Author Archives: Jerry Robinson

Are you in the Garden or in the Desert?

21 Friday Feb 2014

Posted by in Faith, Spirituality

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Since I wrote and posted How’s Your Spirituality? last week, I have tried to pay more attention to how I feel about my relationship with Christ, and to how I have shown, through my actions, the value I place on my relationship with Him.  I have reflected and tried to assess whether each day has been lush with hope, or spiritually dry from a poor or indifferent attitude, and whether or not there was any particular aspect of my feelings or behavior that I could improve.

For the most part I had a good week.  I was happy with the way I had shown charity to others and for the way I kept my cool in some tense situations. But, I felt I could have done better by taking my prayer time more seriously and so I gave my hour of adoration on Monday a little kick in the butt to make up for it.

Then Tuesday rolled around.  It started off on a good note but turned into a hectic morning at the office.  There was a particular issue that arose, one of those situations where you can choose to do nothing and let the pieces fall where they may, or you can step in and fix it as quickly as possible to stem the bleeding, so to speak.  I chose to do the latter.  Wrong decision.

Actually, it felt like the right decision for about four hours.  Then it turned sour and it became obvious that it had been the wrong one.  Big time wrong.  It wasn’t like a mortal sin, rather, it was just a major bone-head moment that included poor judgment that resulted in a serious leadership faux-pas that would impact things outside of my realm of responsibility. By the end of the day I was bewildered.  I was absolutely convinced when I made the decision that it was the right one and, so, it was disturbing when it finally sunk in how wrong I was.  I went home that evening and barely talked to my family.  I hardly slept that night.  I profusely apologized to my boss the next morning and sincerely hoped that what may have been the worst mistake I had ever made in my career wouldn’t be my last one.

While I was licking my wounds and pondering what went wrong and why, I thought about turning to God and praying for understanding and that things could be made right.  But, I just didn’t feel like doing it.  I didn’t have the right words or thoughts in me.  And, because I didn’t feel I could do the exact thing I knew I ought to do – turn to Him – I felt even more frustrated.  I suddenly felt like I had been transported to Yuma, Arizona in the middle of the summer – kind of a spiritually bone-dry desert with no hope of survival.

Then, God-moment number one appeared.

On Wednesday morning, after I had diligently worked all morning to round up the cats and stuff them back in the bag, I took a moment during my lunch break to go to a blog site I visit from time to time by Father Robert Barron, founder of the global ministry, Word on Fire, and the Rector/President of Mundelein Seminary.  The subject of his blog post for the day, believe it or not, was “How should we address spiritually dry periods?”

He quoted Sir Winston Churchill when he was asked by someone, “What do you do when you’re going through Hell?” to which Churchill responded by saying, “You keep going!”  You get through it, and get it behind you.

Fr. Barron went on to say that when God draws us in, he allows us to feel uplifted, excited and enthusiastic about the experience.  But then, God will often withdraw that feeling from us to show us that we’re not supposed to fall in love with the experience, we’re meant to fall in love with Him.

According to Fr. Barron, God puts us in a desert that can feel like a time of pure desolation.  So, what do you do?  You hang in there, you keep going, you don’t give up, you get through it.  You keep your eyes focused on God, not on your good feelings or your bad feelings.

He used the analogy of a marriage.  After the wedding day, the euphoria goes away.  You’re not supposed to fall in love with your feelings, you’re supposed to fall in love with each other, through good times and bad, for better or for worse, and so on.  “It’s the same way with religion, you’re either in the garden or you’re in the desert.  But, that’s life.  You keep your eyes focused on God.”

This was a whole new perspective worth considering.  I had to ask myself if, in the newness of my faith, I have been in love with the feeling and with the activity of being Christian?  I truly love being Catholic, but am I truly loving, and keeping my eyes focused on, God?

Enter God-moment number two.

After leaving Fr. Barron’s blog site, I continued to surf around on-line.  I came across a passage from the book That Tremendous Love by Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen.  To be honest, I didn’t, and still don’t, know much about Archbishop Sheen but I have often seen references to him and to profound things he’s said.  I thought I would finally actually read something attributed to him so I read the passage:

“At the beginning one loves God for only his gifts or for the emotions He sends us. He treats us then, ‘like a young woman who is being courted.’ If gifts are no longer given in abundance after true marriage has occurred it is not because the husband’s love is less, but because it is greater. For now he gives himself. It is not the husband’s gifts that his wife loves nor his compliments, nor even the thrill of pleasure she gets from his company. She loves him. The moment the Lover is loved for Himself, then the nature of the gifts ceases to matter. If God withdraws all sensible gifts it is only because He wants the union between the soul and Himself to be more personal and less dependent on His generosity.”

Now, what do you think the chances were that I would, in the state of mind that I was in at the moment, find not one but two articles, in two totally separate locations on the internet, directly related to my acute spiritual condition of the day?  Slim to none is my first guess.  No, I believe God intended for me to find those.  He intended for me to ponder our relationship and for me to ask if I was in love with him or if I was in love with the feeling of being new in Him.  He was telling me I need to focus on Him even when I feel small and incapable of doing so.  He was telling me to not give up when the going gets tough and the environment gets dry, but to keep on going and to turn to Him for help.  He was telling me it’s nicer in the garden than it is in the desert.

Where are you, in the Garden or in the Desert?

“O my God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me … Therefore, I will trust You always though I may seem to be lost I will not fear, for You are always with me, O my dear God.” – Thomas Merton

(The post, “Are You in the Garden or in the Desert?” first appeared in Reflections of a Lay Catholic.)

How’s Your Spirituality?

13 Thursday Feb 2014

Posted by in Faith, Love, Prayer, Scripture

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Every six weeks or so when I see my friend, Tim, I get asked the question, “Hey, Jer, how’s your spirituality?”  The neat thing is he’s not just making small talk, he’s sincerely interested in knowing how I’m doing spiritually and is willing to jump in and give me a boost if I need it. 

The first time he asked me I was taken by surprise and didn’t know what to say, so I gave him an automatic, “Great, everything’s wonderful!” response.  The next time I was a little better prepared and, fortunately for me, I was being truthful when I said, “Man, it couldn’t be better.”  The third time he asked, I hesitated because, although I wanted to tell him everything was fantastic, I would have been lying.  Instead, I gave him a tentative look and said, “Well, actually, I’ve been going through a little dry spell lately.”  And then, true to form, he helped me talk through it and helped me get back on track.

Tim’s concern for not necessarily just my physical well being but, instead, for my spiritual health, is a good example of the type of friend I’ve made since becoming a Christian.  I have been blessed with many friends just like him. 

At some point a couple months ago I started thinking seriously about his question. “Why should I wait for him to ask me?  Why not ask myself from time to time?  And, if I take time for reflection and do a self-evaluation, how do I describe and qualify my spiritual life?  What makes it great as opposed to being only mediocre or not good at all?”

First, I thought I needed to define Spirituality.  So, I Googled the word hoping to find a dictionary but the first hit that came up was a link to the Student Wellness Center at Ohio State University (go figure?).  Their definition of Spirituality started out like this, “Spirituality is not religion and is not even necessarily affiliated with religion.”  I thought, “Hmm, the heck you say!”  Obviously, this was not going to get me close to the spirit (pun intended) of what Tim was asking.  Finally, in checking Webster’s dictionary, I found a suitable definition – “Spirituality:  The sensitivity or attachment to religious values”.  I thought, “Now, I can work with that!”.

The word “Sensitivity” lends itself towards how I feel about my religious values.  Generally, from one day to the next, I feel grateful, excited and full of hope about my faith in God, my acceptance of Jesus Christ as my Savior, and my desire to live life as He wants me to live – full of charity for, and service to, others.  It feels good to acknowledge and accept His love, and to recognize and proclaim my love in return. 

But, I have so-so days at times, too.  These are when I feel overwhelmed trying to understand everything; feeling confounded that I can’t get the pieces to fit together, which causes me to doubt; and days when life simply gets in the way and keeps me from those precious prayer moments.

Then, there are the bad days:  the days when I let my concupiscence get the upper hand; days when I let stress and aggravation cause me to feel less charitable than I ought to be and I don’t realize it until it is too late

The second part of the definition is, “Attachment to religious values”.  Unlike the feelings related to sensitivity, “Attachment” conjures up the idea of putting that acceptance into action.  Again, there seem to be different levels of qualification to this aspect.

