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Are you starting OCIA this month? Let us know how we can support you!
This week’s Journey Home episode was an encore of our conversation with Fr. Eric Roush, who was part of a group of friends at Miami University (OH) who all ended up becoming Catholic.
In a new On the Journey episode, Matt, Ken, and Kenny looked at what Scriptures were used by Clement of Rome in the generation following the apostles.
And we shared the written testimony of Dustin Shane, a former Jehovah’s Witness who became Catholic.
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September 10th was the feast of St. Ambrose Edward Barlow, a “re-vert” to the Catholic Faith who is one of the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales.
And Religion News Service wondered why many young women are becoming Catholic.
Mike Schramm pondered what might have happened if Mary had said no to the angel Gabriel.
And Luke Lancaster explained why it is important to understand that the Eucharist is a sacrifice.
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A member whose whole family is starting OCIA together this month, another convert member who’s thinking about volunteering at OCIA at their parish, and all our members who are just starting OCIA — these are just a few of the people we are praying for and working with at The Coming Home Network. Please help us continue to support those on the journey by visiting chnetwork.org/donate today!
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“How can I be said to fast, while every morning, at the Altar, I receive my God?”
St. Nicholas of Tolentino
Feast Day: September 10th
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]]>The Coming Home Network is a network of Catholic converts supporting one another and walking with those who are currently exploring the Church.
We know what it’s like, because we’ve been there, and we’ve been helping people come home — and find a home — in the Catholic Church, for more than thirty years.
From our archive of more than 1800 conversion stories, to our extensive library of articles and videos, to our online community designed specifically for inquirers, converts, and those helping them, we offer our resources for free so that those seeking fellowship and information along the way can find everything they need at no cost to them.
We also offer peer-to-peer pastoral care for those asking questions about the faith, and regular online meetings where you can ask questions and share updates on your journey. We would love to meet you and hear your story!
Explore our resources for OCIA: chnetwork.org/OCIA
Connect with others on the journey: chnetwork.org/connection
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The September 2026 CHNewsletter is out! Read it here.
This week’s Journey Home episode was an encore of our conversation with Maija Fish about how an experience at Theology on Tap got her thinking seriously about Catholicism.
In a new On the Journey episode, Matt, Ken, and Kenny looked at whether Clement of Rome taught the Reformation doctrine of “faith alone.”
We shared an article from JonMarc Grodi on prayer as a training of the mind and heart.
And in a new written story, Ansel Evans shared his journey from Assemblies of God pastor to Catholicism, and his work in sharing Catholic social teaching regarding finance.
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The Catholic Church in India continues to navigate the legal web of anti-conversion laws.
The National Catholic Register shared more background on the recent Catholic conversion of former agnostic YouTuber Joel Schmid.
The Catholic Church in France has been adjusting to a rise in interest from potential converts.
Zenit covered the story of a World War II veteran who was recently baptized ahead of his 100th birthday.
And Cerith Gardner shared the story of a Eurovision contestant who went from New Age and pagan beliefs to the Catholic Faith.
Daniel Esparza looked at the stories of three Jesuit scientists who changed the world.
And in his Wednesday audience this week, Pope Leo XIV called Christians to engage with reality.
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A member whose parents are finally starting to ask questions about their conversion, another convert member seeking to find employment in line with their ministry background, and all our members who are about to start OCIA — these are just a few of the people we are praying for and working with at The Coming Home Network. Please help us continue to support those on the journey by visiting chnetwork.org/donate today!
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“I am like a little pencil in his hand. That is all. He does the thinking. He does the writing. The pencil has nothing to do with it. The pencil has only to be allowed to be used.”
St. Teresa of Calcutta
Feast Day: September 5th
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]]>Every Thursday, at 10:15AM Eastern, members of the CHNetwork family meet to pray Morning Prayer from the Liturgy of the Hours together on Zoom. Information on how to join us can be found in the CHNetwork Online Community.
