A Godfather Reflects

Q. What do G.K. Chesterton, John Henry Cardinal Newman, and Surekha Gajria have in common?
A. As of today, they all are or were converts to the Catholic faith.

There are few things in life more beautiful and humbling than seeing the grace of conversion at work in the life of a friend. The road to faith is not an easy one, and "cradle Catholics" like myself take a lot for granted that perhaps we should not. Yet seeing the Faith through the eyes of a convert, and recognizing it as it were for the first time, we are granted a new and deeper understanding of its incomparable truth and beauty. Thank you, Surekha, for the long emails and late night conversations which changed my life as well as yours. And since you know by now that a Chesterton reference is obligatory on such an occasion, this one's for you:

After one moment when I bowed my head
And the whole world turned over and came upright,
And I came out where the old road shone white,
I walked the ways and heard what all men said,
Forests of tongues, like autumn leaves unshed,
Being not unlovable but strange and light;
Old riddles and new creeds, not in despite
But softly, as men smile about the dead.

The sages have a hundred maps to give
That trace their crawling cosmos like a tree,
They rattle reason out through many a sieve
That stores the sand and lets the gold go free:
And all these things are less than dust to me
Because my name is Lazarus and I live.

G.K. Chesterton, "The Convert"

Deo gratias.