Women Encouraging Women: Bonnie’s Story

I’m delighted to share this story from Bonnie, about the woman who walked with her through her journey to Catholicism. It’s a great read. Thanks for sharing with us, Bonnie!

My Confirmation Saint—or the Story of Two Confirmations

By Bonnie Way

 

In 2006, I asked Mrs. W if she would be my confirmation sponsor again.

My request didn’t surprise her husband. He looked at me and laughed. “Didn’t you know that when you asked her the first time, she’d pray you right into the Church?”

I grew up in the Lutheran Church. My parents had church-hopped for several years before finally joining a local Lutheran church when I was eight years old. My brothers and I were baptized then, an occasion which I remember vaguely. Even though it was my parents’ decision for me, and one that I didn’t totally understand, I felt it was a momentous occasion and I was excited about it. I still have the Precious Moments Bible that my godparents presented to me on that occasion, though I broke the little silver necklace they also gave me.

Six years later, I was fourteen years old and preparing for my confirmation in the Lutheran Church. In our Church, preparation for confirmation entailed three years of classes before the big event. My twin brother and I had done the first year with our peers at Church, and then my dad decided to teach us himself. We’d studied Luther’s Small Catechism and written a report on the Ten Commandments.

I took my confirmation very seriously. I’d already read my Bible cover to cover several times, following a Bible-in-a-year reading plan. My family regularly volunteered with our church and local Christian-life conferences. My parents had also decided that our confirmation could be the first time that my brothers and I could receive communion. For fourteen years, I’d walked up to the front of the church to receive a blessing. Finally, I was going to receive the Bread of Life.

I just needed to choose a confirmation sponsor, someone who would promise to pray for me and to help me grow in my faith. As I reviewed the women in my life, I kept coming back to my best friend’s mom. I’d attended my best friend’s confirmation the year before—in the Catholic Church. Her parents were cradle Catholics and lived their faith simply, with saint books and icons all around their house. I’d been for dinner at their place enough that I’d memorized the traditional Catholic grace as well as my best friend. I’d also attended Mass and Adoration with my best friend and her mom.

Our pastor said that my confirmation sponsor didn’t need to be Lutheran, just a godly woman. So I asked my best friend’s mom, and she agreed. Standing in front of the congregation in a purple dress my mom had made me, I recited the Apostle’s Creed and was confirmed in the Holy Spirit. Mrs. W hung a bronze medal around my neck, with a Jerusalem cross on one side and the words “confirmed with the Holy Spirit” on the other side.

I was wearing that bronze necklace on my first day of university classes four years later. I’d chosen a small Lutheran university at which to do my Bachelor of Arts degree in English. One of the required courses was Religion 150, which made me laugh a bit because I’d continued my personal faith formation since my confirmation.

On the second day of classes, a student sitting in front of me turned around and asked me about my necklace. The Jerusalem cross was unusual, as was his beard in a crowd of 18-year-olds. I found out he was Catholic and told him a bit about how I’d received my cross. Over the next few weeks, we ran into each other in class, and chatted briefly about the paper that our professor had assigned us.

Over the next few years, I frequently hung out with my Catholic friend and another girl from my Religion 150 class, who was Christian Reformed. We often discussed our respective religious views. My Catholic friend knew quite a bit about what we all believed and often challenged us about whether we really believed what the Lutheran and Christian Reformed churches taught. I realized that I didn’t know that much about Luther’s teachings, despite my confirmation classes years earlier, and I enrolled in both the Luther courses that the university offered.

As I started my final year of university, my Catholic friend and I began hanging out more. As I thought about dating him, one question hung in my head: what about our faith? I couldn’t imagine marrying a guy whom I couldn’t attend church with. I shared my concerns with my dad, who reasonably suggested that we simply try attending Mass. If I was thinking about dating a Catholic, I could at least check out what that entailed.

