Being a convert myself, and coming to the Catholic Church in a somewhat similar route as Dorothy Day—winding my way through the various practices and philosophies of the day including Hedonism, Marxism, and Existentialism—her words on being a convert are intriguing.
I discovered them in a book about her by Robert Coles.
An excerpt.
“I wish I had put more effort into understanding what was happening to me at that moment, when my whole life was changing. Then I would have known more, myself, about myself; then I would have been able to give people the answers when they asked me what made me become a Catholic convert, that’s what they kept calling me. I thought of myself—well, not as a Catholic convert. I thought of myself as someone who had been looking for God all those years, without really knowing it, and had now begun to find Him, but who had a long way to go: ‘the long loneliness.’ That expression ‘Catholic convert’ was much too final and decisive and conclusive for me; and it still is. The rain and wind and fog were still swirling around me all those years ago, more so than I dared admit to myself, and I’m not in the clear yet. Who of us is?” (pp. 56-57)
Ah yes, exactly, who of us is?
Lampstand Foundation website, http://www.lampstandfoundation.org/
"The sinner is at the very heart of Christianity. Nobody is so competent as the sinner in matters of Christianity. Nobody, except the saint." Charles Peguy (1873-1914)
About
- David H. Lukenbill
- I am a California native, married, we have one daughter and live close to the American River with two cats and all the wild critters we can feed. I am a management consultant to nonprofit organizations and have an Associates of Arts degree in Administration of Justice from Sacramento City College, a Bachelor of Science degree in Organizational Behavior from the University of San Francisco and a Master of Public Administration degree, also from the University of San Francisco.