Man Sought

Before I attended the institution where I would pursue my degree in Business Administration, I found myself enrolled in a community college course online. Real enough in its demands, even through a screen.

The course was World Religions.

To this day, it remains one of the best classes I have ever taken. In another life, perhaps it could have become my field of study had the practicality of financial concerns not guided me in another direction.

For our final assignment, we were instructed to attend a religious service outside our own tradition and write a reflection on the experience.

Most students, I imagine, chose something nearby and familiar. Another Christian denomination perhaps. Something close enough to home to satisfy the assignment without discomfort.

I emailed a Jewish rabbi.

And so, in April of 2023, I walked into a synagogue on Summit Avenue in Saint Paul, Minnesota, only a short distance from the Cathedral of Saint Paul, though at the time I had not yet begun attending Mass there seriously.

It was Shabbat.

A young girl was celebrating her Bat Mitzvah, entering more deeply into the faith and traditions of her people. Families gathered together beneath Hebrew prayers older than most nations on earth.

I entered quietly as a gentile into a sacred world not of my own.

And yet, what struck me most was not strangeness, but familiarity.

The public reading of Scripture.

The chanting.

The reverence toward ancient words.

The communal prayers rising together.

Even then, before becoming Catholic, something inside me recognized that Christianity did not emerge from emptiness. Christ Himself was born into the people of Israel. The Apostles prayed in Jewish spaces. The language, imagery, psalms, and rhythms that shaped Christianity were born from a world much older than the modern West.

I remember sitting there thinking:

There is history here.

There is continuity here.

There is something ancient still breathing.

After the service ended, I intended to leave quietly, having completed my assignment.

But several older Jewish women stopped me before I reached the door. Seeing me take notes earlier. They asked who I was, why I came, and after I explained the assignment, they immediately welcomed me to the communal meal.

“You have to eat with us,” they insisted.

I am grateful they did.

I stood in line holding a plate while they explained each dish and its meaning. One woman carefully taught me how to assemble a proper lox bagel:

Spread the cream cheese first so the capers stick.

Add the salmon.

Then tomato and onion.

Press gently.

To this day, whenever I see a lox bagel on a menu, I think back to that afternoon.

They made sure I tried kugel as well, explaining family recipes and traditions while laughing among themselves. What I encountered was not simply theology written in books, but faith carried through meals, memory, language, and community.

And there I was:
a Black Protestant-raised man,
one who had spent his childhood in Catholic school classrooms,
breaking bread with Jewish families on Shabbat.

Looking back now, I understand why the experience affected me so deeply.

At the time, I was spiritually starving.

Not for novelty.
Not for intellectualism.
For rootedness.

For something ancient.
Something sacred.
Something that believed worship was meant to shape the soul and not merely entertain the emotions.

For a brief period afterward, I even considered converting to Judaism.

But over time, clarity came.

What moved me so deeply was not the idea that I was meant to become Jewish, nor the modern movement sometimes called Messianic Judaism. Rather, I had encountered the historical and spiritual world from which Christianity first emerged.

I had glimpsed the soil in which the early Church was planted.

And eventually I realized:
I did not want only to study the roots.

I wanted to follow Christ.

Not merely as a moral teacher detached from history, but as the Jewish Messiah proclaimed by the Apostles, worshipped in the ancient Church, and encountered in the sacramental life of Catholicism.

The synagogue did not become the Catholic Church in some simplistic sense. Judaism and Christianity became distinct traditions with real theological differences. But my encounter at Shabbat helped me understand that Christianity was never meant to feel historically empty or spiritually disconnected from the ancient world.

The Mass suddenly made more sense to me afterward.

Its reverence.
Its liturgical structure.
Its chanting.
Its rootedness in Scripture.
Its continuity across centuries.

I began to understand that Christianity possessed depth older than modern American religious culture had shown me.

And slowly, step by step, that realization led me toward the Cathedral of Saint Paul.

Toward the Mass.
Toward the Eucharist.
Toward the Church.

Looking back now, I can see God’s providence clearly.

Though Catholic imagery and rhythms had surrounded parts of my childhood,
I had not yet fully grasped the depth of the faith.

And before I ever seriously returned to the Church,
God allowed me to encounter the sacred memory of Israel.

Before I understood the beauty of liturgy,
He allowed me to hear ancient prayers sung aloud.

Before I found my home in the Church,
He allowed me to hunger for history, reverence, and transcendence.

That afternoon after Shabbat,
with kugel on my plate
and Hebrew songs still echoing in my mind,
I was already walking a road I did not yet fully understand.

God knew before I did.

This is The Revelation.
This is the new life.