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Prayer is a journey—a journey of relationship with a God who has called us into existence out of love. While God is timeless and eternal, we are pilgrims on the road—a road which, at times, prompts us to turn to God in wonder, adoration, praise, and gratitude, and at other times in fear, remorse, repentance, and the expression of distress and need. Prayer is a journey because as the road twists and turns, we are, by God’s grace, changed and transformed along the way through our responses, our decisions, and our choices. We thus return to God in prayer, again and again, not only to seek the providence we need for the road, but also to re- encounter and come to know more deeply this God who is ever ancient, ever new. This encounter itself, more than the provisions prayed for, is what drives the Christian’s ongoing conversion.
While we can tend to think of prayer in terms of seeking God’s help and grace to take back out with us into our “active lives,” the activity of prayer itself (rightly understood) is the foundation and source of ongoing conversion. How does prayer transform us? On the one hand, we can rightly say that the transformative power of prayer is always a matter of God’s grace. At the same time, Jesus calls his disciples to prayer and to works of love because God works through our free cooperation with His will. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church reminds us, man is made in the image of God primarily in that he is endowed with the spiritual powers of intellect and will (CCC 1705). Man, like his Creator, is a thinking and willing being, and it is through the engagement and exercise of these spiritual powers that he cooperates with God’s transforming grace.
It is preeminently in the act of prayer—the “raising of the mind and heart to God” as St. John Damascene describes it—that our minds, wills, and hearts are exercised, purified, and strengthened, helping us to become the people God created us to be. Prayer trains our spirit first through the act of faithful obedience to Christ’s example and teaching to his disciples. Before we even begin our prayer, we grow through the act of making and prioritizing time to be with God and then following through with this good intention. On a deeper level, it is then the act of praying itself—in talking to God and listening—that we engage our minds in reality and our hearts and wills in desiring and choosing in accord with what is true, good, and beautiful. More than mere words, prayer is a free action of the whole human person—body, mind, and spirit—to “love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind” (Matthew 22:37).
There is a uniquely transformative and purifying power in praying with Sacred Scripture and participating in the liturgies of the Church, as these forms of prayer present us with truths and attitudes (beatitudes!) that will inevitably challenge us. For example, the Psalms constantly invite us to pray in words and attitudes—joy, love, righteous anger, remorse, desperation—that may run counter to our feelings on a particular day. So too, in the liturgies of the Church— the Holy Mass, the Sacrament of Reconciliation, the Liturgy of the Hours—we are continually invited to praise, give thanks, confess, repent, and express our needs, whether or not we would have otherwise been moved to do so on a given day. Hence, in prayer we are invited to approach God, the source of all transforming grace, and in the context of prayer to apply our minds and hearts to the truth and to be changed in the process.
The greatest and clearest example of this is precisely the Our Father, the prayer that Jesus gave his disciples in response to their request that He teach them to pray. The seven petitions of the Lord’s Prayer are the blueprint for a Christian mind and heart, transformed and purified by God’s grace. As St. Thomas Aquinas notes,
The Lord’s Prayer is the most perfect of prayers…In it we ask, not only for all the things we can rightly desire, but also in the sequence that they should be desired. This prayer not only teaches us to ask for things, but also in what order we should desire them. (St. Thomas Aquinas, STh II-II, 83, 9)
In the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus not only invites us to call upon God as “Father,” but He then teaches us what we ought to desire, to will, and thus to pray for and to strive to bring about in our lives. He gives us these petitions in order, beginning with the desire that Our Father’s name be hallowed, that His kingdom may come, and that His will may be done. The final four petitions involve praying for our physical and spiritual providence (daily bread), forgiveness for our sins, the grace and guidance to avoid sin, and ultimately for final deliverance from evil, death, and hell.
