The popular and prolific Catholic author Mark Shea has a great blog over at Patheos, where he writes about everything from the Church to G.K. Chesterton to the pro-life movement to Star Wars… and everything in between. Below he reflects on the recent decision by former atheist Leah Libresco to enter the Catholic Church.
Consequently, when people like Leah come along and are naturally full of the first flush of enthusiasm for the faith, I rejoice, but I also issue a note of caution: you have *not* found the Perfect Church and you have not now “arrived” at the platform where you can look down on your past. You have merely found Christ’s Church: a hospital for sinners and an asylum for lunatics before it is a shining paradise of saints in glory. Baptism is not the end, but the beginning of the New Life. The goal is Heaven, not entry into the Church. So set your hopes on Jesus and his saints, not on us oddballs, slobs, factory rejects, broken jerks and ignorant clods. The treasure is there. But it is emphatically in jars of clay. And I speak [as] the biggest cracked pot of them all. But then, O convert, so are you. That’s why every act of worship begins with the Confiteor and not with “I thank you, O Lord, that I am not like other men”. Now begins the long haul, which won’t be over till you draw your last breath.
