^{Ivar Bernhard Doecker-Faaborg}

Quoting St. Augustine: "You have created us for Yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in You." This sums up what has been a long quest for the Truth, at last finding peace in the holy Mass of St. Pius V and its associated eternal Catholic Truth.

Born in Denmark in the 1950's, I headed straight for the typical 1960's society with its contradictory clichés of liberal ethos. My parents' marriage being a shambles from the outset, my father being deprived of any moral standards, I was raised predominantly by my Prussian great-uncle and my grandparents in their cultivated aristocratic world, which by the 1960's was not only devoid of any spiritual depth, but also totally at odds with modern society. The schools I attended were a mirror of the new movements in which tolerance had become a shield for indifference to the Christian Truth. The result of this upbringing was that I had no idea of who Christ was, and I sensed in my teens a deep spiritual void.

My parents divorced after we had moved to England, and my mother remarried an extraordinary English banker of Jewish origin, whose subsequent death two years later sincerely shocked me in the sense that I felt a total confusion as to what was the essence life. Once I had finished my studies, I left Oxford for London. Mother invited a very formal English aristocratic couple for a very ceremonial British cup of afternoon tea, and they in turn found me a job and accommodation in central London. My office being at Grosvenor Square, I had literally to walk around the Roman Catholic Westminster Cathedral every day. Being attracted by the unusual semi-Byzantine architecture, I ventured inside one morning only to see what I later was to understand was the Mass. God, having lured me into His church by playing on my artistic sensibilities, now presented Himself in the form of the Holy Spirit in front of the ongoing Mass. I was as if nailed to the floor–it was an actual bodily sensation. It can at best be characterized by an apparent instantaneous flash of insight, shaped into a rational whole. I sensed a glow of assurance, a consciousness of integration, a sense of well-being, and an inner peace beyond words. For me, and no doubt for many others, it was an occurrence that was to thrust my life in an entirely different direction. It was totally unexpected, and for me the experience was like an earthquake, shattering and transforming my experience and making me into a new person. I was above all conscious of a deep sense of joy in this happening.

I left the cathedral not understanding a word, but feeling as if I was walking on clouds! In the evening, I returned to the cathedral to request the name of the priest I had seen the same morning. I was told he was called Msgr. John Crowley and was the secretary to Cardinal Hume, and that if I wanted to see him, I would have to make an appointment. The devil then set in unconsciously suggesting to me that it was really not worth the bother–what was all this about anyway? Christ, seeing that I had not rejected the earlier experience as something negative, did not give up and played His next triumph card only a week later!

Opposite my office at Grosvenor Square was the Jesuit church at Farm Street. As usual I was attracted by the beauty of the architecture and went inside to have a look. The aesthetic played a role in my conversion; I doubt it would all have happened with the same intensity in a secular building or a modern, concrete, cube-style Church. Straight in front of me, upon entering into the church, was a bookstall with pamphlets including one entitled: Prayer in a Busy Life, by Msgr. John Crowley. Once again God allowed the Holy Spirit to descend on me, depriving me of the power to move and giving me this inner sense of peace. I then and there perceived that I was being led, but why and where I had no idea. I bought the booklet, read it, and did not understand one word. Sensing though, unconsciously, that I was heading towards finding an answer to my outcry for discovering the meaning of life, I telephoned Msgr. Crowley. Not being able to explain why I was phoning, he asked me kindly if I was in financial need, to which I answered that I had read his pamphlet, but did not understand it. He generously invited me, and on hearing that I did not even know who Christ was, started a series of mini lectures.

I subsequently analyzed the various religions and indeed Protestantism, but I quickly came to the conclusion that the Catholic Church is Christ and Truth. The taste was not altogether delightful. My mother felt very strongly that my conversion was an implied judgment on her. Other relations and friends found my act truly eccentric, if not a bit barmy! I realized that once I had accepted Jesus in my heart, there could be no lukewarm middle-ground; it meant following Christ totally–even if it led all the way to the Cross. Today one has to have courage to be anti-conformist. It is all fashionable currently to discover a religious dimension, be it New Age, Buddhism, Islam, or whatever is politically and media correct, but it is certainly not acceptable to become a Roman Catholic! One has to have guts to stand up today for the Truth, specially if one wants to follow an undiluted version with the Tridentine Mass and associated Truth free of modernism and relativism, which have unfortunately invaded a large part of the Catholic Church. However, I have no regrets; Christ is life, and one's heart can have no peace before it rests fully in the Catholic Faith.

My conversion 20 years previously gave me a strong faith, but it remained somewhat distant, a kind of awe in front of Christ and not a real personal contact. Last year I became confronted with the actual living Christ, being a bystander in His quest in making a seminarian, here called Hovsep, understand and accept His holy and divine Will. A second conversion took place.

