Per Christum

Avery Cardinal Dulles, an agnostic during his college years, returned to the Christianity of his youth upon seeing the budding of the trees around the springtime. Later, he converted to Catholicism. Here are his own words (from “A Testimonial to Grace”):

I was irresistibly prompted to go out into the open air … The slush of melting snow formed a deep mud along the banks of the River Charles, which I followed down toward Boston … As I wandered aimlessly, something impelled me to look contemplatively at a young tree. On its frail, supple branches were young buds … While my eye rested on them, the thought came to me suddenly, with all the strength and novelty of a revelation, that these little buds in their innocence and meekness followed a rule, a law of which I as yet knew nothing … That night, for the first time in years, I prayed.