On the morning of January 1, 2019, my family and I began a new life in the Catholic Church. At Mass for the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God, my wife and two children and I were received, confirmed and made our first Communion together at St Patrick’s Church in Nashville, Tennessee. Until the day before, I had been an Episcopal priest and a diocesan official.
I was raised Evangelical and passed through an agnostic phase before I was confirmed in the Church of England in 2002 while a graduate student at Oxford. My wife and children were all baptised in the Anglican Communion. For a long time, we thought we knew where we belonged; but when Mass finished on January 1, a crowd of parishioners surrounded us, shook our hands, gave my son and daughter children’s missals and rosaries, took our pictures, and repeated the phrase, “Welcome home.” On social media those same words came our way thousands more times, from all corners of the earth.
