HOLY FAMILY CATHEDRAL MEET SEMINARIAN LUKE BLAND:
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hen Luke Bland was a child attending services at the Methodist church right up the street from our cathedral, he could have never guessed that the Lord would someday call him home to the Catholic Church he had so often walked right past! Yet today, Holy Family Cathedral has become his home parish and spiritual support network as he begins his studies at Kenrick-Glennon Seminary in
Seminarian Luke Bland 4
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St. Louis. Luke’s path to a deep faith is an inspiring story of the Father calling one of His beloved children home. While Luke was raised Methodist, his family did not discuss God or faith outside of the Sunday services. Without a real foundation in the faith, Luke turned his back on Christianity when he became a teenager. Only later, when he was dating a Catholic in college, did things begin to change. “I had a Catholic girlfriend at the University of Tulsa who really knew her faith and how to talk about it, how to present it in a sophisticated and well-thought-out way,” Luke says. “She explained that there is a long intellectual tradition behind the Church and its doctrine. I had never encountered anybody who had believed in God and was really smart and could sum it up for me. She showed me that believing in God could be deep and sophisticated and thoughtful —that God is Truth itself and Love itself and all of these bigger philosophical things.” Once Luke was ready to accept the faith on an intellectual level, God began working on his heart. Soon, Luke realized that it wasn’t enough to keep God as an idea — instead, he wanted to have a true relationship with Him. As Luke recalls, the more he “showed up” for the Lord, the more he was called to make a transformative change. “It became about relationship and a deep embrace between Father and son,” Luke says. “It’s so beautiful, really. I first realized it was true intellectually, but then it was also true in a way that I didn’t even know it needed to be. I didn’t know I was broken until I was loved by God. I didn’t even know my heart was longing for a Father in heaven, but it was. “So now, in addition to the intellectual sense of God, I’m also His son, and that’s an identity that goes so deep that it’s not even about the intellectual argument anymore,” he continues. “I’ve realized who I am in my heart of hearts. And if I’m His son, I want to live in His house, which is the Catholic Church.” Having experienced this profound conversion of mind, heart and soul, Luke enrolled in the RCIA process at the beginning of his junior year of college in 2017. It was only then that he learned he had already been
