“I was always looking for God: thinking and searching and reading and praying,” he said.
Myhre pushed himself to scrutinize and fully grasp any teachings that challenged him, including purgatory and the veneration of Mary. Other beliefs, though, seemed obvious.
“The presence of Christ in the Eucharist is really what drew me to the faith,” he said. “To make that leap, for me what really cemented it was tradition … That really helped me understand the Catholic Church and where it gets its authority.”
Myhre entered the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (RCIA), the means by which one enters the Catholic Church. He began attending Mass with his children and his wife, an inactive Baptist, and enrolled his 5-year-old daughter in Our Lady of the Valley Catholic School. At Easter, he joined his wife and youngest daughter in entering into full communion with the Catholic Church.
Quest for salvation
Fellow catechumen Jason Yonk launched his search for spiritual truth after reading an alarming book, “23 Minutes in Hell,” which is the author’s account of his near-death experience that went south.
“It honestly scared me,” Yonk said. “I’ve always believed in hell.”
At his mom’s suggestion, he started his quest for salvation by studying the Book of Mormon but wasn’t satisfied with its answers.
“I still felt very confused and lost,” he said.
During long Coast Guard deployments, he studied the Bible and traced Christianity back to its roots in the Catholic Church.
He startled himself when he announced to his wife, a cradle Catholic from a devout family, that he wanted to become Catholic.
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“She was as dumbfounded as I was,” he said. “Before this I had a problem with saying I was one religion or another, but it was sudden. It just felt right.”
He and his wife, who was never confirmed, took RCIA together at St. Mary Church in Kodiak. With no other RCIA candidates for most of the year, he enjoyed grilling his teacher, Father Eric Wiseman, with questions during classes.
Yonk is now considering the diaconate after retirement.
Coming home
A catechumen at St. Patrick Church in Anchorage, Vanessa experienced scathing criticism of the Catholic Church as part of her religious instruction growing up a Jehovah’s Witness. Yet she always felt intrigued by Catholicism, even dreaming as a young girl of becoming a nun.
“I’ve been a Catholic at heart for years,” she said. Observing adult Jehovah’s Witnesses going door-to-door, “I remember Catholics being the people who would say ‘No, thank you; we’re Catholic.’ They were all set.”