An Easter Conversion Story, With a Familiar Name, Our Holy Archbishop

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My journey to the Catholic Church begins when I was in my thirtieth year of life. I was in the most undesirable places that I could ever imagine myself in. I was in prison. I had hit rock bottom and lost everything in my life, including my family. I had made a bad choice and I was serving a forty-four month sentence in a Minnesota state prison.

The most horrific experience in prison was when another inmate had chocked me to the point that I felt my life flash before me all because I accidentally threw a softball that had hit him in the back. I was told that if I didn't pay him one hundred dollars by the next week, he'd kill me. After this treat, I returned to my cell with bruises and I prayed to God. That was the first time I prayed to God in over a decade! The following week, after I paid that inmate one hundred dollars, I was moved to a much safer prison that had a treatment program for my alcohol abuse.

Once I had arrived to this "safer" prison, I had met an inmate who strongly encouraged me that I needed to read and study my way out of prison. He strongly encouraged me to read the classics and study Philosophy. To which, I fell in love with the written word and the quest for truth and meaning in my life.

Continue reading "Another great story"

Thanks to The Catholic Spirit, via Amy Welborn at Open Book

Mary Gibson, the "Roamin' Roman" herself, now employed in a Twin Cities parish as a Director of Religious Education, and blogging again at Veritatis Splendor, is a member of the Cathedral Parish and is a friend of Reggie Aspelund, whose story is told above. Mary was at the Cathedral at the Easter Vigil Mass on Holy Saturday and took photographs of the ceremonies, including Reggie's Baptism, Confirmation and First Holy Communion. See it here.