And so one Sunday morning, my parents and I walked into the local Catholic Church, where we ran into my best friend’s parents. It was the first time in our decade-plus of friendship that we’d showed up at their church without an invitation to a special occasion such as a baptism, confirmation, or wedding. I could see the question in their eyes, but I didn’t know how to answer it: “Um, there’s this guy I like and I think he likes me and he’s a Catholic and I’m not and so, um…” Thankfully, they didn’t ask the question.

For the next two months, as I settled in my university classes and went for coffee with my Catholic friend once or twice a week, my parents and I attended Mass every Sunday. We learned when to sit and when to kneel, stuttered along to the responses, and stayed in our pew when everyone else went up to receive. Once again, I felt like that teenager being left behind when everyone else got to go up. I wanted to receive God… but I also knew that the Catholic and Lutheran churches taught different things about the Eucharist, and until I understood what the Catholic Church taught, then I couldn’t say “amen” to the priest offering me God’s body.

Finally, sitting in a diner after classes, I asked my Catholic friend why he’d joined the Catholic Church. It was a question I’d been wanting to ask him for three years, because the only other Catholics I knew were my best friend’s family—cradle Catholics. I didn’t know people converted. As my friend shared his conversion story, I found myself nodding along. He said, “If God is in the Eucharist, then that’s where I want to be.” Something in me cried out, “Yes!” I’d been hungry for God, searching for Him, yet I sensed that there was something at the Catholic Church that I couldn’t find in the Lutheran Church.

My friend and I began dating. He bought me a copy of the Catechism of the Catholic Church and I began reading it. I told my best friend about him, and she gave me a copy of Scott Hahn’s book The Lamb’s Supper (which clarified what the Church taught about the Eucharist). My parents resumed going to their church, while my now-boyfriend began joining me at Mass with my best friend’s parents.

And so, almost a year later, when I decided to finally join RCIA, it just made sense to ask Mrs. W to once again be my confirmation sponsor. And that’s when Mr. W laughed at me, saying he’d known she would pray me into the Catholic Church. She had, throughout my childhood, been like a second mom to me. Now, spiritually, she would really be my second mom.

By the time of my confirmation in May 2007, just a month before my wedding, my parents’ marriage had disintegrated. Neither one of them came to the Easter Vigil to see me join the Catholic Church. My mom still had her doubts about the Catholic Church (she’d once told me not to date my fiancé, saying that Catholics worshipped Mary) and my dad had decided he didn’t like my fiancé.

My best friend came home for Easter, and so it was with her family that I celebrated my confirmation and First Communion. The Church recognized my baptism in the Lutheran Church (which unfortunately meant I still had to go to First Confession and tell the priest everything I’d done wrong since my baptism!).

In 2012, just after I realized that I was expecting my third daughter, my best friend called me to say that her mom had cancer. It was bad. She’d likely had it for a long time, but she was a generous, self-giving woman who probably hadn’t admitted to the pain. By then, we had moved fourteen hours away. I told my husband that I was flying home to see her. When I arrived, she was already on palliative care, confined to a hospital bed in her room.

My visit with her was short. She continued smiling, despite the pain I knew she was in. I wanted to tell her about my new baby, but we hadn’t yet told anyone else and her daughters were present in the room. Finally, Mr. W came in saying that she needed to rest. I gave her a hug for the last time and left. She passed away a few weeks later. I named my third daughter for her, knowing that she’s in heaven praying for me.

Mrs. W was a quiet, simple woman who raised five daughters. She never preached, but always prayed. I still keep in touch with her husband and her daughters. Even if she’s never officially canonized, I think of her as a saint—my confirmation saint.

 

Bonnie Way and her husband have been married for eleven years and have four daughters and a son. They continue to be active within their local parish. Bonnie homeschools her oldest three daughters and blogs about faith, motherhood, and homeschooling as the Koala Mom. Sign up for her email newsletter to receive a FREE printable of Prayers for Pregnancy & Birth, including several prayer and note cards with saint quotes to inspire expectant mothers.

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