{"id":1909,"date":"2007-04-28T10:34:14","date_gmt":"2007-04-28T10:34:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2007\/04\/conversion-1.html"},"modified":"2007-04-28T10:34:14","modified_gmt":"2007-04-28T10:34:14","slug":"conversion-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2007\/04\/conversion-1.html","title":{"rendered":"Conversion"},"content":{"rendered":"

A marvelous story from  a priest with origins in Sri Lanka:<\/a><\/p>\n

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Fifth of six brothers, his was a poor Buddhist family and early on his lost his father. From adolescence Nihal desired to become a monk: \u201cEach and every month I would go to the temple in an attempt to gain entrance to religious life.  This made my mother very happy because it is said that a monk in the family brings blessings for five generations\u201d. \u201cAfter my father\u2019s death \u2013 he continues \u2013 my family could no longer cope, so I was brought to Ekala village to a Catholic family, who gave me bed and board in return for help with domestic chores. It was in Ekala that my search for God began, I would go in secret to the local parish dedicated to Saint Maximilian, I was simply curious, but a state of well being would come upon me as soon as soon as I entered those walls and after a while to my complete surprise I found myself praying to the Virgin\u201d. His wonder at these gestures \u2013 explains the priest \u2013 was born of \u201cthe total aversion to Christianity which I felt during my period of studies to become a Buddhist monk\u201d.  Little by little, Nihal began to make friends, and to find time after he had done his daily shopping at the local market to attend mass. Yet his doubts remained. \u201cI didn\u2019t understand who this Christian God was, but I kept going to Church despite my many questions. I can\u2019t really put my finger on what exactly led me to Christianity from Buddhism, but in a certain way I feel that I was chosen: instinctively I began to pray, and faith, like love, is born without explanation. The beauty of forgiveness is what drew me to Christianity, the joy of serving others. In Buddhism, you have to find salvation on your own, and you are not always guaranteed that you will attain it, while for us Christians the Risen Christ is our salvation. In moments of pain and suffering this helps us to find strength\u201d. <\/p>\n

snip<\/em><\/p>\n

Fr. Maximilian is now one of the six chaplains at the St Camillus hospital in Rome.<\/a> \u201cWe take care of the sick person\u2019s spiritual needs \u2013 he says \u2013 but it is not always easy: I try to speak to them, but many don\u2019t accept this and even refuse to have a priest as a companion to their sick bed\u201d. The Camillian is also in charge of pastoral care for Rome\u2019s Singhalese community, while he cultivates a dream \u201cThe opening of the first Camillian house in Sri Lanka\u201d. Upon till now, thanks to his constant dedication, the first sisters of St Camillus have arrived in former Ceylon: since 2005 in Wattala, Colombo, and four sisters have an old peoples home, which now they are hoping to enlarge.  And while he works diligently to see this project come to fruition, Fr Maxi million confides that he already has his heart set on another : a school for the children of the Parish of St Jude Thaddeus, his home village, but to for his dream to come true \u201cwe need help and funding\u201d. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A marvelous story from  a priest with origins in Sri Lanka: Fifth of six brothers, his was a poor Buddhist family and early on his lost his father. From adolescence Nihal desired to become a monk: \u201cEach and every month I would go to the temple in an attempt to gain entrance to religious life. …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1909","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nConversion - Via Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2007\/04\/conversion-1.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Conversion - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A marvelous story from  a priest with origins in Sri Lanka: Fifth of six brothers, his was a poor Buddhist family and early on his lost his father. 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The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1909","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1909"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1909\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1909"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1909"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1909"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}