In the year 1866, Gerard Manley Hopkins feels like an exile. He’s publicly announced his intention to convert to the Catholic faith from his native Anglicanism and the news has dropped like a lead weight in the environs of Oxford. He’ll have to leave, of course. Catholics aren’t allowed to make a success at Oxford, so the knife is made ready to cut him adrift. Meanwhile, he languishes, a stranger in his own home.
Nine years ago, I too felt like an exile. Sitting in the chapel of St Vincent DePaul in St Louis, Missouri, during Mass, I thought about Hopkins. I had been sitting in that pew every day for more than four months, not once rising to receive Holy Communion because I was spiritually homeless. I had been an Anglican priest, but having declared my intention to join the Catholic Church, I naturally left my vocation, parishioners and friends behind to occupy this foreign house of worship. I longed to make it my home, but until the day I was received into full Communion I was to feel an exile.
