Malcolm Muggeridge

Conversion: A Spiritual Journey

London: Collins, 1988.

God, humble my pride,
extinguish the last stirrings of my ego,
obliterate whatever remains of worldly ambition and carnality,
and in these last days of my mortal existence,
help me to serve only Thy purposes,
to speak and to write only Thy words,
to think only Thy thoughts,
to have no other prayer than "Thy will be done."

Foreword.

"Genetic failures are heavenly messengers, with a special role in the world to make outward and visible the physical and mental distortions which we all have inwardly and invisibly" (11).

After making the decision to convert to Catholicism, he felt "a sense of homecoming, of picking up the threads of a lost life, of responding to a bell that had long been ringing, of taking a place at a table that had long been vacant" (13).

John Henry Newman: "The sinner would not enjoy heaven if he went there; not till he has turned from his sin and is once more looking towards God" (32).

"When one of the Soviet astronauts proudly announced that in the stratosphere he had found no trace of Heaven, he was, had he but known it, supporting, not denying, Heaven's existence; a trace of Heaven on his radar-screen would have undermined belief in it for years to come" (34).

"Human love [is] the nearest image vouchsafed us of God's love irradiating the whole universe" (41).

"Though sojourners in Time, Eternity is our true habitat" (45).

Bishop of Barcelona (Rurita): "You are the ministers of a King who cannot abdicate because He is not enthroned by the votes of men. Men did not place the crown on His head, men will not take it off. Everything falls after a time--thrones collapse, royal crowns roll in the mud. Alone the Kingdom of Christ remains standing ... because it is guaranteed by the word of God."