In their own words: Catholic young adult convert, Justin Mambaje, part I

Justin Mambaje

'How do you know what love is if you don’t even know God?' She inquired.
~ Justin Mambaje

Justin Mambaje works as a formulations chemist for a large paint company in San Carlos, CA. He is also the music/artistic director and choreographer of Hiyas Philippine Folk Dance Company, a traditional Filipino folk dance group in San Jose, CA. He is passionate about protecting the purity of traditional Filipino folk dancing by staying true to the original choreography. In seeking for the Church Jesus Christ established, he applied this same passion--searching for the early practices of first century Christians by reading their works. In the process, he came across St. Ignatius of Antioch whose letters spoke of the Catholic Church. After a series of events, Justin finally joined the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (RCIA) program at St. Maria Goretti Catholic Church in San Jose, CA. In the Easter Vigil 2009, this former self-proclaimed atheist received the Sacraments of Baptism, Confirmation and Holy Communion, and became a fully initiated Catholic. He is now actively serving as a Lector and core member of the Life Teen Youth Ministry at St. Maria Goretti. Here is his conversion story in his own words.

Part I. Before conversion

Before becoming Catholic, I subscribed to a collection of ideas at different periods of my life. I was born to parents who had left the Catholic Church for Protestantism. This caused some turmoil between my dad’s parents and my parents in how my older sister and I, and eventually my younger brother, would be raised in regards to religion. My grandma even thought of kidnapping me and my sister so we could be baptized Catholic! Ultimately, my parents took the route that my siblings and I should choose on our own when the time comes. Despite this, I grew up being taught about God here and there from my grandparents and my mom. I vividly remember my grandparents teaching me how to make the sign of the cross and to pray the Our Father and my mom telling me the reasons why we celebrate Christmas and Easter at pre-kindergarten ages. As I got older, my grandpa would persuade me to go to Mass with him at St. Justin’s by offering McDonald’s or doughnuts from 7-11. When I knew how to read, my mom bought me a children’s Bible that I happily read through during silent reading time in the second grade. She also bought us several cartoon videos of biblical stories and would even let us stay up past our strict bedtime of 9:00 pm on Easter Sunday so we could watch The Ten Commandments on TV in order to become more familiar with the Bible. Because of their efforts, I was able to believe in God and have a basic understanding of Christian principles throughout my childhood. However, without being properly formed in knowing who God is, how He works, and how to correctly worship Him, my superficial belief was not prepared for what was to come.

In the fifth grade, my parents decided to get a divorce. As with all divorces, it was an extremely difficult time and I turned to God for assistance. I prayed constantly, pleading that He would bring my parents back together. As the days and months passed with no improvement, I started to turn to the realization that my parents weren’t going to reconcile. I felt much sorrow and eventually anger and resentment and decided to turn this rage toward God. “How could you let this happen?” I remember asking Him. “If you’re so loving, why do you tear my family apart?” The only thing that could clean up this situation was a miracle; a miracle that God never granted. After all this grief and frustration of appealing to a god who didn’t seem to care about me, it felt as if my prayers were just me talking to the air. As a result, my ten year old mind concluded that God must not exist at all.

A couple of years later, my mom remarried. At this point in time, I was a somewhat rebellious teen. My new stepfather, a faithful Christian, would often bring up God while lecturing us about life lessons, but it only fed the fury that burned in me. It was during these years that I became a full-fledged atheist, ridiculing the religious and their absurd beliefs. History classes at school were also of no help for God’s cause as I learned time and time again about different religions, religious oppression, corrupt monarchies and brutal missionaries that “practiced” Christianity. I believed the only thing I could rely on was science. Although I always had a great fascination with science, I heavily turned to it in order to answer all of life’s questions and to use it as a weapon against the religious fanatics. I adapted as my beliefs an assortment of scientific theories and humanistic worldviews from different evidences and philosophies learned in school. I believed in order and the role of governmental authority, but I also believed that within the bounds of the law, there were no boundaries. Loving someone meant permitting them to express themselves however they wanted as long as it was soundly justified. There was no such thing as a moral absolute unless defined by the law or popular vote. What’s true for one person might not be true for me or someone else; and shame on the person who would reference God, the Bible, or whatever other mythological creature for any of their reasoning. Theoretically, I believed all people were created equal, yet I enjoyed having dominion over others, being vengeful and looking down on certain ethnicities or people who weren’t as cool or successful as I. I felt happy and I felt I knew everything.

