Lower the Volume: Why OCIA Gives Conversion Room to Breathe
“Jesus turned and saw them following him and said to them, “What are you looking for?”
One of the things I have come to appreciate about becoming Catholic is something I probably would have resisted at first:
The Church slows you down.
That can seem strange in modern Christianity.
We are accustomed to the opposite.
Come tonight.
Make the decision.
Raise your hand.
Come forward.
Join the movement.
Hear this speaker.
Watch this series.
Attend this conference.
Find your purpose.
Discover what God has for you.
Sometimes there is even a countdown clock.
And none of that necessarily means God is absent. People can sincerely love Jesus in those environments. People can genuinely encounter Christ through preaching, music, Scripture, testimony, or another Christian inviting them into faith.
But when you have lived around that kind of Christianity, you can become accustomed to volume.
Everything has to move you.
Everything has to mean something immediately.
The pastor feels something placed on his heart.
The worship set builds toward something.
The conference promises something.
The next teaching explains something.
The next series will unlock something else.
Then eventually you discover Catholicism. And the Church says something surprisingly calm:
Come sit down.
Come to OCIA.
Listen.
Ask your questions.
Learn what the Church actually teaches.
Pray.
Attend Mass.
Watch.
Discern.
There is no need to manufacture the conclusion tonight.
But I Already Have Jesus
I think there can be a hesitation toward catechesis because it sounds like adding unnecessary layers.
Why do I need all this teaching?
Why can't you just give me Jesus?
There is something good underneath that instinct. Christianity is not ultimately an academic system. We are not saved by passing a theology exam. Christianity is communion with the living Jesus Christ.
But that creates another question:
Who is Jesus?
What did He establish?
What did He command?
What is Baptism?
What did He mean by eating His flesh and drinking His blood?
What is the Church?
What is grace?
What happens when I sin after Baptism?
What did Christ give the Apostles authority to do?
What does Christianity require of my body, marriage, money, suffering, sexuality, enemies, family, work, and death?
Very quickly, “just give me Jesus” produces questions. And those questions are not distractions from Jesus.
They exist because of Jesus.
The Catholic answer is not to grab whatever explanation happens to be loudest this week. The Church has spent two thousand years receiving, defending, clarifying, praying, and living what was handed down from Christ and the Apostles.
So she can say:
Come hear what has been received.
That is very different from someone constantly having to invent the next religious experience for you.
OCIA Is More Than a Class
I recently encountered a description of adults entering the Church that emphasized discernment, and something about that word settled me. Because that is what the process gives you permission to do. The Church does not officially imagine Christian initiation as merely completing a stack of lessons.
There is an initial period of evangelization and inquiry.
There is the catechumenate.
There are rites marking real stages of the journey.
There is purification and preparation.
There are the Sacraments of Initiation.
And then there is mystagogy—the continued unfolding of what has been received. Even the length is not simply mechanical.
The United States bishops explain that the catechumenate may last for a shorter or much longer period depending on the person's growth in faith, the questions encountered, and how God is leading that individual. That tells us something important about how the Church understands conversion:
Conversion is not merely obtaining the correct information.
You are discerning.
You are asking what God is saying through Scripture.
You are beginning to recognize what in your life must change.
You are learning what Baptism actually means.
And eventually the question becomes not merely:
“Does Catholicism interest me?”
but:
“Do I believe this, and am I prepared to live it?”
That is a much quieter question.
And perhaps a much more serious one.
Lower the Volume
This may be one of OCIA's greatest gifts to modern people.
It lowers the volume.
Outside that room, everything is competing for your attention.
One preacher says this. Another Christian says that.
One video says Catholics worship Mary.
Another says the Eucharist is obviously biblical.
One person claims Constantine invented Catholicism.
Another produces twenty Church Fathers.
Someone tells you the Pope changed Christianity.
Someone else gives you a three-hour response explaining exactly why he didn't.
Then come politics, algorithms, personalities, scandals, debates, conversion stories, prophecy channels, apologetics clips, spiritual influencers, and endless people telling you what Christianity really means.
It becomes loud.
And if you came from a religious environment already built around constant stimulation, the temptation is to approach Catholicism the same way.
Consume more.
Watch more.
Argue more.
Find the perfect explanation.
Solve every objection.
Feel completely certain.
Then enter.
But the Church can simply say:
Come in on Tuesday night.
Here is the Creed.
Here are the Scriptures.
Here are the Sacraments.
Here is what we believe about Christ.
Here is why.
Ask your questions.
Come to Mass Sunday.
Go home.
Come back next week.
There is something almost medicinal about that.