As we continue on the road together, let us persevere in the journey of prayer, placing before God our own needs as well as those of our family, friends, and our fellow journeyers in the CHNetwork. And let us remember that God will always answer our prayers— sometimes in the ways we ask for, but always in giving us His grace and transforming us “into his likeness from one degree of glory to another” (2 Cor 3:18).
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This week’s Journey Home episode was a discussion of David Lach’s journey from the Jesus of the New Age to the Jesus of the New Testament.
In a new On the Journey episode, Matt, Ken, and Kenny looked at early Christian worship through the eyes of St. Clement of Rome.
For this week’s feast of St. Augustine, we shared an article from Jim Anderson about what Augustine has to say on some key Catholic teachings.
And on the latest Insights, Shane Page shared how the pursuit of holiness that he learned as a Wesleyan was fulfilled in the Catholic Church.
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Katy Carl looked at next steps for new Catholic converts.
Zenit looked at the rise in interest in OCIA classes at college campuses this Fall.
The Catholic chaplain at Harvard reflected on how this has played out in his own campus ministry.
The daughter of an imam in West Africa has professed vows as a religious sister.
And former atheist YouTuber Joe Schmid recently announced that he is returning to the Catholic Church.
Clement Harrold did a basic rundown of the Four Marian Dogmas.
And Joe Heschmeyer explained why annulments aren’t just “Catholic divorce.”
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A member looking for reliable transportation to OCIA, another member whose spouse is beginning to express interest in Catholicism, and all our members who are about to start OCIA — these are just a few of the people we are praying for and working with at The Coming Home Network. Please help us continue to support those on the journey by visiting chnetwork.org/donate today!
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“If you believe what you like in the Gospel, and reject what you don’t like, it is not the Gospel you believe, but yourself.”
St. Augustine of Hippo
Feast Day: August 28th
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]]>It is well known that many Protestants, especially Calvinists and Lutherans, highly revere St. Augustine of Hippo. John Calvin called him the most orthodox and biblical of the early Church Fathers. He used St. Augustine’s teaching on grace and original sin as proof texts to bolster his personal interpretations on those doctrines. In order to do so, Calvin and many other Protestants have been forced to cherry pick from his multi-volumed writings, choosing teachings they believe endorse their new teachings, while ignoring the fact that Augustine was a champion of orthodox Catholic doctrine. Below you will find a small sampling of the writings of this Doctor of the Church’s witness to ancient orthodox Catholic teachings handed down to us from the Apostles.
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“The sacrament of baptism is undoubtedly the sacrament of regeneration.” (The Merits and the Forgiveness of Sin 2:27:43, AD 412)
“Baptism therefore, washes away indeed all sins – absolutely all sins, whether in deeds or words or thoughts, whether original or added, whether committed in ignorance or allowed in knowledge.” (Against Two Letters of the Pelagians 3:5, AD 420)
“The custom of Mother Church in baptizing infants is certainly not to be scorned, nor is it to be regarded in any way as superfluous, nor is it to be believed is anything but apostolic.” (Literal Interpretation of Genesis 10:23, AD 408)
The Real Presence: “The bread you see on the altar, having been sanctified by the word of God, is the body of Christ. The chalice, or rather what is in the chalice, having been sanctified by the word of God, is the blood of Christ.” (Sermons 227, AD 411)
“What you see is the bread and the chalice; that is what your own eyes report to you. But your faith obliges you to accept that the bread is the body of Christ and the chalice is the blood of Christ.” (Sermons 272, AD 411)
The Sacrifice of the Mass: “Was not Christ once for all offered up in his own person as a sacrifice? And yet, is he not likewise offered up in the sacrament as a sacrifice, not only in the special solemnities of Easter, but also daily among our congregations; so that the man who, being questioned, answers that he is offered as a sacrifice in that ordinance, declares what is strictly true.” (Letters 98:9, AD 408)
Perpetual Virginity: “Thus Christ, by being born of a virgin who, before she knew who was to be born of her, had determined to continue a virgin, chose to approve, rather than to command, holy virginity. And thus, even in the female herself, in whom he took the form of a servant, he willed that virginity should be free.” (Holy Virginity 4:4, AD 401)
