It’s been over a year since I last posted. Everything was
put on hold just before Christmas in 2012 for some very good reasons.
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| St Peter's Basilica as painted by Panini |
I was diagnosed a while ago with Adult ADD, and one tendency
I have is to leap into any activity with plenty of energy, only to see the
initial enthusiasm wane quickly. This momentous decision was such that my wife
was, quite rightly, concerned that I was doing that again here, and she was
particularly worried that I was using the entry through the Ordinariate as a
short-cut, bypassing the process of discernment that the conventional RCIA
offers. She also, with plenty of justification, felt I wasn’t giving proper
consideration to some of her concerns.
I made the decision to slow everything down. In fact, I
stopped pushing the issue at all, trusting in the Holy Spirit to work in my
heart and in hers. About 2 months ago she came to me and said that if I still
felt called to reception in the Catholic Church I should start to explore it
again, but that it would be better to go the conventional route. I went back,
read through the Compendium to the Catechism again and Evangelii Guardium which
had just been released by Pope Francis.
We all visited Mass at one of the local Churches – one that
was particularly family-friendly – and I slowly started to talk about some of
the things I was thinking about. I made contact with a local priest (not part
of the Ordinariate) and we spent time on the phone talking about the
practicalities of joining the current RCIA course now. We recently also met-up
for a coffee and agreed a provisional way forward.
One thing that I particularly pleased about is that my wife
is going to join me in the RCIA classes, partly to walk through the journey
with me and partly to help with her own journey.
