A Beautiful Re-Union

03 Tuesday Dec 2013

Posted by Jerry Robinson in Love, Marriage, Renewal

Tags

Christ, God, Love, Marriage, Marriage Encounter

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

Posted by Jerry Robinson in Renewal

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Faith, Grace, HolySpirit, Love, Prayer, Renewal

(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 55^th 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 Jerry Robinson in Faith, Renewal

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Renewal

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 36^th 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.

Interesting Reflection from Dr. Gregory Popcak on Pope Francis

25 Friday Oct 2013

Posted by Jerry Robinson in Uncategorized

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http://www.patheos.com/blogs/faithonthecouch/2013/09/papa-francis-the-prodigal-and-the-good-son/

Papa Francis, The Prodigal, and “the Good Son.”

September 24, 2013 By Dr. Greg 35 Comments

How do you feel about Pope Francis’ style?

I’ve been praying a lot about my reactions to Pope Francis as well the reactions I have read from my fellow Catholic culture warriors. I have friends–sometimes of the more liberal persuasion (but not all)–who think Pope Francis is an incredible breath of fresh air. I have other friends–usually more conservative–who can’t believe how much this guy is, in their minds, stinking up the joint.

Ambivalence Observed

As for me, well, I’ve been ambivalent–and honestly, I’ve been troubled and a little ashamed–of my reactions. In the first place, I have always thought of myself as “the Pope’s man.” I was 11 when Pope John Paul II was elected to the Throne of Peter and 38 when he died. I loved him. I have largely formed my life according to his teachings. I grew up challenging myself to see marriage and family life through the lens of his Theology of the Body and to do my best to both live out and promote the Church’s vision of life and love. The same went for Benedict, who was at least a continuation of JPII’s thinking if not his style. I was fascinated by their minds, intrigued by what I could learn at their feet, and eager to put into practice everything I learned from them, because even though living out their words didn’t necessarily win me any popularity contests by the world’s standards, their counsel taught me how to live a truly blessed life filled with love and faith and joy. Because of all this, I have, as long as I can remember, had a strong appreciation for the office of the pope.

But…

Which is why my reactions to Pope Francis have bothered me so much. On the one hand, I find much to admire. His simplicity. His heart. His genuine love for people. His obvious love for Christ. On the other hand, I have been genuinely put off–sometimes even angered–by a lot of things he has said that, frankly, have made my job harder.

Remember, most of what I do all day in counseling and on the radio is try to help people live out the Catholic vision of love, sex, and marriage. In the last several weeks alone, I have had people challenge me in ways I haven’t encountered before. It used to be that when I made some statement about the Church’s positions on marriage, love and sex, people would accept it. They wouldn’t always like it, but they knew it was true. They knew it was true, because even if they didn’t exactly get it, they knew what I was saying at least sounded like what they heard Pope JPII or Pope Benedict say. But now, all of a sudden, I’m getting a kind-of push back I haven’t experienced before. “Well, the POPE, said…” Or, ”That’s not what Pope FRANCIS said the other day….” As if I haven’t read the same interviews. Then, when I try to explain what the Pope actually said, for the first time, people are accusing me not of trying to faithfully represent Church teaching, but of engaging in “conservative spin.” It’s particularly frustrating for me, because the contexts for these discussions are often not some bar or church basement where I’m having a friendly argument with someone to pass the time, but counseling sessions where marriages and families and lives are at stake. For heaven’s sake, I recently had a client who was struggling with serious faith issues and depression quit counseling with me a few weeks ago because, in his words, “I’m much more of a Pope Francis/Nancy Pelosi Catholic and you’re an old-school, Pope John Paul II Catholic.”

Ouch. How did that sting me? Let me count the ways….

So, yes. I’ve been…disturbed by a lot of what Pope Francis has been saying–or, perhaps more accurately, by how people have too easily been twisting what he has been saying. At the same time, I believe in the papacy. I believe the Holy Spirit has a great deal to do with who sits in the Chair of Peter. I believe that God knows what he is doing in the Church and even if the papal election is a very human process, I believe that God wants to use whomever is elected to teach us–to teach me–something important about being Catholic at this time in history. And so, unlike a lot of other people who have been openly angry about Pope Francis, I have tried to stay quiet, to talk through my feelings with a few mature Christians I trust, and, most importantly, to pray. A lot.

