Lord willing, my wife and I will be received into the Catholic Church this year. She is an unbaptized catechumen, so she’ll receive the sacraments of baptism, confirmation and Eucharist at the Easter Vigil Mass. As a baptized Christian, I’ll be received into full communion the following week, on Divine Mercy Sunday. By God’s grace, Divine Mercy Sunday this year falls on April 12 — the day before my 40th birthday.
Forty, of course, is a significant number for Christians. Noah and his family weathered the Flood for 40 days before landing on dry land. The Israelites wandered the desert for 40 years before entering the promised land. Jesus fasted and was tempted by the devil for 40 days; and he ascended to heaven 40 days after the Resurrection.
For me, it’s no coincidence that my reception into the Catholic Church will occur so close to my 40th birthday; nor is it happenstance that it’s one day before. I’ll explain what I mean, but, first, a bit of context.
From Appalachia to Atheist and the Temptations of Pride
I’m a child of the American South. My late father’s family hails from southwest Virginia and northeast Tennessee, the rural foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. And my mom’s family — though they moved a lot when she was growing up — also has roots in this region. I was born in Johnson City, Tennessee, and have spent most of my life in Bristol, a smallish town that straddles the Tennessee/Virginia state line. I’ve been fortunate to travel and work other places, including living abroad, but, at bottom, I’m a product of Appalachian America. We lived in a log cabin and had a basset hound, for goodness’ sake!
Growing up in this area means lots of contact with Christianity, but very little exposure to Catholicism. In east Tennessee, especially, Baptist churches are the most common denomination; they dot the landscape. Like many Protestants, we church-hopped a bit, but my earliest memories are from our time at Belle Meadows Baptist, a relatively large congregation just across the state line in Bristol, Virginia. When I was 6 years old, I told my parents I wanted to be baptized, and Pastor Dewey Williams performed the rite shortly thereafter. I remember wearing a big white t-shirt and being dunked three times in the bathtub-like font that sat behind the altar at the front of the sanctuary.
My faith waxed and waned in the early years. As a coach’s son, life’s seasons were marked more by baseball and basketball practices than the liturgical calendar. We were in church sometimes; sometimes we weren’t. My interest in spiritual matters took a backseat to the excitement of games and girls. This malaise lasted through high school and on into college. There were a few brief stretches of personal revival — in response to stressors and the faithful witness of friends and family — but these experiences ultimately fizzled out when I got bored and no longer felt the need for God.
In college, I realized that the anxious disposition I’d dealt with since childhood was not “just nerves.” Turns out, I have a pretty serious case of obsessive-compulsive disorder. Although the diagnosis and medication helped me cope with the worst of OCD, I also began to self-medicate with alcohol. A series of very poor decisions left me depressed, angry and even more anxious. I thought a drastic change would appease whatever demon that was hounding me, and so after college I moved to Chiang Mai, Thailand, to teach English as a foreign language. Though most of my time in Thailand was marked by partying and alcohol abuse, in a moment of clarity I sought out a Christian mission that offered free and low-cost English lessons to Thai university students. To make a very long story short, I ended up meeting my wife through a mutual acquaintance at the school. Shortly thereafter, I returned to my destructive habits and apathy concerning religion, but I can look back and discern God’s grace already at work.
After we were married, my wife and I moved to the U.S., where I began graduate school. Just as I thought moving to Thailand would fix my problems, I thought “settling down” and pursuing worldly “success” would ease my anxiety, give me purpose and, finally, make me happy. I was wrong. My drinking worsened. My wife and I struggled to get along after the honeymoon period inevitably ended. I was at the end of my strength.
Then, grace. It would take a much longer article to describe the series of events (in 2014) by which God drew me back into his arms. I’ll leave that for another day. But to put it as succinctly as possible: I had the life-changing — and, truthfully, lifesaving — realization that I am prideful.
