran pastor who is now Roman Catholic, I am sorry to say Augustine’s wonderful words do not describe my experience with worship in the Church. Though at times I have been on the verge of tears, that was due to feelings of despair and not devotion. Far from drawing me into the Church, the manner in which the Mass is celebrated in most parishes constituted, in the end, the greatest stumbling block to my conversion.

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