# Relationship VS. Religion | Why I Came Home to the Catholic Church | Part One

An episode of [AfterMass](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1823710125), 14 Oct 2025, 25 min.

Audio: https://anchor.fm/s/1069762b8/podcast/play/109635941/https%3A%2F%2Fd3ctxlq1ktw2nl.cloudfront.net%2Fstaging%2F2025-9-14%2F409216217-44100-2-b2afeee5a9cc7.mp3

In the first episode of my 7 part series, I'm sharing my personal journey back to the Catholic Church and the seven truths that changed everything. From misconceptions about “religion vs. relationship,” to discovering the authority of the Church, the power of the Eucharist and the beauty of Tradition - this episode dives deep into what it really means to come home to the faith. If you’ve ever felt distant from the Church, struggled to make sense of Catholic teaching, or wondered what makes Catholicism different, this episode will give you the clarity, history and heart you’ve been searching for. If this episode speaks to you, please like, share and subscribe so you don’t miss future episodes of AfterMass. 💌 Contact me: theaftermasspodcast@gmail.com ⚡ Powered by Truthly 👉 Download the app: bit.ly/anaXtruthly (get a free 30 day trial with code AFTERMASS) #Catholic #CatholicPodcast #AfterMass #CatholicFaith #CatholicChurch #ConversionStory #TruthlyAI #AnaMunley #WhyICameHome

## Transcript

[0:00] Hi friends and welcome back after a 2 week hiatus to
[0:03] aftermath, the podcast for people who want more than just
[0:06] faith on Sundays. I am your host Anna, and this is
[0:10] episode 1 of A7 part series that I'm doing that's going to lead
[0:12] us right into Advent and this series I'm calling Why I came
[0:15] home 7 Truths I found in the Catholic Church.
[0:23] So for a long time I was ignorant to the fact that this
[0:28] was not true, But I thought Christianity was more of like a
[0:32] pick your own path kind of thing.
[0:33] You know, every denomination, every church and every pastor
[0:36] seemed to say, well, we have the truth here and this is how you
[0:40] do it. And for a while, I believed it
[0:41] didn't really matter where I went.
[0:43] And coincidentally, that was also the time that I was a
[0:45] lukewarm Christian. I grew up Catholic, born and
[0:48] raised in the church. I went to Catholic school my
[0:51] whole entire life. And then life started lifing.
[0:54] Some of my friends love Jesus as I did, and I figured that that
[0:58] was just kind of enough. And when I was not practicing
[1:02] Catholicism, I still felt like I was a pretty good Christian as
[1:06] long as I love Jesus. And again, I was a good person,
[1:10] which I've already covered in a previous episode, but that
[1:13] obviously is not enough. But deep down, I knew I felt
[1:17] something was off, like I felt something was missing.
[1:21] I couldn't really explain it then, but I felt hollow,
[1:25] spiritually dry or disconnected. But I kept blaming it on my
[1:28] circumstances. You know, I told myself it was
[1:31] stress or school or relationship or I'm in my 20, whatever.
[1:35] It was, whatever I was going through.
[1:36] But really obviously now I can look back and say, well, it was
[1:40] something deeper and something truly was missing.
[1:43] When I came back to the church, which I also have previously
[1:46] talked about, it wasn't very dramatic.
[1:49] It was kind of a slow and steady, a quiet tug that grew
[1:53] louder over time. There was a moment when I looked
[1:57] at myself and I thought, OK, I'm not being a good Catholic.
[2:00] And that's part of what I consider like the moment that I
[2:03] realized I was not being a Catholic at all, much less a
[2:07] good Catholic. But even then, I didn't think
[2:09] that there was much difference between being an on fire
[2:12] Catholic and an on fire Christian, if that makes sense.
[2:16] In my mind, we were just kind of all the same, just different
[2:19] flavors, you know, different ways of doing things.
[2:22] So I told myself, I'm a Christian, I'm a Catholic.
[2:25] I didn't really see much of a difference.
[2:27] And I go to a Catholic Church just because that's what I know,
[2:30] you know, it's all kind of one thing.
[2:32] I thought if truth is truth, then it's the same everywhere.