The best days seem to include some element of showing kindness to others – there’s not much that feels better than that. I admit I feel pleased with myself when I go out of my way to help others.  Same thing for sacrificing for others – there’s just something special about it.  And then there’s prayer.  The act of telling and showing Him my love, and accepting His love, definitely produces a spiritual high.  I’ve noticed, too, the wonderful feeling, the positive self-affirmation, when I do something that appears to influence and lead others toward Christ.  I feel like I’ve earned my pay for the day.

In business it’s often said, “Some days they pay me too much and others they don’t pay me nearly enough.”  The same goes with spirituality, I think.  There are days I just don’t earn the right to feel very spiritual.  Days when I don’t act with love to others.  Times when I take out frustrations either intentionally or unintentionally on others.  And, worst of all, when I sin and I know I’m sinning but I do it anyway.  I’m thankful this doesn’t happen often but when it does it feels devastating.  When I look at those actions in retrospect, I know that Jesus is weeping for me. 

When I became Catholic, many caring friends, Tim and others, cautioned me to take it easy, to accept a certain slowness to the learning process.  Sometimes I just don’t want to go slow.  But, I think they’re right.  It’s easy to put the cart before the horse, as the saying goes, and get ahead of myself in trying to understand Christianity and trying to live it like a saint.  I kind of feel like a newbie golfer who is just learning the game but gets frustrated because he can’t shoot par.  It’s easy to lose sight of the fact that even the pros don’t always shoot par.

During this exercise of examining my spirituality I’ve learned a few other things, too.  I’ve found that when I pray, when I read the scriptures, study the bible, and associate with other men and women who do the same, I begin to understand what was in Jesus’ mind and I think I’m starting to think more like he did.  My mind is becoming renewed.  Instead of just existing in the flesh like I did for years, I have begun existing in Spirit, too.  I think my mind has reached a higher level because of its connection with the Holy Spirit. 

So whoever is in Christ is a new creation: the old things have passed away;  behold, new things have come. – 2 Corinthians 5:17

I am so very grateful to all the people who have gently pushed me, pulled me, guided me, offered insight along the way, and waited at each way-point with open arms and a knowing smile.  I appreciate friends like Tim, the guys in my bible study group, the men and women on the Christ Renews His Parish teams, and my family who care enough about me to ask about my spirituality, my walk with God.  It’s heartening to know that, as I move ahead, you will be there for me.  God bless you all.

(The post How’s Your Spirituality? appeared first on Reflections of a Lay Catholic)

Eucharistic Adoration: One Hour of Peace, Hope and Love

09 Sunday Feb 2014

Posted by in Eucharistic Adoration, Prayer

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It’s been a while since I posted anything about prayer and I think it’s about time to bring the subject up again.  I’ve been praying a lot lately for guidance and strength to get me through some difficult tasks, and for the health and well being of some people I know.  Tonight, I’m particularly looking forward to 6:00 p.m. tomorrow when I go to church for my hour of Eucharistic Adoration, that special one hour of the week when it’s just me and Jesus.

I tend to do my best praying when I’m in church and the best time to do that, I’ve found, is during that one hour a week I set aside to pray in front of the tabernacle during Eucharistic Adoration.  I look forward to the quiet time and the feeling that I am in His presence.

I mentioned in an older post that I was still getting used to praying.  I still am today.  I tend to ramble.  I need to be more succinct so I can fit it all in when I only have a short amount of time.  I have found, though, that my time in prayer is tremendously more satisfying with less pressure on myself to get it all just right when I schedule a full hour in Eucharistic Adoration once a week and take my time. 

As a Catholic I believe the bread and wine, the consecrated Hosts, are actually the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Christ – combined, they are the real presence of Christ.  The basis for this belief is found in Matthew 26:26-28:

“While they were eating, Jesus took bread, said the blessing, broke it, and giving it to his disciples said, ‘Take and eat; this is my body.’  Then he took a cup, gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, ‘Drink from it, all of you, for this is my blood of the covenant, which will be shed on behalf of many for the forgiveness of sins.’”

For me, tomorrow is not just any night of Eucharistic Adoration.  It’s Adoration with the Blessed Sacrament exposed, which, in my opinion, is the most profound and satisfying way to pray.  Exposition is when the Blessed Sacrament is removed from the tabernacle and exposed for Adoration in a monstrance, a sculpture with a glass enclosure that reveals the Host. 

 

Pope Francis 1 with a monstrance

Pope Francis 1 with a monstrance

When I pray during Adoration, whether it is when the Host is exposed or not (reposed), I genuflect for most of that hour.  What is significant about an hour, you ask?  Well, that comes from when Jesus, after agonizing in the Garden of Gethsemane, finds his disciples asleep.  Upon waking them, He asks Peter, “So you could not keep watch with me for one hour?” – Matthew 26:40.                            

The glory of Eucharistic Adoration is best described in the words of Blessed Pope John Paul II, “The Eucharist is a priceless treasure:  by not only celebrating it (at Mass) but also by praying before it outside of Mass we are enabled to make contact with the very wellspring of grace…We must understand that in order ‘to do’, we must first learn ‘to be’, that is to say, in the sweet company of Jesus in adoration.”

When I am in adoration I always feel a sense of calmness, of comfort, and my thoughts come to me more clearly.  I find when I am laying it all on the line to Jesus, or just having a casual one-sided conversation with Him, my thoughts flow much easier than at any other time of prayer.  Sometimes I catch myself doing all the “talking” and I have to quiet myself down and simply try to soak up the joy of being in His presence.  In author Kathleen Carroll’s words, “The best kind of friend is the one with whom you can spend time without having to say anything.  You can just share the moment and enjoy each other’s company, knowing your relationship is deeper than the spoken word.  That kind of silent communication is what takes place between you and Jesus when you participate in Eucharistic Adoration.” 

The first couple times I spent an hour in adoration I knelt the whole time and actually spent the entire hour having a one-sided conversation with Jesus.  I would run out of things to say so I would repeat myself which made me feel a little stupid. But, the more I went, the more I observed that other adorers would spend about half their time kneeling in prayer and the other half sitting and contemplating.  I asked and learned that it was okay to do that.  I also learned that it is okay to spend time simply gazing at the Host and soaking up being in the presence of Jesus.  It is okay to sit and consider the life of Christ and what he might say to you in light of your circumstances in life.  And, it is okay to just sit and listen – listen for that still small voice, that bit of clarity that will give you the direction for which you’ve been searching.  It’s okay to bring your bible and read passages from it, or your prayer book from which you might recite some prayers special to the moment.  It’s okay to write in your journal about how it feels, what is on your mind, and to record the specific things for which you are praying.  And, I have found the more I spend that one hour a week in the presence of Jesus I tend to agree more and more with Mother Teresa’s sentiments, “The time you spend with Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament is the best time you will spend on earth.  Each moment that you spend with Jesus will deepen your union with Him and make your soul everlastingly more glorious and beautiful in Heaven, and will help bring about everlasting peace on earth.”

Most adults I know are married, have a significant other, and/or have children.  Imagine the sadness we would have if we couldn’t spend at least one hour a week with them, the ones we love more than any others on earth.  Then, imagine the ridiculousness of accepting that it would be okay to not schedule at least one hour a week to devote to the one’s you love the most.  Now convey that thought over to our relationship with Christ.  Can we not spend one hour per week getting to know Him better and letting Him help us get to know ourselves better?  By doing so, will we not be able to love our families and friends here on earth more fully?

If you have not had or taken the opportunity to pray during Eucharistic Adoration, I hope you give it a try.  Many parishes have Perpetual Eucharistic Adoration with continuous exposure of the Blessed Sacrament, and some, like ours, offer exposure one day per week with each week having a different day.  I’m sure you will find your hour well spent and that it will be a special time filled with the Lord’s peace, hope and love.  For those of you reading this who do participate in weekly Adoration, I pray that you will encourage others who don’t by inviting them to join you to see what they are missing.  As Fr. Sean Davidson, of the Missionaries of the Most Holy Eucharist, who visited our parish to help us get Perpetual Adoration up and running, said, “The adoration of Jesus in the Eucharist also leads to greater reverence at Mass, a deeper desire for personal holiness, and a stronger sense of union with the parish and the whole Church.”

Good night, God Bless, and may you find His Grace through your hour of Eucharistic Adoration.