In preparing a book on the Catholic priest in painting, I had met Hovsep, the most brilliant seminarian intellectually for several decades in Rome. He visited us later at our home in Normandy, and seeing he doubted whether he could stay celibate I took him to Lisieux. Coming back in the evening he was deeply moved. A friend of his from New York telephoned him the same evening to inform him that to the day he had made a special prayer during an entire year to St. Theresa that Hovsep would stay celibate! Signs like this continued, ending up with a private audience with the Holy Father, who indirectly informed him of the same thing. Alas, the girl friend imposed herself in Rome shortly afterwards with the consequences that Hovsep proposed to her!

Jesus could have left Hovsep at this point, as he had exercised his free will. However Christ is pure love and quietly tries different routes to make His divine Will not only understood, but accepted. I did not hear from Hovsep after the arrival of the girl friend, and, being busy with a large opening of an Impressionist exhibition in Bergen, I had no time to contact him.

During my stay in Bergen, the director showed me his museum. As the two-hour visit progressed there was a voice in me that kept on stating, "It was MY letter," making reference to a letter I had sent Hovsep just previously on the issue of his situation. I had written to Hovsep–in truth, in spiritual terms a truly brilliant letter at a speed that I myself was surprised at! The voice became more and more forceful, in the end irritating me as I was busy putting up a good appearance! In the end I made a comment that I just wanted to see a painting again in another room and dropped the party. I left and prayed in a corner asking Jesus to leave me alone. "Come back another day, I am tired and busy, please go away!" Obviously, Christ does not work like that! At five o'clock after the visit, it was like a thunder in my ear. I used the excuse that I was tired and wanted to go back to the hotel to rest before the opening. On the way to the hotel the voice changed to "Go and see me at My Church." Again, Ivar: "Dearest Jesus, not today please, I am tired." Getting into the hotel room it was no longer a voice but like a volcano in front of me. I obeyed and went to His (Catholic) Church. On the way I strongly sensed that I was in for something unusual. It was drizzling and cold, but I noticed nothing, I had not even brought the umbrella!

Opening the door to the church, which had been closed several times in the past when I wanted to go in, I realized immediately that it was like my conversion some 20 years previously. I was literally sucked in by the Holy Spirit. I knelt in front of the Tabernacle, and it was as if I no longer sensed time, where I was, anything, my entire body and soul being burned up in love–almost unbearable and yet still so beautiful. A few seconds later, or minutes I do not know, I still felt this intense sensation of love, but at the same time that I was like a fly in front of an elephant, the latter obviously being God. In an instant flash I knew in a very forceful but calm way that God was angry with Hovsep, that he had done something wrong, and again reference was made to "My letter," evidently meaning the message in it. I really cannot say how long this lasted; trying later to calculate, I guess 15-20 minutes. Suddenly like a spell, it stopped, and two ladies entered into what was previously an empty church.

There was no sight of God, no anger, no vision of heaven, purgatory, or hell, just this almighty presence of God. I have hesitated to convey this, as most people would deem in polite terms that I was ready to be locked up, but reading–by coincidence(?)–a few months later the revelations of St. Catherine of Sienna, I perceived that my experience was not all that uncommon. The Council of Florence, as well as that of Trent, declares that every person receives in his immortal soul at the point of death, his specific judgment. St. Catherine goes on to say that the soul does not see God, but is blinded by His holiness. At the same time, she continues, in the presence of God the soul is drowned in His love and subjected to Him, leading to an attraction in a form that the soul burningly and unconditionally desires to be united with Him. The love is like a divine light of Truth in which the soul immediately sees clearly his path on earth, his sins and good deeds, and will know his destination. The soul is confronted with God Himself face to face, but does not yet see Him. Though the message was as such not directed at me personally this time, but at Hovsep, it obviously made me realize a great deal of issues, and that the next time I would likely undergo this experience would be after my death. I cannot term this a "conversion," but my spiritual life since has not been the same as before.

Coming back to the story, I somehow managed to walk back to the hotel. I threw myself on the bed totally choked and overwhelmed. I thought I could sleep for an hour, but no. A voice firmly started: Telephone him! I answered, No way I can do this; Hovsep will laugh at me. One does not argue with God; I was almost pushed out of bed! With my legs shaking I pulled together everything I had and telephoned. No answer. Phew, there You see, Jesus, he is not there; we can forget about it. Again: "I demand that you telephone him!" Fifteen minutes or so later I again managed to pull myself together and I tried again, and this time was successful.

When Hovsep had confirmed what Christ had expressed just shortly beforehand, I felt at that moment my entire body was shaking in shock, realizing that God was right. I landed on the floor feeling like throwing up and I was lost for words, totally amazed. As with St. Thomas, Ivar had been doubting! Unfortunately, in spite of yet more signs from Christ, Hovsep married five month later. Christ's call made no difference to him, but it did indeed change my life for a second time!

The author was born in Copenhagen of a Danish German protestant/atheist background and educated in England, earning degrees in Architecture, Urban Design and Management. He worked ten years in London as a property consultant for the Anglican Church and the Crown Estate (Royal Family) and was received into the Church at Westminster Cathedral in 1986. Four years later, he married a French woman and now lives in France with a family of four children and works as an exhibition organizer of Old Master paintings.