Johnny Ryan ‘19

Sometimes conversion happens in a dramatic reversal, like it did for St. Paul. For most of us, though, conversions are more mundane and less dramatic—but in no way less important.

And that is true for me. I have been blessed to have never had a time when I fell away from the Church. Rather, my conversion story (which is in no way over) happened in my life within the Church.

I grew up Catholic: I went to Mass every Sunday with my family, prayed before meals and bedtime, went to CCD, and became an altar server. I thank God every day that I was raised with the Catholic religion, but at that point in time, I was Catholic only because my parents were.

And that was true as I began my days at St. Sebastian’s School, an all-boys Catholic private secondary school outside Boston. At St. Seb’s I was introduced to the practice of attending Mass daily. At first, I wondered why anyone would want to go to Mass more than once a week. Sunday alone was way too much Mass!

Nevertheless, I signed up to serve on Wednesday mornings. As I made my way up to the chapel every Wednesday morning at 7:10 in those first years as St. Seb’s, I never really enjoyed being there. I told myself, “You signed up for this, so you better do it.” Serving Mass was really only something I did because I had said I would.

Then I broke my leg in a wrestling match, which left me in various casts and crutches for two months. As a result, I told myself that I couldn’t serve daily Mass, and therefore didn’t have to go. And you’d think that I would have been happier since I didn’t have to go to Mass more often than just on Sunday with my family. Honestly, though, the opposite was true. When I look back on those two months, I could see that something was missing.

When I had healed and was free of my casts, I decided to try my hand (and leg) at serving again. And there was something there at Mass that kept pulling me back. I went the next day, and the day after that. Soon I began to absolutely love the Mass and to feel at home within the Mass.

What was it that pulled me back the next day? Without a doubt it was the Eucharist, “the imperishable love” of Christ, as St. Ignatius of Antioch tells us.

So my prayer this Easter season for all of us is that we realize that our conversion is a daily event: we must always be turning back towards God, whether we have been away from the Church for some time, or we are a daily communicant. God is always waiting for us, longing for us to return and to enter more deeply into God’s life.