(Eucharistic Adoration:  One Hour of Peace, Hope and Love, was first published on Reflections of a Lay Catholic.  Portions of this post were excerpted from Finding Grace Through Eucharistic Adoration)

Writing to Learn: The St. Augustine Way

22 Wednesday Jan 2014

Posted by in Faith

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When I posted On Second Thought, I Did Have a God-Moment, I discovered it was my twenty-fifth post on Reflections of a Lay Catholic.  I doubt my two friends who invited me to participate ever thought I would be quite this prolific.  It’s possible that, with each successive post, they shake their heads and utter, “There he goes again”.

I occasionally receive comments from readers who express their appreciation to me for writing the things I write.  But, I’m sure the reality of it all is that there are some who aren’t quite as enamored with my writing.  Even in my own opinion I know there are some posts that are just plain better than others.

Nevertheless, I do enjoy writing and posting. Rather, I enjoy the challenge of coming up with something about which to write – something that might be interesting and meaningful for others.  But, mostly, I enjoy coming up with something meaningful to me.

They say to be a successful blogger one has to post frequently, say several times a week.  Well, I’m sorry, I’m not that quick.  The thoughts I have take time to incubate.  They take time to develop into something that makes sense to me, and then I have to wordsmith those thoughts into something that makes sense to others.  This last piece is easy for me.  It’s the first part, the making sense to me, that is difficult.

The difficulty is a consequence of being new to the faith.  I haven’t even been Catholic a year yet and so much is still new.  I feel like I have a lot of catching up to do.  I have surrounded myself with holy people from whom I glean tidbits of insight, knowledge and, occasionally, wisdom.  It takes me time to process these.  In addition, I try to read as often as the exigencies of life will allow:  the Bible, devotionals, books by inspirational authors and Catholic apologists, all to try to increase my understanding of not only my Catholic faith but Christianity as a whole.  Sometimes I feel I am drowning in newness.  I have to sort through the minutiae to find what’s really important. There are a million dots that have to be connected.  Being an engineer and an analytical thinker, I find myself trying to arrange it all into some kind of elaborate and logical process flow chart, with a beginning and an end, and with “If/Then” statements throughout.

I know I am probably making my personal faith development much harder than it needs to be.  It’s like I’ve unleashed a previously undiscovered ADD part of me that wants to jump around from one new experience to another without first fully understanding the prior experience.  On the other hand, my real self is saying, “Whoa up, pardner, let’s understand this over here before we race off in that direction.”

In my writing I intentionally steer clear of “hot topics” that are in the news.  I tried once.  In my post God Bless Planned Parenthood (which was not, as it sounds, in favor of that organization and it’s beliefs) I found that I couldn’t yet adequately defend myself or my position in the face of disagreement from readers and, thus, decided to leave those kinds of issues to others more knowledgeable and braver than me.  Maybe someday I will get past the mere processing and understanding of ideas and into the synthesis of them such that I can organize what I have learned into an argument and feel comfortable enough to venture into that territory again.  Until then, I will stick with writing about simpler ideas, the little revelations which, through my process of reasoning, become clear to me.  I’ll stick to writing about those times when I find God has graced me in some particular way.  But, mostly, I will write for my own understanding and learning, with my posts being the end result of my internal process of breaking down information, asking questions and generating suitable answers.

Having long felt this way, I was thrilled yesterday to have found the following in my daily devotional of writings from my personal saint, St. Augustine, Bishop and Doctor of the Church:

“It is also necessary – may God grant it! – that in providing others with books to read I myself should make progress, and that in trying to answer their questions I myself should find what I am seeking.  Therefore, at the command of God our Lord and with His help, I have undertaken not so much to discourse with authority on matters known to me as to know them better by discoursing devoutly of them.”  – The Trinity 1,8

  

St. Augustine of Hippo

St. Augustine of Hippo

 Imagine what St. Augustine could have accomplished today with electronic media at his fingertips!

It is heartening for me to know that St. Augustine also found the real value of writing to be better personal understanding rather than simply a way of preaching to others.  And, like I’m sure St. Augustine did, I too find some satisfaction in the evangelizing aspect of writing.  For if, by organizing and compiling my muddled thoughts, I cause you, the reader, to think deeply about one of my personal experiences and relate it to yourself, or if I am instrumental in helping you understand and increase your faith, then I have compounded the singular value of my effort many times over.  And that makes it all the more worthwhile.

Please know that I appreciate you taking the time to read my monologues, and that I am very grateful for your comments and feedback.  So many of you have helped me see my faith in new light, you’ve shown me where I’ve put pieces of the puzzle in the wrong places, and all of you have been there patiently listening while I, with God’s grace, try out loud to figure things out for myself.

God Bless You.

Prayer to the Holy Spirit

 

Breathe into me, Holy Spirit

            That my thoughts may all be holy.

Move in me, Holy Spirit,

            That my work, too, may be holy.

Attract my heart, Holy Spirit,

            That I may love only what is holy.

Strengthen me, Holy Spirit,

            That I may defend all that is holy.

Protect me, Holy Spirit,

            That I always may be holy.

 –       St. Augustine

 

 

On Second Thought, I Did Have a God-Moment

14 Tuesday Jan 2014

Posted by in Bible Reflections, Faith, Love, Marriage, Prayer

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It’s been over a month since I sat down to write.  December found Melinda and I a little busy with preparing for Christmas and for my daughter Mary’s wedding the Saturday after Christmas, and driving to and from Lake Charles, Louisiana for both.

In spite of all that activity, I tried to stay focused on the “Reason for the Season”.  These were my first Advent and Christmas seasons as a Catholic and I wanted to make sure I experienced the difference between the two. 

Although I didn’t miss a Mass or Holy day of obligation during the almost two weeks we were down South, there was so much activity that my daily prayer routine was seriously interrupted.  By the time we returned home I desperately needed to get back into my faith.

Back at home, I made it to the New Year’s Eve vigil Mass but by the time Epiphany Sunday rolled around I came down with a case of bronchitis and was struck with fits of such violent coughing that I decided to stay home and not ruin other folks’ worship that morning.  It was a little disappointing to me because it was the first Mass I had missed since becoming Catholic last Easter and only the second time since my decision to convert in April 2012.

But, by the next Wednesday I was feeling well enough to get with the men’s bible study group I meet with every two weeks.  After the scripture discussion we went around the room and, as always, volunteered our “God-moments” – those times when God shows up in your life and graces you unexpectedly.  I told the guys that over the two weeks I was gone I really hadn’t noticed any God-moments – none had jumped out at me.  Then, as the others related their God-moments, I began to think back and I realized, again, that I didn’t see them because I wasn’t looking for them.  In fact, I wasn’t just not looking for them, I had instead been so occupied with other things that I had literally closed my mind and heart to them.  And, as I relived our trip, I came to see how there were many God moments that passed undetected right under my nose:

Jesus was with us in our car that first day of driving as we struggled through eight hours of torrential rain and storms between Ohio and Southeast Missouri where we spent Saturday night at my folks. 

Attending the only Sunday Mass at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Dexter, Missouri would have put us in Lake Charles very late that night.  So, we skipped it and hoped to find someplace else along the way.  Looking ahead, I estimated we could be near Hammond, Louisiana around 5:00 p.m., so I checked masstimes.org to see if there were any Sunday evening masses in that neighborhood.  I don’t think it was dumb luck that there happened to be a Mass at the Holy Ghost Catholic Church in Hammond at 5:00 p.m.  I plugged the address into my GPS and nine hours later we arrived at 4:50 p.m.

God was speaking to me through Fr. Robert Merced, pastor at Holy Ghost Church, when he elaborated on the Gospel reading, Matthew 1:18 – 24, for this 4th Sunday of Advent.  In it, Matthew describes, “…how the birth of Jesus came about.”  I had already spent much time marveling at the caliber of man Joseph must have been to forgive his betrothed and marry her instead of “divorcing her quietly” or, worse, having her stoned.  But Fr. Merced opened my eyes to the fact that Mary’s faith was equally strong.  As a young woman, she knew that to be unmarried and be with child was an offense against the Jewish laws punishable by stoning until death.   Yet, through her faith, she still said, “Yes”.

On our first morning in town we met a friend for breakfast at a local café.  We briefly chatted over coffee about children, but then our friend moved right into a heartfelt discussion about preparing our hearts for Christmas and not getting caught up in the busyness and commercialization of the season.  With only two days to go until Christmas, and a wedding looming just three days later, she somehow knew what we needed to curb our mounting anxiety.

