The gift of belonging - What becoming a Catholic means to me

The most precious gift I received in the Sacrament of Baptism was the sense of belonging and coming home. It was the answer for deep yearning that awoke in my heart from the age of 10 when I heard the Word of God proclaimed at a Baptist crusade in St Mary.

Being not from a Catholic family, I was not baptised as an infant, since my family, though Christian, did not actively practise their faith through regular church attendance. I’m sure I was taken to church and “blessed’ as a baby, as many non-Catholics did. Although my family didn’t attend church, it didn’t mean that I was unchurched. Truth be told, I was over-churched! My mother would send me to church with anyone of her friends who asked to take me. So, on Saturdays, I kept the Sabbath with Miss White. Sunday mornings saw me going to a Baptist church in Jones Town where a Rev Maddox was the minister. And in the afternoon, I was off with Donna and her mother to Sunday School at a Pentecostal Church at Grassquit Glade off Waltham Park Road. Every summer up to the age of 10, I spent the holidays with my family in St Mary, and Aunty Fed made sure we went to church, down the road to the Baptist or up the hill to the Church of God.

It was during my final summer in the country, at a Baptist crusade, that I felt the tug of God to be baptised. All my family members discouraged me, saying, I did not know what I was undertaking and that I needed “to have fun and live life” before making such a commitment. I guess they didn’t see any joy in giving my youth to God.

I believe it was an expression of the need to belong to the family of God that gave birth to my desire for baptism. While my family opposed my desire to be baptised, no one could thwart God’s plan.

I began to attend Holy Childhood High under the watchful eyes of the Blue Sisters who paid particular attention to the Catholic ethos in the school. I learned the prayers, the Memorare, the Angelus and, of course, the Hail Mary. Besides, Mass attendance on first Fridays was mandatory for everyone in the school, and we all marched over to the Holy Cross Church. While no one was forced to participate in the service, we were to respect the sacred space in which we were seated.

It was in this space that I became aware of the holiness of God and felt the real presence of God acutely.

I eagerly sought out the Mass cards, and joyfully responded as my soul had found a home. Here began my journey to Catholicism and, through the invitation of a Catholic classmate, Christine Folkes, I became a member of the Reconciliation Church in Bridgeport, St Catherine.

I was baptised into the faith at the threshold of adulthood, between my 17th and 18th year. Seven years had passed since the initial desire to be baptised, but, in God’s time, I found my spiritual family at Reconciliation. This belonging to a spiritual family is truly a gift my baptism brought to me.

– Sandra Maxwell-Williams