Ei kvinne i USA, Heather King, ble spurt om hvorfor hun valgte Den katolske Kirke da hun begynte å nærme seg kristen tro, og hun svarer:
When I began my quest I didn’t shop around for a church where I felt “comfortable” or where the people necessarily looked or dressed like me, or where I was going to hear things that were safe or familiar or politically correct. I was seeking the truth. I was looking for a church that would tell me the truth. I was concerned about the state of my soul, which I believed to be a matter of life and death. Catholicism was the only church that addressed that, as a matter of life and death: addressed it directly, continually, truthfully, without stinting or flinching. The cross in a Catholic church has a body on it. Right up front, right above the altar, is the message that subconsciously haunts us: someday, we’re going to die. Right up front, loud and clear, is the human condition: suffering, torment, conflict. As I say in Redeemed, the first time I went to Mass and really “saw” that body on the crucifix, I realized Christ isn’t saying that we need to suffer more; he’s acknowledging the suffering we’re already in.
Jeg nevner i mine prekener i dag den radikale omvendelsen til Francis og Klara av Assisi, disse to ungdommene som kom fra rike familier og hadde alt de kunne tenke seg, men likevel mangla en kurs, et mål for livet sitt. Amy Welborn nevner på sin blog i dag ei bok, Redeemed, der Heather King skriver om sin omvendelse, etter at hun hele sitt liv hadde et mål for sitt liv:
King was raised in New Hampshire, one of eight children born to Protestant parents. She spent the first twenty years of her adult life drunk, eventually sobered up and went to California to practice law. She eventually left that to write, and in that period also embraced Catholicism. She has lived in Koreatown in LA for years.
Redeemed is essentially about encountering, confronting and accepting reality – the reality of who we are and the reality of the world, both seen and unseen. It is about coming up against the things you thought were you or would make you more you and discovering the inadequacies or straight-out lies coursing through what you thought was true or necessary.
… The core, I think, of King’s pre-conversion searching was about alienation, loneliness and suffering. Where is the light in all of this? Where is the meaning? We do see glimmers of light here and there – are they connected? Is there something coherent about both the suffering and the light?
And so, through a combination of reading and exploring and experience, Heather King found Christ. And she found Him in the Catholic faith:
«The other thing I remember from that first Mass: right before Communion, everybody kneeled and said: ‘Lord, I am not worhty to receive you, but only say the word and I shall be healed.’ If there was one thing I’d always known about myself, it was that I was sick — soul-sick, weary. A church that didn’t sugarcoat or pretend everything was all right! A church based on mystery, awe, wonder! A church that had behind it the weight of centuries … «
Intervjuet som jeg åpna denne posten med kan leses i sin helhet HER.