The next morning, Christmas Eve, found me, my soon to be son-in-law, Michael, his father, and a fishing guide skimming across the marsh hoping to slay some redfish.  It turned out to be one of the best fishing trips I had ever been on.  We limited out on reds, and caught several speckled trout and flounder as well.  I won’t be so bold as to say that Jesus helped us catch fish like he helped Peter, but His love was there in an unexpected way through the opportunity for Michael and I to get to know each other much better.  I caught a bunch of keepers that day but I also confirmed I was catching a keeper son-in-law.

We wrapped up Christmas Eve by enjoying a traditional Christmas Eve dinner with our close friends who were graciously putting us up in their home for the week, and then attending the Christmas Vigil Mass at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Lake Charles.  It was a beautiful Mass and celebration of the birth of our Lord, in a beautiful church, with an angelic A cappella choir.

Christmas day was a relaxing one with the morning spent in the company of Mary and Michael, Michael’s parents and the three of us opening gifts and having fun, followed by a wonderful dinner in the afternoon with more relatives, and with plenty of time to contemplate why we were celebrating in the first place.

On Thursday, we were blessed with the safe arrival of our other two daughters and their husbands, my parents, my brother and sister and their families for another round of gift giving and a delicious fish fry from the fruits of our catch two days earlier.  We gave sincere thanks for everyone’s safe travel and “…these Thy gifts…which we… received, from Thy bounty”.

When Friday rolled around the wedding preparation activities picked up speed.  Since Mary is my third daughter to get married, I knew what I needed to do:  stay out of the way, do what I was told and be an efficient gopher.  I know some dads who have found the role of being the Father of the Bride daunting.  I have found it to be immensely pleasurable.  It gives me a chance to see the joy and hope in my daughters’ eyes and in their smiles, and one last chance to get comfortable with the idea that life is turning out like God intended – that they found someone to love and spend the rest of their lives with.  Did I get sentimental?  Yes, but my happiness for her far outweighed any last moment feelings of selfishness.

Friday also saw dozens of other relatives arrive safely into town from around the country.  When we finally assembled that evening for the rehearsal dinner, Mary and Michael had about sixty relatives surrounding them.  God was there in the hearts of everyone as there were many reunions that night.  And He was there in the smile on the face of my 15 month old, first and only, great-niece when I met her for the first time.

Saturday, the day of Mary’s “big event” arrived and it seemed to fly by without a hitch.  We arrived at the church at the appointed time, and before I knew it I was walking down the aisle, arm and arm with Mary looking as beautiful as I’d ever seen her.  My only thought as they opened the doors for us to process in was a prayer of thanks to God for blessing me with such a wonderful loving daughter and the opportunity to be her father and make this walk down the aisle with her arm in mine.

God was there with us as we reached the altar and I turned to Mary, hugged and kissed her, and told her I love her, and she replied with, “I love you, too, Dad”.  And, He was there with us when I turned to hug Michael and asked him to please take care of her, and he replied with a sincere, “Yes sir, it will be my pleasure.”  Lots of dreams came true in that moment, and not just for the bride and groom.

Unexpectedly, the priest revealed to us that that particular weekend was the celebration of the Feast of the Holy Family, a fitting time to become united in the first step to starting a new family.  It also struck me that both the bride and groom have good role models in their parents and grandparents.  Both sets of parents have been married for a total of about 65 years, and for Mary, at least, her grandparents for 110 years.

Following the wedding ceremony, everyone reconvened at the reception venue where the first order of business was the traditional first dance by the bride and groom.  God was here, too.  As they began to dance to the song, I Won’t Give Up by Jason Mraz, I looked up onto the DJ’s stage to see my youngest daughter, Grace, with microphone in hand and performing the song live, unassisted by any lyrics on a karaoke machine, singing her heart out in front of about 350 people.  I knew she had a pretty voice but I didn’t know how beautiful it really is because I had never heard her sing like this before.  This was her debut and she looked and sounded like an experienced professional.  I had earlier fought back tears when I entrusted Mary to Michael, but I couldn’t hold them back listening to Grace sing.  It was a beautiful moment.

I was able to curb the tears before honoring the next place on Mary’s dance card – the father/daughter dance.  For years Mary told me she wanted us to dance to Paul Simon’s Fathers and Daughters, and we did.  I think the only thing that kept me from losing it was that my happiness for her overcame my own sentimentality. Still, we both knew, “As long as one and one are two, there could never be a father who loved his daughter more than I love you”.  That kind of love can only be a gift from God.

So, to my bible study buddies, “Sorry, guys, I lied.  On second thought, I did have a God-moment….or two…or fifteen”.

A Man of Mercy

05 Thursday Dec 2013

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About this time last year I was listening to a new CD I had purchased by my new favorite singer/songwriter, Jason Gray.  The CD is called Christmas Stories: Repeat the Sounding Joy.  One particular song on it, “Forgiveness Is A Miracle (A Song For Joseph)”, caught my attention because it was so different from any other Christmas song I had ever heard.  Plus, its subject was something which I had never considered:  what was going through Joseph’s mind and heart prior to, and during, his wife giving birth to not his son, but Jesus, the Son of God?

I discovered that Jason Gray had written an article for The Rabbit Room describing the story behind the song and he explores this difficult situation in which Joseph found himself.  I have re-posted his article below and included a link to The Rabbit Room’s website.  I hope you find it as thought provoking as I did.

http://www.rabbitroom.com/2012/10/the-story-behind-forgiveness-is-a-miracle/

Joseph manger stained glass

The Story Behind “Forgiveness Is a Miracle”

by Jason Gray on October 16, 2012

As I approached writing songs for each of the characters in the Christmas story, I felt particularly protective of Joseph, who I think sometimes doesn’t get the attention he’s due. At the very least I know that I’ve been guilty of not really “seeing” him for the remarkable man that he was, and I wanted to amend that. I enlisted my friend Andy Gullahorn, one of the most masterful storytellers I know, to explore a particular moment in Joseph’s story with me.

Taking my cue from Frederick Buechner’s book, “Peculiar Treasures,” in which he breathes new life into biblical characters who have grown so familiar to us that we no longer experience them as real human beings, I hoped to recapture some of the humanity of the people in the Christmas narrative. It was also important to me to try and write songs that were relevant beyond the four weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas day. I wanted to tell timeless human stories, and with Joseph we have the makings of just that with a love triangle, a question of revenge or forgiveness, and the age old drama of fathers and sons.

As I read his part in the narrative, I found that more than just a foster parent without much to do (as he was often relegated to in my mind), Joseph is revealed as a man after God’s own heart. Faced not only with the news that his fiancée is pregnant, but also with her incredulous story of how it was God’s doing, Joseph’s character is tested and laid out for all of us to see. What will he do? Will he hurt the one who has hurt him? Will he forgive? This is his moment, and all of history waits and watches in wonder.

There are few things more painful than the betrayal and rejection by the one you love most, so we know it must have deeply wounded him—shattering the dreams he may have had of a future with the girl he loved. Pain is like a lightning bolt striking with a violent energy that can’t be held in the human heart for long. It looks for a way out. The way it usually passes through us is in the all too common progression of hurt turning into anger and then into vengeance. Unless the miracle of forgiveness takes place in a person’s heart to absorb it, the pain we experience will pass through us and be visited upon others.

There is debate as to whether it was within Joseph’s power to have her stoned—while Jewish custom might have allowed it, Roman rule did not. However, if not to her body, we know he still could have done violence to her reputation and her heart. But I believe that Joseph did the hard work of bringing his pain to God rather than letting it pass through him, and that God graced him with the miracle of forgiveness. The narrative tells us he was a “godly man” and that instead of doing her harm, “he decided to dismiss her quietly” so that she wouldn’t be publicly shamed. He took the full force of the blow and–acting as the husband he might have been–became a covering over her supposed sin.

It’s hard for us to experience the tension in Joseph’s story since, as the reader, we know from the start that she isn’t guilty of what he naturally supposes and that God is up to something beautiful that the world has never seen before. But to see Joseph for who he is, I have to remember that he couldn’t know these things in real time. It was only after he had given himself to the work of forgiveness that the angel appeared to him in a dream to tell him that what Mary had said was true after all, and that he should marry her.

It occurred to me that perhaps this is where Joseph’s heart was proven—if not to God who already knew his heart, then perhaps to himself. (I haven’t met a man yet who isn’t daunted by the responsibility of being a father, let alone a father to the Son of God. Maybe this was a test to reveal to Joseph what kind of man he could be.) In this moment he is found to be a man of mercy, which I imagine to be just the kind of man that God was looking for to be the earthly father of his son Jesus. In a way, we see that Joseph carries in his heart the same world changing power of forgiveness that Mary carried in her womb.

