'When I made my first Sign of the Cross in the name of the blessed Trinity, I felt that I was home.'

Dear Brothers and Sisters

At today's Mass, I was encouraged to hear the sharing from one of our brothers on how he came to experience the Charismatic Renewal and assist in the establishment of a prayer group in the university. That he was one of the few blessed by God to know Him more fully and deeply while his peers were being lured away from the true Faith by the world and its temptations is divine providence indeed.

So I decided to share with you my own conversion story which I prepared for a brother with the Apostolate for Catholic Truth (ACT). I must add that the CCPG has made a real difference in helping me live out my Christian calling. Thanks be to God for these good years.

May there be more to come!

ON BEING CATHOLIC

My journey into and remaining firmly within the Catholic Church
Many have asked about my conversion to the Catholic faith. Sure, I'm not a high-profile convert like Scott Hahn or Patrick Madrid, who have gone on to channel their energies of faith and intellect into defending an almost always misunderstood institution and system of belief embodied in the Catholic Church, but it fascinates them anyway, both Catholics and non-Catholics alike. I have been prompted by many of my peers to write about my journey into the Church, but my habit of procrastination usually gets the better of me. Something struck me, though, as I was chatting with a couple of friends during an informal gathering all of who were cradle Catholics. It probably was the Spirit of God at work; the same Spirit that first led me to leave the comfort of established religion in the Anglican Communion to explore the "whore of Babylon", as the Church is known to many ill-informed persons in fundamentalist circles.

In retrospect, I must really be thankful indeed for having survived the first 5 years of life as a practising Catholic. Of the people I journeyed with in my initial formation in the Faith, I have been one of the survivors in the test of time and distraction. One of my peers have all but abandoned his faith completely, another has died of cancer (and not without numerous challenges to his convictions about God), another has chosen love of a man over her commitment to the Catholic faith, and many are treading the danger zone of getting involved with people of other religions and Christian profession, although still Catholic themselves. Then, there are cradle Catholics whose gift of years in the Faith seem to have made little or no difference to their conviction in the fullness of salvation which subsists in the Catholic Church. If only they realise the privilege that has been given them which converts earnestly wished they had!

So, with all that groping and stumbling that marked my early years in the faith, the fair share of disappointments and disillusions, I thank God for still being ferociously Catholic.

My journey to the Faith began in my youthful days as a junior college student in one of the most prestigious institutions in the country. Ours was a conducive and challenging environment for learning and for developing leadership potential. The atmosphere was friendly to religious pursuits, although still largely secular. It was in this context that I had my first personal contact with Catholics. No, I wasn't isolated from the Catholic religion all my life before that; I had a Catholic aunt by marriage, as well as a Catholic grandaunt. The problem was that religion never featured in our relationships.

Having taken a renewed zeal in my Christian faith imparted by my doting grandmother who was an Anglican, I was eager to share this exuberance with people I came in regular contact with. Out of 25 students in my tutorial group, at least 14 were practising Christians. This number included, of course, Catholics, of which there were 3. So we met regularly for religious as well as social sharing, inviting also our non-Christian classmates with the intention of planting the seeds of faith in them. (Indeed, praise be to God, no fewer than 4 of them have embraced the religion.) I was also in the college choir, and among its 70 members were several Catholics actively involved in parish and youth work and who were far from hesitant in keeping their religious identity under wraps. These people fascinated me, not so much for any extraordinary lifestyle but for their faithful devotion to the characteristically Catholic Rosary. Mary enchanted me, for as a Protestant, mention of her apart from casual reference in sermons or hymns was akin to "popery", "Catholic hypocrisy" or worse yet – "idolatry". I wanted to learn more of Catholic infatuation with this woman, so I started to ask more questions, to the angst of some of my Catholic peers, and read up on the Catholic doctrines concerning Mary. Unknown to me at that time, I was slowly led by the Spirit of God and motherly prompting of our Lady to explore further the truths of the Catholic Faith.

