Catholic Conversion Linked To Jesuits In New Orleans

I next tried out Immaculate Conception Jesuit Church, on Baronne St., which also had a homeless ministry. Now THIS was a church. It looked like one, and the people seemed like a real community. The pastor, Fr. Harry Thompson, S.J. (+ may perpetual Light shine upon him) was something of a local legend, and with good reason. In the "day center" of the homeless ministry there were a great many Catholic books available for reading, and I dove in headfirst. One of the books I was into was an account of the apparitions of Our Lady at Lourdes; I had come to believe that this was a true event, and as I puzzled over what it meant for my faith, I read about who she said she was : "I am The Immaculate Conception." Those five words literally started my path back to union with the Church. It is difficult to relate how dramatic that revelation was for me. If the apparitions were real, then the Church's teaching on Mary was true. But...the teaching was a function of the Pope's infallible magisterial authority. And if the Pope is who he says he is, and Mary is who the Church says she is, then...what else is there ? It wasn't quite that quick or easy, but that was the thought process.

Link to the full blog post at Deep in History