Gratuitous Crossing the Tiber Posting

Well, this is going to be an interesting weekend.

Tomorrow afternoon, the latest grandchild of my Godparents is to be baptised at the National Cathedral. This will be about the eighth such baptism I've been to there (I also attended all three of their children's weddings there as well), and I never get tired of it.

Then Sunday, after attending 'Palie services with the family, I have to quickly slide over to my new Catholic stomping grounds, as the RCIA class has been drafted to sell donuts this weekend. But once our donut shift is over, one of my classmates and I are going to go take in the Tridentine Mass - it'll be the first one I've ever attended and I'm quite excited about it. A full report (well, a lame attempt at a full report) will follow here.

Talking of "excited", I've perused an awful lot of conversion stories over the past six months or so, most recently over at the Catholic Converts blog and among my RCIA compadres (by no means all of whom necessarily plan to be received into the Church at Easter). Many of the stories concern people's accounts of their struggles and hardships, their active fight against being pulled over the Tiber, their doubts and second-guessing.

Me? So far I've experienced none of that. I've not been placing a very heavy burden of proof on Rome to persuade me, because I want to be persuaded. Apart from the awkward issue of my family not going with me, I've not encountered any problems with what's been asked. (Which, my coming out of a purely Anglican background, is almost entirely related to the meaning and workings of the Church itself. You've no idea what an eye-opener it's been to compare what the Church says about itself with what Protestants claim the Church says about itself. Two different languages.) Instead, I have been, as I say, excited. I go about humming Jubilates to myself. I've started praying much more seriously. I've consciously tried to infuse the Spirit into my dealings with those around me. I even have, as I reported this week, dreams about things. And I bore you lot with, well, posts like this.

So a thought crept into my mind last evening: What, if anything, am I missing? Is this True Love, or is it just some kind of crush? Am I, perhaps, just rebounding from TEC? (That, btw, is what the majority of my old parish allies seem to suspect.) Am I just being a shallow romantic? Or am I turning into a Pharisee? (A favorite barb among liberal 'Palies, btw, for anybody who doesn't agree with their vision.) And, more importantly, how do I tell?

I dunno.

Of course, it is just a thought, not an alarm bell. Perhaps it's just a natural check, a slight damping of the foam on top giving the substance a chance to sink in deeper. Maybe the fact that I'm trying to parse it out here is a healthy exercise. Or perhaps I'm just being paranoid. Certainly there must be others who have sailed over without much trouble, and most of my closest friends would argue that I've never been very far removed tempermentally anyway.

Beating Steve-O To The Punch UPDATE:

"Cardinal Smithers! Reduce the mental manipulation level by one factor on the cortical implant for this Robbo Llama! We don't want him to become suspicious."