Moment

“Conversion is the matter of a moment. Sanctification is the work of a lifetime.” (Saint Josemaria, “The Way”, at 285).

God Planted a Garden in the East (Richard Lewer)

I still remember the moment of my conversion.  I have always been a Catholic.  I was born a Catholic in a Catholic family.  I attended a school where I was taught the Catholic Faith.  I have lived a blessed and barely troubled life.  I was not tested in a terrible way.

And yet, I have experienced grief.

Though I lost people due to illness or age throughout my life, nothing prepared me for the terrible grief that I experienced when my youngest little baby died before he was even born.  The grief was so unexpected and profound that it literally changed my entirely.  I was one person before that experience and a completely different person afterwards.  I felt isolated and a terrible anguish.  For years and years I was unable to bear the thought that a child who I loved was in a place where I could not be.  I felt torn between caring for my surviving children and being physically unable to care for my child who had died before he was even born.

And I tried all sorts of things to get myself out of this.  I tried to speak to family and friends – but they did not understand and despite their best efforts they were quite overcome by the grief that they were witnessing.  I tried to speak to a psychologist, and that was helpful in allowing me some time and space to process the grief, but it did not take the grief away.  And I tried to be very very angry with God.  I was like a petulant child railing at God.

During these dark years, I continued about my business – I worked and raised my children and lived with my husband – but I was sadder and heavier than I have ever been in my life before.  My heart was broken and haemorrhaged sorrow at every point in my life, while the world chugged away and barely noticed.

And then – in a moment – while I was praying for my little niece who was so sick and in need of prayers, I suddenly realised – in a flash – that I was grieving a child who was not dead and gone.  I was grieving a child who was in Heaven.  I was crying for a child who had not been taken from me, but rather one who had been given to me in a different and unique way.  In an instant, I realised that while I was called to protect my living children all the days of my life, my little child who had died before he was born would help to protect me.

And in that instant – inspired by the Holy Spirit – my life’s work began…

Saint Josemaria wrote, “Conversion is the matter of a moment. Sanctification is the work of a lifetime.” (“The Way”, at 285).

For in an instant, I fell in love with God.  And that love in that moment was beautifully blinding.  And my sanctification began from that day.  Because from then on I have been called to love – not with the infatuation of the first flush of love experienced in a moment, but with the deep enduring love of a lifetime…

For with prayer, I stand on Holy Ground where everything is clear. Here. At the Foot of the Cross.