To Susan Vader.

ear Susan:

I saw your com­ment (#242) on Called to Com­mu­nion.  It is today, as I write this, exact­ly one month after you entered full com­mu­nion with the Catholic Church.  Con­grat­u­la­tions to you.  I was received into full com­mu­nion on April 23, 2011, so I still have a lot of the fresh­ness of the mem­o­ry with me, and I guar­an­tee you you will car­ry that joy around with you the rest of your days.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, that joy does some­times come at a price.  Some peo­ple will look at you with the blank stare of befud­dled increduli­ty.  I’ve received that stare.  Some will call you an apos­tate.  I’ve been called that, and worse.  Some, like the polem­i­cal rogue John Bugay on his blog will give you emp­ty plat­i­tudes about the ruina­tion of Rome and try to con­fuse you with point­less quib­ble over whether you should cross your­self right to left or left to right.  (Hon­est­ly, as if peo­ple enter the con­fes­sion­al and say, “Bless me Father for I crossed myself the wrong way”!)  This you will have to face, maybe for the rest of your life.

But take joy any­way.  You are right that con­stant­ly switch­ing back and forth between a myr­i­ad of Protes­tant menus will only, in the end, lead to “your heart’s frus­tra­tion.”  You have been giv­en a gift, a gift that I sin­cere­ly wish every Chris­t­ian had:  the hon­est, inno­cent, and fer­vent desire to seek the truth and fol­low it wher­ev­er it leads you, what­ev­er it means.  That is so obvi­ous from your beau­ti­ful com­ment.  And trust me, Susan:  A sin­cere and hon­est desire to seek and find the truth—not mere­ly to prove your­self right, which some get caught up in—will nev­er let you down.  Trust me:  I know.

Ulti­mate­ly, Susan, you had more.  When Christ said to you, “Come, leave your nets, fol­low me,” you did some­thing few have courage to do.  You left your nets.  You fol­lowed the Lord.  There is no greater joy.  A great con­vert, for­mer­ly a Pen­te­costal min­is­ter, recalled the moments when peo­ple would ask him why he became Catholic, and his answer always was:  “I had to.  How do you tell God no?  How do you look in the face of a lov­ing Sav­ior, who loved me so much He died that I might be with him—how do you look at Him and say no?”

You said yes.  That joy will be with you for­ev­er, regard­less of what peo­ple say to you.  When I took my first Eucharist, I was so over­whelmed with the moment that all I could do when I returned to my pew was say “thank you” over and over.  Every time I would receive, for a cou­ple months going for­ward, I would always hear the same verse:  “It is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me.”  That is now true for you as well.  The tin­gle fades, and often only comes at unpre­dictable moments.  But what joy when it does!

Susan, I do not know if you will ever read this. But I post it in the chance that you will, and receive the knowl­edge that you are nev­er alone in His Church.  You are now one, just as Christ prayed for his dis­ci­ples.  He prayed “that they may all be one.”  He did not ask that they may all be 33,000.  Christ does­n’t want your heart’s frus­tra­tion; he wants your heart’s joy.

Now it is no longer you who live, but Christ who lives in you.

Wel­come home.