The Return of the Prodigal

The past weekend, God smacked me upside the head with an insight that has been convicting me hard ever since. As I was praying, I was suddenly reminded–or, really, more like slapped in the face with the memory of–the Prodigal Son. Well, not the prodigal son, exactly. That would have been OK. I’m fine being the Prodigal Son. But no. That wasn’t who God was reminding me of. Suddenly, it was like God took my face in his hands and pointed me at a mirror, and I saw…the good son. The good kid who stayed behind, did everything his father told him to do, was probably a little glad to see his annoying, pain-in-the-ass brother leave in the first place, and was more than a little upset to see him come back. You know, the one with the stick up his rear-end whom everyone acknowledges but no one wants to be like.

God showed me that I was being the “good son.” And I heard a voice say, “My lost children are coming home. And you are angry.”

And I remembered the words of the story…

Meanwhile, the older son was in the field. When he came near the house, he heard music and dancing. So he called one of the servants and asked him what was going on. ‘Your brother has come,’ he replied, ‘and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.’ The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him. But he answered his father, ‘Look! All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!’

And I started to cry.

Convicted

Here, in Francis, my Papa was running out into the street to meet my brothers and sisters who were lost but now found. He was killing the fatted calf and putting the finest robes on them. He was giving them his ring. And here I was, stuck doing the same damn thing I’ve always been doing and getting even less thanks for it. People who left the Church, who hated the Church (and yes, hated and sometimes abused me for loving it), who wouldn’t give the Church a second glance were suddenly realizing that God loved them, that the Church welcomed them, and all I could do was feel bitter about it. Because it was a fricking inconvenience to me. I didn’t feel bitter because I don’t love them. I do. It wasn’t that I don’t want them to know how much they are loved and welcome. I do. But I was bitter because, to be perfectly honest, having to love them the way they are today makes my life harder than I would like it to be. It isn’t enough for me to just make statements and then sit in my rightness and be right. All of a sudden, I have to really listen, to deal with the mess of their lives and put up with–no, actually respect– their “who do you think YOU are?” attitudes. Yes, I loved them, truly, but not enough. Pope Francis was showing me that for all my brave words and self-congratulatory thoughts about my commitment to love my neighbor, I loved my comfort zone a little more than I loved my brother and sister who were coming home after a long time of suffering and loneliness.

And I felt ashamed.

Love and Truth

None of this is to say that the Church’s teachings on love, sex and marriage aren’t true. And I think Pope Francis is showing us this too. Likewise, none of this is to say that I have to pretend that the Church’s vision of life shouldn’t be upheld, taught, and proclaimed boldly. But it is to say that preaching to an empty house, or limiting myself to too easy conversations with only the brothers and sisters who agree with me is useless. I can still have those discussions I love so much, fight for those causes that matter so much, but first I have to get past the pride and joy I get from “being right.” From being “the right kind of Catholic.” From being “the good son.” I have to show my brothers and sisters that I love them–first and always. That I want them sitting next to me even though we don’t see eye-to-eye. I have to be willing to learn from them as much as teach. To acknowledge that they have things to offer me and that I am glad to be related to them even though we make each other uncomfortable sometimes. If I can do that, if I can show them the love that Jesus has truly placed in my heart, then I can have all the family arguments I want–and heck, maybe even win a few of them. But if they don’t feel the love of Jesus radiating out of me, what’s the use in any of it? Without love, I am no prophet. I am just a clanging gong. A noisy cymbal.

I think I’m starting to get it. I think God, through Pope Francis, is reminding me that being right is fine, but I need to be even more committed to love because it is love that wins men’s hearts. It goes back to what Pope Benedict said in Caritas in Veritatem, that taken together, love and truth prevent love from being reduced either to mere sentimentality or fideism. God is reminding me that I still have a way to go before I have mastered that art.

“Everything I Have is Yours…”

I guess I’m still processing all this, but in the last few days, I find myself a lot less disquieted by Pope Francis words and even the ways people are trying to twist them. Let Papa bring my brothers and sisters home. I love them and I will welcome them. And I will be happy to continue the family arguments with them, because now that they are coming back home, I can.

Finally, to all my brothers and sisters who are also my fellow “good sons and daughters” who feel as if their legs have been cut out from underneath them as the very people Pope Francis is running to meet accept his love but twist his words, perhaps we can all take a little comfort along with God’s conviction as we meditate on the Father’s words to the good son at the end of the story.

“‘My son,’ the father said, ‘you are always with me, and everything I have is yours.”

And more importantly, perhaps we “good sons and daughters” in the family can yet find a place in our hearts for our returning brothers and sisters and even happily join the party our Papa is throwing for them.

So Many Churches, Too Little Time

22 Tuesday Oct 2013

Posted by Jerry Robinson in Churches

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Francis Xavier, HolySpirit, Saint Louis University

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

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

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

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.

