8: Inspired by St John Henry Newman

Episode 8: Eleni shares how the writings of John Henry Newman brought her to Catholicism and truth, saying, 'He's my guy.' And also, 'I really did come to Christ through Mary.'

Eleni talks about how she experiences very different kinds of liturgy, parish life, and even church interiors and recognising what really 'feels like home'.







Things you can follow up on:
Support the new Cathedral in Kyrgyztan
Diocese of East Anglia study on Adults becoming Catholics
The Dominican Youth Movement

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Find the transcript: https://kindsofcatholic.buzzsprout.com

Music: Greenleaves from Audionautix.com

Transcript

You're listening to All Kinds of Catholic with me, Theresa Alessandro. My conversations with different Catholics will give you glimpses into some of the ways we're living our faith today. Pope Francis has used the image of caravan. A diverse group of people travelling together, on a sometimes chaotic journey together. That's an image that has helped shape this podcast. I hope you'll feel encouraged and affirmed, and maybe challenged at times. I am too in these conversations.

I'm really interested in hearing your story, Eleni. Thanks so much for joining me today on All Kinds of Catholic.

Thank you very much for having me.

So we were just talking before, and you mentioned that you've not been a Catholic your whole life. I wonder if you might tell us a bit about how that's all happened for you.

Yeah. No. It's an interesting story. I was baptised pretty much at birth. I think I was, like, 6 weeks old or something, in an Anglican church. Not because my parents were Anglican, but because they knew the vicar. Well, they were both nominally, my dad nominally Anglican, my mom, nominally Greek Orthodox, and my dad's family, kind of, half Catholic.

And so it was a thing they kind of knew they should do, but didn't have any personal impetus to support it in any way. So I have been baptised my whole life, but only got confirmed last year when I was on my year abroad in Kyrgyzstan, which presents its own set of difficulties because it means I don't have a baptismal or confirmation certificate. Because my baptismal certificate is held by the Anglicans. And I could go and get it. I just haven't got around to it so far. And my confirmation happened at a church that is soon to no longer exist in a country very far away. Yeah. No. It's tricky because on one hand, I am convert in the sense that I, like, I wasn't Catholic, and now I am. But, in another sense, like, I didn't do RCIA or anything. I just talked to my, not technically a bishop, he's the apostolic administrator, a Jesuit called Father Anthony, who looks after all of the churches in kind of Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan. I'm one of those academic converts who did a a fairly huge amount of reading in not a very long space of time, and then turned up to the discernment meeting with, Hi. Can I get confirmed? Because I was already practicing and receiving at that point. And I thought, hang on. I suppose I'd better I'd better commit to this. And so I turned up to this meeting. I had a chat with him, which was very nice. And he was like, yeah. We can do it in a couple weeks. Just pick an auspicious state. And I heard from one of the other parish priests afterwards that, Father Anthony had gone to him and gone, 'You didn't tell me I'd have to read a book before I met her!' So that's sort of my reception to the church, shall we say.

Very good. Well, that's different from many people listening, I'm sure, but very interesting. Just to check, are you saying Kurdistan?

Kyrgyzstan.

And is that the place that you're saying will soon cease to exist?

No. I'm saying that, so I was living in Bishkek, which is the capital city. And it had one Catholic parish, which was a very tiny church on the outskirts. But they're building a Cathedral now in the centre of town. But basically, it means that the church I was confirmed at is not going to exist much longer.

Well, I mean, well done for seeking out a Catholic church in Kyrgyzstan. That probably wasn't as easy as some of us finding churches near us.

I think in some ways it was kind of easier because there was only one. It was a very lovely, tight-knit community as well. It is quite funny because, I went to university in Oxford where there's quite a lot of choice of where you want to go and choice of liturgy and people who feel very strongly about certain liturgical choices. There's a very strong Oratorian community, which is lovely. And I do appreciate all those things. But I have to say Mass for me is very much a slightly off-key electric keyboard and the flute at the back and maybe four people who know the tunes mostly. And so I find it a little bit difficult to take all of these, like, life or death liturgical debates seriously. Because I'm just, 'You guys have never been to Mass at a proper parish church.'

