Eric Nelson

Eric Nelson

I’m Catholic because it’s the only way to quench my thirst.

I grew up in a working-class family torn apart by divorce at a young age. I set goals that I imagined would guarantee me a happy life. I would get a first-rate education, learn foreign languages, become a proficient musician, get a high-paying job, buy a nice house, marry a beautiful wife and have adorable children to raise in a perfect family home. If you’ve ever listened to the hit Beatles song “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da,” then you have a pretty good picture of what I was after, as well as the naïve and childlike way I envisioned it.

And so, I studied and worked hard for many years, and in time achieved everything I had set out to accomplish. I made it to the mountaintop. I had nothing to complain about. I had no hardships. Life was stable and secure at last. And yet there was still this indescribable longing.

I began reading spiritual works, like the poetry of Khalil Gibran, Tolstoy’s “The Gospel in Brief,” and the Jefferson Bible (Thomas Jefferson’s edition, wherein he removed all of the miracles and the supernatural from the Gospels). I avoided Christianity, because it seemed too simplistic. It was the religion of my childhood, picked up in bits and pieces on those few occasions when we went to Sunday School, Bible School, or church at Montrose Methodist. Christianity was not for intellectual college graduates like me.

Then came kindergarten. All the public schools to which we applied for our firstborn son said no. We turned to Our Lady of Grace because it was on my wife’s way to work, and it had some of the best test scores in Minnesota. By a miracle, they still had a spot open when we applied in May, despite normally filling up much sooner.

Once our son was accepted, we decided to attend Mass there to see what he would be in for. We didn’t know when to stand, sit or kneel, or what to respond. But once we started reciting the “Our Father,” I got so choked up that I couldn’t finish it aloud. Soon we were attending every Sunday Mass and RCIA classes during the week. Our sons were baptized. My first confession was one of the most transformative experiences of my life. We were confirmed at the next Easter Vigil.

I no longer experience that feeling of discontent that I had before I came into the Catholic Church. My former goals in life were not bad, but they were misdirected. For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world, if he loses his soul? God gave me all the worldly things I wanted, and I discovered that man cannot live on bread alone. What I strive for now is to serve the Lord instead of myself. My life is centered on Jesus Christ. I am fed by his word and by his body and blood, and I am fulfilled.

Since 2008, Nelson, 54, and his wife, Mee Lee, have been members of Our Lady of Grace in Edina, where he is a cantor and chorister, she is an extraordinary minister of holy Communion, and their sons are altar servers. Nelson is also a lawyer and an amateur juggler.