Loved into existence

By Sienna Lewis

“For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord”. (Rom 8:38–39)

In April, I will be in full communion with the Catholic Church, coming from the Anglican tradition, and the Holy Spirit has made it so that my family is moving together, doing the Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults (RCIA) programme where we are.

For me, the journey here has been a series of very tiny steps. During my time at Holy Name Convent, I learned about what Catholicism is, but never considered conversion. I was content praying at school with peers, at home with family and at church with the Anglican community. Not much seemed to differ between the three, so there simply wasn’t a reason to.

During Covid, every week like clockwork, my family and I witnessed Archbishop Charles Jason Gordon’s steadfast presence on Trinity TV, shepherding his people during that disturbing time.

We felt the movement of the Catholic Church, a source of great comfort and guiding light for us while things were so uncertain. Two years after returning to school in Miami post-Covid, it was time to return to church physically at St Agatha’s, the only parish walking distance from campus. Here, God would start to tug at my heart to start down the path I currently walk.

How has my life changed because of moving toward the Catholic faith? What a question. The answer, I suppose, can begin this way: I know the true source of that life now.

I have always known that God made us. Every Christian does. Typically, we picture Him as a kind sculptor, toy maker, or parent. One who used His hands to mould us, His breath to start our hearts, and let us loose in this world, hoping we’ll choose to return to Him for advice sometimes.

My understanding of Him has shifted slightly, but ever so profoundly. When my priest here in Miami, ‘Fr Luis’, announced faith formation and RCIA classes in September 2023, my ears perked.

Adding a Monday night class to my full school and work schedule would be a lot to commit to, but the Holy Spirit told me to give it a try. I signed up expecting to have to stop classes a few weeks in, thinking that I just wanted to learn more about God. I probably wouldn’t end up wanting to take some huge leap by myself and change my faith tradition! I would just see how things go.

I could never have expected (though maybe I should have) that the classes I thought would take so much energy from me, would be what restored it from week to week.

Very quickly they became a source of supernatural fuel for me, and what I looked forward to at the start of each week. I began to walk around on air like I was in love and even had a friend ask me if that was the case. Well, yes…It was.

We live and breathe

Fr Luis explained it to me once this way, quoting the work of CS Lewis.

All of creation is a song, and God is an opera singer, using all His passion and might to hold a single note that seems to last forever. So long as He holds this note, all our lives are sustained by the breath leaving His lungs and made beautiful by the timbre of His voice.

If He were to stop, even to take a breath, the melody would stop. It would no longer exist. The song would be over. The melody could not delight in its own beauty or that of its singer, and the singer could no longer delight in His song.

We live and breathe because God is constantly giving of Himself, loving us into existence.

How beautiful it was to know that our Father has never left us on our own, even for a second, and that the proof of that is in the fact that we are alive in this moment. Throughout the RCIA, I have been reminded of how wanted I am by God, since nothing He has ever gifted me was out of obligation, but true devotion.

As a child, I knew God as deeply as a child can know love and until a few months ago, I couldn’t have fathomed anything deeper. The more I journey along with Him, the more vivid my experience of Him becomes.

I’m learning Him as a person, with a voice and a will, a personality, and a sense of humour, and in every second now, I yearn to become a vessel worthy to receive Love Himself – one who at least understands what she holds, even if I can never be deserving of it.

Because of this journey, my driving desire is to be whoever God wants me to be for the small corner of the world that I can touch, and I want others to come to know the joy and sense of purpose that comes with being close to Him.

The past few months have brought me the gift of seeing small ways in which God works through me to touch other people, establishing or reconciling relationships with them.

That has come with sharing in the sadness of rejection that Christ might feel from those who aren’t yet open to Him. There have been moments of deep community, and ones of utter loneliness in rooms full of friends.

In all things, I find solace in the little room in my heart where God dwells. I am learning to trust in a plan that may not always grant me the wishes of my heart, but that is greater than my own, and to believe in God’s words before my own fear and sorrow.

I know nothing of the future, but I’m sure that I want it to meet me walking with God, my love above all things.