It was only a few years after her death, when I was preparing to become a mother myself, that I finally felt able to return to the Church in the way that was intended for me. Catholicism had always made sense on some intuitive level to my way of being in the world, but I’d never conceived of that community as a possibility in the wake of all that Ma had taught me for all my life. The first few months I attended Mass regularly were filled with anxiety, more guilt, and pain as the truth of who I was called to be sharpened into focus ever more clearly in contrast with the woman Ma had always wanted me to be.