Thomas, soon to be baptized: “Christ never gave up on me”

“I baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.” These are the words that thousands of catechumens around the world are preparing to hear on Easter night when they are baptized. Throughout Lent, Aleteia will share with you the stories of some of these men and women, who are happy to become children of God.

Faith was almost a dirty word in Thomas’ family. God? “He didn’t exist in the eyes of my parents,” he recalls. Although he’s originally from Marseille, France, he has been living for a few years now in Allègre.

“I discovered God when I was about 11 or 12, I think, when a friend said to me, ‘God doesn’t want us to do that.’ I had never heard the word God before, but it was as if I was aware of it without knowing exactly what it was.”

As a child, teenager, and young adult, Thomas didn’t pray or go to church, but he thought about God from time to time. Then more and more often, especially when faced with trials. “When my mother took her own life, one of the first things I did was to talk to this God who had been in my thoughts for some time. Little by little I started to pray, but in secret, without telling anyone,” he recalls.

Although he has been living for three and a half years in the quiet commune of Allègre, he readily admits to having had an “adventurous” life. “I was a bit of a vagabond for about 10 years, unable to settle down in one place for long,” he says. However, he took God with him on every trip or move.

While he was on the island of Mayotte, he once again experienced God during a violent altercation. “Then I told myself that something was happening.” On his return, he decided to change his life and settle in Haute-Loire, where he works as a software developer.

“I met a brilliant, intelligent woman there, etc.,” Thomas says with emotion. ”One day she told me she was pregnant, I was overjoyed and … three weeks later I didn’t hear from her again. Today our child is six months old and I’m in the middle of legal proceedings to get the right to see him.”

It’s an ordeal from which he wasn’t sure he’d ever recover, until he prayed to Mary. “One evening, the day before a hearing, I panicked. I felt as if I were in a vice of anxiety and stress, even though I’m naturally optimistic,” he continues. “And then it seemed obvious to me that I should turn to the Virgin Mary. I knew her name, but that was all. I spoke to her for the first time that evening and I felt immediate physical and spiritual relief. Every time I think back to that evening, I am amazed.”

Prayer, yes. But going into a church and asking to be baptized? No. There were still a few steps to take, and it was his neighbors who helped him. “When I arrived here, the neighbors gave me a warm welcome. And one thing led to another and I found myself attending mass, and there they were. And I felt so good at that mass and the ones that followed…”

That was the sign he needed, at last. “I received help from God and Mary. Christ never gave up on me. I asked to be baptized out of gratitude to God, but also to show Him that it was my turn to take a step towards Him after all the steps He had taken towards me.”

When asked what it means to be baptized, Thomas doesn’t answer immediately. Disarmed, thrown off balance, the chatty Marseillais gives way to silence. Until his voice, overcome with emotion, responds almost timidly: “It’s being a son of God. Even without baptism I felt loved by Him, but now…” And Thomas confidently continues, “I’m entering a new life.”

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