CBB Review: Journeys Home and Journeys Home 2

CBB Review: Journeys Home and Journeys Home 2 August 4, 2015

journeys_home_spotlightMarcus Grodi is the host of the popular EWTN series The Journey Home. He has spoken often of his own conversion story as well as dozens upon dozens of others. Many of these conversion stories are available in two books from The Coming Home Network. Journeys Home now in its third revised edition and Journeys Home 2.

The first volume Journeys Home comes in at a little over 400 pages long. What was particularly interesting about the setup of this book was how it was handled in two parts.

Part One deals with conversion stories specifically related to clergy. You will read the conversion stories of former Protestant minister Marcus Grodi, for Presbyterian minister and seminary professor Kenneth Howell, former Jew and Evangelical minister Sister Rosalind Moss, former Anglican priest Father Dwight Longenecker and former Assemblies of God missionary Don Newville. These are only a sampling of the seventeen stories included in part one.  Part Two relays stories of various layman that have converted. These include former Lutherans Tim and Mary Drake, former reformed Calvinist Dr. Eduardo J. Echeverria, former Missouri Synod Lutheran Todd van Kampen and former Muslim Daniel Ali. This section contains a total of thirteen conversion stories.

Journeys Home 2 picks up where the first volume left off. This book is just as packed with conversions as the first. At over 360 pages long it contains twenty-nine more accounts. These include former Dutch Reformed Calvinist Dr. Peter Kreeft, former Baptist Dale Ahlquist, former Presbyterian Kevin Lowry, former Baptist and Evangelical Steve Ray, former Southern Baptist and Anglican seminarian Daniel Burke, and former Methodist Minister Dr. James Papandrea.

You may have noticed something in the examples I mentioned above. The conversion stories are wide ranging and not limited to one group or religion. These are people who for various reasons discovered the truth of the Catholic faith and ultimately came home. However their journeys were not always easy and most were a struggle. Many of these stories are filled with pain, sorry and doubt but in the end rewarding.

As a convert myself I found these stories fascinating. There are two important reasons you should read these as well. First, converts are witnesses to the faith. They have studied the Catholic faith and discovered a rich tradition that convinced them the Catholic Church was the church founded by Christ. Their reasons for converting really solid examples that even cradle Catholics can read and use to fortify their own beliefs. Secondly, you may know someone who is going through the very same inquisitive phase about Catholicism. The witness of the fifty-nine converts who tell their stories in these two books can be powerful evangelization tools.

No matter which of these two reasons persuades you to read these books, Marcus Grodi has given us a gift. The Catholic faith, discovered by so many in just as many different ways are a real life witness to the beauty of the Catholic faith. A faith that tradition upholds and that time reveals even today, some 2000 years later.

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Check out the links below to get special pricing on these books from Catholic Word.

Journeys Home

Journeys Home 2


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