[2:35] And then I remember one night I was scrolling maybe Instagram or
[2:38] TikTok, I can't remember. But it was just some general
[2:40] Christian content online. And I came across two people
[2:43] doing a live stream and they were arguing about Scripture.
[2:46] Both were confident, both were passionate, both were quoting,
[2:50] you know, the same verses. But their conclusions not have
[2:53] been any more opposite. And I actually do think that one
[2:55] of them was a Catholic and the other person was a Protestant,
[2:58] but I can't say that with 100% conviction because I don't
[3:02] really remember. But one guy said baptism does
[3:04] save you, the other said it didn't.
[3:07] One said communion symbolic, the other one said it was sacred.
[3:10] It was just like back and forth over the same topic, right?
[3:14] So I sat there thinking, how can we all read the same Bible
[3:19] Because it's the same Bible and come away saying completely
[3:22] different things and not understand things the same way.
[3:26] So I remember I did panic a little bit and I was like, what
[3:30] are we all doing? What what am I doing?
[3:33] You know, I knew Jesus never said he never wrote this book
[3:37] and called it the Bible. I knew that he said follow me,
[3:41] so how are we supposed to know that we're actually following
[3:43] him? Jesus didn't hand out Bibles,
[3:46] but he built a church. So that realization sparked what
[3:49] I call my casual but intense research phase.
[3:53] It opens the door to everything else.
[3:55] When I went looking for the church that Jesus actually
[3:58] started, I, I did find it. I was able to find it.
[4:01] It was still standing. It was still teaching, still
[4:05] worshipping, still holding the same Eucharist that the apostles
[4:08] received 2000 years ago. And that discovery really
[4:11] changed my perception of my own personal faith and my conviction
[4:15] for spreading that faith. So today I'm going to tell you a
[4:18] little bit about how I came to the understanding that the
[4:20] Catholic Church isn't just a church.
[4:22] It's the church. Not because of culture or
[4:25] comfort or tradition or just the way that I was raised inside the
[4:28] Catholic Church, but because of history, scripture, and the
[4:32] words of Christ himself. So let's talk about the Church
[4:34] that Jesus actually started. So when I finally slowed down
[4:38] and started reading scripture with new eyes, which honestly
[4:41] was the first time I had really read scripture, I noticed that I
[4:45] had never really paid attention to it before.
[4:47] And if you grew up Catholic like me, you might be able to relate
[4:51] that there weren't a lot of Bible studies growing up.
[4:53] It wasn't cool to read the Bible.
[4:55] I don't know if my family had a Bible.
[4:57] I'm sure my parents did, but I don't remember seeing it.
[5:01] And you know, there was not a lot of Bible study.
[5:04] But when I started reading this stood out to me that Jesus never
[5:08] wrote a single word of Scripture.
[5:10] He never told his disciples to start a Bible study.
[5:14] He didn't tell them, write this down.
[5:16] He did not gather them around a scroll and say here, this is
[5:19] your final authority. He built a church.
[5:22] And as a Catholic now who's very into my faith, obviously I've
[5:27] said 100 times, Jesus built the Catholic Church, Jesus built a
[5:31] church. Jesus built the church.
[5:34] But when you really think about what his intention was, it kind
[5:39] of all clicks for you. And that was a kind of like a
[5:42] wild realization to me. You know, as a Catholic who grew
[5:45] up inside modern Christian culture, I heard again and
[5:48] again, the Bible is all you need, the Bible and a personal
[5:53] relationship with Jesus. Scripture is sacred, breathed by
[5:56] God, living and true, but it was never meant to exist apart from
[6:00] the authority of the church that preserved and protected it.
[6:04] So looking at the Gospels through that lens, I realized
[6:08] that everything Jesus said about his mission pointed to something
[6:12] that was visible and living, something that would carry his
[6:16] authority after he ascended in Matthew 16, which we quote
[6:20] often. But Jesus says to Peter, You are
[6:22] Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates
[6:26] of hell shall not prevail against him.
[6:28] I will give you the keys of the Kingdom.
[6:30] Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever
[6:33] you lose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.
[6:37] I think that's how you say, right, Lose, yes.
[6:40] But anyways, all of that kind of hit you.
[6:42] He didn't say on this book, I will build my church, He said on
[6:46] this rock. So on a person.
