I Think, Therefore I Am…. Catholic.

The feisty writers over at Patheos’ Catholic Portal are a diverse lot:  a rough and tumble mix of converts and reverts and cradle Catholics.

I am all of the above.

I am a Cradle Catholic because my parents herded me to church on Sunday mornings, scrimping and saving to provide twelve years of Catholic education.  I disappointed them, though, when I reached adulthood—veering into a guileless agnosticism, then stumbling back to belief via Unitarian Universalism (such lovely music!) and evangelicalism (such great Easter dramas!)  Then again,

I am a Revert because one Saturday afternoon, discouraged by life’s vagaries, I walked alone into a Catholic church and slid quietly into the rear pew.  Praying from the heart, perhaps for the first time, I encountered the God of my youth, Who introduced Himself in an explosion of knowing and loving and bewilderment.  I struggled under the tutelage of a kindly priest who answered my belligerent questions about angels and purgatory and eternity—until one day I believed.  And

I am a Convert because each morning I wake to the promise of a deeper awareness of God’s love evidenced in the Eucharist, and with a firmer resolve to sin no more.