Eighteen years on - a coming of age?

Today is the eighteenth anniversary of my reception as a Catholic at the Oxford Oratory - so in modern, secular terms maybe I have come of age.

I usually mark the anniversary by writing something on this blog. Looking at what I wrote last year I think posting the link to that is still worthwhile and gives some indications of my spiritual journey, and indeed of where I am now on my life’s pilgrimage. If this is a time of coming of age it is that in not just the passing of a set number of years but also the acquisition of more experience and more grey hairs. There is much that needs to be confronted and amended in the Church, much that needs to be truly renewed and much that needs to be restored. The older I get, the more I reflect on my own experience and as I reflect as a historian on the Church, I find not serenity but the urge to make my position clear in my thoughts and words and deeds when so much seems at stake. At the same time both the call of Charity and the reality of physical ageing can be inhibiting factors! So, where shall we all be as the Church twelve months hence?

The relatively lengthy post from last year, setting out my reasons for being received, my subsequent growth as a Catholic and an indication of my standpoint on at least some of the issues currently facing the Church, can be read at Seventeen years in full peace and communion