I think that will resonate with listeners for sure. I often say when we have big parish events in my parish and something goes wrong, I always say, oh, it's better if something goes wrong because if it's perfect, that's not real. That's not what happens, you know. So you've made your home in the Catholic church having had other opportunities in your family and other directions you could have taken. And what is it about the Catholic church then that's felt right for you?

Broadly speaking, it's just true. I was a very reluctant convert. I did not want to be Catholic. I was introduced to Catholic theology by an ex, who was trying very hard to convert me, and I was trying very hard not to convert. And it was through fairly, like, heated discussion that I realised I was actually very interested in it. Over the course of re reading, I realised it all came together very well, which was kind of interesting because having grown up in an Anglican milieu, with a very strong online presence of American fundamentals and fundamentalist Baptist and all of this, I had this, like, very strong sense that Christianity just didn't make any sense and was kind of an insane thing to believe because it made you do weird things and, led to strange beliefs like flat earth and Young Earth Creationism and all of this. Because this is what I, you know, this is what I saw. And the Anglicans around me were all very uncommitted to what they believed. And it was very, very much seemed like a case of, oh, well, you can believe it if you want. And, you know, this is true for me, but it might not be true for you. And this seemed to me to be a very, like, dishonest way of approaching any kind of truth claim. You know, I remember when I got to university, having quite, in retrospect, somewhat embarrassing discussions with various college chaplains about massive faith issues, going like, well, if you believe this, couldn't you believe anything? And them going, yeah. Well, you know, it's nice, isn't it? And I'd just be a bit like, why are you doing this job? And not to, like, caricature college chaplains because a lot of them are very lovely, and they do very good work in Oxford. It's just, it wasn't very convincing. And so when I started reading Catholic theology and realized that they took a very serious attitude to truth and a very rigorous approach to discerning what was true, particularly when it came to things that I didn't necessarily like or agree with, that was quite refreshing in a way. It aligned very much with my conceived notions of what is real. It doesn't always align with what you want to be true, But it is always internally consistent. And in a way, I suppose I felt quite betrayed by Anglicanism, which is quite entertaining looking back at it now because it's it was definitely a feeling of, like, how was I missing out on this all my life because of the way it was presented to me and the way it was treated. That's not to say I have any resentment towards Anglicanism. Just that I'm grateful to have found the fullness of the truth, as they say.

That is really interesting. And for listeners who've been Catholics all their lives, they maybe haven't thought about it very much. You know, it's very powerful to hear from someone who has done some reading and some studying and had other options and has chosen Catholicism. Is there anything amongst what you read that that, you know, you could recommend that really stood out for you, that really kind of set you on this path?

Oh, yeah. I mean, my Confirmation Saint was John Henry Newman, who's quite a common one for former Anglicans, for Oxford people, for, you know, all of this kind of milieu. Because he was the first theologian I read who wrote like he wanted to be understood. His spiritual autobiography, the Apologia Pro Vita Sua, is extremely compelling. I also really liked his work An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent and on Consulting the Faithful in Matters of Doctrine. I felt those were both very convincing, but also very, like, engagingly written accounts of Christian faith and Catholic doctrine. And also of another somewhat reluctant convert who sort of slowly realised against their will that it did all make sense.

Yeah. I was thinking that while you were speaking.

Yeah. Of course, he came from a similar starting place to a similar point that you've now reached, you know, having read his work. So that's amazing, isn't it? And now we were speaking before on a lighter note about the things you've got planned for your holidays, having finished your degree, and we didn't talk about what you studied.

I read Russian and French at Oxford, hence the year abroad in Kyrgyzstan.

I was wondering.

Yeah. It was supposed to be Russia, but then the Ukraine invasion shut it all down. So we're all sent off to miscellaneous post-Soviet states.

So back to your holidays then. What have you got planned over the next couple of weeks or so? Because it did sound like these are things that might also be part of expressing your faith in some ways or nourishing your faith?