It’s also meaningful to me to think of how Joseph forgiving Mary is part of the story that leads to the birth of the savior in whom Joseph would find forgiveness for his own sins. Perhaps it’s the narrative form of Jesus’ teaching that as we forgive we find ourselves forgiven.

As we wrote the song, it was good to be reminded that forgiveness is a kind of miracle. I could be wrong, but I’m not sure that we can muster up forgiveness on our own. It seems to me to be a supernatural force of renewal that we participate in as we point our hearts toward it, pray for it, and make room for it in our lives, but that ultimately we receive it as a gift from God, in his due time.

Forgiveness Is A Miracle (A Song For Joseph)
Jason Gray / Andy Gullahorn
from Christmas Stories: Repeat the Sounding Joy

Love can make a soul come alive
Love can draw a dream out of the darkness
And blow every door open wide
But love can leave you broken hearted

Did she dare to look you in the eye
Did her betrayal leave you raging?
Did you let her see you cry
When she said the child was not your baby?

Pain can turn to anger then to vengeance
It happens time and again
Even in the best of men
It takes a miracle to save us

When love is like an open wound
There’s no way to stop the bleeding
Did you lose sleep over what to do?
Between what’s just and what brings healing

Pain can be a road to find compassion
When we don’t understand, and bring a better end
It takes a miracle to show us

Forgiveness is a miracle
A miracle
And a miracle can change your world
Forgiveness is a miracle

An angel in a dream spoke into your darkest night
So you trusted in the Lord and you took her as your wife
But the forgiveness that you gave would be given back to you
Because you carried in your heart what she was holding in her womb

Love was in a crowded barn
There you were beside her kneeling
You held it in your arms
As the miracle started breathing

Forgiveness is the miracle
The miracle
And a miracle will change your world
Forgiveness is the miracle
Forgiveness is the miracle
The miracle
A miracle will save the world
Forgiveness is the miracle
Forgiveness is the miracle
Forgiveness is the miracle

Blessed Joseph
Your heart is proven
And through you the Kingdom has come
For God delights in a man of mercy
And has found an earthly father for his son

A Beautiful Re-Union

03 Tuesday Dec 2013

Posted by in Love, Marriage, Renewal

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 couple-holding-hands

When I posted I Am New Parts 1 and 2, I had no idea that God would re-create me again through a life changing event the very next weekend.  But He did, and, once again, I feel obliged to tell you about it in the chance it might bring you closer to God.

In I Am New – Part 1: A Product of Secularity, I shared with you my semi-agnostic life style of the last three decades.  I explained how I tried to be a good husband and father by attempting to lead a Christian-like life, but in the absence of Christ.  After my conversion last year, I became more aware of a disconnect in our marriage. Because Christ had always been very much a part of Melinda’s life, but was a new phenomenon in mine, I realized that He had been our marriage’s missing common denominator.  

Although I believed our marriage was still a loving relationship, I noticed it had moved toward the all-too-familiar rut of complacency; of taking each other for granted; and letting things other than each other become the “first things”.  I felt I needed to try and make it better.

I have a framed collector’s print hanging in my office.  We bought it with saved nickels, dimes and quarters not long after we were married.  When it was new, it was vibrant with color.  I was looking at it a while back and I noticed how it had, over time, faded towards becoming monochromatic.  It didn’t happen all at once; rather, it lost its sharpness one day at a time. This struck me as an analogy for our marriage.  Had I taken the time to recognize its beauty on a daily basis, I might have given it more TLC and taken action to keep it from fading. 

Since I became active in our church I have made many new friends and I have observed several married couples who exemplify strong relationships.  They exude a closeness and connectedness with each other, and they appear to have the type of relationship one would want to emulate. As Melinda and I got to know these couples better we came to realize that many of them have something in common:  they are “Encountered Couples” – they have attended Worldwide Marriage Encounter weekend retreats.

Without much discussion or input from Melinda, I decided to sign us up for a weekend in hopes that our slightly faded but otherwise solid marriage might become even stronger. 

We arrived at the retreat center on Friday evening, along with another dozen or so couples, and, similar to our Christ Renews His Parish receiving weekends, we didn’t know what to expect.  So, we went in with the attitude of leaving our hearts and minds open to whatever the Holy Spirit might provide for us over the next forty-five hours.  We were met by three couples and, to my surprise, a priest, who would all be presenters and facilitators for the weekend.

We turned our cell phones off and tried to forget about issues at home.  The purpose of the weekend was to strengthen our relationship by focusing on each other.

Through the course of the weekend the facilitators shared times in their married lives when they struggled. They modeled techniques for effective communication and opened our eyes to how we as individuals have unique personality types and how we each require slightly different styles of communication. 

During the talks and exercises I realized how our normal daily communicating primarily consisted of chit-chat, and facts and information about children, work, bills, and stuff – all kinds of stuff – much of which was of little significance.  I saw that we seldom talked about ideas and thoughts, about our dreams for the future, and our feelings.

We both discovered we had some sensitive items we didn’t like to discuss – little things that upset us, and personal things we didn’t want to share because of fear of disapproval, embarrassment, or fear of hurting the other.  In talking through some of these issues we discovered we were wrong, that we were actually very understanding and supportive of each other.  Because of this, we saw new possibilities for improved communicating in our relationship.

I read a quote from author Matthew Kelly’s book, The Seven Levels of Intimacy, in which he writes, “Love is a choice.  When we choose to love, our spirit expands.  When we choose not to love, our spirit shrivels”.  I thought I knew how to love.  But, after some serious dialoguing and attentive listening, I made the unfortunate discovery that I perhaps had the verb form of the word “love” mixed up with the noun form of the word.  Even though I feel tremendous love for Melinda I saw where my actions have not always been representative of that feeling.  I felt sorrow because I may have caused Melinda’s spirit to ‘shrivel’ by my actions, or lack thereof.   And, I was embarrassed because I had written and posted just last June an article entitled Love Is A Verb in which I claimed to have, in the last year and a half, learned the difference between the two.  I needed to think again.

I mentioned there was a priest among the presenters.  He discussed his “marriage” to the Church, the Catholic community that is the Body of Christ.  It was interesting to hear him reveal his struggle to feel oneness with the community; of how he finds it difficult to prioritize his time with the Lord, and his time as His representative to his parishioners; and how hard it is to be totally charitable without feeling the need for a little bit of selfishness. It was, in a way, comforting to know that even he has struggled with the same types of issues as us married folk.

I think his main purpose for being there, though, was to remind us that our marriage is not a contract, but a covenant, an unbreakable promise made to God and each other, of unity, intimacy and responsibility (including forgiveness).  He reminded us that marriage is a Sacrament, an outward sign of God’s love for us, and, having entered that covenant, it is our duty to love contagiously; to be life-giving; to lift up our marriage as an example of His love for all to see; and to use that love as a tool for healing within our union when it is necessary.  He helped us see that marriage is like a three legged stool:  the pair of us making up two legs and God making up the third leg.  Without all three the stool fails to function properly.

By the end of the weekend both Melinda and I accepted shared responsibility for allowing our marriage to lose some of its luster over the course of thirty-one years.  We agreed we needed, and wanted, to:  be more open with our feelings; get better at listening; have more trust in each other and be more trustworthy; and be a true “married couple” instead of sometimes being a couple of “married singles”. 

We want to take our marriage from good to great.

It’s been a little over two weeks since our retreat.  Melinda and I agree it was the best weekend we’ve ever had together as a couple.  Since the weekend, we have been rediscovering each other and restoring our relationship – that piece of art made and sanctified by God, but which we allowed to fade over time.  It’s been a joyful and beautiful re-union.

If you have not been on an Encounter weekend and you think you might like to learn more, please don’t hesitate to ask.  If you feel your marriage isn’t quite what it used to be, my guess is that, with a little help from WWME to get you pointed in the right direction, you can also rekindle the fire, the spirit, and the love which the two of you once felt for each other but may have since faded.  You deserve to give yourselves the gift of a Marriage Encounter weekend.

On the other hand, many of you reading this may have already been on an Encounter weekend.  If so, and you care to share an experience, please comment.  I would love to hear your stories.

God Bless you all

I Am New – Part 2: The Turning Point

10 Sunday Nov 2013

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(In I Am New – Part 1:  A Product of Secularity, I gave you a brief tour of the first fifty-five years of my life.  I left you hanging at the point where, in order to get my life back on track, I decided to participate in a Christ Renews His Parish retreat weekend at St. Francis de Sales Catholic Church in Lebanon, Ohio, in April 2012.)