Reflections on Daily Mass

23 Monday Sep 2013

Posted by Jerry Robinson in Uncategorized

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Mass

The requirement to attend mass on Sundays and holy days of obligation is the first precept of the Catholic Faith:

“You shall attend Mass on Sundays and on holy days of obligation and rest from servile labor” requires the faithful to sanctify the day commemorating the Resurrection of the Lord as well as the principal liturgical feasts honoring the mysteries of the Lord, the Blessed Virgin Mary, and the saints; in the first place, by participating in the Eucharistic celebration, in which the Christian community is gathered, and by resting from those works and activities which could impede such a sanctification of these days. (2042)

About 2 years ago, I began to faithfully fulfill this minimal obligation. Prior to that, I did attend mass frequently, but if I missed every now and then, it was OK with me. In fact, I used to volunteer to stay home with the twins when they were much younger so that my wife and oldest daughter could go to mass in peace. Wasn’t that nice of me? Anyway, it wasn’t that I hated going to mass, I just didn’t “enjoy” myself. I was like many who believed that the mass was about me and my needs rather than an opportunity to “commemorate the resurrection of the Lord.” If I wasn’t entertained or didn’t “get anything out of it,” I didn’t see the point in attending. However, thanks to several blessings, not the least of which is the example shown by my wife, I rediscovered the true meaning of the mass and don’t miss a Sunday, even on vacation. I even sacrificed by attending an evening mass once at a neighboring parish which has a showy band for its music. I really don’t like it when I attend a mass and a rock concert breaks out. But that is a topic for another time. Weekly mass has become, for me, an opportunity to worship our Lord and receive the gift of the Eucharist. I now get as much from the weekly mass as I put into it and it is such a blessing to attend every week.

After I started to understand the mass and all its gifts, I would occasionally attend a weekday mass at either St. Francis de Sales in Lebanon or at St. Peter in Chains Cathedral in downtown Cincinnati, close to my office at UC. I actually made my first confession in 30 years to a priest at the Cathedral so it will always have a special place in my heart. I attended daily mass when the mood struck me but with no consistency or compelling urge to do so. However, just over 9 weeks ago I looked at my calendar for the week and saw two glorious things. First, my boss was out of town all week. Second, because she was out of town, all my morning meetings were cancelled. I decided on the spur of the moment that I would attend daily mass every day that week and see how I liked it.

During that week I attended the 7 a.m. mass at St. Gertrude church in Madeira. I was surprised by how many people were at mass. There were probably over 30 people every day, mostly the same ones day after day. The next week, I decided to continue morning mass but was challenged one day with a meeting away from my office that interfered with 7 a.m. mass. Using www.masstimes.org, I found a church near my meeting location that had a 6:30 a.m. mass. I went there instead that day and returned to St. Gertrude for the rest of the week. I next found that I could still get to mass before a 7 a.m. meeting if I went to 6 a.m. mass at St. Xavier in downtown Cincinnati. I figured, “what kind of nut goes to 6 a.m. mass in the middle of the week?” Evidently, there are about 25-35 nuts who get up that early every day and I had become one of them.

After I figured out that I could leave my house by 6:15 every day and still get to the Cathedral before 7 a.m., I have consistently attended mass there along with the same 20-25 people. There is the women who reads the entrance and communion antiphons every day. There is the guy who always comes in with his backpack and the lady with her rustling Wal-Mart bags. There is the woman who wears a mantilla, sits right up front and, for some reason, holds a small doll throughout the mass. They are all there, every day, worshipping God through the mass.

There are all kinds of ways to build your relationship with God. I have found that attending daily mass has brought me closer to Him and is a great way to start my day. Try it for a week and let me know what you think.

Because He Can

18 Wednesday Sep 2013

Posted by Jerry Robinson in Churches, Faith

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Charity, God-moments, Grace

Over the last couple months I have shared with you some occasions where I have sensed God coming into my life unexpectedly. I call them “God Moments”. I mentioned last week in reply to one of the comments to my post The Cradle of Faith in Ohio that I seem to recognize these God Moments when they occur because I’ve come to expect them and I’m on the lookout for them. It’s kind of like:

Matthew 7:7 – “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.”

Some folks may call them mere coincidences or concurrences. I won’t deny coincidences may happen but, the more of these unexplained situations I observe, I believe there is more to them than their being random occurrences of chance. Sometimes they may have elements of Divine Providence that are intended to guide us, and sometimes they are simply gentle reminders that He is here. Sometimes they are profound experiences that hit you up-side the head, and sometimes they are subtle inspirations that leave you wondering if He is having a nice belly laugh at our expense. I think I got a dose of all of these this last weekend.