Yeah. No. I've got a very spiritually active, July, at least. We're going on choir tour with my college choir to Florence and with a little excursion, very excitingly, to, to quote my choir director, a small parish church known as Saint Peter's Basilica in Rome, which is extremely exciting. Although, I was somewhat disappointed to note that the big structure over the altar is being renovated currently in preparation for the Jubilee, and so it's all kind of boxed up in cardboard and is looking a little bit sorry for itself. But never mind. It will be very exciting nonetheless.

I famously went to Mass in Saint Peter's Basilica with my husband when we visited Rome one time, and we were imagining an amazing experience. And actually, the priest was really grumpy and didn't like tourists. And it was really not what you would expect. We came out feeling dejected and downtrodden because we somehow weren't the right person for him in the Mass. But never mind, you will have a better experience. I know.

I think that that is a sort of spiritual lesson that I have encountered already many times. Not to go on a tangent, but I find myself, I'm somewhat inclined to grandiosity. And so when I was looking for a confirmation saint, I was very much in the mind of, like, I'd like a woman. I'd like someone with very cool name. You know, I'd like my confirmation saint name to be like Ignatius or Irenaeus or something really sexy, you know? And then I found John Henry Newman, and I just knew when I read him that he was my guy. And so now my middle name is John. And then when I was going to be confirmed, there was definitely a moment leading up to it where I thought, oh, hang on, if I just delayed this a couple of months, I could have had it done at the Oxford Oratory, and it would have been in Latin, and it would have been in this, like, beautiful church, extremely reverent. Everywhere like the most maximalist vestments. Would have had some really cool pictures. It would have been great. And then I sort of looked at my tiny parish church, with its somewhat shaky flute and keyboard accompaniment and heavily accented priest and kind of thought, well, hang on, you know, isn't this home really? You know, this is Jesus being born in the stable. And so I find that whenever I have these, like, delusions of grandiosity, I get brought back down to humility very quickly. And so I wonder if, you know, grumpy priest in the biggest church in the world is sort of an expression of that.

Yeah. Yeah. I think you're right. I think you're right. And actually, I think that's a really interesting observation because I sometimes struggle with very flowery Masses with amazing Latin singing and like you say, swishy vestments. But there is something beautiful about that. I think you identified that well. There is something beautiful about that and something that kind of lifts us up. But at the same time, Jesus was born in a stable. And for many people, our everyday church experience is much more humble than that and feels more, we can feel more comfortable and at home there. So, okay, so you're going to be singing in Florence and visiting Rome. You're not singing in in Saint Peter's Basilica, or are you?

We are. We're doing, I think the 5 pm Mass.

So, oh my goodness, you're going to be singing in the Basilica. What is your repertoire in the choir? What kind of things do you sing?

Quite a variety of stuff actually for Catholic Masses because in Oxford, we're very lucky that the Catholic chaplaincy does Mass in all the college chapels on a fairly frequent basis, and that at the choir I sing in, it was very well supported. So there was a choir for the Catholic Mass. We tend to do fairly standard Latin Mass settings. Whereas for Evensong, repertoire can be a little bit rogue. You know, we do the classics like Byrd and Tallis and Palestrina and all of that, but also some very modern stuff like Joanna Forbes L'Estrange or Deborah Pritchard. Some settings as well composed by our main chaplain, which are always surprising.

And then you mentioned you're going to Douai Abbey, after you've got off the plane on your way home?

Yeah. No. It's literally the next day. We land, I think on the Monday, and then I leave for Douai on the Tuesday. So it's going to be quite busy. But I'm doing a week there with the Dominican Youth Movement, covering allegedly all of systemic theology, which, you know, knowing the Dominicans of Blackfriars will be possible but intense.

Yes. Okay. And is there a reading list before you get there, or are you just gonna go with what you know about John Henry Newman already and hope that carries you through?

Turn up and find out is my approach.

And so tell me a bit about the Dominican Youth Movement. I've not heard of that.

It's broadly a series of events and pilgrimages and this kind of thing put on by the English Dominicans aimed at educating young Catholics a bit better in their faith. So they ran a study day a while ago on the Mass, which was very well done, basically explaining the kind of theology behind it and giving us various things to read and this kind of thing. They're always very well organised, very informative. As a member of the lay Dominicans now, I do feel somewhat obliged to go to them.

