Take This Bread: A Radical Conversion

by Sara Miles
Read May 2008


I read this after someone (Katie?) sent an article about Sara Miles and how she had a radical conversion after going to Communion for the first time. She was an athiest and had not really been raised in any religion. One day she was walking next to an Episcopal church she had noticed before (in San Francisco). It was St. Gregory of Nyssa Episcopal Church.
She noticed they were having mass, walked inside and sat down. At communion time she took communion and had an immediate and profound spiritual experience. A revelation.

The book describes the prologue to this experience and how Sara had to learn to be a religous person after this conversion. She understood communion as food for the soul and felt the need to give this same gift of food back to the community. She started a food pantry and then, I think, another.

This book was fantastic. I found myself frustrated with the priests at St. Gregory because of the way they "made up" their own version of the liturgy. I get angry when people feel they must change what is centuries old and crafted through the ages as if it was lacking something.

Still, St. Gregorys seems like a wonderful church for what it is. Sara Miles story is amazing and this book is inspiring. I lent my copy to someone who I thought would really enjoy it. I hope she read it and that she passed it on to others.