Читать книгу How God Hauled Me Kicking and Screaming Into the Catholic Church - Kevin Lowry - Страница 11

Chapter 1

Happy Easter! Now What?

Peter [said] to them, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will receive the gift of the holy Spirit.”

— Acts 2:38

I remember that night vividly, and I know I always will. My heart was pounding with excitement: I believed — hoped, prayed — that I had finally come to the end of a long and complicated journey, one that had led me to the last place I ever expected to find myself, leaning awkwardly over a baptismal font in — of all places — a Catholic church.

But had I really arrived? Had I truly come to the destination that God had in mind for me? I have to admit that even at that moment of no return, I was still having a little trouble accepting my own decision. This had to be the right choice, I reassured myself as I stood there; it simply had to be, because I was betting everything on it. By my side was my wife, Kathi, her presence a minor miracle. Up until that very night I hadn’t known if she would be received into the Church with me, but here she was, and I was overjoyed. As I half stood, half crouched there, feeling rather foolish and working hard to bend my six-foot-four-inch frame into positions it was never made for, I could feel the warmth of her love and support. I can’t describe how important that was to me.

But it was not her love alone that I felt. Toward the front of the church sat my mother and Presbyterian minister father, holding our two infant sons. I stole a surreptitious glance at them and smiled a smile I hoped they noticed. I waited, feeling my parents’ improbable support as a source of tremendous comfort. In the midst of my lingering doubts, my uncertainty, I knew I had their blessing, and that meant a lot.

And I felt yet another kind of warmth as I waited that long-ago night, one that astonished and gratified me at the time. On my first visit to the church that was to become the place of my baptism, things had not gone very well. I had felt unwelcome, unnoticed, even invisible. No one had greeted me, or even acknowledged my presence. Catholics had still seemed a strange breed to me back then, cold and off-putting, unconcerned with the people around them — unconcerned (not to put too fine a point on it) with me. When had that all changed? And how had it changed without my quite noticing it? By the night of my baptism, everything had become different. It was as if I were surrounded by family, a family that actually cared — a family I actually cared about. Yes, it was the right decision, I told myself again, and this time I think I really believed it.

Then, finally, the cold waters of Baptism flowed over my forehead, and I was overwhelmed by a sense of mercy. It all seemed so simple — almost too simple. I was all too aware of my many years of sinfulness. I had regrets. In fact, I had loads of them. Were they all truly washed away by such a little bit of water, I wondered? If so, that changed everything — and I was born again at the age of twenty-five. I was new again. I was newer than my young sons.

And now, more than two decades later, I am deeply aware that it really did change everything. As I look back on the night when I became a newborn for the second time in my life, I recognize that a new world opened for me, or perhaps the world simply opened in a different way, enabling me to discern what had been there all along but which I had been unable to see — miracles that I had walked past like a blind man. Whatever the case, I was given something for which I had unknowingly yearned for most of my life: a sacramental world, a world that was simply suffused with God, a world in which holiness could be touched.

I was given tools that night to build a life of sanctity — tools I had never had before. I was offered new perspectives, new insights into human life, particularly regarding suffering and hardship — things that all those many years ago I didn’t even know I would need. The waters of Baptism may have been cold that night, but through those waters I entered a relationship with Christ that was far deeper and far warmer than any I could have imagined otherwise.

By the way, my doubts, my uncertainty, disappeared a long time ago. I don’t know exactly when. They just faded away over time until one day I realized that they were simply gone and I knew for certain that I really had found the place God wanted me to be. The Catholic Church is my home, and I have never thought about leaving it. In fact, after all this time, I don’t think I could ever leave it.