Duc in Altum

Thanks be to God that He has given us John Paul II as our Holy Father for these past twenty-five and half years. He has been a bulwark of strength throughout his pontificate. In God's beautiful providence, when the Church has needed a strong Vicar of Christ, perhaps more so than any time in the past several centuries, He gave us John Paul II.

On his birthday, I am reminded of how his life has impacted mine. Most importantly, I think of how he had a hand in my conversion to Catholicism. Through his holiness of life, fidelity to the Faith, and personal witness, he embodied the Rock upon which Christ founded His Church. His ministry of presence by his travels and the personalism with which he shares the Gospel drew me closer to the Church which Christ founded.

It is often said that all conversions to Catholicism turn on whether one accepts the authority of the Catholic Church especially as it is manifest in the Vicar of Christ. It is no wonder that many are coming into the Church given how this Pope has embodied the position of Supreme Pontiff. During every journey to Rome, one must realize that the authority upon which you used to rely is no longer tenable. In my case, after I saw that sola scriptura was a foundation of sand, it is with tremendous relief that I realized that the Rock upon which Christ built His Church is still firmly founded to this day in the bishop of Rome.

So on his eighty-fourth birthday, I thank God for our Holy Father. I wish him a wonderful birthday. I pray that he continues to have a beautiful apostolate which bears fruit that will last for generations to come. I thank God for his influence upon me to enter into the fullness of faith. May I, in some small way, give him a gift by heeding his call to not be afraid and cast out into the deep to serve our Lord Jesus Christ.