Today, we get to meet Becky Huebner, who was just confirmed this Easter!
Tell us a little about yourself.
Born in 1959, I am a grateful 59 year old. I have been a wife to Paul for 37 of those years , a forever mother to my four beloveds and “Mormor” to my two grandsons. I am a realtor by profession, a lover of little ones, sunrise watcher, porch sitter, reader, dark roast coffee addict, a wine snob, and a walker. A Nebraska girl (by adoption not birth), I love almost all kinds of weather and feel most alive when I am out in the middle of it.
Tell us how you became interested in Catholicism.
I was received into the church at Easter 2019.
Left: (from left to right) son-in-law Caleb, husband Paul, daughter Emily, Becky, son Christian, and daughter Kate. | Right: Receiving the sacrament of Confirmation.
Always a seeker and life- long protestant Christian, in hindsight I see that my journey to the Catholic church began about 15 years ago when I picked up a book written by Peggy Noonan titled John Paul the Great: Remembering a Spiritual Father. Both her story and his captured me. About that same time my son started his journey into the church. We bounced books and ideas off each other and have continued that conversation to this day. (He joined the church about 10 years ago, and God willing, expects to be ordained a priest this year.)
What were some of the barriers you had and struggles you faced on the road to becoming Catholic?
Oh, so very many over the years. The face of the church as I knew it was nothing that called my name. Sunday Catholics, plastic statues, relics, a less than welcoming – and hard to follow – service, “worship” of Mary and the Saints, the idea of transubstantiation and a paucity of people in my path actually living out the Catholic faith or providing intellectual explanation, meant this protestant was content where she was.
Was there a defining moment or series of moments that cemented your decision to convert?
Early in my journey, I stood in the gorgeous Shrine (how very Catholic that beauty drew me there, even if I didn’t know what a shrine was) along I-80 in Gretna, Nebraska. It overlooked the soul filling Nebraska prairie. As I was reading a plaque there (although I don’t remember the content), I started to realize the truth of the Church, and that little pebble called “Catholicism” began to tickle my spirit. As the saying goes, when the student is ready the teacher will appear.
I found many teachers along the way, chief among them were my children Kate (whose story you will read next week) and Christian. I was also captured by Bishop Robert Barron’s Word on Fire ministry through Facebook.
Along with my own convert children, priests, seminarians, fellow converts, and others who journeyed with and before me each in their own way showed me the breadth, depth and truth of the faith.
Finally, last year while attending Christian’s ordination to the diaconate, something profound and beyond words happened. That week, the people – a most eclectic and unlikely group – the places – dinner tables, holy and historic places – and the events – the masses of Masses – conspired together to create something beyond words, something of the Spirit. Something like a Pentacost occurred. Heaven touched earth that week and it settled something in me. I had to be a part of this thing called the Church. Rome, our Rome 2018 pushed me over the finish line.
Left: At Christian’s ordination to the diaconate at the Vatican, surrounded by new and old friends. | Right: Christian assisting at his first mass as a newly ordained deacon at the Basilica of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, in Rome.
What was your experience with RCIA?
Moderately helpful.
How has your relationship with Jesus changed since becoming Catholic? Your relationship with yourself? With others?
The false choice between faith and reason gone, my spirit is free open up to all the ways Christ manifests himself in the world. It is liberating.
Tell us your favorite Catholic book or author and why.
Fr. Thomas Joseph White’s The Light of Christ, and his Thomistic Institute podcasts. They help me see the depth and breadth of the faith.
I also enjoy Bishop Robert Barron’s Word on Fire videos.
What would you say to someone who was thinking of becoming Catholic?
Seek the good, true and beautiful, and I have an idea where you will land. It only took me 60 years. I am grateful for each church, each bible study, and each person who moved me along. I take each deposit with me. Each denomination and each soul does something uniquely well, and reveals a facet of the diamond that is the good, true and beautiful. When faith meets reason, and intellect meets spirit, it points us to the divine. When it is at its best, I find that in the Catholic church. Here, I find the fullness of the faith.
Final thoughts you want to share.
The Catholic Church is far – sometimes ridiculously so – from perfect. But it is the church Christ left us. I don’t leave a family because of the things I don’t like, or due to their or my own missteps, They simply are my family and I am called to be part of it. We help each other, we love each other where we are, enough to push each other toward holiness.
The church fractured for so many good and bad reasons, but I believe Jesus calls us to unity in Him and His church, which is His family.
So much of how we practice our faith is not a conscious choice but flows out of our upbringing and heritage. Be conscious.
TOTAL W(H)INE 