Mary Being Without Sin: We must except the holy Virgin Mary, concerning whom I wish to raise no question when it touches the subject of sins, out of honor to the Lord; for whom we know what abundance of grace for overcoming of sin in every particular was conferred upon her who had the merit to conceive and bear him who undoubtedly had no sin. (Nature and Grace 36:42, AD 415)
“It is true that Christians pay religious honor to the memory of the martyrs, both to excite us to imitate them, and to obtain a share of the merits and the assistance of their prayers.” (Reply to Faustus the Manichean 20:21, AD 400)
“This it was that the blessed martyrs did in their burning love; and if we celebrate their memories not in an empty form, and in the banquet at which they are filled to the full, approach the table of the Lord, we must, as they did, also be making similar preparations. For on these very grounds we do not commemorate them at the table in the same way, as we do others who now rest in peace, by praying for them, but rather that they should pray for us, that we may walk in their footsteps. (Tractates on John 84:1, AD 416-17)
“Temporary punishments are suffered by some in this life only, by others after death, by others both now and then; but all of them before the last and strictest judgment. But of those who suffer temporary judgment after death, all are not doomed to those everlasting pains that are to follow that judgment; for to some, as we have already said, what is not remitted in this world is remitted in the next, that is, they are not punished with the eternal punishment of the world to come.” (City of God 21:14, AD 419)
“There are many things that keep me in her [the Church’s] bosom. The consent of the peoples and nations keeps me in the Church; so does her authority, inaugurated by miracles, nourished by hope, enlarged by love, established by age. The succession of the priests keeps me, beginning from the very seat of the apostle Peter, to whom the Lord, after his resurrection, put in charge of feeding his sheep, down to the present episcopate [of Pope Siricius].” (Against the Letter of Mani Called “The Foundation” 4:5, AD 397)
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Keep in mind that this is but a small sampling of writings by St. Augustine of Hippo, who is most truly a Doctor of the Church. While a narrow excerpt might seem to lend weight to thought that developed through the Reformation, it is clear that the whole of Augustine’s preaching and writing gives ample witness to a thorough and complete adherence to the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church.
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This week’s Journey Home episode was a great conversation with TJ Nielsen, whose journey to the Catholic Faith began while he was a student at Hillsdale College.
In a new On the Journey episode, Matt, Ken, and Kenny looked at Clement of Rome’s exercise of apostolic authority.
We featured the written story of David McClamrock, who rejected Christianity for years before coming home to the Catholic Faith.
And on the latest Insights, Marc Lozano, a former atheist, shared why it was important for him to be on the same page as his Catholic wife.
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A Grammy winning hip-hop producer told the Black Catholic Messenger about his recent conversion to Catholicism.
And did you know that Zacchaeus is considered a saint in the Catholic Church? Some calendars put his feast on August 20th.
Pope Leo XIV reflected on the role of music in the liturgy of the Church.
And Jimmy Akin responded to the claim that veneration of relics isn’t Biblical.
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A member frustrated that they have to wait to receive the Eucharist, another member struggling with the history of scandals in the life of the Church, and all our members who are about to start OCIA — these are just a few of the people we are praying for and working with at The Coming Home Network. Please help us continue to support those on the journey by visiting chnetwork.org/donate today!
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“What we love we shall grow to resemble.”
St. Bernard of Clairvaux
Feast Day: August 20th
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This week’s Journey Home episode was a great conversation with Amy McEntee about her path from the Church of the Brethren to Catholicism.
In a new On the Journey episode, Matt, Ken, and Kenny started a series on Clement of Rome and the early Church.
And in a featured written story, Michele Morris shared how in the midst of trauma and difficulty, she heard God calling her home.
