She Left Luther for Mary
Jennifer Ferrara was a Lutheran pastor.
Now she's a Catholic lay woman.
She converted from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in 1998.
She co-authored The Catholic Mystique (Our Sunday Visitor), a collection of stories by 14 women who defy the popular notion that the Catholic Church is no place for bright, articulate women. Ferrara spoke with Register correspondent Judy Roberts.
I grew up a Missouri Synod Lutheran on a seminary campus and I loved it. I would say I was steeped in the traditions and theology of Lutheranism.
The Missouri Synod has always emphasized preaching, and I enjoyed listening to excellent sermons. The music is something I still miss: the really great hymns and the way Lutherans would sing them with such enthusiasm.
I attended the funeral of my 97-year-old Lutheran grandmother last summer, and there were not many people in the church, but those people sang louder and with more gusto than I hear in most Catholic parishes with hundreds of people. They made that “joyful noise unto the Lord.”
But on the downside, I lived through the breakup of Concordia Seminary.
My father taught there when the majority of the faculty was expelled, and he was one of them. At dispute was the nature of the authority of Scripture. It certainly made me aware of an endemic problem with Protestantism, which is the constant schism, as one group after another think they have the truth. Later I would realize we need a magisterium to interpret Scripture and Tradition.
How did you happen to become a pastor?
I was a fourth-generation Lutheran pastor. For that reason, it was not really an unusual choice for me.
In college, I majored in history, but after taking several courses in religion, I realized my true area of interest lay in theology and church history. From there, I went to Princeton Theological Seminary. I met other like-minded folk who cared deeply about religion and a few truly extraordinary and holy people. I enjoyed all my courses and my field education in a Lutheran parish.
By the end of my first year, I was sure I had found my profession — I wanted to be a parish pastor.
What caused you to question being Lutheran?
The very first time I questioned my standing as a Lutheran is when Father Richard John Neuhaus — at the time “Pastor Neuhaus” — left the Lutheran Church to become Roman Catholic.
That was an earth-shattering event for many of us in the Lutheran Church because he was the de facto leader of the “evangelical catholics.” Those are Lutherans who view Lutheranism as a reform movement within and for the one church of Christ and believe they have a responsibility to work toward reconciliation with Rome. So when Neuhaus left, it seemed as if he had given up on the cause. His move made me confront the fact that Lutheranism is just another Protestant denomination.
However, because I was an ordained female and wanted to remain one, I chose to ignore the implications of his move for several years.
How did you meet the co-author of
I met Patricia because we both were going through the process of becoming Lutheran pastors at the same time. The first time we met was in the bishop's office in the New Jersey Synod. We found that we were on similar wavelengths.
Our journeys were separate, but they were also together, because we talked constantly.
After I read [former Lutheran pastor] Leonard Kline's article in Lutheran Forum criticizing the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America's decision to cover the cost of abortions for employees and their dependents, Patricia was the first person I called. I told her I was hyperventilating.
I said, “What are we going to do?”
She was much farther along and later said, “Of course we're becoming Roman Catholic.”
In your story, you talk about a seminal retreat with the Sisters of Life in New York. What occurred there to move you more rapidly toward conversion?
At the time I went on this retreat, I had entered a time of great spiritual dryness. I was in no man's land. I knew that I couldn't remain a Lutheran, but I could not bring myself to be a Roman Catholic. It was in the midst of this that Patricia insisted we go on this retreat for pro-life professional women at the Sisters of Life in New York. And I did not want to go — in part it was because I did not like the retreats I had been on in the past as a pastor. They usually involved a lot of talking and sharing, and that was not the frame of mind I was in.
This couldn't have been more different.
This mostly involved spending time in worship and silence, which was an entirely new concept to me. We also attended talks, and it just so happened that the talks for that weekend were on the writings of St. Teresa of Avila.
I found myself listening to an understanding of the spiritual life, which, even though I had been through seminary and considered myself theologically astute, I had never encountered before. The presenter was talking about the dark night of the soul, the night of the spirit, those spiritually arid periods in our lives and how they often are steps toward a deeper union with God. That our times of despair can be part of that progress was a really new idea for me. It helped to make sense of what I was going through.
And, though I did not receive the Eucharist, we had adoration of the Eucharist. For the first time, I genuinely longed to receive the true body and blood of Christ with my heart, and I wanted that intimacy with Christ.
You tell in the book how your Catholic neighbor was shocked when you shared with her your thoughts about converting. What did you say to her and others who considered your move “a giant step backward”?
I did not answer my neighbor at the time. I was so taken aback that I don't remember responding to her in any sort of cogent fashion.
At first, I answered others by saying there are things that are vastly more important than how the Church views women. In the very beginning, I had not fully appreciated and embraced the Catholic understanding of masculinity and femininity. So I was saying that it wasn't as important when compared to the issue of abortion or the ordination of homosexuals.
Since then, I have found that the Catholic understanding of femininity and masculinity is one of the great gifts of the Church not only to its own members, but, I'm convinced, to the world.
How did Mary figure in your conversion?
As with many people who have converted, when I look back over my life I see that Mary seemed to be involved all along. There was the time I prayed to Mary while still a Lutheran. I was in a Roman Catholic chapel in a Jesuit spiritual center and there was a statue of Mary in the center and I found myself actually seeking her help for the first time.
Even before I felt as though the prayer was answered, I felt a sense of peace and comfort. I have to admit I filed it away, compartmentalized it and didn't try doing that again for some time.
Then there is the story I tell in the book about the stained-glass window in my Lutheran church that had a symbol of Mary on it, which makes no sense in a German, Pennsylvania-Dutch church. I found myself being drawn to Mary in part because the Lutheran church and all Protestant denominations, for that matter, do not have any female role models. People's perception of the Catholic Church is that it's anti-female. And nothing could be further from the truth.
It's the Protestant churches that are starkly masculine. They jettisoned devotion to Mary and the saints and that left people with no female role models. I found myself very much drawn to Mary as a role model of female holiness. Several of the women in the book found themselves drawn by Mary before they even thought of becoming Roman Catholic. I think that's because she is the womb and archetype of the Church, so it makes sense they would feel her presence.
The Church is a living entity that beckons to us. And I think that often takes the form of the Blessed Mother beckoning to us because she is the archetype of the Church.
Judy Roberts is based in Graytown, Ohio.
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- July 3-9, 2005
