So by now things are serious. My parents have been informed. We are attending RCIA (Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults). We’ve quit going to a ‘normal’ church. Why are we continuing this path? By now it wasn’t simply intellectual. We had personal experience to back it up. Early October I went in for my first confession. I was not required to do it. Actually I’m pretty sure I wasn’t supposed to do it yet officially. I had been learning about confession and recently had felt like God was asking me to do it.

I went into the little confessional room. Because I didn’t know what I was doing I asked if I could come around the screen. When I did I was surprised to see a very young priest I had never seen before. He was apparently filling in for our regular pastor. I explained that I was in RCIA and had never been to confessional before. He was very kind, said that as long as I was baptised we could proceed. I talked through the things God had put on my heart. I was crying with the grief I felt over some of them.

He surprised me with his response. He said that God was pleased with me. Said a few other things about my specific situation, asked me to pray for my family, and then at the end said “I absolve you of your sins in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.”

It was amazing. I could feel it. I felt a lightness in my chest that I had never felt before. I rushed home and hugged my little two year old girl. I felt free.

This wasn’t just this one time. I went again two weeks later and again it felt amazing. It wasn’t just how I felt either. Amanda could see the difference in the way I treated her and the girls.

Amanda went about a month after I first went and her experience was similar to mine.

About this time we also approached our pastor with a request. The normal path to being received into full communion with the Church was to go through two semesters of RCIA and then come in at Easter. However we knew from my aunt and uncle that it didn’t have to be that way, especially if you had already been baptised, as we both were. We were both eager by this point. Going to church week after week, watching others getting to receive the Eucharist, but not being able to ourselves was getting harder and harder. So we asked if we could speed up the process. After praying on it for a week he asked us what we thought about setting a date for January 6, which is also the feast of the Epiphany (celebrating the miracle of the Revelation of Christ to the wise men). Actually the Epiphany is one of the oldest feast days in the church, predating even Christmas. At first it celebrated several events, including the Nativity.

So we set the date. Contacted my uncle and aunt, who were serving as our sponsors, they set aside the date to come down. We also decided to have the girls both baptised on the same day.

I started getting anxious as the day got closer, what if we had made a mistake asking to receive confirmation early? I was concerned that I didn’t miss out on any of the process. I was also worried about being disappointed. If we really were joining Christ’s true church, and if we really were about to receive the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus in the Eucharist, I would expect to feel something special. I knew that it wasn’t necessary for it to, and I had lots of intellectual and other reasons, but I didn’t want the big day to be anticlimactic.

I wasn’t disappointed! The day came, Amanda and I stood side by side and confirmed that we were committed to following Christ and His Church. The priest prayed over us to receive the Holy Spirit and anointed us with oil, as has been done for millennia. Tears flowed freely. I have very few words for what I felt. Like a vibration inside me. It was more than I had hoped. I wondered what receiving Christ in the Eucharist would be like.

As we knelt a little later, side by side, and received Christ on our tongues, once again I was simply overwhelmed. I remember having one clear thought “my Lord and my God!” We went back to our pew and knelt again while the rest of the church filed to the front. We both cried more. I’ll let her speak for herself, but for me it was so good it felt almost too good to be true.

One week later we were back at church, receiving our Lord once again. This time in addition to the emotions I discerned words. I was telling Jesus I just wanted all of Him, when I clearly heard back that I never needed to pray that again. That I do have all of Him, and if I ever felt like I was lacking that I could come back for more. It was the clearest I think I’ve ever heard Christ speak to me. As I told Amanda on our way home I finally felt like I knew Christ. I’ve had a knowledge of and relationship with God the Father and the Holy Spirit, but I’ve never felt connected to Jesus, no matter how many times I’d prayed for it.

So that’s it! Or at least that’s the beginning. We’re what I would call fulfilled Christians now, because we not only know Jesus, but also His bride, the Church.