An idiom or oxymoron that indicates something is seemingly hidden, but is in fact very easy to see or find.
This spring at Easter, with almost six decades of life in the rear view mirror and after multiple years of study and prayer, I, along with my youngest son, became Catholic after a lifetime as a Latter Day Saint. It is a journey that has brought into my heart and the lives of those I love profound peace and joy as well as difficulty and sorrow. It hasn’t been an easy path. I know it is the most important choice I ever will make and marks the beginning of learning for me rather than an end. I have come to know for myself that it is the correct choice, and it has also been a divisive and disruptive move in many ways. I’d like to honor these contrasting realities in recording my thoughts through this journey home to the Catholic Faith. How strange it is that joy and sorrow can exist at the same time in the same heart. It is a comfort to me that the Lord profoundly understands this irony.
I have come to set the earth on fire, and how I wish it were already blazing! There is a baptism with which I must be baptized, and how great is my anguish until it is accomplished! Do you think that I have come to establish peace on the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division. From now on a household of five will be divided, three against two and two against three…
Luke 12:49-51 (italics added)
Jesus said that the proclamation of His kingdom is meant to be a refining and purifying fire that demands a response. His Gospel invitation meets with an individual’s acceptance or rejection, and is a source of conflict and dissension in many cases when people, even within families, are at different points on their personal journey of faith as they each come to those points of decision. Learning to simultaneously follow one’s own conscience in matters of faith while sincerely meeting others where they are – being an example of God’s love, grace and patience in an ongoing dialogue – it is a goal worth pursuing. I’m far from mastering it, but I plan to persist, even as I trust God with the journeys of those I love.
Speak the truth in love and grow up into him who is the head, even Christ.
Ephesians 4:15
Although I spent more than five decades of my life as a devout Latter Day Saint (Mormon), God has now led me home to a pearl of great price hidden in plain sight, the Catholic church established by Christ 2,000+ years ago, led by His authority and power in continuity ever since – through the apostles he chose and their successors.
My intent is to be able to share my conversion story in a way that honors God and my renewed faith in His providence, is relevant and respectful wherever possible to the faith tradition from which I came, and provides the seeking reader with something to consider as they make their own journey home.