Et in Ecclesiam Catholicam
Two days ago I was received into the Catholic church. It was strange that such a ‘joyous’ moment should in a way be so depressing. The night before I could not do a thing except to wonder whether or not to fall in love with a certain girl and to be preoccupied like that when heaven waited…! I spent an hour at Blackfairs just sitting or kneeling. Put one-self into the hands of God and it is all right one need not worry. Perhaps I did succeed in doing that and things became looser.
But the next day holding a card and making the vow – this wasn’t becoming a Catholic and I was mainly worrying about what other people were thinking anyhow. But the form had to be gone through perhaps I had become a catholic before.
Then Communion and the body of God sticking to one’s mouth. I was unable to swallow the flesh of our Lord.
Then all was over and it might as well not have happened. Or might it?
The world is the same. I am the same yet I have eaten of the flesh and received the mark. Perhaps also it is the cry of the murderer – why chase me I am the same as I am before? Not what have I done? I know what I have done and he knows what he has done. But why am I different? I know that you can apply a different name to me, but that is something you are doing not something I am doing; and I really eat the same way and drink the same way and talk the same way as before.