The call from God that persists

There are many stories that recount how someone had a notion or calling that they couldn’t let go of, no matter how much they avoided it. They would find that life’s circumstances would lead them back again to where they had to scratch the itch they been ignoring.

So it is with me and my journey to the Catholic Church. It’s now been 25 years since walking into St Thomas’s cathedral in Canterbury and wondering if this was my spiritual home. Two and half decades since sitting with that wonderful Franciscan Brother John (I wonder where he is now) and discovering some of the riches of Catholicism.

It is fifteen years since I was commissioned to write an article surveying the available books on Church history, and in the process discovering the historicity and the validity of the claims of the Catholic Church. A decade and a half since I discovered how ancient belief in the Real Presence was and I first read the words of St Ignatius and felt the lightning bolt of revelation:

Wherever the bishop appears, there let the people be; as wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church. It is not lawful to baptise or give communion without the consent of the bishop. On the other hand, whatever has his approval is pleasing to God. (St Ignatius, Letter to the Smyrnaeans)

 It’s been seven years since my wife and completed the RCIA in Shrewsbury and met some wonderful people there but, for complex family reasons, didn’t convert at the time.

 Maybe now is the time. It feels like the time is right and I cannot ignore the call of God that has been there for most of my adult life.