[6:49] Jesus gave Peter real authority. He gave the apostles the power
[6:53] to forgive sins. He gave them the mission to
[6:56] teach, to baptize and to make disciples of all, all nations.
[7:00] He established a structure, a living body that would outlast
[7:05] them. And so when you take those words
[7:07] and you really try and understand them, this is the
[7:10] only thing that makes sense. If the Bible alone were the
[7:15] ultimate authority, who decided which books belonged in it?
[7:19] It was hundreds of years later that the Canon of Scripture was
[7:22] officially recognized by the Catholic Church, and that is the
[7:25] Bible Christians used today. And even before that Canon
[7:29] existed, Christians already had authority, doctrine, sacraments.
[7:34] They were celebrating the Eucharist, baptizing, ordaining
[7:37] and forgiving sins, all before the Bible was compiled.
[7:41] So the Church did not come from the Bible, the Bible came from
[7:46] the church. And that realization, to me,
[7:50] it's like if I trusted the church enough to give me the
[7:52] Bible, then I had to trust the Church and her authority and
[7:57] everything else. When Jesus promised that the
[8:00] gates of hell would not prevail against his church, he wasn't
[8:03] being poetic. He was making a promise that his
[8:06] truth would remain protected through that church, not
[8:10] scattered among opinions or private interpretations.
[8:13] God did not leave us a rule book and then just walk away.
[8:17] He left us a family, a spiritual home with real leadership and
[8:22] sacraments and continuity that traces all the way back to the
[8:25] apostles. And for the first time I saw
[8:28] that the church is not this man made building, it's a God
[8:33] planted divine architecture. And if that is true, which it is
[8:40] spoiler, then every other question that I had about Mary,
[8:44] the Eucharist, the Saints, it had to flow from the same
[8:48] authority. The church was not a branch of
[8:51] Christianity, it was the tree itself.
[8:53] Once I realized that, and once I it really connected that Jesus
[8:57] founded a church and not a book club, I wanted to know what the
[9:01] early church actually looked like.
[9:03] If what we have today is real, there should be a trail,
[9:07] something visible, something historical.
[9:09] So I went digging and I started reading the writings of early
[9:12] Christians, men and women who lived just decades after the
[9:16] apostles. And what I found, it did not
[9:19] sound like a modern, individualistic, me and my Bible
[9:22] type of faith. It sounded unmistakably
[9:25] Catholic. They talked about bishops and
[9:28] priests and deacons. They wrote about the Eucharist
[9:31] as the true body and blood of Christ.
[9:33] They defended unity and authority when false teachings
[9:37] appeared. And one of the earliest voices
[9:39] was Saint Ignatius of Antioch and his writing around the year
[9:43] one O 7. He said that wherever the Bishop
[9:46] appears, there let the people be, as wherever Jesus Christ is,
[9:50] there is the Catholic Church. And that line really hit me and
[9:54] I obviously still remember it to this day, because the word
[9:56] Catholic was already in use in the first generation to describe
[10:00] the universal united body of believers under Apostolic
[10:03] authority. Ignatius did not sound like he
[10:06] was inventing something new. He was more so describing the
[10:10] Church as it had already existed, as he was living in it.
[10:14] And then I read St. Irenaeus of Lions around 180.
[10:19] He talked about the succession of bishops from the apostles as
[10:23] the guarantee of true teaching. So if you ever doubt what is
[10:28] true, you can trace the line to Peter in Rome.
[10:31] And so those dots were connected.
[10:34] The early Church was not a scattered collection of house
[10:38] churches inventing their own theology.
[10:40] It was one body with structure and hierarchy and unity, and it
[10:45] was centered on the Eucharist. And it was led by those that the
[10:49] apostles appointed. Even the Council of Jerusalem in
[10:53] the Acts of the Apostles shows the Church acting with
[10:57] authority. When disagreements arose between
[11:00] or about the Gentile converts, the apostles didn't go and form
[11:04] separate groups. They gathered and discerned, and
[11:08] they decided together, and their decision was binding.
[11:11] That is hierarchy. That is unity and that is
[11:16] Catholic. There was no confusion in the
[11:18] 1st century about what church meant.
[11:21] There were not hundreds of denominations.
