I will never forget my College’s president, Dr. William Fahey, saying he had found the best way to describe his students was “Scapulars and Tattoos”.  I often think of this when I look at the people around me and I always marvel at the wide array of young, energetic, passionate, faith-filled people that are pursuing truth. Many have tattoos. Many have scapulars—that wonderful gift from Our Lady.  But all of them, each having journeyed to Thomas More College by a unique path, are bound together by a common love and thirst for the Truth that will set you free. It especially came to mind of late in the case of a current student who recently joined the Church.   

 

The Easter Break was a time of rejoicing and new birth for all of us, but especially for a friend of mine and student of Thomas More College, Allison ‘Clare’ Welton.  As I celebrated my one-year birthday at the Easter Vigil in Nashua, New Hampshire, over 1,000 miles away at St. Isidores in Kansas, my friend was coming into full communion with the Catholic Church.

 

“I knew it was going to be the life I lived, but being at Thomas More College, with the people, in the classes, at Mass, being shown Catholicism in such richness, seeing it being lived out in people’s lives, is stuff you don’t find in books!” said Allison ‘Clare’ Welton, Class of’16

 

During her first semester at Thomas More College, Allison continued RCIA at the local parish of  St. Patrick’s. She then joined 31 other RCIA candidates at the Vigil Mass at St. Isidore’s.  She had been emotional leading up to the Triduum, but on Holy Saturday, time seemed to go by strangely. That night at the Vigil she got up to receive the Eucharist for the first time with a smile on her face. Before she knew it, she was back in the pew kneeling next to her uncle, a recent convert who is her sponsor into the Church. This reminded me of my own experiences when entering the Church.

 

This year, at my second Easter Vigil, having lived a year of Catholic faith, I found it much more striking than I had the moment I first stepped up to receive. I can only hope that the more we both grow in our faith the more striking it will be every time.

 

Afterwards, Allison said “I received a lot of texts and phone calls on Saturday and Sunday from TMC’ers telling me they were praying for me and were really excited for me, so even though I was hundreds of miles away from you all, I felt like you were with me on Saturday”.  Allison’s peers, like her, had at some point in their lives become part of a vibrant Catholic community at the college, the sort of community that is rare to find; one that Catholics long to revive. As Allison said, she had known she was going to be Catholic, but being part of such a community, one she had never encountered before, reveled a richness that she had not experienced previously. 

 

While it is true that Allison did not discover this richness in books, it is not to say that books held no importance. Allison had been going to a Protestant church that had been especially anti-Catholic. “I began asking questions, to find out why Catholicism was so bad, and these questions ended up having the reverse effect.” she said.  These questions led to conversations with some of her relatives, her uncle being one of them.  Books also guided her.  “Letters to a Young Catholic” by George Weigal, was one in particular that helped her on her journey.  She also has a special attachment to the works of Tolkien and G.K. Chesterton. I saw a photo of Allison on Facebook after the Easter Vigil wielding a replica of Sting in one hand with her rite of initiation certificate in the other, while Chesterton and Tolkien watched on in the background. She was armed well by them indeed!

 

I have the privilege of sharing my office with Joseph Pearce, writer in residence at Thomas More College. I more than once have stepped into the office and simultaneously stepped into a conversation about Chesterton, Tolkien, or Lewis between Mr. Pearce and Allison. 

 

“Scapulars and Tattoos” not only aptly captures the student body of Thomas More College but encompasses all people on their path to the Church and growth in their faith. Chesterton obviously captured it best in the following…

 

 

THE CONVERT

AFTER one moment when I bowed my head
And the whole world turned over and came upright,
And I came out where the old road shone white,
I walked the ways and heard what all men said,
Forests of tongues, like autumn leaves unshed,
Being not unlovable but strange and light;
Old riddles and new creeds, not in despite
But softly, as men smile about the dead.

The sages have a hundred maps to give
That trace their crawling cosmos like a tree,
They rattle reason out through many a sieve
That stores the sand and lets the gold go free:
And all these things are less than dust to me
Because my name is Lazarus and I live.

~G.K. Chesterton