For years I’d alternated between two spiritual states: 1) Believing in God, knowing that I was a sinner in theory, but, in my pride, whitewashing or downplaying my failures and 2) Mocking the incredulity of belief in the Christian God. In both cases, I’d allowed my hubris to determine my belief and, accordingly, shape my character. Even when I did believe in God, I didn’t take seriously the gravity of spiritual realities. God was only there to console me when I’d screwed up; when I felt better, I’d return to business as usual. When I went down the atheist rabbit hole, as I did in graduate school, my pride in my own achievements swelled. It led to selfishness, ingratitude and cynicism bordering on nihilism.
But in recognizing my pride, I finally knew that I needed God. And he wanted to make me whole.
Walking in the Footsteps of the Society of Jesus
In the years following, God slowly nourished me back to spiritual, mental, emotional and even physical health. We began attending a local Presbyterian church, where I learned so much and where we still have dear friends. But God is always working, and, after several years, it became apparent that I was being drawn “further up, further in,” toward Catholicism.
In 2022, or thereabouts, I began seriously considering joining the Catholic Church. In researching whether Protestants were rebaptized upon entering the church — and finding, no, they’re not — I realized that I didn’t know the date of my own baptism. Since I was so young when it happened, and because, unlike in Catholicism, Protestant baptisms aren’t limited to Easter or other liturgical occasions, it could’ve occurred on any day of the year. I asked my parents, but they, too, couldn’t recall the date. So I contacted Belle Meadows, and, “come to find out,” as we say in the South, I was baptized on January 3rd, 1993.
The date didn’t mean anything to me at first. But as I was increasingly interested in the Church’s liturgical calendar, eventually I thought to Google January 3rd to see what its significance might be. I discovered that it’s the day when the church celebrates the Feast of the Holy Name of Jesus. Further, it’s the Titular Feast of the Jesuits, as St. Ignatius and his companions chose the “Society of Jesus” as their order’s name to reflect their mission to serve Christ. I knew a little about the Jesuits before this, but the revelation prompted me to research more, as I more deeply considered and prayed about whether to “swim the Tiber.”
Sometime later, I learned that the Jesuit St. Peter Faber and I share a birthday (April 13th). In these small glimpses of providential grace — in these serendipitous discoveries of spiritual kinship — I’m struck by how precise and how personal God’s ways are.
Faber was one of Ignatius’ original companions and the first of the group to be ordained as a priest. In 1534, at Montmartre, Faber presided over Mass and received the vows of the others to the newly formed Society of Jesus. He was, in this sense, the “first Jesuit.”
The more I read about Faber, the more I liked him. He was known as the “gentle exorcist,” for his calm demeanor, patience and sensitivity to the movements of the soul. His spiritual dexterity was recognized by Ignatius, who said of Faber that he was the most gifted leader of the Spiritual Exercises he had ever known.
Another key tenant of Faber’s spirituality — and a consistent theme in his writings — is the importance of guarding against hard-heartedness towards others. He urges believers to cultivate a posture of radical openness, grounded in the knowledge that God may already be at work in even the most cynical person. (I can attest, he’s right!)
I have an icon of Faber hanging above my desk. In the icon, he is holding an open book in his left hand, and on the pages the text reads: Cuida, nunca clausures tu corazón a alguien (“Take care — never close your heart to anyone.”). The icon was “written” shortly after Pope Francis canonized Faber in 2013 and was presented as a gift to the late Argentinian pontiff, hence the Spanish language.
To God, Who Began a Good Work in Me
As we approach Divine Mercy Sunday, the closer I am to being received into the church, I’m reminded of how far God has brought me. In his mercy, in Christ, God accounted for the many times I’ve turned away. In long-suffering mercy, he’s waited for me, knowing what it would cost.
I’m a sinner. I don’t have the strength to wait for 40 years to receive Jesus in the Eucharist. But God help me, I can make it 39 years and 364 days, and trust God’s mercy for the rest, and beyond. I can do this because before I was born, before I sinned, before I met my wife, before I sinned again, before I knew him — he was there. And he is, still.
