THE WILD AND ECSTATIC JOURNEY OF A JEWISH SURGEON TO CATHOLICISM

Dr. Patrick Lappert predominately grew up in San Francisco during the 1960s with a mother who was a convert to Judaism. She gave him a prayer card with Hebrew on one side and English on the other which he prayed during the night, adding all the people he prayed for, an ever growing number of souls. 

But the part that had me reeling (and made me gasp as I walked along Pacific Coast Highway) which runs through San Fran is that Dr. Lappert's mother was completely Irish, spoke Gaelic as her native tongue.  She brought her son up in Judaism, and he longed to have his Bar Mitzvah.

Then when she was dying, it was her son, a renowned doctor at that point, arranged for an Irish priest to come and give her the Last Rites while her son prayed every Catholic devotion for the nearly departed. Priest and dying lady sang Gaelic lullabies as she went to the Lord. 

My friend, the ebullient Keith Little, also known as The Cordial Catholic has done a fine interview with Dr. Lappert and is to be congratulated.