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While overall numbers of practicing Catholics are on decline in Germany, adult baptisms continue to be on the rise.
And OSV News shared the story of a man who went from spending time in prison to serving in prison ministry as a Catholic deacon.
A night honoring Pope Leo at the White Sox/Reds game this week was a sold-out event, which included commemorative pope hats and a 5th inning Sign of Peace.
Pope Leo explained why attendance at Mass can’t be replaced by virtual participation.
Archbishop Jose Gomez of Los Angeles reflected on this weekend’s feast of the Assumption of Mary.
Dave Armstrong shared what more than a dozen Church Fathers had to say about the idea of Purgatory.
Jordan has begun preparations for the celebration of the 2000-year anniversary of the Baptism of Jesus.
And the world’s oldest Trappist monk has passed away at age 108.
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A member facing transportation issues that are making it difficult to participate in OCIA, another member who just attended his first Mass, and all our members who are preparing to start OCIA soon — these are just a few of the people we are praying for and working with at The Coming Home Network. Please help us continue to support those on the journey by visiting chnetwork.org/donate today!
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“The cross is the school of love.”
St. Maximilian Kolbe
Feast Day: August 14th
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The August CHNewsletter is out! Read it here.
This week’s Journey Home episode was a great discussion with former Evangelical minister Sam Nunnally about his path to the Catholic Faith.
In a new On the Journey short, Ken Hensley shared how Hebrews 11 is incompatible with the Reformation doctrine of “faith alone.”
And on the latest Signposts, Grant Adams shared his path from Evangelical ministry to the Catholic Church.
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Claire Dwyer shared some resources to help get to know St. Edith Stein, whose feast day is this weekend.
The Pillar shared how the Archdiocese of Bombay is speaking out against anti-conversion laws in India.
The National Catholic Register looked at the descendants of Paul Revere who became Catholic.
And a Brazilian man in prison for organized crime has received Christian baptism.
Jimmy Akin looked at some of the Old Testament prophecies that point to Jesus.
And Pope Leo XIV hasn’t shared any official plans, but does say he hopes to visit the United States soon.
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A member struggling with Catholic teaching on Baptism, another member overwhelmed by all the new things they’re learning about the Church, and all our members who are preparing to start OCIA soon — these are just a few of the people we are praying for and working with at The Coming Home Network. Please help us continue to support those on the journey by visiting chnetwork.org/donate today!
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“Anyone who seeks truth seeks God, whether or not he realizes it.”
St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein)
Feast Day: August 9th
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This week’s Journey Home episode was a powerful conversation with Erika Bachiochi about how personal tragedy and the search for meaning led her to the Catholic Church.
On a new CHNetwork Presents, Matt Swaim talked to Rakhi McCormick and Rae-Mi LeRoy about their journey from Eastern spirituality to the Catholic Church.
And we shared an article from Reza Akhtar reflecting on how to explain the divinity of Jesus to someone from a Muslim background.
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July 31st is the feast of St. Ignatius of Loyola, whose conversion led to the founding of the Jesuits.
A World War II veteran has joined the Catholic Church at age 98.
‘The bishop of Oslo reflected further on the opening of the sainthood cause of Nobel Prize winning novelist and Catholic convert Sigrid Undset.
And the Vatican is hosting its first ever dialogue between Christians and Confucians.
Catholic in Recovery suggested “Communion Counting” for those in recovery who are already used to tracking their success by counting days of sobriety.
And Clement Harrold looked at the different people named James in the New Testament.
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A member couple preparing to have their marriage recognized in the Church, another member discouraged at the way their loved ones have reacted to their interest in Catholicism, and all our members who are preparing to start OCIA soon — these are just a few of the people we are praying for and working with at The Coming Home Network. Please help us continue to support those on the journey by visiting chnetwork.org/donate today!
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“He who goes about to reform the world must begin with himself, or he loses his labor.”
St. Ignatius of Loyola
Feast Day: July 31st
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