Honestly, I didn’t know what to expect when I arrived at church that Saturday morning ready to spend the day and night, and then most of Sunday on the retreat.  I found myself throughout the day thinking hard about what I was experiencing, and questioning my long established notions about religion.  As Saturday progressed, I felt a change coming over me.  What I was experiencing was coming from the heart of all these men who were from all walks of life – even scientists, and engineers like me.  They had such conviction.  They had a contagious faith like I had never seen before.   It was pure down to earth sharing on a personal level, witnessing to Christ and sharing their lives and their experiences that had brought them closer to God. 

On Saturday evening we were invited into the chapel for prayer.  I had been worried about this because I didn’t know how to pray.  But, I decided to participate because I had just returned the night before from a visit with my parents, my sister and her family in Missouri.  My sister has a daughter who was 13 at the time and who was born severely mentally and physically handicapped.  Every time I visited I would leave saddened from thinking about their struggles in life.  I was frustrated I didn’t know what to do about it, but yet grateful that my own children were normal.  And so, I asked for help in praying for my niece, my sister, and for myself.  I sat there and, as these men, led by our Deacon, prayed for me, I felt in my heart something happen.  I felt free of the guilt I’d had because my sister’s child was handicapped and mine were not, and I felt released to be able to show more compassion for them instead of hiding from it. 

When they had finished their prayer for my niece, my sister and me, I heard another man, whom I hardly knew, say to God, “I know Jerry is out of his comfort zone this weekend.  Please, Lord, help him to feel Your presence and fill his heart with Your love.  And, Lord, it would be wonderful if you could do it in the next five days.”  Little did I know that this man, who was so bold to give God a deadline, and who I now consider to be one of my dearest friends and confidants, had a direct pipeline to Him.  After they all wore themselves out praying for me I stuck around and participated in the prayers for the others.  It’s difficult to describe the feeling I had other than to say I found a tremendous sense of fulfillment in doing so. 

Ezekiel 36:26 – I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you.  I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.

That night as I was getting ready for bed I found my friend Eric doing the same.  We fell into a conversation about the day.  He knew I wasn’t Catholic and that I had never been deeply religious.  I confessed to him what an impact the day had had upon me.  I said, “I’m trying, man, I really am.  But I don’t know how.  This is uncharted territory for me.”  I explained how I consciously live my life by trying to incorporate into it Christian principles like:  fidelity, compassion, integrity, self-discipline, respect, and service to others, but yet I’ve never felt the pull to make that leap of faith.  I had been so profoundly affected by what I had witnessed that day, I knew there must be something else – something more that I was missing.  He said, “My friend, you’re basically there already, you’re doing everything the Lord wants you to do and you’re doing it well.  Keep your heart and mind open and let the Lord come to you, don’t try to reason him out of the picture.” 

I headed downstairs to bed but I was on an emotional high.  I thought about what Eric had said.  Call it a revelation, or that the message had sunk in, but I finally accepted that I just needed to stop resisting and make the leap of faith and believe.  I needed to be like Nike and just do it.

Laying there on my cot, I got to thinking more about the praying done earlier in the chapel.  I asked, “What would I pray for if I was praying for myself?”  That answer was easy.  First, that my wife and daughters know how much I love them.  And second, that I get some reinforcement from them that they also love me. 

With my mind spinning out of control from all the emotional stimuli it was trying to digest, I couldn’t lie there any longer.  I then did something so out of the ordinary that I even surprised myself.  I tip-toed back upstairs and I walked through the doors into the church and I took a seat a few rows from the back on Joseph’s side.  I bowed my head and I prayed for those two things.  I asked to get better at expressing my love for my family, and I asked for help to see the signs of their love.  When I looked up I discovered there were two other people also in the church:  one was Eric and the other the wife of a new friend.  What I didn’t know was that they were both praying for me to accept the Holy Spirit’s Gift of Faith.

Matthew 7:7-8 – Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.  For everyone who asks, receives; and the one who seeks, finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.

That Christ Renews His Parish retreat weekend was just five days before my 55th birthday.  In the hours between my prayers that night and my birthday, I received letters from all four daughters and my wife telling me how much they love me, how much they’ve always loved me and, for the icing on the cake, how they have always known my love for them.  I’m telling you, as I read each letter I cried like a baby.  It was like a huge weight had been lifted from my heart.  I had been dreaming of this for years without uttering a word to anyone and all of a sudden I was receiving everything I had dreamed of.  This couldn’t have been coincidence.  Something else was going on, something else that I had never experienced before.  Although I didn’t understand it at the time, from what I had gleaned from the men on the retreat this something else was called the Holy Spirit.

We’ve all heard the saying, “I’ll believe it when I see it.”  I read somewhere that the definition of faith is having the attitude of, “I’ll see it when I believe it.”  All those arguments which, for three decades, had me conflicted just disappeared.  I see it now because I believe it.  I know now that with faith, I don’t need evidence. 

Romans 4:16 – …. it depends on faith, so that it may be a gift, and the promise may be guaranteed to all his descendants, not to those who only adhere to the law but to those who follow the faith of Abraham….

The weekend was also the catalyst I needed to make new friends.  And I made several friendships that I know will last my lifetime.  I needed this.  You know, Jesus had his twelve disciples but he had his three closest friends in Peter, James and John.  With them he shared a deeper and more personal relationship.  We all need this. 

I found the affirmation of love from my daughters for which I had prayed, and I found the new friendships I had been seeking.  But the most important things I found that weekend were not things I came looking for.  I found a relationship with Christ, and I found God’s love for me.  It was truly an awesome discovery!

Near the closing of the weekend we talked about where we would go from there.  After the weekend and after receiving those letters I was on a high like you wouldn’t believe.  I had found the spiritual-ness I had been denying.  I couldn’t let it end there.  The first thing I did was volunteer for the next Giving Team.  I felt I needed to be a disciple and that I needed to give back.  And, then, I made an even bigger decision.  For thirty-one years I had been sitting on the sidelines observing my wife and children go to church.  I decided that what an old friend once told me, that I was “Catholic but just didn’t know it yet”, was true, and that it was time to get in the game.  I signed up for the next RCIA (Right of Christian Initiation for Adults) session as soon as I could.  I was baptized and confirmed into the Church at the Easter Vigil Mass this year.  Since that retreat weekend nineteen months ago I have missed only one Sunday Mass.  I pray every day, usually more than once.  I’m still not great at praying but I think I’m getting better.  I read scripture almost every day.  I can’t imagine not doing these things.  In addition to prayer, I have become active in our parish community.  I participate in the CRHP ministry, I am a member of two committees, and I regularly attend two bible study programs. I’m loving every minute of it!

Ephesians 4:22-24 – …that you should put away the old self of your former way of life, corrupted through deceitful desires, and be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and put on the new self, created in God’s way in righteousness and holiness of truth.

I have had so many things happen to me in the last year and a half that continue to convince me that God is present in my life and that Christ is walking the path with me that there’s absolutely no doubt in my mind that “the juice has been worth the squeeze”.  Since that weekend, life is different.  It’s better.  Not just marginally, but by orders of magnitude.  I feel at peace more than ever before and it feels good to help other people.  It feels good to pray for them when they are hurting.  I count my blessings every day and I am amazed at what I used to call coincidences.  I now call them God moments and I discover them everywhere.   

I am still learning and growing in my faith.  I pay close attention to several men and women who seem to me to lead extraordinarily spiritual lives.  And, I try to find ways to put my new Christian principles into action.  One particular instance is, I think, worth sharing.  On August 21st of last year my Dad turned eighty years old.  My sibs and I were trying to figure out what to get a guy who has everything he needs.  Then I thought about my weekend experience and that he might like to know that his children love him and that they know he loves them.  I suggested we write him love letters such as I had received from my daughters.  Everyone agreed.  I wrote mine and I cried the whole time I was writing it.  There were a couple decades of saved up “I love you’s” in that three page letter.  He said it was the best birthday present he had ever received.  I didn’t realize, however, that I was giving myself a gift, too, in the realization that I desperately needed to write that letter for my own sake.  As Jesus intended, love isn’t worth much unless you give it away. 

There you have it.  Since I’ve left my old life behind, I sometimes wonder where my new life will take me.  I’m pretty sure I’m finally heading in the right direction.  One thing’s for sure, it feels good to have my family and many new friends helping me down that spiritual path.  And, although I am tremendously humbled by it, it feels good to be asked to help them as well.

