Memories of my time in the SMQ Young Adult Prayer Group

During Lent 2012, I made the decision to become a Catholic (I was then an Anglican) and thus to join the RCIA group at St Mary on the Quay. The day after my first RCIA session I went along to the Saturday evening gathering of the Young Adult Prayer Group, ‘One Heart Many Faces’, for the first time.

Having come from the High Church strand of the Church of England, where there are very few young adults, it was wonderful to meet so many fellow believers of similar ages in such a short space of time, to pray and share fellowship with. That first Saturday evening I had only to open my mouth to sing the hymns before Fr Nico asked me to join the choir for Sunday Mass! I would eventually start playing the piano for the prayer meetings too.

Over the course of the next four years – a year into which I was received into the Church – I made many wonderful friends, and saw many coming and going (though a small core remained who were there at the start), but one constant throughout was the great diversity of nations represented in the group – people from all over the world, a beautiful reminder that the Church is a truly global, universal family, a family I am blessed beyond measure to be a part of. Now I have left Bristol and moved to London, but I am sure I speak for all the people I’ve met these past four years when I say that, no matter how far any of us may go, we will always be, truly, one heart.

Matt Showering