You Never Know What Impact You Have.

Robert (not Michael) Novak died yesterday. Yes, that is the Novak of Novak and Evans. Atholic News Service tells us:

"Novak then started to go to Mass regularly and decided to convert a few years later. According to Novak, the turning point came when he visited Syracuse University in New York to lecture. Before he spoke he was seated at a dinner table near a young woman who wore a cross necklace. Novak asked her if she was Catholic, and she asked him the same.

"Novak said that he had been going to Mass each Sunday for the last four years, but had not converted.

“'Mr. Novak, life is short, but eternity is forever,' the woman responded, thus moving the journalist to begin studying for the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults, the rite by which people learn the Catholic faith. He was baptized at St. Patrick’s in 1998. His wife was also baptized a Catholic."

When biopsy revealed a major tumor and that he had six months to a year to live, Novak said, “Being read your death sentence is like being a character in one of the old Bette Davis movies. I believe I was able to withstand this shock because of my Catholic faith, to which I converted in 1998.”