The heart begins to settle.
The Church Does Not Need to Chase You
That was one of the stranger realizations for me. Catholicism does not always behave as though it is terrified you might leave before the sales pitch is finished. It can present something difficult and allow you to wrestle with it.
It can tell you:
No, the Church cannot teach that.
Or:
Yes, that means something in your life may have to change.
Or even:
You may not be ready yet. Keep discerning.
That can initially feel less exciting.
But eventually you begin to recognize something important:
Truth does not need emotional manipulation to remain true.
The Eucharist is either the Body and Blood of Christ or it isn't.
Christ either instituted a Church or He didn't.
Baptism either does something or it doesn't.
The Apostles either received authority or they didn't.
Apostolic succession is either real or it isn't.
You are allowed to examine those claims.
The Church has survived people examining them for a very long time.
Discernment Is Not Suspicion
There is also an important distinction here. Discernment does not mean remaining permanently undecided. It does not mean endlessly standing outside the Church saying, “I'm still researching.” At some point discernment has to produce obedience. But genuine obedience is different from getting caught up in momentum.
The Church wants a human person to respond freely to grace. That requires enough silence to recognize what we are responding to. Sometimes what we call the Holy Spirit can actually contain a mixture of things:
fear,
excitement,
personality,
crowd energy,
our own desires,
our past wounds,
our assumptions about God,
and genuine movements of grace.
Discernment begins separating those things.
The word itself carries that sense: distinguishing so that something can be perceived more clearly. And the Catholic life gives us something enormously helpful in that process: We do not discern Christianity from scratch.
The faith has content.
There are boundaries.
There is Scripture.
There is Tradition.
There is a Magisterium.
There are Sacraments.
There are saints.
There are centuries of Christians who encountered the same questions before I showed up.
That doesn't eliminate mystery.
It gives mystery a home.
Even Mystery Has Shape
This has become important to me. Sometimes Christian discussion reaches the end of an explanation and simply says:
“God is mysterious.”
“His ways are higher.”
“We cannot understand everything.”
All true.
But Catholic Christianity even teaches us what we mean when we say mystery. Mystery is not religious language for we have no idea.
The Trinity is a mystery, yet the Church can tell me what Christians may and may not say about the Trinity.
The Incarnation is a mystery, yet we confess that Jesus Christ is truly God and truly man.
The Eucharist is mystery, yet the Church does not shrug and say that everyone's interpretation is equally good.
There is something wonderfully stabilizing about realizing that even where human comprehension reaches its limit, revelation has given us something definite to receive. The mystery remains larger than me.
But I am no longer floating.
Then What?
This may ultimately be what drew me toward the Catholic understanding of formation.
I kept encountering a question:
Then what?
You get someone through the door.
Then what?
They become excited about Jesus.
Then what?
They attend the creation conference, marriage seminar, men's breakfast, Bible series, revival, worship night, apologetics event.
Good.
Then what?
You preach Ephesians 2.
Beautiful.
Then what?
Eventually Christianity has to become more than continually generating enough material to keep Christians interested in Christianity. Eventually Christ has to form a life.
And Catholicism has an answer that is almost embarrassingly ordinary.
Be baptized.
Receive the Eucharist.
Confess your sins.
Go to Mass.
Learn to pray.
Keep the commandments.
Perform works of mercy.
Forgive your enemies.
Form your children.
Serve your neighbor.
Carry your cross.
Receive what Christ established.
Remain in Him.
Die in His friendship.
Become a saint.
There is the “then what.” Not another campaign. A life.
The Silence Is Part of the Formation
I think this is why I have come to see the apparent slowness of OCIA differently. The process itself teaches something.
You do not have to chase God.
You do not have to manufacture revelation.
You do not have to interpret every emotion immediately.
You do not have to become an expert before entering the Church.
And you do not need someone producing a new spiritual hook every seven days to keep Jesus relevant.
Sometimes formation begins when the Church helps us become quiet enough to realize:
Christ was already here.
The Scriptures were already here.
The Sacraments were already here.
The teaching was already here.
The Church was already here.
Perhaps I was the one who needed to stop moving long enough to see it. OCIA, at its best, does not place bureaucracy between a person and Jesus. It protects the encounter from becoming merely another emotional event.
It gives the seed somewhere to take root.
It lets questions mature.
It lets excitement become conviction.
It lets conviction become obedience.
It lets an interested person slowly learn the posture of a disciple.
And in a religious world that can become incredibly loud, perhaps one of the Church's most merciful invitations is also one of her simplest:
Lower the volume.
Come and see.
Listen.
Discern.
And when you recognize Him,
follow.