[11:23] There was one church, 1 faith, 1 baptism.
[11:26] And over time people have broken away, but the original has
[11:30] remained. You know, the original unbroken
[11:32] church that's still teaching the same doctrines, still
[11:36] celebrating the same sacraments, and still tracing their
[11:39] leadership back to the apostles, and that's the Catholic Church.
[11:43] When I kind of uncovered all this, my heart sank and soared
[11:47] at the same time. It sank because you can really
[11:50] see how fractured Christianity has become.
[11:53] But it soared seeing that the Church Jesus founded never
[11:56] disappeared. She is still here.
[11:58] And I'm lucky enough to be a part of it.
[12:00] And so suddenly the words of the creed that I had said my whole
[12:03] life, one holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church finally meant
[12:08] something. The light bulb went off, the
[12:11] lights turned on. The moment clicked.
[12:13] You know, so it was very special kind of new found love and
[12:18] respect and proudness, pride. I was just so joy.
[12:25] Let's go with joy. I was so joyful that I was a
[12:29] part of something. I just never truly appreciated
[12:32] it for what it was. And then come the questions of,
[12:36] well, why does this matter? Like why does it matter if there
[12:40] is one church or 100 churches? Why can we not all just love
[12:46] Jesus in our own way? You know, I had friends and
[12:48] people online who were clearly on fire, Christians, better
[12:52] Christians than I had been. And they were such good people.
[12:55] And for most of my life, I thought, as long as we believe
[12:58] in Christ, you know, the rest is preference.
[13:00] I, I really had this idea of like, there's two types of
[13:03] people in the world, the people who believe in the people who
[13:05] don't. And yes, that's true, but that's
[13:08] not all of it. It's not just preference.
[13:11] And that sentiment of well, the rest is just kind of preference.
[13:15] It's up to the each individual person.
[13:17] Like at that time, that sentiment really suited me
[13:19] because it was kind of easy and convenient.
[13:22] Not that life was easy and convenient, but my faith was and
[13:25] that I was a Christian point blank, you know?
[13:28] But when you really internalize it and think about it, that
[13:31] mindset turns truth into something that's optional and
[13:34] personal and even customizable. And the truth cannot be
[13:38] customized. St.
[13:40] Augustine puts it very well. And he says that if you believe
[13:42] what you like in the gospel and reject what you don't like, it
[13:46] is not the gospel you believe, but yourself.
[13:48] So if Jesus said I am the way, the truth, and the life, then
[13:52] his church cannot be divided. Yet here we have thousands of
[13:55] denominations all reading the same Bible and all claiming the
[13:59] same Holy Spirit and teaching opposite things about very
[14:03] essential doctrines. None of that is unity, and it
[14:07] it's just confusions. And Scripture says that God is
[14:10] not the author of confusion. Some people may also argue that
[14:14] these differences are small. You know, denominations agree on
[14:18] the essentials, but then you realize that no one agrees on
[14:22] what those essentials are. Baptism, the Eucharist,
[14:26] marriage, salvation, grace, every group defines those things
[14:30] differently. So that's where I think kind of
[14:32] the danger can creep in. When everyone becomes their own
[14:36] final authority, then we replace the church with ourselves and
[14:41] our own authority. It goes from being looked at as
[14:44] the church having authority to me, Anna having authority.
[14:48] And that's definitely not what Jesus left us.
[14:52] So I have been that person who said I don't need a church to
[14:57] tell me what to believe. I can read scripture for myself
[15:00] and personal prayer and reading scripture, those things are
[15:03] vital. But the Bible is never meant to
[15:07] be interpreted in isolation. Saint Peter writes that no
[15:10] prophecy of scripture is of private interpretation.
[15:14] We were never meant to decide truth on our own.
[15:17] And history also backs us up. For the 1st 1500 years after
[15:21] Christ there was 1 unified church.
[15:23] It wasn't perfect, but it was one in faith, worship and
[15:27] authority. And then came division after
[15:29] division, each new group forming because someone interpreted 1
[15:34] portion of scripture differently and broke off and did their own
[15:37] thing. So then when you step back and
[15:39] you see the pattern, disunity does not come from the Holy
[15:44] Spirit, it comes from human pride.