You tell me.

My wife and I drove our youngest daughter from our home in Ohio to Knoxville, Tennessee on Saturday morning for a campus visit and open house at the University of Tennessee. She’s a senior and trying to decide what field of study to pursue and at which university she would prefer to continue her education. After a four hour drive and four hours of walking the UT campus we hopped back in the car and headed southwest towards Starkville, Mississippi for a tour at Mississippi State University on Monday. In setting up this trip I knew it would be a long day on Saturday and considered where to spend Saturday night. Finally, checking distances and reasonable times of arrival, I settled on something in Birmingham, Alabama. I prefer to stay at hotels in one particular family of hotels and so, when I got on-line to check for accommodations, I found over a dozen possibilities in the Birmingham area. As an afterthought, it occurred to me that the parents of my future son-in-law (fiancé of my second oldest daughter), whose parents we had not yet met, lived on the south side of Birmingham. So, I selected a hotel near the interstate just south of downtown in hopes that we could perhaps meet up with them (which we actually had the pleasure of doing). We wanted to attend Mass on Sunday morning, 15 September, so I logged onto masstimes.org to find a church near us. There were a half dozen or so not too far away but we chose Our Lady of Sorrows in Homewood, Alabama, that had an 8:30 a.m. Mass which would be convenient to our schedule. It was close to Samford University where we thought we might mosey around after Mass and still give us time to meet up with my future son-in-law’s parents.

We received a friendly welcome as we entered Our Lady of Sorrows and were pleased to see the congregation nearly filling the church. Some of the tunes were different from those to which we were accustomed, and the homily was a little long, but I’ve come to expect those small differences from church to church. Mass ended and we departed the church and as we walked out the front door my wife looked up at a younger man, about six feet six and in his early forties and said, “Are you Matthew Montegut?”, to which the tall, younger man replied, “Yes, I am, and you are Melinda Robinson!” I finally recognized him as an older version of the skinny kid I used to see playing basketball in the driveway next door to my in-law’s house in Houston, Texas when I was dating my wife over thirty years ago. Our paths had probably not crossed in over twenty-five years and here we were together at the same place and same time. This was the church he and his family regularly attended. Coincidence? Maybe. But when you consider all the possibilities, the what-ifs and choices of options randomly selected throughout the process of deciding to be at that place at that exact time, the odds are astronomical. Especially if they are combined with all the possibilities from which Matthew may have had to choose to be there at the same time. I don’t think it was coincidence. I think it was more of a case where God, with a sense of humor, needed a good chuckle and answered my question of, “Why did this happen?” with a response of, “Because I can.”

Our Lady of Sorrows Catholic Church, Homewood, AL
– Photo courtesy of Google Images

Let’s rewind a couple days. On Friday I received an email from a friend telling me the next meeting of the committee for a particular ministry in which I am interested at church would be next Tuesday. I had missed the last few meetings and I really wanted to attend this one because I feel called to this particular ministry. The problem this time was that I already had plans to attend parent night at my daughter’s high school. I have always tried to do whatever I could to be there for my children and attend functions to support them, and this would be my last opportunity to do so. Many times throughout the day Saturday, from Ohio to Knoxville to Birmingham, I found myself pondering what I ought to do: attend the committee meeting or attend the parent meeting at school. I wanted to do both but obviously I couldn’t. When I knelt at the beginning of Mass at Our Lady of Sorrows, I said a typical prayer that would make author Matthew Kelly proud, “Lord, help me to see in this Mass the one thing that will make me a better version of myself.” I previously mentioned the long homily. The reason it was long was because it was that time of year for this parish to appeal to its congregation to support Catholic charities through giving of their Time, Talent and Treasure. Now, had this been like any other Sunday, the homily would have been related to the readings, in this case about Jesus welcoming sinners. But, no, it was spot on the very thing about which I had been worrying, whether or not to give of my time. And, during the homily it was revealed to me that, since my daughter is a senior, she probably doesn’t care one whit if I attend parent night at school or not, but that my time may be of more significant value if I attend the committee meeting and participate in the ministry. Coincidence? I don’t think so. No, I think this was Divine Providence, God’s hand gently guiding me in the direction I need to go. (By the way, I attended the meeting last night and I’m glad I did. And, when I told my daughter I was not going to attend the event at school she said, “That’s just fine with me, Dad!”)

