What follows is a brief account of my conversion. (Yes, this is the brief version).
In William Shakespeare’s The Tempest, Antonio says to Sebastian, “What is past is prologue”: Their entire lives led them to that one moment. For me, too, what is past is prologue: my own life a tempest. There is joy, grief, love, heartbreak, bitterness, reconciliation, for the 25 years of my life up to early November of 2016. My life up to this Epochal moment had come to this: It was 7:00pm, I was the last one in the office after a tough day, I called my mom in tears, professing that if I left this building I could not and would not return. I felt broken and beaten down, a failure. I wrote my resignation, left it on my desk, gathered my things, and walked out. I had officially quit my job.
I consider myself an optimist. In the throes of my depression, I never felt like there was nothing left for me. John Steinbeck said once that in America, there are no poor, only temporarily embarrassed Capitalists. I never felt myself a permanent failure, only a temporarily embarrassed success story. There was a vague sense of Hope in this, which I did not understand at the time to be derived from my embryonic faith.
I was Anglican for the duration of my prologue, Baptized and confirmed in the conservative branch of the Church of England. My faith was intellectual and not spiritual, a consequence of the dual forces of Anglican theology and upbringing. Anglicanism, for those that aren’t aware, appears very much like a Catholic service, but is devoid of the spirituality that informs Catholicism. I had long been discussing with a close friend matters of faith, and as he grew in Catholicism his criticisms of Anglicanism became harder to defend. I decided to take this period of unemployment as an opportunity to invest in my faith as well as frantically search for jobs. I dusted off my bible and my Book of Common Prayer. I researched the Articles of Faith. I found Anglicanism harder and harder to defend, but I was not yet at a point where I could embrace Catholicism.
There were two events that happened in close succession. One of the questions that I kept coming back to was “Why go to church? What is the point?” If I wanted to invest in my faith, I wanted to understand why I was doing what I was doing. If Church was a social affair, let it be social! If Church was for education, let me learn! But my friend gave me the answer: The Eucharist. The host is literally transformed into the unblemished paschal lamb of Jesus Christ. God is present in the Mass. I finally understood the consequence of this. If I could go to a place and literally sit with God and take him into myself, be truly in Communion with God, the harder question to answer is why would I not go to church? I learned about Adoration, too: Catholics behave in a manner consistent with their belief, that God is present in the Eucharist.
The second event is that, in a moment of desperation, I turned to prayer. I had been unemployed for a month and a half, and prospects were increasingly desperate. I was rapidly exhausting my available funds. My lease was expiring at the end of December and I needed to know I had a place to live. If I didn’t get this resolved, I would have to do the unthinkable and return home to my parents, truly the prodigal son who had ventured out and squandered the opportunity. I turned to God. I prayed for a job, I prayed that everything would turn out OK, I prayed for faith, whatever that meant. Almost before I had finished praying, my phone started blowing up. I had three recruiters on the line, wanting to speak with me about opportunities they had. One of those phone calls turned into an interview, which turned into a job. In Mid-january, I had moved into a new apartment and started work at a new job. Thanks be to God!
I resolved to give God his due, now that I was comfortably situated. I started going to Mass–this was a terrifying prospect for me. I was afraid I stuck out like a sore thumb, that people would sense that I wasn’t Catholic and accuse me of heresy and chase me from that holy place. They didn’t. In all respects, every Catholic I met was pleasant and friendly. I started looking for a community. The next few months were a whirlwind. I got in touch with some young adult ministry coordinators, went to a few events, dove headlong into them, feeling uncomfortable but knowing they were for my own good.
The Catholic community I found was incredible. This diocese is truly blessed to have so many faithful and enthusiastic people. Buoyed by their welcoming nature and enthusiasm, I learned and grew and formally decided to cross the Tiber. September of 2017, I started RCIA.
In all honesty, RCIA was a formality, I had already essentially read my way into the church. It was the first year of being Catholic, from Easter 2018 to Easter 2019, that I learned the most about living Catholic-ly. I have a lot to learn, and even more to grow, but the Church is the first place I’ve felt at home. It’s given me peace of mind–i mean that literally and figuratively. In the literal sense, I weaned myself off of antidepressants in the summer of 2017, and while it was challenging, I feel like I have grown into my own skin. God helps us become more perfectly ourselves, and for my entire prologue I felt like I was failing at being. In the figurative sense, there is a rational coherence to Catholic doctrine, dogma, and theology that reinforces my confidence in God. Truth feels true, and I can speak about Faith with the same confidence with which I speak of other, more material matters.
In short, I spent a long time away, but I have truly arrived Home.
God is good.
There is so much more to the story. Doctrines, details, and apologetics, which I enjoy but if I were to write it all in full it would turn into a memoir. Maybe I’ll write about it all some day. In the meantime, please feel free to share your stories or ask any questions in the comments!
AMDG
Times-Dispatch of Vichy Earth 