Monday, October 29, 2007 at 2:02am
Catholicism calls me
Column: Woman at the Well
I let go of the security and structure of Campus Crusade for Christ at the same time I graduated from University of California at Davis and let go of the security and structure of academic life. Now what?
I decided to apply to graduate school at Dominican College in San Rafael. I also applied for a position as resident assistant in the freshman dorm. I was accepted to both the graduate program and the job. That fall I started work on a master's in English Literature and lived in Meadowlands Hall, an elegant mansion that was the summer home of the DeYoung family in the 1800s.
I worked under Sister Claire, residence staff and a professor of philosophy, who had been my first true mentor when I was an undergraduate at Dominican three years before. She was the first adult I respected who also respected me, the first person to ever tell me I had common sense. She told me I could trust my own best judgment. Living under her guidance now provided a healing balm for my troubled and uprooted soul.
The sting of rejection and condemnation of being thrown out of Campus Crusade for Christ had left its mark. Now I turned to her and to several other Dominican sisters I had known for over four years for guidance and support. They were part of the impetus for my beginning explorations of Catholicism.
These were the days of Pope John XXIII's Vatican II — a time when the Mass had begun to be spoken in English rather than Latin. The Fathers Berrigan were protesting the Vietnam War. Social justice was at the forefront of the Catholic faith. Catholic biblical scholarship was more nuanced and reflective than most Protestant scholarship at the time.
I was still hoping to find a community of faith to which I could belong without sacrificing my intelligence or my integrity.
The ancient roots of the church universal began to call me. I began to study the medieval mystics and to do research for a master's thesis on the Theme of Incarnation in T.S. Eliot's "Four Quartets." Was I ready to take catechism and first confession to become a convert to Roman Catholicism?
(To be continued.)
— — —
Rev. Kristi Denham is pastor of the Congregational Church of Belmont, California (United Church of Christ). Her email address is {email RevKristi@aol.com}RevKristi@aol.com{/email}. © Copyright 2007 by Kristi Denham.
I decided to apply to graduate school at Dominican College in San Rafael. I also applied for a position as resident assistant in the freshman dorm. I was accepted to both the graduate program and the job. That fall I started work on a master's in English Literature and lived in Meadowlands Hall, an elegant mansion that was the summer home of the DeYoung family in the 1800s.
I worked under Sister Claire, residence staff and a professor of philosophy, who had been my first true mentor when I was an undergraduate at Dominican three years before. She was the first adult I respected who also respected me, the first person to ever tell me I had common sense. She told me I could trust my own best judgment. Living under her guidance now provided a healing balm for my troubled and uprooted soul.
The sting of rejection and condemnation of being thrown out of Campus Crusade for Christ had left its mark. Now I turned to her and to several other Dominican sisters I had known for over four years for guidance and support. They were part of the impetus for my beginning explorations of Catholicism.
These were the days of Pope John XXIII's Vatican II — a time when the Mass had begun to be spoken in English rather than Latin. The Fathers Berrigan were protesting the Vietnam War. Social justice was at the forefront of the Catholic faith. Catholic biblical scholarship was more nuanced and reflective than most Protestant scholarship at the time.
I was still hoping to find a community of faith to which I could belong without sacrificing my intelligence or my integrity.
The ancient roots of the church universal began to call me. I began to study the medieval mystics and to do research for a master's thesis on the Theme of Incarnation in T.S. Eliot's "Four Quartets." Was I ready to take catechism and first confession to become a convert to Roman Catholicism?
(To be continued.)
— — —
Rev. Kristi Denham is pastor of the Congregational Church of Belmont, California (United Church of Christ). Her email address is {email RevKristi@aol.com}RevKristi@aol.com{/email}. © Copyright 2007 by Kristi Denham.