Well, I know I accomplished at least the first part of my goal for this post.  I’m fired up even more than I thought I would be about preparing for the next CRHP weekend.  It’s my hope that I have been as successful with the second part of my goal – to bring you closer to God by letting you see how the Holy Spirit changed a non-believer like me, and how, as a result of His Grace and my acceptance of His Gift of Faith, I Am New.

If you have a personal story of conversion, of renewal in Christ, or of how God has touched you that you would like to share, please feel free to comment.  I would love to hear from you.

God Bless You All.

I Am New – Part 1: A Product of Secularity

10 Sunday Nov 2013

Posted by in Faith, Renewal

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Last week I decided to join some spiritually fired-up men to form the Giving Team for the next St. Francis de Sales Christ Renews His Parish retreat weekend to be held in April 2014.  As I was discerning whether or not to participate on this team I couldn’t help but reflect back to when I was on the Receiving Team at my first Christ Renews retreat in April 2012.  I have casually and vaguely mentioned that retreat weekend in previous posts and alluded to it as a life changing experience for me.  I have shared the experience and the impact it had on my life with my CRHP brothers, and, after much prayer, I’ve decided to share it with you in this and the next post.  It is my hope that, by doing so, it inspires me to become closer to Christ and be the best I can be going forward on this team, and that it inspires you by being a witness to the power of the Holy Spirit.

Since this was truly a life changing experience, I feel you must first have a basic understanding of my life leading up to that weekend in order for you to fully understand the change that took place in me.  This means I will have to condense almost fifty-five years into a few paragraphs.  The whole story is too long for one post so I am going to split it up into two posts:  the first 54 years, 11 months and 25 days will be Part 1 and the next thirty hours will be Part 2.  So, if you’re interested, grab a cup of coffee, settle down into a comfy chair and listen up while I introduce myself to you.  Here goes.

I never know quite what to say when people ask me where I’m from.  I call Dexter, Missouri home because that’s where I graduated from high school and it’s where my parents still live.  But, my current residence near Lebanon, Ohio is the 36th place I’ve lived in my 56 years.  The seven years I’ve lived in this house is almost twice as long as I’ve ever lived in any one house in my life.  I’ve lived in ten states and three cities in the UK.  I went to nine schools before graduating from high school.  

My religious upbringing was minimal.  As a kid growing up we seldom went to church – sometimes at Easter.  My first real experience with religion was when I was in the sixth grade and we moved to England where all the schools are affiliated with the Anglican Church.   I remember we had a few Catholics at school but they didn’t participate in the daily Anglican service.  They waited outside until the service was over and then they came back inside for the Headmaster to give the daily announcements.  These were the first Catholics I had ever met.  They looked like normal people but obviously there was something different about them. 

We lived in England for three years and then we moved back to the States in 1971 in the middle of my freshman year to a drug infested, VD riddled, anti-Vietnam war, hippie population in Southern California.  Fortunately, when my freshman year ended we moved again, this time to my folk’s home town in Missouri.  Talk about some serious culture swings in about six months!  I went from the properness of English prep schools to the Cultural Revolution in California, to the laidback lifestyle of rural Missouri.  In England I had seen how Catholics were treated differently and there in Missouri I observed that Protestants were not all the same, either.  I really didn’t know my aunts, uncles and cousins very well at that point in my life but I learned they were all very religious.  One uncle was a Pentecostal minister, and, if I remember right, the other relatives ran the gamut from Assembly of God, to Church of Christ, First Baptist, Second Baptist, Southern Baptist, and General Baptist.    One of the things I learned as I was invited to go to church with them was that even though they considered themselves all Christians, each denomination had different beliefs, with some differences being slight and others more significant.  And, I learned that some of these differences were so significant that, depending on the denomination of the person you talked to, the people of other denominations might not find salvation because of that belief.  At the time this was a huge contradiction to me, maybe because at my age I was ripe for doubt, so I reasoned they couldn’t all be right and, therefore, they were all wrong and hypocritical.  It soured me on organized religion. 

I graduated from high school and for the next five years of college and two years after college I did what kids my age predominately did – I partied.  Without going into the gory details, let’s just say I had very little moral backbone.  Although my parents always loved me dearly, I know I had to be a disappointment for them.  As the oldest child with two younger sisters and a brother, I didn’t set a very good example for them, either.  And, yes, I even discoed.

But I survived and after graduating and working a couple years, I left Missouri and moved to Houston, Texas where I began working for my current employer.  The first week I was there I met Melinda and a year and eleven days later we were married.  She was the first Catholic I ever really knew.   I went to church with her a few times and I felt okay with it.  There seemed to be a routine about it.  Not routine in a boring sense but routine in the sense of being unchanging.  I’ve always been a history buff and I knew that a Catholic mass was a centuries old ritual based on tradition and meaning instead of like the two hours of free-lance fire and brimstone that had been a turn-off for me at many Protestant services.  (The reader should understand that the comments made above about Protestant faiths were written from a teenager’s/young adult’s perspective.  As a teen and young adult, it was all too difficult for me to understand and accept.  I am now very accepting of the diversity between Christian denominations).  I learned more about what it meant to be Catholic when we went through pre-marriage counseling and I promised to raise my children in the Catholic faith.

So, married life began.  We were like most newlyweds, we had our ups and downs, and we spent as much time together as we could…at least for the first three weeks…because three weeks after saying, “I do”, I was transferred to New Mexico on a project for six months.   Melinda stayed in Houston.  I made it home to see her four times during those six months.  When that project ended I came home and life became a blur for the next six years.  We bought a house and had our first daughter; I spent another four months in New Mexico on another project; we had our second daughter and two weeks later I was transferred to Lake Charles, Louisiana, which resulted in another five months away from family; we had our third daughter; and then I spent the next two and a half years working eighty hour weeks.  I barely saw my family.  I’d had three kids in thirty months and I hardly knew them.  And I hardly knew my wife.  I didn’t have much of a family life.  I’m not sure how we survived other than I know we never stopped loving each other.  While I was working, Melinda would tote three little girls, all in diapers, to church with her and somehow managed to keep her sanity.  She has always been strong in her faith and she prayed a lot for us.  I know my career-induced separation tested her to the max. 

1 Corinthians 7:13-14 – …and if any woman has a husband who is an unbeliever, and he is willing to go on living with her, she should not divorce her husband.  For the unbelieving husband is made holy through his wife ….

People always assumed I was Catholic since Melinda and the girls were.  If asked, I told people I didn’t claim to be anything, and that I had never converted to Catholicism.  And then I would wonder to myself, “Convert?  Convert from what?”  The truth was I wasn’t sure if I was a Christian nor was I sure if I believed in God.  Being an engineer and analytical by nature, I needed proof and no arguments seemed satisfactory.  I remember wanting to believe but I would leave church empty.  It seemed like a waste of my time. 

For 30 years I’d get in some real philosophical discussions and arguments with myself, like: 

“You know, from the beginning of time until 300 years ago, people were in the dark.  They had no scientific proof of anything.  Everything in the world was a mystery and, since they had to attribute it to someone or something, they invented Gods.”

And, “ Jesus may have just been a magician and a darn good mesmerizer.  Maybe people were desperate enough to believe everything he said and did.”

And, “What are Christians today anyway?  Outwardly, they’re people who believe in good and evil.  All of western society is based on Christian beliefs. The world would be chaotic without them.  We need people who believe in these things.  Therefore, there is goodness in Christianity and since I have these same societal beliefs, other than not having faith, I’m really no different than a Christian.  I may not believe in God or Jesus but I definitely believe in Christianity!”

1 Corinthians 1:20 – Where is the wise one?  Where is the scribe?  Where is the debater of this age?  Has not God made the wisdom of the world foolish?

I got a break in 1989 when I was transferred from Lake Charles to Liberal, Kansas where I didn’t travel quite as much.  We had time to reconnect as a family and finally get to know each other.   Melinda and I had been married seven years but had only lived with each other for about half that.  I learned how to be a husband and a dad and how special my wife and children really are.  We started to come together as a family.  Life continued to get better even though we moved three more times and had another daughter in the next seven years.

