John McPherson

My mother always says that I “go to the school of hard knocks.” She’s right. Every blessing in my life came to me through great struggle. Every good thing I ever did (I did not really do anything good, but instead allowed Jesus Christ to use me—His weak instrument—for His Plan) only happened because I first floundered for lack of virtue. This is true for my faith.

Before becoming a Catholic, I passed through numerous stages of Christianity. During my teenage years, I was very much distracted by the sins of the world. I was largely indifferent to Christianity, only attending church on Sunday because my family made me and only attending student worship on Wednesdays to hit on girls. In 2016, I started attending Hillsdale College. I fervently believe that my previous indifference to faith opened my soul to demonic influences, because I truly lost myself during this school year. I drank heavily, ate too much, and partook in an improper relationship with my then-girlfriend. I interpreted my own beliefs into God’s word, only attended a Baptist church when I was dragged along (which was once or twice), and academically lagged behind the rest of my peers. I ravaged my flesh, contorted my soul, destroyed my reputation, and questioned everything. I did not recognize God, and actively tried to forget Him or rewrite Him into something I wanted. At the end of freshman year, I was overweight and apathetic about my future. The summer before sophomore year loomed. Frustrated with myself, I resolved to change some things. I shunned alcohol during the work week. I created a structured diet and workout plan and closely adhered to it. I also made the biggest gamble of my life to that point: I enrolled in the Marine Officer Program called Platoon Leaders Class (PLC), dedicating myself to becoming an officer of Marines. I did not do this alone. My friend and fraternity brother, Weston Boardman, was by my side the whole time. Weston was a fellow hopeful Marine and was the shining example in my eyes of physical, academic, and moral excellence. I knew he was a devout Catholic, but I did not care. As far as I knew then, Catholicism was good for some but not for others. I did not care except that I knew I needed something that Weston could provide, and I stuck myself in his hip pocket. At this time, my then-girlfriend decided to transfer to another college about three hours away from Hillsdale. Once the new school year began, my susceptible soul once again partook in sins of constant, heavy drinking. However, I expected I could balance such a lifestyle now. After all, I had successfully gotten my weight down by a great deal and earned Dean’s List level grades in the new fall semester. Now, I thought, I was good to go. I was utterly wrong. My now long-distance relationship came to a bitter end when I drunkenly cheated on my then-girlfriend. If freshman year was hell, this must be its lowest ring, I thought. I had lost 50 pounds and could run forever, but now I pushed away the girl I thought I loved and betrayed the trust of each and every single person who knew the both of us. One man stuck beside me: Weston Boardman. In spite of the sickness of my soul, this man loved me with a great sternness, intensity, determination, and gentleness. Determined to help me, he worked out with me twice a day. He invited me to begin praying St Francis of Assisi’s Peace Prayer, and the prayer to St Michael the Archangel. At the same time, he began to challenge my faith. Backed against a wall with nothing to lean on except for one dear friend, I put the brim of my hat down low and got to work on my soul. In an attempt to find answers for my life in the aftermath of my very public sins, I began to go to church on a semi-regular basis and started to attend a couple bible studies each week. I knew that I believed in Jesus and that He forgives sins, but I did not know what that meant at all. Weston picked on this chink in my armor so as to expose its weakness. At first, it did not seem that way. It seemed like Weston was belittling me. But I realized that in actuality I was belittling myself and allowing my current lifestyle to belittle me. Aware that I knew next to nothing about Christianity and Church History, I sought a closer relationship with Christ through my relationship with Weston and receded from seeking the approval of others. Again, however, this was not without challenges. The sins of the flesh maintained a stranglehold on my soul as I continued every now and then to drink to excess and willfully engage in sin.

The sins of my past haunted me, but nothing loomed over me like my failed relationships. This continued to loom over me during the fall semester of my junior year. I had mastered my physical and academic fitness. I could write with the best and run with the quickest. However, my desires were still disoriented. My soul was still plunged in chaos. My habits were still sinful and self-hating. Living in a self-fulfilling prophecy of failed relationships, one after the other failed. I was trying to place my joy and happiness into a human person and suffered greatly for it. The fall semester of junior year came and went with fewer sinful encounters, yet they were becoming more dangerous. Weston and I, thankfully, continued to press one another with impassioned debates on Christianity. He also gained new allies in the fight for my conversion. Our two best friends, Patrick Farrell and Dan McAlary—both Catholics—started to turn up the pressure during our theological debates. They began to ask me questions such as, “Where does the bible come from? Why are there so many protestant denominations? What does protestant actually mean? How do you know who is right and who is wrong when all of these denominations and sects keep saying different things?” I questioned the Saints and the veneration of the Virgin Mary. He questioned the concepts of Sola Fide and Sola Scriptura. We always pushed each other for better answers and better faith. However, they always came out on top of every religious debate. The Church always had something ironclad thanks to its authority. Even I could admit that. The spring of 2019 came and rocked my life greater than it had ever been before. My sinful habits peaked to a climax. Sparing sensitive details, I was in deep trouble. All my newfound blessings and dreams could have been lost and my soul would have been shattered. Once again reduced to nearly nothing, I finally resigned myself to one thing: Praying the Rosary. I had prayed it with Weston maybe once or twice before. I did not fully understand what it meant to say the Ave Maria or Salve Regina. I only knew that I needed help and I did not know anything else to do except to pray the Rosary, because I felt Our Lord commanded me to do it. I prayed it each morning and evening from the beginning to the end of May 2019. I would clutch the beads close to my lips, nearly kissing each and every single one as I huddled over by my bedside or curled up in my bed, unceasingly asking the intercession of Our Blessed Mother for my wretched soul, my dismal situation, my entire being in jeopardy. Seeing me clearly broken, Weston comforted me and prayed with me. We prayed for peace, a new life of stability, and preparedness for the future troubles ahead. “You know, I’m not asking, convincing, or pressuring you to convert to the Church,” Weston assured me, “but you should attend Rites of Catholic Initiation for Adults (RCIA) starting next fall, just to make sure.” I stayed quiet a while. Still stunned by my situation, I promised that I would at least consider it. We just prayed for stability. I needed stability. I knew stability came from authority. I needed authority. The Church had just that.

