I didn’t become Catholic by throwing away my past—I became Catholic by stepping into the fullness of the Christian story. These Protestant gifts haven’t lost their value. They’ve been deepened, reoriented, and completed in ways I never expected.

Theology has always been a touchy subject. Throughout human history, few things have sparked more division, wars, and destruction than our differing views of God. It’s strange to admit that something meant to bring us closer to ultimate truth — to goodness itself — has so often been wielded as a weapon. Yet history bears it out.

This Sunday is Easter—the heart of the Christian story. Over the past forty days, we’ve journeyed through Lent, a season meant to slow us down, draw our eyes to the cross, and tune our hearts to the rhythms of repentance, hope, and grace. I wish I could say I’ve been fully present in it. Truth is, I’ve been more distracted than usual this year.

Jesus wasn’t a Republican. He wasn’t a Democrat. He wasn’t a nationalist, nor was he a revolutionary in the way political parties often define it. He came proclaiming a different kind of kingdom—one that calls us to love God, love our neighbor, seek justice, walk humbly, and speak the truth in love.

“The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it.”

In my early years, faith was presented to me like math. Logical. Precise. Black and white. This is true, and that is false. Simple, right? But as I grew, I realized faith isn’t as clean-cut as arithmetic. With math, 2 + 2 is always 4. There’s no debate, no interpretation. But with theology, interpretation is the battleground. And everyone, it seems, thinks their interpretation is the correct one—handed down from God Himself.

“If it’s just a symbol, to hell with it.”

Flannery O’Connor’s bold words challenge us to wrestle with what we really believe about the Eucharist. Is it just a reminder—or is it the real presence of Christ?

In this week’s blog, I reflect on my journey from viewing communion as a symbol to encountering Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. If you’ve ever wondered why the Eucharist matters so much to Catholics, this one’s for you.

England didn’t become Protestant because of a theological conviction—it became Protestant because a king wanted a different wife. And when he didn’t get his way, he declared himself the head of the Church of England. Every citizen was required to break with the Catholic Church and pledge allegiance to this new national church—with the monarch, not the pope, as its head.

The reality is that most of the colonists who came to America were fleeing Protestant England, not Catholic Europe. Their oppressor wasn’t the Pope but the Church of England, the officially established Protestant church that demanded religious conformity and punished dissenters.