Brother Peter Marie Westall, formerly James Westall, grew up in an Anglican family, but he did a lot of spiritual wavering.
“I became an atheist at 14 — a deliberate decision,” he said. “But I knew my mother was praying for me all the time.”
He had a change of heart at age 16, he said, but it wasn’t until he was 22 — after graduating with a mechanical engineering degree from Southampton University — that he accepted Jesus into his life at a Catholic retreat.
“I was scared of happy, clappy Christians, so I stayed at the back,” he said. “But they were just giving talks. They had Eucharist, and gave a lot of examples about the life of St. Francis. When I read about his life, that set my life on fire, the full Gospel. That’s what I wanted to do as well.”
Helping to cement his faith were accounts of the appearance of the Virgin Mary to people throughout history, he said — in particular repeated apparitions reported by children in the Bosnian village of Medjugorje, beginning in 1981. Those who investigate such reports determined that the children’s eyes reacted as if they were seeing a bright light, and they did not react to pain despite being pricked with needles, Brother Peter said.
“My reasoning went, if the scientists can’t disprove the children saw the Virgin Mary, she must exist. God must exist, and Jesus must be Lord,” he said.
This is TWO, count them, TWO positive articles on the Catholic Church the Startlegram has run this year, with large, attractive pictures. The first one covered the ordination of four men to the priesthood last summer. It was news since we usually ordain one a year, two on a good year. Better yet, even with the four new priests, we still have more men in the ordination process than ever before.
One aspect the article didn’t cover is the sea change going on in the Catholic Diocese of Fort Worth. As the old guard is retiring, they are being replaced by a completely different breed.
* The chancellor of the diocese is a former Episcopalian (married!); the Vicar General is a very orthodox, younger priest. These two offices together are, perhaps, the equivalent of the Episcopalian Canon to the Ordinary.
* Our new diocesan director of religious formation is a grad of Franciscan University of Steubenville, an orthodox institution.
* The Friars of the Renewal are the first male religious order in Fort Worth recognizable as religious in dress and manner of life. Their ministry also represents a return to the sort of community involvement that collapsed in the wake of Vatican II. There are also rumors of another religious community coming in to do social ministry grounded in Jesus Christ. I’m hoping.
* Two of the men ordained last summer were professional musicians; one is an English trained organist. This bodes well for a decent liturgy in the diocese.
So our little backwater diocese is coming along. It’s said that Bp. Vann was sent to Fort Worth specifically to correct some problems here. It seems clear that he is doing just that.