Stained Glass Window at Our Lady of Sorrows Catholic Church
– Photo courtesy of Google Images

One last thing-

When I was at Our Lady of Sorrows I totally forgot to snap a picture of the church. I was too stunned after meeting up with Matthew Montegut. So, yesterday as I was forming this post in my mind I went on-line to Google Images to see if there might be a photo or two of the church. But, I goofed with my first try and instead of searching Google Images I just searched on Google. The first thing to pop up was a Wikipedia entry for Our Lady of Sorrows. This wasn’t what I was looking for but it caught my interest and I opened the site and read a bit. I read and pretty soon I had a grin from ear to ear. I learned that in 1913 Pope Pius X declared the Liturgical Feast of Our Lady of Sorrows to be, henceforth and forever more, on the fifteenth day of September of each year, the very day I happened to attend Our Lady of Sorrows church in Homewood, Alabama. Coincidence? Again, I don’t think so. I think God, with his arm around my shoulder, was lovingly telling me, “I Do because I Can. Have faith in Me.”

What do you think?

I can’t make this stuff up, folks.

A friend and follower commented in Bolo Ties, Rosaries and Rainbows , “My blessed mother, God rest her soul, always said that you get special blessings when you visit a church for the first time.” After visiting Our Lady of Sorrows, I’m thinking my friend’s mother knew what she was talking about.

I’d love to hear your thoughts and any special “God Moments” you might want to share.

Good night and God Bless.

The Cradle of Faith in Ohio

10 Tuesday Sep 2013

Posted by Jerry Robinson in Churches, Eucharistic Adoration, Prayer

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Eucharistic Adoration, Prayer

“Even a blind hog finds an acorn every now and then.”

I wish I could remember from whom I heard that adage some thirty plus years ago. It had to have been a wise old man who’s long gone by now. It’s the way I felt today, like the blind hog finding a wonderful acorn.

For seven years I have been traveling once or twice a month to a satellite office just south of Somerset, Ohio (ESE of Columbus about an hour). And each of those 100 or so times I have traveled the same route to and from that office. But, this morning there was construction on Highway 22 going east into Somerset so I decided to take a different route coming home. Instead of turning left out of the gate I turned right and, like in Robert Frost’s poem, The Road Not Taken, “I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.” I popped over the first hill only about a half mile from my office and approached the intersection with OH Rte. 383. I looked to my right to see if any traffic was approaching when I saw, towering over a clump of trees, a tall church tower. It appeared old and was constructed of red brick. Interested, I turned right instead of left, and drove the few hundred yards to where I could get a better view. The church sat back from the road about 200 yards and was perched on a rather high knoll with a winding driveway up to the church. Next to the highway was a graveled area in front of the tree covered hill leading up to the church with a sign proclaiming this to be St. Joseph’s Church, the oldest Catholic Church in Ohio, Founded 1818.

There was also a sign installed by the Ohio Historical Society which read,

FIRST CATHOLIC CHURCH IN OHIO

St. Joseph Church, “Cradle of the Faith in Ohio”, was the first Catholic Church in the state. Dominican Father, Edward Fenwick, later the first bishop of Cincinnati, came from Kentucky to visit local Catholics for the first time in 1808. Led by Jacob Dittoe, six Catholic families bought this half section of land and built an 18 by 22 foot log church. Dittoe deeded the 320 acres to Fenwick, who blessed the church on December 6, 1818. Located near Zane’s Trace, the church attracted German, Irish and Alsatia Catholic settlers and became the mission center for southern and central Ohio. The present structure, the third on the site, was dedicated in 1843 and rebuilt in 1866 after an 1864 fire.

Here was this beautiful church, sitting on a tree covered hill surrounded by nothing but corn fields, with the hamlet of Somerset being the nearest cluster of civilization about six miles to the north. I felt as though I had just unearthed a lost treasure.

St. Joseph’s Church near Somerset, OH

I was intrigued. I love old churches and I needed to see if St. Joseph’s was open for a look-see inside. I pulled up into a circle drive at the foot of a long flight of stairs to the front door and parked. After climbing the stairs I was actually surprised to find the huge wooden front door slightly ajar. With anticipation I pulled the door open and poked my head inside. It was beautiful! Painted vaulted ceilings supported by huge pillars extended the full length from front to back. Beautiful, intricate stained glass windows lined both sides of the church. There were about twenty pews per side, each of which would sit about eight to ten worshipers. A huge pipe organ graced the loft in the back of the church over the entrance. All the pews were solid oak (no veneer in this place!) as was the hardwood floor and the altar, chairs, ambo, and carved, arched screens on either side of the altar separating the choir areas. And, I had it all to myself.

