October 2022
Five years ago, Kevin Butterwegge felt something change inside him, and he still can’t explain it. He wasn’t looking for change. He had a wonderful job, a loving wife, and a family that attended Mass regularly. He proudly anticipated his 30th year of sobriety after overcoming a drug and alcohol addiction. By all measures Kevin was a successful man in charge of his own life.
But something was pulling him closer to the Church, and he decided to lean into it. He prayed and read the Catechism, which gave him a better understanding of the Sacraments. He realized that his “check-the-box” approach to Catholicism wasn’t enough. He began to hunger for more. Kevin soon felt yet another pull, this time to re-examine his life and confront his past. This difficult process lasted several weeks. “I went as far back as I could take my memory, all of the sin that I had lived in, and I catalogued it and wrote it on a piece of paper.”
He listed his actions as a youth when, as Kevin puts it, “I fell into every sort of wrong thing you could possibly get involved in.” He listed every sin he could remember, and it was so painful that he had to take breaks. “It was hard to look at all the things I had to look at,” he says. But he didn’t stop.
When he finished, Kevin took his list to church. He entered the confessional where Father Nipin was waiting, knelt down, and unfolded his sheet of paper. What happened next changed everything. “From my heart, for the first time in my life, I confessed all of the sin that I had inside me. And when I walked out of confession and hit my knees to say penance, I could feel God’s mercy. There was no doubt He had forgiven me.” In that moment, by the grace of God, a man who wasn’t looking for change experienced the most profound change of his life.
From there, Kevin says, his faith has exploded. He now tries to live a life that leads others to Christ, and he believes telling his story is an important part of that. He encourages us to go deeper instead of just going through the motions, to really get to know Christ and form a relationship with Him. As Kevin explains, “Our souls are on the line.”