I can only share a “Born-Again Catholic” story, since I was raised Catholic, left, and came back. (That term always gets a giggle.)
The pain of knowing I could not receive surgery to cure my seizures was almost unbearable. However, when I read a request asking for prayers for a successful surgery in my faith bulletin, my heart broke and as the religion I was has no “houses of worship”, I had nowhere to run to feel a little closer to God. (They printed it as a mistake; it was believed my me, my doctor, and henceforth everyone around me that the surgery would be an option.) So I went around the corner to the church I went to grade school at before my shift started.
I remember crying, trying to stifle the sobs as there was a woman praying the Rosary in the otherwise empty church. Everything was just as I remembered it from childhood. My shoe squeaked on the floor at one point and I felt so awkward…
I started going to Mass again a few months later. I remember sitting in the pew during Communion, knowing it was inappropriate for me to go to Communion. I remember thinking, “This feels like home.”
“You are home,” said a voice in my head.
A few months later, I made a good confession after weeks of hemming and hawing and debate. I went to the cathedral Downtown since I knew the parish priest. Some things were just too embarrassing to admit to him. Then I made an appointment, a few weeks after that we had our marriage blessed, and I got to return to the Lectern that very day. I was so happy.