St. Joseph’s Church, near Somerset OH

Today is Tuesday. To put what happened next into context, let me back up and describe what’s been going on in my life the last few days. Last Thursday I had knee surgery so I was off work on Friday. I took that opportunity to post Finding Grace through Eucharistic Adoration. On Saturday morning I went to Mass and did my hour of Adoration with the Eucharist exposed. On Sunday after Mass, I had brunch with Fr. Sean Davidson who has been visiting our parish to help us establish Perpetual Eucharistic Adoration. On Monday evening, I attended a meeting to organize those same efforts, again with Fr. Sean. So, it was no surprise for me, then, upon finding myself alone in this magnificent old historical church, to decide to spend my lunch hour in Eucharistic Adoration. The bronze tabernacle was in its place behind the altar and the red candle was burning signifying the Blessed Host was in its home.

I took a seat in the front pew on Mary’s side such that I could kneel on my left knee and still be able to keep my right leg extended. It was so quiet. Aside from the constant tinnitus in my ears and my own breathing, there was total silence. If there was any traffic on the highway, I was far enough off the road not to hear it. Once or twice I heard the old structure creak. It was just me and Jesus. I gave thanks and prayed for His help. I prayed for grace for our parish in our efforts to establish Eucharistic Adoration. I prayed for my family, for friends who are struggling, for the unborn and new parents to be, for peace in the Middle East and for guidance to our nation’s, and other nations’, leaders with respect to the looming conflict escalation in Syria, for peace and comfort to all those who remember and were affected by the tragedy in New York City twelve years ago tomorrow. I didn’t have my bible but I had my cell phone so I called up my app and read today’s readings from Colossians (Col 2:6-15) and Luke (Lk 6:12-19) and meditated on them. I had never read Colossians before so I read all four chapters. And then I just sat there in silence and listened and experienced the peace and solitude of being in the presence of Christ. It was a beautiful thing. In the hour and ten minutes I was there I didn’t see or hear another soul.

This experience was truly a “God Moment”, one of those times when God comes into your life unexpectedly. I almost didn’t go to Somerset this morning because of my knee still not being fully functional. If it hadn’t been for the road construction I would have taken the route I’ve taken scores of times before. No, this was definitely a God Moment, these things were meant to happen today. I was meant to discover St. Joseph’s Church, the oldest Catholic Church in Ohio, the “Cradle of the Faith in Ohio.”

Finding Grace through Eucharistic Adoration

07 Saturday Sep 2013

Posted by Jerry Robinson in Eucharistic Adoration, Prayer

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

Blessed Sacrament, Eucharist, Eucharistic Adoration, Jesus, Prayer

Back in July when I drove my car solo from Cincinnati, Ohio to my daughter’s wedding in Seattle, Washington, a drive of 2,640 miles over 40 hours of driving in four days, I posted thoughts, observances and inspirations on Reflections of a Lay Catholic each day. It had been years since I had made a drive like this on my own and, even though I would miss my wife and youngest daughter (who were flying to Seattle), I was looking forward to it immensely. Mainly I was looking forward to the quiet time, the absence of work and other responsibilities that tend to fill up my life. And, at some point it dawned on me that it would be a good opportunity for me, in my new found faith, to try to get closer to Jesus, to spend some one-on-one time with Him. After three days of driving and blogging about: attending Masses at the Cathedral Basilica in St. Louis, Missouri, St. Joseph’s Cathedral in Sioux Falls, South Dakota (including confession), and St. Therese the Little Flower church in Rapid City, South Dakota; the inspiring and friendly people I met at each church; praying the Rosary for the first time on my own, and seeing the beautiful countryside that is God’s creation, I felt I needed to explain why I was praying my way across America. So, in my post from day three, Bolo Ties, Rosaries and Rainbows, I explained that there were many people in my life who needed my prayers, one of which was my wife who would soon be having breast cancer surgery. And, I explained, that I tend to do my best praying, or at least it seems that way to me, while I am in church. I found, too, that the prolonged absences of distraction while I was behind the wheel allowed me to continue that praying throughout the day. A friend and follower, when reading that I was enjoying this alone time with Jesus, astutely claimed that it may very well have been that my whole trip unfolded in this way because He needed some alone time with me!

Don’t you love it when something simple gets turned around and you discover something even more beautiful than what you originally had?

In another recent post I mentioned how praying is something I’m still getting used to doing. I’m satisfied with the frequency but it’s the content that needs some work. 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 “perform”, when I schedule to spend a full hour in Eucharistic Adoration once a week.

Before I go any farther, I realize there may be a few non-Catholics reading this and they may not have a good grasp of the significance of the Eucharist in our faith. So, let me say a few words about that. Catholics believe the bread and wine, the consecrated Hosts, are actually the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Christ. While many Christian denominations have a service that commemorates the Last Supper, with some distributing bread and wine (or grape juice) as a symbol, it is our belief that the Eucharist (the Blessed Body and Blood) is 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.’”

