Swimming the Tiber

Some things in life are easy to pin down. At the Easter Vigil this year I fulfilled a call on my soul that first took hold as I walked into the Basilica of San Pietro for the very first time. I experienced this warm, peaceful call of home twice – first as a Methodist and secondly as a non-denominational Evangelical. Both occasions inspired a complete and comfortable feeling of tranquility in the loud and tourist-filled center of the Roman Catholic world. For that reason my entry into full communion with the Catholic Church this Easter was more homecoming than radical change. Though it probably came as a shock to many, it was as natural as a trip down the hill to the local Trattoria for this one-time adopted son of Italy.

I am a lover of Beauty. Beauty is one of the last great truths to stand against the tide of mediocrity and relativism. Beauty IS Truth. I worry about false sincerity, false ideology and false advertising – but not false Beauty. There is much Beauty in the Catholic Church. It may be obscured under a couple layers of dust and forgotten by a large number of the faithful in well-worn pews, but it is there - a reminder that beautiful things can be created in honor of the Truth of our Lord and his amazing sacrifice. Though the Church may clothe herself in the Beauty of the past as one might wear an old, threadbare sweater - with little notice but with a profound sense of history - She will eventually learn to knit again.

Though I could write of the myriad reasons for making this journey (and I most likely will at some point) – it is sufficient for me now to say that I found the spiritual home I’ve been looking for ever since setting foot in the seductive streets of the Eternal City. Deo Gratias.