About how many young people will be there then, do you think, when you're at Douai?

The study days are generally very well attended. So, pulling-up-extra-chairs kind of well attended.

Well, that sounds like a great opportunity. Yeah. And some of those people you'll know when you when you get there from meeting at previous events presumably.

Oh, yeah. And lots of Oxford Catholics as well because the Catholic community in Oxford is very well-read. You know, it's a bit of a running joke actually that if conversation is lagging at breakfast or something, you just ask someone who their favourite Pope is or to explain their favorite encyclical and everyone will have an answer to that. You know, I know someone who knows everything there is to know about Pope Gelasius.

Oh okay. And that name even is new to me.

Well, there you go.

And then you mentioned you're going to Lourdes after all of that, if you hadn't, done enough in July.

Yeah. No. That's the joint Oxford Cambridge pilgrimage where we'll be volunteering with the hospitalité.
 
And is that an annual pilgrimage then jointly with Oxford and Cambridge?

Yeah. They broadly support pilgrims. You're more working in the various stations and structures that exist in Lourdes, to facilitate the flow of pilgrims.

Well, we've not talked about your family life. You know, now that you've become a Catholic, how you fit in with the rest of the family and all of the different backgrounds.

My dad is very chilled out and periodically enjoys the nostalgia. So I did drag him to Midnight Mass at Westminster Cathedral at Christmas. And he spent the whole thing complaining about the fact they haven't finished the ceiling.

Well, I'm with him on that. Whenever I visit Westminster Cathedral, which is not that often because I'm not based in London. But when I do, I am very distracted by the fact that there's just this bare brick up there.

Oh, no. I really like it. The chaplaincy in Oxford has a small chapel, where they do a lot of late night Masses and Compline, and it's very cavernous and round. It's very kind of 1960's  brutalism. But when it's dark, it's like, dark, in there. You feel like you're in a little cave or something with the only light being on the crucifix, and it's incredibly spiritual, particularly when it starts raining outside as well. So I've got a lot of good memories of that. And walking into Westminster Cathedral felt a little bit like a an extended version of that space where the ceiling just sort of goes on forever because you can't really see it. And the light is very directed in particular ways. So I was there recently for the ordination of the 1st bishop of the ordinariate, and I don't quite know what they were doing with the light or whether this was one of those, like, 'small m' miraculous occurrences, but he was just glowing. He's quite a tall man anyway. And then when you add the mitre on top of that, just wherever he was in the procession, when he bowed to the altar, when he was sitting on the side, it just looked like there was a spotlight on him at all times, which there wasn't because I was looking at the lighting rig, and it was very profound actually. I think the interplay of light in there is really very interesting.

Okay. Well, you you've made me think about it differently. That's good. Thank you. So you've formalised being a Catholic in the last year or so. What is it that if you looked back over your life, can you see God working and kind of leading you in this direction? Can you see times when maybe it wasn't so clear for a while?

Oh, yeah. I mean, I mentioned very briefly that I had a very Catholic ex, and we would have very heated discussions about faith. And looking back at the things I used to say and believe, and also my kind of journey of belief through very vociferous atheism as well and seeing how that actually provided a substrate for how I'm Catholic now. Because it was remarkable to me when I realised I actually probably was Catholic or at least in spirit of not in ontological essence, was that I hadn't actually undergone any major paradigm shift. Like, my fundamental beliefs about truth and rationality were still very much in place. It's just the Catholic system fitted so well on top of that that it provided an extension rather than a change. And very interestingly, actually, the people I came into contact with and interacted with so I was confirmed in my last week in Kyrgyzstan, but I'd spent several months there living with some American exchange students, of which about four of them were having a religious crisis. One converting to Islam. One unconverting from Calvinism. One converting into Orthodox Judaism, but then took a u-turn and discovered Christ at the end of it. And one who was sort of spiritual but not religious and quite curious about that. The kind of conversations I had with them and the things they would say to me constantly took me back to previous relationships where I had been the other person in the conversation. It was really very entertaining, actually. Very interesting to watch how Providence really does sort of extend its fingers through everything that you do, even if you're not aware of it.