It was not long after these initial inquiries that I summoned enough courage to invite myself to Mass with my Catholic friends in the choir. The response was one of incredulity and caution. (I learnt later that they were afraid I was going to "attack" them on their own grounds.) After much conference, they decided (all 4 of them; I asked only 1) to bundle me off to one of the older churches in the city where they had already intended to hear Mass that evening. It was an experience I had not bargained for. Apart from the similarity in ritual to the Anglican communion service, my fascination with the use of incense and bells, and despite the terrible singing by a tone-deaf cantor, I felt that evening a God who was truly present to me and to the community gathered. He was not merely present in the awesome pages of the Holy Bible, in the authoritative preaching of the priest, in the fraternal affection of the community, but more so, truly present in the celebration of the Holy Eucharist. When I made my first Sign of the Cross in the name of the blessed Trinity, I felt that I was home. Up till today, whenever I hear Mass in this same old run-down parish church, I never cease to be filled with sentiments of thanksgiving for the gift of having "touched God" magically for the first time there.

I made a decision to stop going for Anglican services to hear Mass at the Catholic parish near my home. It was painful in the sense that I had to leave familiar faces and the embrace of a community I had begun to call my own in my grandmother's Anglican parish to begin a journey of spiritual discovery alone. My decision to embrace the Catholic faith, at that time either a youthful whim or a truly Spirit-guided initiative, also caused significant anguish to my Protestant relatives and friends. I lost many close acquaintances in the process. Leaving the college and being enlisted into military service soon after also proved a difficult experience. By then, I was well on the path of nourishing my newfound Catholic faith and it proved to be a rainbow amid the clouds of culture shock, regimental life and isolation from family. It was also in military service that I received the most vehement and scathing of anti-Catholic rhetoric from none other than my very buddy in the police squad I was attached to. By the grace of God, my perseverance in the faith was rewarded by the gift of 2 brothers in the same unit (cradle Catholics themselves) who continued to encourage me and journey with me in the largely secular environment.

By the time I left national service for education as a medical student in the university, I was convinced of the truths of the Catholic Faith, first and foremost being that of the True Presence of Christ in the Holy Eucharist. This conviction has sustained me through the years despite many spiritual upheavals by a variety of encounters in my life. I ground myself on the sure foundation of God's love for me in the Bread of Life. I am convinced that the Church that has upheld this truth through the centuries, whose members through her illustrious history of 2 millennia have defended this truth, sometimes to the point of martyrdom, is indeed the true church that Christ himself established. I believe that this same church now subsists in the Catholic Church, who has faithfully preserved the rich deposit of faith handed to us by Christ and His Apostles and consistently taught with the authority of the first anointing by the Spirit at Pentecost.

At this point, I must add that God has yet to be kinder to me by the gift of a close-knit Catholic community I found in the university. Through my participation and service in this student community, and with the help of catechism at the university chaplaincy, I took my final steps towards Baptism. This community allowed me to fulfil my Baptism vow of fidelity to all the Catholic Church holds and teaches by fraternal service, deeper study of the Faith, and further strengthening my conviction in the universality of Christ's love and gift of salvation through honest sharing of our individual spiritual experiences. My years in medical school, and indeed, as a practising doctor, have been made radically different from what they might have been in an entirely secular context.

The journey to the Catholic Church has not ended for me. I am faced daily with the challenges of Christian living just like any other discerning believer, oftentimes challenging my conviction as a Catholic Christian. As a Catholic, I am gratefully aware that the communion that binds us as believers together adds that extra touch to all our encounters in life, even in the secular world that we live and move in. Each contact with a brother and sister in the Church is a bonus to the hours and days, each encounter an opportunity for spiritual exchange and fraternal affection. Indeed, the ancient dogma of "extra Ecclesiam non est salus" (there is no salvation outside the Church) holds true for me. You must be "in the Church" to appreciate the fact that life is really sadly different without the Faith.

Thus I end my sharing with a special prayer for all those who do not appreciate the real value of their spiritual heritage in the Catholic Church, and also for those who at some point in their life have made the myopic error of choosing to abandon God's gift of true faith. God says to you, "Come back to Me with all your heart. Don't let fear keep us apart. Long have I waited for your coming home to Me and living daily your New Life."

-Irwin