Bishop Barron, I hope this letter reaches you, as I’m not quite sure where to send it. You don’t know me. My name is Sr. Mirjam and I’m a 36-year-old Benedictine nun from Sweden. I’m writing to thank you.

Last summer during my private retreat, I had the privilege of watching your CATHOLICISM series, and it had a profound impact on me. It was very beautifully made, and a wonderful exposition of the breadth and depth of our faith.

However, what really struck me was a comment you made in the course of the third episode. You said that we shouldn’t try to grasp at God, and we shouldn’t try to hide from Him—we should fall in love with Him. That comment literally knocked the breath out of me. It was a moment of pure grace! I am, by nature, a very rational and reflective person, not prone to reacting emotionally or spontaneously. Instead, I approach reality primarily through the intellect. But for some reason, that has never been the case when it comes to my relationship with God. Him I have always tried to connect with directly through the heart. (I’m not quite sure why, except that the emotional approach is the only one that has ever been suggested to me—no one has ever told me that I can draw near to Him through the intellect.) Therefore, God has always remained distant, out of reach, elusive—the object of longing, not someone with whom I had a true relationship. It was on the basis of that longing that, two years ago, I made my solemn profession, resigned to the fact that there might never be more to my relationship with Him, this side of eternity.

And then—you telling me I should fall in love with Him! Loving Him, yes—but me falling in love with Him had never occurred to me, probably because to me that had never seemed like a feasible possibility. But your words gave me hope, or rather, the Spirit working through you lit a fire in me—small, but gaining in intensity. Though only eight months has passed since then—which can in no way compare with some forty-odd years—I’ve come to think of that experience as similar to the one you had with St. Thomas Aquinas’ proof for the existence of God, in the sense that it has completely altered the course of my spiritual life.

Your comment not only gave me hope that I might develop an actual relationship with the Lord, but you also showed me the means of doing so. It prompted me to ask myself who this God that I’m supposed to fall in love with really is—but this time I approached the question from a more intellectual standpoint, greatly helped by knowledge gained from the Word on Fire website as well as from a couple of your books that l had managed to lay my hands on.

By giving me the intellectual tools, you gave me a “language” with which to approach God—and as a consequence, He is becoming less elusive, less distant. I find that I am falling in love with Him, that I’m moving from a stance of belief to one of faith—or if you like, from the pusilla anima towards the magna anima.

Also, I have to thank you for introducing me to metaphysics. I’ve never read anything that can so readily move me from meditation to a stance of deep prayer—this way of drawing close to God really speaks to me, far more than any “spiritual” books have ever done. I’ve especially enjoyed your essay on the “Metaphysics of Coinherence” in Exploring Catholic Theology.

And for all this, I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart! You’ve been a bearer of grace to me and continue to be so. May the Good Lord bless you and your work for the Church. The only thing I have to offer in return are my prayers, but they are yours— for you, for your mission as Bishop, and for your work with Word on Fire.

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