[15:46] The Church. It's not about control.
[15:49] We hear that often as Catholics. It's not about control, it's
[15:52] about communion. The Church protects the truth
[15:55] from distortion. It keeps Christianity from
[15:58] becoming personal opinion instead of divine revelation.
[16:02] And once all of that clicks, submitting to the Church should
[16:05] not feel restrictive. It should feel freeing.
[16:09] And I felt that kind of freedom, you know, for the first time, I
[16:11] didn't have to carry the weight of figuring out truth by myself.
[16:15] There's a magisterium, a teaching authority that has
[16:18] stood the test of time, that's guided by the Holy Spirit as
[16:22] Christ promised. So why?
[16:25] Why does all of that matter? Because truth matters, unity
[16:30] matters. Because Jesus did not die for us
[16:33] to have 1000 versions of Christianity.
[16:36] He died to make US1 body, one bride, one church.
[16:40] When you finally accept that the Catholic Church is the church
[16:43] that Jesus started, it doesn't just change what you believe, it
[16:47] changes how you live. Before you get to that point,
[16:51] faith is almost like a spiritual guessing game.
[16:53] And this is not to talk badly about anyone who's not a
[16:56] Catholic. And I'm not saying that you
[16:58] cannot have strong faith at all. I know there's so many God
[17:02] fearing, good hearted, very genuine Christians with amazing
[17:07] hearts out there who maybe they more than me, maybe they read
[17:12] the Bible more than me. I'm not saying any of that.
[17:14] But when you step into Catholicism with an open heart,
[17:17] no preconceived notions, no hate in your heart for it, nothing,
[17:21] you can really look back hindsight's 2020 and see that
[17:26] other denominations can really kind of feel like a spiritual
[17:28] guessing game. You love God, you pray, you go
[17:31] to your sermons, you feel good. And then maybe you still feel a
[17:36] low grade restlessness, like you're chasing a God that maybe
[17:39] you can't quite catch. When I came home, if you will,
[17:44] through the Catholic Church, I came back spiritually, mentally,
[17:47] emotionally, fully and intentionally without 1 foot in
[17:52] the Whatever Feels right world. And when I went to Mass with
[17:57] that conviction and truth, that restlessness that I had felt
[18:02] about whatever, it didn't just disappear overnight, but it
[18:05] began to fade. And I realized that Catholicism
[18:08] is not only true in the intellectual sense, but it's
[18:12] true in the way that truth heals and brings the soul into order.
[18:17] For the first time, my faith truly had depth.
[18:21] It was not built on how I felt during the Mass, or whether a
[18:25] homily inspired me, or whether I was feeling good.
[18:29] It was anchored to something that was ancient and consistent
[18:33] and unshakable, to something that did not hinder on me being
[18:37] there. You know, like it.
[18:39] The church, the faith, it doesn't need our defense.
[18:44] It doesn't need our cooperation. But that's what God wants.
[18:48] That's what we need. Church doesn't need it, but we
[18:51] do. So when you walk into Mass with
[18:53] this new awareness, at least for me, you can feel it.
[18:58] It wasn't just like a ritual anymore.
[19:01] It was heaven meeting earth, every prayer and gesture and
[19:05] every reading. It was a part of a rhythm older
[19:08] than I could comprehend, with the same prayers that were said
[19:12] by Saints and martyrs and Mystics for centuries.
[19:15] And being a part of that makes you feel home and feel safe.
[19:20] And the Eucharist, the very thing that I used to treat, I
[19:23] used to treat it as symbolic. I knew it wasn't, but that's how
[19:26] I treated it. It became the center of my world
[19:30] once I actually acknowledged the a Real Presence.
[19:34] I had always known the Catholics believed in the Real Presence,
[19:39] but I had not made it personal. When when I believed and was
[19:42] aware of who was before me, everything about the Eucharist
[19:47] changed. When I knelt and I hear the
[19:50] priest say this is my body, I knew those were not just words.
[19:54] It was Jesus, truly present body, blood, soul and divinity.
[19:59] And the first time I prayed the rosary, which was only about
[20:03] five years ago, I didn't know what to expect.