But creating a comfortable work/ life balance still wasn’t easy and I started to look for ways to become a better manager of my time.  I happened upon the author Stephen Covey and his book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.  I liked how he said it’s not about how much more you pack into your time, but that your time is spent on the important things in life.  He talked about defining your values, about incorporating principles into your life, and determining the most important roles in your life.  I read and internalized his books.  I came up with my own list of Guiding Principles.  I figured out what the most important roles were in my life.  I developed a vision of what I wanted my life to look like. And, every Sunday morning while Melinda and the girls were at church I would review, reaffirm and plan my week according to them.  It helped me tremendously and for many years kept my life from getting too far out of whack. 

Eventually it dawned on me a few years ago something was still not right.  One thing Covey was adamant about is taking care of ourselves physically, emotionally, socially, mentally, and taking time for spiritual renewal.  I did fairly well with the physical and mental aspects, but spiritual renewal – what did that mean?  I didn’t have any spiritual-ness to renew.  I often rationalized that getting out and observing nature, or taking time to re-evaluate my Guiding Principles was enough spiritual renewal.  But, more and more, I was feeling unsatisfied and unfulfilled. 

I felt incomplete on the emotional side of life.  I had Melinda and our youngest daughter, Grace, who was still at home, but it was very hard to keep the closeness I needed with my older daughters.  I wondered if they still knew how much I loved them since they’d been gone from home for a few years.  In 2002 a friend lost his son in a car accident.  His advice to me afterwards was, “Tell your children you love them every chance you get because you never know when you won’t get that chance.”  Ever since then my biggest fear in life has been that one of us will die without knowing how much we love each other.  And, ever since, I never miss a chance to tell them I love them. 

And then, socially, I was feeling like I didn’t have many close friends.  Oh, I had lots of people I could call friends, but few close friends.  Constantly moving and not putting down roots prevented me from making close friends.  What I needed were a few individuals with whom I could share life in a deeper and more personal way. 

In early 2012, after living in Lebanon, Ohio for over five years, I became extremely busy at work and life got crazy again.  I focused hard on my roles, values and mission in life but it didn’t help.  Then one day, Melinda handed me a brochure about the Christ Renews His Parish retreat weekend coming up in April.  She had been on a women’s receiving team and two giving teams, but she had never pushed me to go.  She pointed out that the Giving Team had a couple men on it with whom I had become pretty close, and said that if ever I thought I might want to do this then this would be a good time.  The brochure talked about, among other things, time for reflection, reconnecting with what’s important in life, and about meeting other men in the parish.  These were exactly the things that had been weighing on my mind, and so I signed up.  I needed to do something to get my life back on track. 

Matthew 11:28-29 – Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart; and you will find rest for yourselves.

(This ends Part 1.  Don’t stray too far away.  I’m saving the best for last.  Part 2 should be ready to post in a couple days and it’s not quite as long.)

One thing I’ve learned in fifty-six years is that we all get to where we are in life by unique paths.  My story may seem familiar to some of you and totally foreign to others.  If any of my experiences strike a special emotion within you, or cause old memories to be exhumed, and you don’t mind sharing with others for what might be their benefit, please feel free to comment.  I’d love to swap stories.

Good night and God Bless.

So Many Churches, Too Little Time

22 Tuesday Oct 2013

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Wow, it’s been over a month since I last contributed to Reflections of a Lay Catholic.  I’ve been a bit busy and have been traveling for business and, I guess you could say, pleasure, as well.  The business stuff is pretty boring but I am going to share some relevant experiences from those so-called pleasure trips.

I mentioned in a previous blog post that my youngest daughter, Grace, is a senior in high school and is trying to discern where she will spend the next four or five years of her life.  She is a rather independent young woman and has no issues about attending a college far from our home in Ohio.  Some schools under consideration are Mississippi State University, the University of Washington (Seattle), and Saint Louis University, St. Louis, Missouri.  In the last couple months we have traveled to ten universities for college visits and made quick drive-throughs at a couple more.

Four weekends ago we combined a college visit to Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana on Friday followed by a visit to Champaign, Illinois on Saturday to the University of Illinois for a U of I versus Miami of Ohio football game.  My oldest daughter, Sara, is a graduate of Miami and her new husband, Andy, is a graduate of U of I and they came back to Illinois from Seattle for the game.  Andy is from Peoria, Illinois and we met up with him and Sara, and his family for the game.  Afterwards, Andy gave Grace and the rest of us a tour of the University of Illinois campus.  The part relevant to this post is that before we left town on Sunday morning to head home we attended mass at St. Patrick’s Church of Merna near Bloomington, Illinois.  It was a new, modern, very nice and large church surrounded by cornfields on the outskirts of Bloomington.

 

St. Patrick's Catholic Church of Merna

St. Patrick’s Catholic Church of Merna

There was nothing particularly out of the ordinary or special about attending mass at St. Patrick’s other than the usual pleasure of experiencing the nuances from one church to the next.  The Gloria and the Alleluia were to different tunes but I’ve come to expect them to be different because they have been different at every one of the many churches I’ve attended this year.  But, regardless of the differences or similarities, taking time to attend mass while on the road in out-of-the-way communities is, to me, a blessing in disguise.  The unique ambiance at each church, the previously unheard voices of the lectors and cantors, and the unfamiliar cadence of the priest or deacon delivering the homily, all capture your attention and I feel I receive a special grace, a feeling that the Holy Spirit is especially present in my heart.

Such was the case the following weekend on another trip to yet another college campus.  We scheduled a visit to Washington University in St. Louis for Monday, 7 October.  We decided to combine it with a visit to my parents in southeast Missouri on Saturday and Sunday before heading to St. Louis on Sunday evening.  Rather than attend mass at the small church in my home town we decided to attend the 9:00 p.m. mass at St. Francis Xavier College Church on the campus of St. Louis University.  We arrived at St. Francis Xavier and, upon parking the car, this was my view of the church.  What a beauty!

 

St. Francis Xavier Church, St. Louis, MO

       St. Francis Xavier Church, St. Louis, MO

We entered the church about twenty minutes early and we were awed by the grandeur of its interior.  This wasn’t any old church – in my opinion it was a cathedral by no stretch of the imagination.   After marveling at the interior architecture I was struck by the two lines of students waiting their turn for reconciliation.  I’m talking students, now, ages eighteen to twenty-two.  Not something you see every day!  We selected a pew towards the rear of the church and as the clock ticked down the church began to fill up with students.  Busting-at-the-seams-wall-to-wall students! 

 

St. Francis Xavier Church, St. Louis, MO

St. Francis Xavier Church, St. Louis, MO

By the time mass began I estimated there to be well over 1,000 students in attendance.  There was a student choir situated behind the altar with the musical accompaniment of a couple guitars.  The music was upbeat and clear but by no means was it a rock concert.  All rituals were sung with the exception of the Our Father and the music and words were all illustrated in the bulletin that was distributed upon entering the church.  There was no mumbling – the congregation sang loudly and clearly and it was a beautiful noise.  It was obvious there were many students who were non-Catholics.  Two young women sitting directly in front of us knew all the words to the rituals and participated in every way a Catholic would participate except for when they walked to the altar.  Instead of receiving communion they crossed their arms and asked to be blessed.  When it came time to say the Our Father, students moved out of their pews and into the aisles creating a connected chain of hands from one side of the church to the other.  At the Sign of Peace students walked up and down the aisles finding friends upon whom they particularly wanted to wish the Peace of the Lord.  It was simply an awesome sight to behold.  I found myself grinning from ear to ear and working hard to hold back what I wasn’t sure would be either laughter or tears of happiness.  I looked at my wife and could tell she was feeling the same way.  I think even Grace, in all her stoicism, was appreciative of the moment.  Upon exiting the church I couldn’t help but feel tremendously blessed to have been a part of something so special, and, for most parishes, so unusual, in what was one of the most beautiful churches I had ever attended mass.  And to think this happens every Sunday night!  I told Gracie I wouldn’t mind at all if she decides to attend St. Louis University.  I would come visit her just so we can go to mass together!

There are many things I would have done around the house and at work over the last two months.  But spending time with my wife and daughter, traveling between and checking out colleges, visiting new churches along the way, and connecting with the Holy Spirit in unfamiliar surroundings has made the extra effort required upon returning home all the more worthwhile.

We have one more trip to make this month – to Lake Charles, Louisiana to visit our daughter, Mary.  While there we will make a return visit to our old home church, the Immaculate Conception Cathedral in Lake Charles, another beautiful church.  Stay tuned for a post in a couple weeks!  In the meantime, take time to go and check out another church in a town near to, or far from, you and see how it feels.  Check back in and let me know.

God Bless You All.