-255x251.jpg)
I write in the full consciousness that each person’s route to reception into the Catholic Church is singular, a pathway he must follow alone, however conscious (and grateful) he may be for the solicitude and friendship of those who lead and guide him.
I was raised in a conventional Protestant household; “went to church” with my parents in a small New England village — a Congregational church, one of whose ministers was Richard Niebuhr (whose piety and earnestness I well remember, and with gratitude). My boarding school obliged us to “attend chapel” daily, the rituals and hymns being more or less standard Episcopalian observances; the music of some of the great old hymns made a far more powerful impression on me than the sermons we heard and “responsive readings” we recited.
In college in the United States, and at the University of Oxford, and in significant ways through my reading of the poet Gerard Manley Hopkins and his early spiritual mentor, Cardinal John Henry Newman, I began to recognize what I might call a spiritual hunger for something which the church of which I remained a nominal member was unable to assuage. I began also, through Newman, but also through much reading (not very purposive or well-organized), to be drawn to the very early Church (Paul in particular), to the Church Fathers, to the sacrifices of its first Christians, and to what I was coming to believe was the Christian communion that had sustained their creeds, their faith, their consciousness of Christ’s glory.
This must be the holy Catholic Church. Its creeds were dogma — immanent, unchanging, beyond cavil — and I embraced them with an overwhelming consciousness that I was called to embrace them. I had to.
My conversion took many years, and I was not received into the Church until 2010, in my 70th year. I had made a long silent retreat through the offices of Opus Dei; the priest who had become my guide and dear friend sat down with me one autumn day in Evanston, Ill., and began responding to a question I had put to him the night before at dinner, a question about some Church issue that seemed contentious at the time. He began to explain … and I remember as though it were an hour ago that I broke in to say to him, “Father, I am already there.” To which he replied, “I know you are. I’ve been praying for you.” I simply knew this was where I had to be.
At my baptism in Washington, after my first confession, Father C. John McCloskey asked me what saint’s name I would like to honor in my own “new” name. I said, easily, “St. Thomas More.” So I was baptized. An hour later, a boy who had served at the Mass asked me to join him — he wanted to show me something on the grounds of the school in whose chapel the Mass had been celebrated. I had never been to the school before. We walked through a small patch of woods near the edge of the school’s property. In front of me was a small bronze statute … of St. Thomas More.
I experience an overwhelming comfort whose substance and elements I am powerless to describe or explain when I attend Mass. I know it is where I should be. Must be. It is my Church, and, perhaps, the long, long journey towards this fulfillment has made my joy in attaining it all the richer.
Retired Gen. Josiah Bunting III is the president of the Intercollegiate Studies Institute’s American Studies Center and also serves collaterally as president of The Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation in New York City. He served his country as an infantry officer in Vietnam and was for eight years superintendent of the Virginia Military Institute.
Dan Burke: Call to Prayer: Seven Resources for your Lenten Journey
Comments
Post a Comment
Thank you for this beautiful story of ‘coming home’. I may send this on to some people who are discerning conversion, for whom I pray.
“I experience an overwhelming comfort whose substance and elements I am powerless to describe or explain when I attend Mass. I know it is where I should be. Must be. It is my Church, and, perhaps, the long, long journey towards this fulfillment has made my joy in attaining it all the richer.”—That sums it up for me, too!
—And as for St. Newman—His intercession is indeed apparant to your calling to the catholic church. Your conversion was meant to be.
Great Story, Gen. Josiah Bunting, thanks for sharing it.
What a great story! Evangelization is powerful with personal stories. Ordinary Catholics are not taught or encouraged enough to tell their “Personal Conversion” stories unlike those in many Protestant churches. If we are to renew the church, we need the laity to reach out to others in a personal way. Buntings story is a start.
I am glad to read of Gen. Bunting’s seeing the light of truth and coming home even if it took him 70 years. I only hope he doesn’t start calling for female priests.
Beautiful story. Years ago I arrived at Chesea Old Church to find it closed. A person I assumed was a charwoman was leaving the back door, bucket in hand. Told her I was there from Pennsylvania to pray at Jane Colt More’s altar. She handed me the keys and pointed out a house in the block and asked they be returned when I was through. Half hour later I did as instructed, to find she was the wife of the vicar and I stayed for tea. Thomas More is the quintessential Roman Catholic, a man for all seasons, a true disciple of Aquinas.
A conversion story is someone who does *not know* Jesus, to the person’s recognition of Who Jesus is. Like when Jeffrey Dahmer, a man sentenced to 15 life sentences with no possiblity of parole, sat down in prison & read the Bible, realizing he was a sinner in need of Jesus’ forgiveness, like the rest of us. Jeffrey Dahmer became a Born Again Christian in his last few months of life. Now *that’s* a conversion story.
It’s the ‘aints becoming part of the saints.
A Protestant-Christian becoming a Catholic-Christian is NOT a conversion story. From the sound of the Protestant parish described - the Bible was not honored as the Word of God or the Gold Standard of Measure in terms of faith, & the sermons were lackluster - so that Protestant parish may as well have been Roman Catholic.
I’m afraid the great old hymns containing sound doctrine, enough to have an impact in bringing Protestant pew people to Jesus will not be found in the Roman Catholic Church. Those great old doctrine-teaching hymns are considered “too Protestant” by the Vatican.
And if a hymn is written by a Protestant? Even a classic like, “A Mighty Fortress is Our God”, it’s too Protestant for local Catholic church leaders too, those that want to control even the hymns we sing.
For many Catholics, it boils down to: Catholic? Good. Non-Catholic? Bad.
I think it’s comical that Catholics will often take a Protestant hymn, then change the words to it, tweaking it to fit their own agenda. Not the Bible’s teaching or teachings found in the Deposit of Faith left to us by the apostles, but - the Vatican’s “Tradition” agenda/teaching.
So three kinds of hymns are found in Roman Catholic churches, as a rule: 1)Post Vatican II hootenany hymns w/guitars & ooey gooey words appearing quasi-worshipful 2)Pre Vatican II somber hymns in Latin - where pew people have no idea of what’s being said, but it “feels” sacred and old and Traditional, and 3) Music from the 1970’s that’s easier to sing, by “A-List” hymn writers, but that are dated and teach *no doctrine*.
One thing that will be the same is the 7-minute sermonettes priests deliver are likely to be dry, boring, & teach no doctrine from the Deposit of Faith.
These sermonettes teach nothing of ETERNAL VALUE, like what was described in the non-Catholic church in the article. Priest’s sermonettes produce baby Christianettes that still eat pabulum, not able to chew on the whole and Holy Word of God in the Bible; not able to understand the beauty of Paul’s writings, especially Romans, which is commonly known as the Christian Constitution, among Bible-readers.
If only the Vatican would insist each diocese in the world do a Bible study - on a weekday: First study John, and then study Romans. Then bring back the hymns with good (and sound) doctrine. More ‘aints will become saints, and it will equip us pew people to teach the Deposit of Faith left to us by the Apostles.
Welcome home, Sir!! It is such a beautiful place to be! I am also a convert to the Catholic Faith (11 years on April 22nd). May the rest of your journey be a very blessed one! :)
As a life-long, devoted Catholic, I am very happy to hear about your journey, Mister Bunting. I’ll continue praying during the coming years that you reconcile with Shawn Joyce and the Class of 2002.
Post a Comment
By submitting this form, you give The National Catholic Register permission to publish this comment. Comments will be published at our discretion, and may be edited for clarity and length. For best formatting, please limit your response to one paragraph and don't hit "enter" to force line breaks.