“Don’t make the perfect the enemy of the good” Weston often repeated to me. It was a quote that many were coming to use on me before I went to Officer Candidates School for the Marine Corps in the summer of 2019. I first heard that line from Patrick. It’s a good line. In an effort to rest my soul on the Eternal Rock of Christ, I continued to attempt to poke holes in Catholic doctrine and in the actions of wolves in sheep’s clothing within the Church. That’s when Patrick or Weston would warn me to stop making the perfect the enemy of the good. “Is the Church a perfect thing full of perfect people? No,” they would say. “But no institution run by humans is.” It’s the ultimate surrender, they insisted, to submit to the authority of the Pope. Why? Well, we submit because the Church is not a democracy or a republic. It is a kingdom whose King is Christ, and whose prime minister is the Pope. When we Americans don’t like the current president or think he committed wrongdoing, we don’t expatriate and leave our citizenship. In like manner, Catholics do not leave Jesus because of Judas, and because of bad clergy we cannot ostensibly condemn our whole institution, which Christ Himself instituted. Wars were fought over this. A simple read into Church History confirms that sinful clergy come and go. But this is no reason to condemn the very institution Christ created before He ascended into Heaven. We submit to the truth of the authority and hierarchy He created. He warned of the would-be false ones, the wolves, and the antichrists. Leaving the Good because we think we can create the perfect is heresy, full stop. Realizing this truth, I left home for Officer Candidates School where I would suffer great trials of my faith and will to act according to God’s will.

I finally came home during my senior year at Hillsdale.

“I was not yet in love, but I was in love with love itself; and I sought for something to love, since I loved nothing,” St. Augustine writes in his Confessions. This was and is true for me. By the end of Summer 2019, OCS was over. I had earned the title of U.S. Marine. Upon graduation from Hillsdale College, I would become a 2nd Lieutenant in the Marine Corps. I did not drink alcohol but once or twice during the fall semester. I had enrolled in RCIA. At our first meeting, I made the final and fateful decision to pledge to convert to Catholicism. My prayers for the intercession of Mary had saved my life from danger the previous semester. I began to feverishly read the Church Fathers. I took a class on the Reformation during the fall semester which confirmed my growing doubts about the birth of Protestantism. I finally learned what it meant to be a protestant; being protestant meant rejecting the original teachings and institutions of Christ, because man in his ignorance thought he knew better. It meant to protest against what was one, holy, catholic, and apostolic. It was a sin and a heresy like Adam and Eve’s. It was pompous, repugnant, and downright evil. I love my protestant family and my protestant brothers and sisters. But I was done protesting. I was done rebelling because of my own restless heart. Finally, I was ready to lay my sins at the foot of the Cross and resolve anew with the help of God’s grace to amend my life. I attended AA meetings, though I did not and still do not consider myself an alcoholic. The fall of senior year came and went without incident. Yet, I still grappled with internal loneliness and a new fear of a vocational call to the priesthood. I relapsed for a brief moment in an old sin. Though it harmed my soul, it was a final crossroads I had to cross amidst my school-year long time frame of preparation for official confirmation in the Church. January passed, then February, and then March. My soul drew nearer and nearer to the Church. COVID-19 restrictions hit, and Hillsdale sent everyone home. I could not attend Mass, but I found a parish near my home that heard confessions (a sacrament to which I was allowed access starting in February) and I began to go on a weekly basis. April passed, and then it was May. I coordinated with Our Lady of Walsingham in Houston, Texas to confirm in the Church at Pentecost on 30 May 2020. Weston, of course, was my sponsor and flew in to come celebrate and participate in my confirmation. During this time frame, two saints approached me from the great beyond—St Francis and St Augustine. Starting in the previous fall, I wore St Francis’ medal around my neck, because his peace prayer paid dividends in my life. I began to ask for his intercession and seek his spiritual friendship. But St Augustine became the more pronounced spiritual friend of mine, for our paths were so very similar. We had kindred souls and temptations, through which I could see he was guiding me when looking back. From the start of my time at Hillsdale until now, I could see he was by my side, interceding for me at the feet of Christ the King and Our Blessed Mother in Heaven. Whenever I prayed the Rosary, I felt his presence. I even had dreams in which he appeared, and I could see he was protecting me from demonic attacks. Finally, I could see everything I wished I could see in the past—the spiritual battle was unfolding before my very eyes. I felt stable, protected, and loved. Everything I knew about Jesus was becoming more and more clear to me via the protection from His Holy Mother and the Saints. When Bishop Lopes of Our Lady of Walsingham sealed me with the gifts of the Holy Spirit and called me “Augustine,” I knew I was finally home. Since then, I have never looked back, and I have embraced a faith through which I now see the world for what it is.