In high school, I had a good friend who was a fairly devout Catholic. She would challenge me every now and then about the existence of God, how I needed Him in my life, and that underneath everything, I was miserable. I would just laugh it off. How could I be miserable? I was one of the top students in my class, had lots of friends and everything else I needed.

She and I kept contact during college. One day we were chatting online catching up with one another. She asked about my then girlfriend and I told her that I had fallen in love. “In love? How do you know what love is if you don’t even know God?” She inquired. Once again, I got annoyed. To be told that I didn’t know what love is was like a slap in the face. Hadn’t I watched enough chick flicks and romantic comedies to know what love is? But for some reason, that question got stuck in my head and shook my world. I remember learning about how God is love in my younger days, but didn’t quite grasp the full meaning of it. Why is He love? How is He love? And didn’t He abandon me when I needed Him most? How is that an example of love? I secretly started seeking if I was actually in love and what true love really meant. In doing so, I unknowingly began opening myself up to God once again.

After much contemplation, I decided to have my first conversation with God in nearly 10 years. I asked Him if He was real and how was what He did to me a manifestation of His love. In my mind, scenes of my life replayed where I saw how He cared for me all this time. I recognized that God was with me through the people he surrounded me with. For example, He provided close friends that kept me grounded when I wanted to do irrational things. But most importantly, I saw that in His infinite love, he provided a nurturing family that was always there for me, especially through the whole divorce. In these instances, I realized that He was always at my side, no matter how much I denied Him or hated Him. I saw His unconditional love for me and it was at that point I officially invited Him back into my life. I believed once again. But that’s as far as it went.

Although I became a believer, I still retained relativistic beliefs. I had a better understanding of love because I had God back in my life, but my understanding was still lacking due to my defective knowledge of Him. I felt no need to join a religion because I still had many issues from years of learning about the egotistic men in charge of their respective religion. I did not look down on any single faith tradition, but I still felt that devout people were fanatics and that they would purposely misuse their “sacred texts” in order to manipulate or mold God to fit their personal agendas. You would hear Christians proclaiming that the Bible says to love all people, yet many were enslaving or condemning people left and right to Hell. Why couldn’t we all just live in harmony acknowledging we worship the same deity? I didn’t know who to believe and it was very confusing. It led me to believe there was not one true way in worshiping God; that you could be Christian, Jew, Muslim, Hindu or whatever else and still be worshiping properly. I did, however, feel comfortable attending Mass every so often with family members because it was familiar. I even considered becoming Catholic a couple of times, but my reasoning told me I was better off in my current condition.

After graduating from college in 2006, things were going very well for me. I had a job, a car, paying for my own things, and was occupied with my Filipino dance troupe. However successful I was, I still felt a yearning for more, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. It was around this time that I met a young lad named Jasper, a guitarist I took on for our Filipino dance troupe. He was very active in his parish’s youth group and would always make sure that our Sunday events wouldn’t interfere with his Sunday commitments for church. I admired this about him because one of the reasons I would tell myself why I couldn’t join a church was that I was just too busy. He showed me that you could be fully committed to our hectic dance company schedule and still involved in church ministries. After Sunday practices or performances, he would invite me to attend Mass with him. Something inside of me would tell me to go, but I would always answer, “maybe next time.”

Hiyas Philippine Folk Dance Company