Read an excerpt from Ralph Martin’s new memoir, A Life in the Spirit, below!

One night I was walking back to my room after attending a weird, dark, off-campus party, and I saw a tow truck drive by. It was the only vehicle on the road in the dark morning hours. I remembered that such trucks were called “wreckers” in some places, and I had the strong feeling that the wrecker was coming for me. It was a very strong experience; in retrospect, I think God was giving me a merciful warning: You’re in dangerous waters, heading toward a wreck. Perhaps God was preparing me for his merciful intervention that was to fulfill my longing for the absolute and save me from the confusion that had engulfed my life. In the last semester of my senior year, I continued to be academically successful. I received the Dockweiler Medal for the best philosophical essay written that year, which meant that I was to lead the academic procession at graduation. This thrilled my parents and my aunt (who gave me the Miraculous Medal at my confirmation), who came all the way out to Indiana for graduation. . . .

Throughout the years, the Lord has purified my ambition to excel and do the best at whatever I am doing. I still want to do that, but I want to excel above all in obeying him and carrying out the assignments he gives me. More and more, all I want is truly to do his will, and more and more I continue to grow in understanding what that means every day. Focusing on the spiritual journey, though, only came with a significant conversion. While I was immersed in my academic career, the agony of not knowing truth, not finding ultimate meaning, and not encountering ultimate and eternal love was tearing me apart. Then the Cursillo Movement came to Notre Dame. . . .

My roommate, Phil, and my future partner in evangelization, Steve Clark, made the first Cursillo and came back convinced that this was a great gift to the Church. Phil, perhaps due to his awareness of my searching and confusion, particularly persisted in asking me to go to the second Cursillo . . . I balked at the idea. My senior essay was due, I was going through a rough patch with the girl I was dating, and I simply wasn’t interested. Thankfully, he persisted, and I ended up agreeing but warned him that I wouldn’t compromise my intellectual integrity. I told him I imagined that the weekend would consist of warm human interactions that people would call “God,” but I wouldn’t fall for this since I was a critical thinker and a philosophy major! But I was impressed by the doctrinal talks given by priests and received an excellent, systematic overview of the Catholic worldview that I had never heard taught in such a comprehensive way. It prepared the way but didn’t bring me to conversion. What began to affect me even more was the way the lay people talked about Jesus in a very personal manner and prayed with sincerity. I initially resisted, maybe sensing that danger lay ahead—the danger of having my worldview upended, my plans disrupted, and my relationship with God deeply challenged. Indeed, all of that was the case. At a certain point, I felt that this Jesus about whom they were speaking actually was in the room. I didn’t hear any voices or have any visions. I just knew—in some mysterious way—that he was there. I didn’t perceive him saying anything to me in words or intellectual concepts; he simply made his presence and reality known. But that was deeply disturbing. If Jesus really had been raised from the dead, and if he really was present in Our Lady of Fatima Retreat House, then he really was the Lord. I knew that if that was the case, it would have revolutionary implications for my life. I resisted, evaded, bargained, and tried to deny what I was sensing, but finally, I surrendered.

A Life in the Spirit is shipping now! Order your copy here! This excerpt, from pages twenty-three through twenty-six, is used with permission from Emmaus Road Publishing.