"Our Reading and Discussion Resolved Most of Our Objections, Which Were Almost Entirely Based in Misunderstanding."

Father Raymond Ryland's conversion to Catholicism I find fascinating:

Frequently, in television coverage of baseball games, the camera will focus several times alternately on the pitcher and the catcher, just before the pitcher throws across the plate. The catcher signals for a certain pitch. The pitcher shakes his head, waits for another signal, then another. Finally, when he gets one he likes, the pitcher winds up and delivers.

How many signals from the Holy Spirit dared we turn down? But Rome? Idol-worshiping, power-hungry, priest-ridden, thought-controlling Rome?

From our upbringing and from our seminary training, we had imbibed all the prejudices, all the stereotypes. These, however, had to be put aside. We already knew the outlines of Catholic teaching from our Anglo-Catholic days. Now we admitted to ourselves that we had to listen to the details of Rome’s claims. Our reading and discussion resolved most of our objections, which were almost entirely based in misunderstanding.

The last major hurdle between ourselves and submission to Rome was the papacy. We read Newman’s Apologia Pro Vita Sua avidly and devoured Meriol Trevor’s two-volume biography of Newman in large bites. Our journey was much like his, though on a smaller scale.

We saw ourselves as pygmies trying to follow a giant. We continually invoked his prayers on our behalf. We received much help from what may be the best single book about the Catholic Church, Karl Adam’s Spirit of Catholicism.

Sixteen years after beginning our search for the full truth of Christ, we admitted to one another that we had to submit to Rome. Neither of us really wanted to be a Catholic, but God’s call was unmistakable. We submitted to His will and eventually to His Church.

We had to keep our decision secret to spare embarrassment to the school of which I was chaplain. Each week for months, we drove to another city to spend an evening in instruction by a Benedictine monk whose friendship has been a rich blessing to us. With his help, I began seeking employment to support our family.

We knew that God never leads anyone down a blind alley. We cast ourselves as completely as possible upon His mercy. Then doors began to open, and the way became clearer.

The day we were received into the Church, Ruth and I wanted to have a party in our home. The problem was that we had no one to invite. Our Episcopal friends were either greatly saddened or resentful. We did not know any Catholics.

Even so, we had our party: Ruth and I, our children, the two priests who received us, and — Ruth reminded us — the angels and archangels.

On the third day after our family was received into the Church, I went to early Mass in our parish church. As I knelt in the pew after receiving Communion, the words suddenly came to me, half-aloud, in a burst of joy: “Now I’m ready to die!”

The whole thing should be read.

This resonates with me in one particular way though in truth, in numerous ways.

His exclamation that he, after his conversion, was ready to die.

I've had those thoughts as well.  I've thought that should death come, and I pray that she does not any time soon, as a Catholic, and someone attempting to take that faith most seriously (and failing too often, truth be known), I am now better prepared for death.  I'm not crazy about the notion of dying, who in hell is, but... death is something I believe my family and I will now better be able to handle.

Thank God I'm home.