It is always absorbing to read about other people's experience of conversion. I was a cradle Catholic; that is, my parents were Catholic, my entire schooling was in convents, my friends were all Catholic.
The trouble was that my parents had a deeply unhappy marriage, despite being Catholics, and actually separated after 25 years of domestic hell.
I did not abandon belief in my Faith - for example, the Latin motets we sang in the chapel choir at school were beautiful; and beauty carries its own inner coherence and conviction - but I did not see 'Love one another as I have loved you' around me, so I ceased to practise for many years. Marriage, and then having many children brought me back after a fashion: I wanted my children to have the Faith simply because I knew it to be true. So I took them to Mass regularly. But I remained conflicted and wounded within - until I happened to go to Confession 40 years ago (in order to try to set an example to my oldest daughter who was about to be Confirmed.) That experience changed my life: somehow the reality of a lived Faith in Christ, and the truths that I had learned by heart from the Catechism in childhood came together finally and for good. It did not only make intellectual sense or aesthetic sense; it made moral and behavioural sense.
At present I am preparing a young man in my parish for Confirmation. He got the top grade in his Catholic school's RE exam. But as I have been explaining to him, knowing the teachings of the Faith is not enough; we have to learn to live them and we can only do this through the grace of the Sacraments and their regular reception, and through prayer.
It is always absorbing to read about other people's experience of conversion. I was a cradle Catholic; that is, my parents were Catholic, my entire schooling was in convents, my friends were all Catholic.
The trouble was that my parents had a deeply unhappy marriage, despite being Catholics, and actually separated after 25 years of domestic hell.
I did not abandon belief in my Faith - for example, the Latin motets we sang in the chapel choir at school were beautiful; and beauty carries its own inner coherence and conviction - but I did not see 'Love one another as I have loved you' around me, so I ceased to practise for many years. Marriage, and then having many children brought me back after a fashion: I wanted my children to have the Faith simply because I knew it to be true. So I took them to Mass regularly. But I remained conflicted and wounded within - until I happened to go to Confession 40 years ago (in order to try to set an example to my oldest daughter who was about to be Confirmed.) That experience changed my life: somehow the reality of a lived Faith in Christ, and the truths that I had learned by heart from the Catechism in childhood came together finally and for good. It did not only make intellectual sense or aesthetic sense; it made moral and behavioural sense.
At present I am preparing a young man in my parish for Confirmation. He got the top grade in his Catholic school's RE exam. But as I have been explaining to him, knowing the teachings of the Faith is not enough; we have to learn to live them and we can only do this through the grace of the Sacraments and their regular reception, and through prayer.