I must say Kyrgyzstan sounds like somewhere where spiritually somewhat electrified. A lot seems to be happening in this place.

I think there are a lot of people there who were just at a transitional point in their lives.

And what about are there prayers that you return to or little bits of scripture that you return to that have kind of been meaningful to you?

Oh, yeah. I love the rosary, which is a very classic Catholic answer. It is kind of interesting that I never had any issues with Mary coming into it, but I think in retrospect, that's very much because I really did come to Christ through Mary. It was through meditating on her that the person of Jesus Christ became apparent to me. Because there was definitely a period where I had a kind of, I would say, like, abstract faith in God where it was an intellectual proposition that I could accept in a vague sort of way and could even claim to have relationship with. But it wasn't until I'd become a proper rosary devotee, that the real human person of Jesus Christ really became present, to me.

That's some testimony. That's great. Again, people listening who are used to the rosary and maybe have got jaded over time, I think it'll be really interesting to hear a young person coming to Jesus through Mary and finding the rosary very powerful. Thank you. And then, is there a Mass you can think of that has been particularly meaningful to you? And you're someone who's been at many different kinds of Mass. But is there one that you can think, yeah. Yeah. I'm so glad I was there. That's the one that's gonna stay with me forever as the most special Mass.

Yeah. The first Mass I went to when I arrived in Toulouse, I don't really know why. I think just because I've been singing in church choirs for so for so long, it felt very weird to be doing nothing on a Sunday. It's like, well, you know, I may not believe this, but I have to go because otherwise I feel weird, and I'm walking in circles. So, you know, I looked up the nearest church and went there. It was very full. And because it was autumn, it was also quite dark, which seems to be a recurring theme, actually. But it was one of these great cavernous basilicas. Toulouse is very, very beautiful and has some very nice church architecture as well. I think this was at the end of the Mass. It could have been at the beginning, but I think it was the end where the one of the priests went up to the front and went, 'Right, we're gonna pray a decade of the rosary now. Put your hand up if you've forgotten yours at home because we know some of you will have.' And I was like, I like free things. I put my hand up, and I still have it today. Actually, that was my first rosary. It's one of those 3d printed ones that glows in the dark, and it's my most prized possession. I love it very much. So and, obviously, I didn't know the Hail Mary in English. Definitely didn't know it in French. Didn't really know what was going on either. You know, there's only so much, like, your knowledge of the French language can get you through jargon. And the whole basilica, they did it in two choirs as well. So, you know, my side said the first half. The other side said the second half. And it was just hearing 'Hail Mary, full of grace' just echoing round around this basilica for what felt like absolutely forever with the bats in the in the roof screeching. Yeah. I wouldn't really say that I had a profound understanding of what was going on, just that it was a very kind of moving, spiritual experience. And one of the first experiences I would point to and say, that was explicitly a spiritual experience rather than, oh, I was moved by something else that happened to be going on at the same time.

Yeah. I think you described that beautifully, Eleni. You know, I feel moved listening to you, but I can hear the kind of visceral experience that it was rather than a theological treatise being expounded. So, I think, again, I think that will resonate with listeners. I think there are many Catholic people for whom that that actually is the thing that really has drawn us to the church and kept us trying to follow Jesus, as we go through our lives.

I mean, the Diocese of East Anglia put out a very interesting study recently where they interviewed a bunch of their adult converts and basically asked, like, what was your journey into Catholicism? And they found basically, universally, that it had been a long period of academic study, and then a profound spiritual experience that had led to their conversion. It's available online, actually. I can send you a link.

Yeah. Send me the link, and I'll put that in the episode notes too. I think people will be interested in following up on that. I think it's been really interesting talking to you, Eleni, because, you know, there's such a breadth there in your faith, to do with, you know, some really thoughtful academic stuff and your own journey that has been quite meandering and very different and taking you to really different parts of the world. And the things that speak to you in very fancy Masses and in very simple Masses have been really interesting to hear about.
So thank you so much. And I will put some links to some of the things we've talked about in the episode notes so that people can have a little look at that. So thanks ever so much for sharing a few minutes today.

Thanks for taking the time to talk to me.

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