As a sworn atheist I was stunned that God should touch me

I have only recently, in advanced middle age, been received into the Catholic Church completely unexpectedly and definitely against my will, because of profound spiritual experiences. My epiphany happened four years ago as I sat in an armchair at home several weeks after my older sister had died of cancer in a distant hospice. Prayer in church at the time was a total failure but in that chair the delayed awareness God’s love for me as an individual came with an overwhelming and frightening presence including the words: “David, I am always with you”. This might readily be understood as a comforting fantasy after deep emotional distress, but it was followed by a transforming experience as a juryman on a deeply upsetting paedophile case. At the time the guilty verdict was