So, what is Eucharistic Adoration you ask? Well, let’s say that while receiving the Eucharist during Communion at Mass is the best way to personally experience Christ within our parish community, Eucharistic Adoration gives us the opportunity to be with Him up close and personal, or one-on-one. We can experience this in two ways. The Consecrated Hosts reserved from the previous Mass are kept in the tabernacle, usually a small, ornate enclosure with a locking door resting on a table behind the altar. The easiest and most common form of Eucharistic Adoration is to stop by church at any time and genuflect (kneel) facing the tabernacle and acknowledge Christ’s presence.

A typical tabernacle

The second way, and in my opinion the most profound and satisfying way, is when the Blessed Sacrement is removed from the tabernacle and exposed for adoration in a monstrance, a sculpture with a glass enclosure that reveals the Host. Like the first example, adoration is accomplished by genuflecting in Christ’s presence and it is usually done for an 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 sleeping. Upon waking them He asks Peter, “So you could not keep watch with me for one hour?” – Matthew 26:40.

Poor Peter, he couldn’t seem to get anything right. Sometimes I feel like him. Do you?

Pope Francis I with a monstrance

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.”

I have had the opportunity on two occasions to spend an hour in adoration when the Blessed Sacrament was exposed. Both of those instances were during Christ Renews His Parish retreat weekends. But, this summer, I have spent several more hours on Saturday mornings in adoration, when the Eucharist was not exposed, as a time for sacrificial prayer in support of our church’s Adult Faith Formation group. One of the group’s responsibilities is to bring Perpetual Eucharistic Adoration back to the parish and in support of that effort we each take a day to fast and one hour a week to pray in adoration before the tabernacle. Our prayers are for help and encouragement to the parish community to discover the glory of adoration and for their participation. In order to have a successful program for a 24/7/365 Perpetual Eucharistic Adoration about 450 people are needed to participate.

Regardless of the reason 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 spilling my guts to, or just having a casual one-sided conversation with, Jesus, my words flow much easier than at any other time of prayer. Sometimes I am quiet and just soak up 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 whole hour having a one-sided conversation with Jesus. That was hard to do, especially for an old man’s arthritic knees. And I would run out of things to say so I would repeat myself which made me feel a little stupid. After the second time, though, I observed other adorers spending about half their time kneeling and the other half sitting. I asked and learned that this was okay and that it was okay to not spend the entire hour in prayer. It is okay to spend time simply gazing at the Host, 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. 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. 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 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 those thoughts 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?

Some of you reading this might be from someplace far away from my home parish in Ohio. If so, and your parish offers the opportunity for Perpetual Eucharistic Adoration, I hope you will find it in yourself to give it a try. If your parish doesn’t, try to find one nearby that does and give it a try. I believe you will be amazed at the deeper devotion to Jesus you will experience. Then bring it back to your own parish. For those of you reading this who are in my home parish, I ask that you consider joining us in our effort to establish Perpetual Adoration and become one of the 450 people needed to make it become a reality. We are hosting Fr. Sean Davidson of the Missionaries of the Most Holy Eucharist this weekend and he will be giving brief homilies about the beauty of Eucharistic Adoration at each Mass followed by a mission talk next Tuesday. Please join us. I believe you will find, as Fr. Davidson says, “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.”

When we get this off the ground, my hour is going to be from 5:00 until 6:00 a.m. on Monday mornings. You’re welcome to come join me.

Good night and God Bless.

The Light of Hope in Christian Community

20 Tuesday Aug 2013

Posted by Jerry Robinson in Faith, Hope, Love, Prayer

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Faith, Hope, Love, Prayer

Light of Hope

It’s been almost four weeks since my last post. Much has transpired since then and it’s been a roller coaster of emotions at times. In The Other Side of Prayer Requests, I left you hanging with the news that someone special to me had been diagnosed with a disease that would require surgery the next day, and that I had asked friends and family to pray for us. I probably should not have been quite so vague but I suppose I was holding on to that last shred of privacy. The rest of the story eventually came out when I replied to comments posted by friends. In case you missed that thread, that special someone was my wife, Melinda, who was diagnosed with breast cancer and had to have a lumpectomy on 24 July, our thirty-first wedding anniversary.

