Why did I become a Catholic? The Longer Answer Part 2

We left off in Part 1 where Jesus rescued me by direct intervention as I was being tempted to despair of life due to the crushing fear in my life.  What was the source of the fear?  Fear of failure and that my chosen line of work seemed to always be demanding more of me than I was able to give.  And I didn't have that close walk with Jesus and a life of prayer that I wanted.  So God gave me some hints as I set out on my journey.

God gave me a couple of convictions during that time in the Sierra foothills.  One was that bishops were really needed in the church to help shepherd young pastors and their congregations and that seemed to confirm my observations over the past 15 years.  And the second was that I needed to find a church that worshiped Him physically with my body in the form of a liturgy and not just mentally or intellectually.  How did God reveal these to me?  Kind of like the movie title, "While you were (or in this case while I) was sleeping...".  I woke up with these convictions.  Did I share these with anyone?  I don't think so.  It was a private revelation but I did start heading in those directions.  Plus I didn't really think any of my family or friends would be interested in coming along with me.

I started by browsing in a local used bookstore near my work during my lunch hours.  One of my first acquisitions was a Book of Common Prayer of the Protestant Episcopal Church that was given to someone by a pastor in 1953 according to the inscription on the inside cover.  And it opened a whole new world of prayer possibilities to me, things to talk with God about.  The words of the prayers gave expression to the wordless groanings and longings and aspirations locked up in my heart.

I started to investigate the Anglican (Church of England)/Episcopal in the US tradition.  For a while I was interested in a small evangelical denomination called the Reformed Episcopal Church which is smaller in its entirety than some single mega-churches.  I even wrote to them and got their version of the Book of Common Prayer and their articles and constitution but their churches are few and even more so in the western United States.  There was a small mission meeting in the pastor's home 30 to 40 miles away so I didn't pursue it.

That was as far as I went while in the Sierra foothills and then because I felt the need to change jobs again, we moved to Central Oregon to live near my parents.  I was going to try to switch lines of work at that time but it didn't happen because I didn't know what else to do and I was risk averse.