The Anchoress
Back in June, I wrote that something was happening, that I was sensing it via my email, and through what I was observing in my parish and neighboring parishes, and what Buster was telling me via his job at work:
He tells me that the youth group is over-flowing, and that the rectory receives calls “every day” from people looking to return to the Church after decades-long absences, and from those poorly catechised Catholics who suddenly want to learn about their faith. And every week or so, there is a phone call from a Methodist or a Presbyterian or an Episcopalian saying, “I can’t believe I’m making this phone call, but I’m not getting what I need at my church, and I’m wondering…”
“Mom,” says Buster, “I was there last year, it was not like this. Ever since the pope died, it’s been different.”
There can be no doubt that the events of John Paul’s death and funeral, witnessed by literally billions of people, was a stunning evangelical moment in Christian history, one that seems to have survived the first blink-and-shrug of humanity’s ever-eroding attention span. Buster says things are “different.” I say things are simply more shaply focused. Fine tuned, as it were. While I have no doubt that our late pope is praying for us from heaven, the Holy Spirit has been at work for all this time…and she seems to be stepping things up.
I see it in my emails. It has been my stunned privilege to receive mail from people all over the world, and of every sort of background, who are writing that something, indeed, has been stirred within them. This morning alone came two emails from Catholics who are returning to the faith after being away for a very long time. This is a small, hardly-read blog, and yet I’ve received literally scores of such emals, from people who have found themselves stumbling into a church, falling to their knees before the Tabernacle, or people who write that they were at a prayer service, singing a hymn they have sung a hundred times before, but this time they burst into tears and spent the whole service in deep, profoundly private prayer which left them “changed.”
What is happening, this stirring, it is intense, and it is real. It is more than people wishing to be part of the latest trend. It is more than mere emotionalism. When a forthright and self-confident woman I have known for years writes to me that she has spent her whole life disavowing organized religion and now she is set to begin RCIA classes, and enter the Catholic church because she “literally felt myself being shoved through the door,” we are not talking about folks undertaking something lightly.
I come upon conversion stories from time to time, but this one struck me because the writer so specifically connects the desire to enter into the church with JPII’s funeral:
The journey to Rome has been a long one, but I began looking into Catholicism really intensively only a few months ago, when John Paul II died. I’d seen him officiate at the large public mass at Downsview three years ago for World Youth Day and was impressed with his quiet dignity. So when he died, I wanted to find out more about him. Figuring that if I wanted to see what disgruntled ex-nuns and former Catholics had to say I could just turn to The Globe and Mail, instead I tuned in to Eternal Word Television Network on the Web (I don’t get cable) to listen to people who loved him and loved what he stood for.
I was just fascinated. That same dignity and quiet enthusiasm shone through in a whole variety of programs, one of which I believe was The Journey Home Encore, with interviews with former Protestants who had converted to Catholicism. God, is this what you have in store for me too?
The Holy Spirit is stirring. That’s very plain.
Since it’s Sunday, and we’re talking about people being moved by the Holy Spirit, why not peek in on the progress some young people are making in their vocations! New Postulants in Nashville and First Professions.
New Postulants in Michigan and scroll down for others.
Some new Poor Clare Novices
Postulants in IL and novices.
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