Ever since she was diagnosed on 31 May, I had been praying for her healing harder than I had ever prayed for anything in my short history of praying. Although the lump was small, we didn’t know if the cancer may have spread or if it was localized. My biggest fear was that cancer cells would be found in her lymph nodes, indicating a spread that would require chemotherapy. So, when I asked others, or they offered, to pray for her, I asked specifically for prayers that no cancer would be found in her lymph nodes. Personally, I prayed that when the final pathology report came back they would find no cancer at all and she would be pronounced “cancer-free”.

In spite of my praying, both Melinda and I had an uncanny feeling of optimism, that everything was going to be alright, that all the prayers being registered on her behalf from a legion of experienced prayer warriors were being heard. As I mentioned, we had “a confident assurance from an entire faith community who seemed to be saying they had inside information.” I also took comfort in a passage from a book of daily reflections by St. Augustine:

“Be assured that all your diseases will be healed. Have no fear. You may say that your diseases are powerful; but this physician is more powerful. There is no disease that the Almighty Physician cannot cure. Just allow yourself to be healed and do not reject His healing hands. He knows what He is doing.” – Commentary on Psalm 72

So, cutting to the chase, Melinda had her surgery on Wednesday and the early report was there was no cancer found in the lymph nodes, nor in the marginal tissue around the tumor. But, we had to wait until the following Monday before the official pathology report was completed. That was a long and anxious five days. On Monday we received the news that, indeed, no cancer was found in her lymph nodes, nor the marginal tissue around the tumor…. and none in the tumor itself! This was precisely what I had been praying for. Praise God!

My intention with this post is not for it to be a play by play of my wife’s surgery. Rather, it is a testament to the power of Christian Community. It is difficult for me to describe the way we felt about the tremendous support, caring and prayers we received during this ordeal. There is no doubt in my mind we would have been unable to sustain such strong confidence, such unwavering faith in the healing power of prayer had we gone it alone and not reached out to our community of friends and family, people who care for and love us, and asked them for their prayers. The outpouring of love and the demonstration of faith from everyone gave us something special – it gave us hope. And, I believe, it was this powerful combination of practicing the three theological virtues that brought about the miracle of a clean and cancer-free diagnosis for Melinda.

I had heard witnesses about Christian Community from men on the Christ Renews retreats on which I had been. But, especially for someone like me who is new to this life, you don’t know what you don’t know until your eyes are opened by a personal experience. I witnessed so many examples of love and caring I feel compelled and obligated to mention some of them:

To all those who prayed with an intensity honed by years of practice that I can only hope to achieve one day; to those who went the extra mile and sacrificed and fasted on Melinda’s behalf, who prayed Rosaries and Novenas specifically for the two of us, I give you my utmost gratitude.

We had a promising indication that all would be well when the surgeon surprised us and asked us to pray with him for healing and for God to guide him during the procedure.

I was overwhelmed with the caring and love expressed by so many asking how Melinda’s surgery went and how she was recovering. It was honest, look-you-straight-in-the-eye concern followed by sincere hugs borne of relief. Your love was truly felt by both of us.

To Melinda’s sister, Carol, who traveled from Texas to be here for both moral and physical support for Melinda, our daughter Grace, and me, many thanks, you were a God-send.

A special group of people took it upon themselves to unselfishly prepare dinners for us during the two weeks between Melinda’s surgery and the completion of her two-a-day radiation treatments. Thank you all for the plentiful and delicious meals, they were wonderful and so welcome! I still plan to hit you up for the recipes.

For someone who is both unfamiliar and uncomfortable with receiving so much love and assistance from others I have been totally humbled by the overwhelming support and encouragement to open up and share my emotions instead of keeping them bottled up inside me. Your prayers not only helped heal Melinda, they also healed me.

One thing that helped me open up and receive this kindness was understanding and acceptance of another bit of advice given by St. Augustine:

“For when we are harassed by poverty, saddened by bereavement, ill, or in pain, let good friends visit us. Let them be persons who not only can rejoice with those who rejoice but can weep with those who weep. Let them be persons who know how to give useful advice and how to win us to express our own feelings in conversation. – (Letter 130)

To close, please accept mine and Melinda’s gratitude for your gifts of prayer for her healing. And, specifically from me, please know my appreciation for your example of Christian Community by showing this neophyte how to shine the Light of Hope as suggested by our Lord, Jesus Christ:

“You are the salt of the earth. But what good is salt if it has lost its flavor? Can you make it salty again? It will be thrown out and trampled underfoot as worthless. You are the light of the world – like a city on a hilltop that cannot be hidden. No one lights a lamp and then puts it under a basket. Instead, a lamp is placed on a stand, where it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your good deeds shine out for all to see, so that everyone will praise your heavenly Father. – Matthew 5:13-16

God Bless you and thank you for being our Light of Hope.