[20:06] I thought it might feel kind of repetitive and boring, and it
[20:12] was not. It felt very grounding and
[20:14] peaceful and each bead became like a little breath, almost
[20:19] like a way to slow down and walk through the life of Christ with
[20:23] his mother. To actually meditate on it
[20:26] instead of just think. That makes sense.
[20:30] The first time I went to confession after being away for
[20:32] so long, it was not guilt management, it was truly mercy
[20:38] in motion. I remember leaving the
[20:40] confessional and realizing that I wasn't carrying the same
[20:44] weight that I was anymore. Like it was all gone.
[20:47] I could finally breathe without knowing that I wasn't able to
[20:52] before. You know, it's like my husband
[20:55] not realizing that he snore so loud because he needs the like
[20:58] snore strips. And then once he puts them on,
[21:01] he's like, oh, wow, I didn't, I didn't even know.
[21:05] OK, well, now you do. That's how I felt getting that
[21:08] weight off of me. Even suffering starts to kind of
[21:11] look different. It wasn't meaningless.
[21:13] And not to say I invite suffering in, like, I mean, I'm
[21:17] not, I'm not trying to live a whole life of suffering or
[21:19] anything, but you know, we all go through something.
[21:22] So to me, suffering turned into something I could OfferUp and
[21:26] something that was redemptive. So then you also stop floating
[21:28] from spiritual high to spiritual high and you kind of start
[21:31] planting roots, you start growing roots.
[21:35] So that is when I really realized what being home felt
[21:39] like. Not because it's easy, not
[21:41] because the church is perfect. But honestly, I know it sounds
[21:45] cliche, but it's because the Church is real.
[21:47] It's the same Church that Christ built, the same truth that has
[21:51] weathered centuries, the same grace that keeps rebuilding
[21:56] souls like mine. So Catholicism didn't just
[22:00] answer my questions. And honestly, there were
[22:03] questions that I didn't even know I had, but it answered my
[22:06] hunger. And once I tasted that, I
[22:09] couldn't not go back. When I look back now on
[22:13] everything that led me here, the wandering, the questions, the
[22:17] doubts, I can see that it's it was not wasted.
[22:20] Every step, even the confused ones, really kind of led me
[22:23] closer to the truth when I wasn't even set out or seeking
[22:27] the truth. But everything kind of led me
[22:29] there. And maybe that's where you are
[22:31] right now. Maybe you love Jesus.
[22:33] Maybe you're doing your best. You're trying to make sense of
[22:36] why Christianity feels so divided.
[22:38] Maybe you've wondered if the church even matters anymore, or
[22:42] if organized religion is just human corruption.
[22:45] And to those of you who feel that way, I will say this.
[22:50] This is what I've learned. Jesus came to build a
[22:53] relationship, and he built his church as the place where that
[22:57] relationship can grow, be nourished, and be protected.
[23:01] That church that he built still exists.
[23:05] It is not an invisible idea or a metaphor for all believers.
[23:10] It is visible, it's historical and Sacramento, and it is alive.
[23:15] You do not have to chase feelings or live off spiritual
[23:19] scraps. You can come home to the church
[23:22] that Jesus started, the same church that has carried the
[23:25] truth and the sacraments and the presence of God for more than
[23:28] 2000 years. So if you have ever felt that
[23:32] tug, that restlessness, or maybe a little quiet voice saying
[23:37] there is more, then I hope you use this as your invitation to
[23:41] look a little bit deeper because there is more.
[23:44] There always has been. So all of that to say, I feel
[23:48] like that was just like a 20 minute run on sentence.
[23:53] Well, all that to say, that was, you know, my Part 1 of A7, part
[23:57] series of why I came home, 7 reasons I found truth in the
[24:01] Catholic Church. And I want to thank you for
[24:03] spending this time with me. If this episode stirred
[24:06] something in you, if it raised some questions or challenged you
[24:10] or maybe even encouraged you, I would love to hear your
[24:13] thoughts. The good, the bad, the ugly.
[24:15] So you can send them in or comment, but you can send them
[24:19] into my e-mail at the aftermathpodcast@gmail.com.
[24:23] And yeah, I will post. Episode 2 of the series will be
[24:27] out next Tuesday at 7:00 AM. But until then, I am your host,
[24:31] Anna, and I will see you aftermath.

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