"From Jewish Harvard Professor to Catholic Evangelist" — Roy Schoeman | December 21, 2019

hi and I'm very happy to be here and I'm very happy to see all of you here and I'm here to give my witness testimony which of course is all about the merciful Jesus but since it's Advent I just wanted to start with a little side comment which is of course the whole world is now eagerly awaiting the imminent coming of Jesus but speaking as a Jew we were there first because we have the people who are waiting for 2000 years in joyful anticipation and prayer and sacrifice and yearning for the coming of the Messiah who of course came 2,000 years ago and we know as Jesus and in our yearning and in our hearts reaching out to the Messiah to Jesus now I interest' invite you to feel compassion for the Jewish people who are still yearning for the coming of the Messiah and not recognizing that he did come and not receiving all of the love and intimacy which he is you could say which he died to give them which he is dying metaphorically speaking to give them to reach out to them and bring them into the embrace that he has brought much of the rest of the world into so that's why I do this and that's why I run around giving my witness testimony is to just encourage encourage some reciprocal compassion for the state of the Jewish people who brought the rest of the world the greatest gift that God ever gave mankind which of course is his son Jesus and the intimacy with God which he makes possible and the eternity which he makes possible and yet which his own people are still waiting for so that's my little Advent hook to this talk and I by the way as long as I'm on that theme when we're upstairs I have prayer cards with the prayer for the conversion of the Jews because that's you know I don't know how to put it but that's that's my commission for doing this is trying to encourage prayer for the conversion of the Jews but let me give my witness testimony so sister mentioned I was I was born and raised Jewish my parents were both German Jewish Holocaust refugees growing up I was quite pious and I did have a tremendous hunger for God and yearning for God and I did see Judaism as as the only true religion the only religion that God was on the other end of and but I lost my faith when I went to university MIT science obviously science technical university I lost it under the fraudulently scientific worldview that religion is just a superstition that man had until he came up with science given the true answers to all of the questions that are totally unscientific view by the way fraudulent science because the essence of science is you look at the evidence in your form a theory that can explain the evidence and if it successfully explains the evidence you can hold on to that theory and if it can't you have to discard it for another one that explains the evidence and all of the evidence is for the truths of the Catholic faith right we have I mean I think you know I'm preaching to the choir but we have the Shroud of Turin that has no materialistic explanation we have the tomb of Guadalupe Guadalupe that has no materialistic explanation we have the medical miracles of Lourdes we have the miracle of Fatima of the Sun and so forth so there's plenty of physical documented evidence for the truths of the Catholic faith and so it's not scientific to say that there was nothing besides the material world what meets your eyes because they can't explain the evidence but the Catholic Church can't explain the evidence and I will just the slights the digression the Eucharistic miracles are particularly beautiful of course there's particularly specific to the Catholic faith and many people know about for instance the miracle of Lanciano which was in the Middle Ages where the Eucharist turned into human muscle and and human tissue and human blood but there were two Eucharistic miracles one I think 1999 and one in 2006 one in Poland and one in Buenos Aires actually when bergoglio was the was the bishop there and both of those were subjected to the full forensic scientific medical examination and they were both human human heart muscle tissue and human blood and in fact one of them I don't remember which one it was identified that it was the the muscle tissue of a particular part of the heart of a man who had died in great agony because there was a transformation in the cell structure which apparently happens maybe it's in the blood composition when someone suffers a lot and one of those miracles actually is still after the miracle took place was partially host was partially bred and partially human muscle tissue and under an electron microscope there is no division between the two one just morphs into the other so we have the evidence they don't have the evidence we are we're the scientific ones they're not the scientific ones but that's all a digression anyway I lost my faith at MIT I went on to Harvard Business School I was invited back to join the faculty I found myself a professor of marketing at Harvard Business School at the age of 29 that's when the bottom really fell out of my world because all my life I felt there has to be a real meaning and purpose to life and I'd come into that meaning and purpose when I was older as a child I thought that would come from entering into a personal relationship with God which I thought would happen out by Bar Mitzvah which is the Jewish parallel to the confirmation when the child is about 13 I thought I would come to know God personally in that ceremony and when that didn't happen it was one of the saddest days of my childhood but then I pretty soon decided the real meaning and purpose of life would come when I got her driver's license or when I left home or when I began University if I got into Harvard Business School and so forth when I began my career but the problem was at this point I was already more successful in my worldly career than I had ever expected to be but life still had no meaning and purpose I thought we're a chemical accident there's no pattern to anything in our lives we live for 70 or 80 years and and then we die and that's it there was no point to anything but at this point there was nothing more I could imagine might give my life meaning and purpose because there was no longer any external goal that I could imagine would give my life meaning so I fell into the darkest despair of my life at that point and in that I was walking in nature early one morning when I received the most spectacular grace of my life I was just walking along lost in my thoughts had long since given up any hope of the existence of God when from one moment to the next the curtain between Earth and heaven disappeared I should say actually more precisely the the curtain between the physical world and a spiritual world disappeared and I found myself in the presence of God very knowingly in the presence of God in a state a very intimate communion with God communication with God and seeing my life as I would see my life after I died and looked back over a life in the presence of God and I saw how I would feel about everything after I died I I mean I understood but I mean I I saw a tremendous number of the truths of the faith I didn't know that's what they were I had no exposure to Christianity but in any case I saw that we lived forever I saw that every action has a moral content that's recorded for all eternity I saw that every time we take advantage of an opportunity to do something of value in the eyes of heaven we will be rewarded for that for all eternity that every lost opportunity every opportunity we don't take advantage of will be a lost opportunity for all eternity I saw how foolish I had been I kind of lived my life saying to myself if only that hadn't happened then I would be happy today or if only that hadn't happened then I would be happy today and I saw in this experience how absolutely everything that had ever happened to me have been the most perfect thing that could be arranged coming from the hands of an all-knowing all-loving God not only including those things that the most suffering at the time but especially those things that I caused the most suffering at the time I saw that there's absolutely no reason to ever be anxious about anything because absolutely everything is being arranged and to be the most perfect thing actually that could be presented to us for our own benefit essentially I by far the most transformative aspect of this experience was to come into the full experience and knowledge that God Himself the God who not only created everything which exists but created existence itself not only knew me by name not only had been arranging everything that had ever happened to me to be the most perfect thing but had known how I felt at every moment and cared about how I felt at every moment as though I were the only creature he had ever created and as though in a very very real way everything that made me happy made him happy and everything that made me sad made him sad and it was coming into that awareness that was by far the most transformative aspect of this I saw than my greatest two greatest regrets when I died would be every hour I had wasted doing nothing of value in the eyes of heaven and the other great regret would be all of the time in India had wasted worrying about not being loved when every moment of my existence I was held in an ocean of love greater than I ever imagined could exist coming from this all-knowing all-loving God I of course saw in this experience that the the meaning and purpose of my life was to worship and serve my Lord and Master in God who is revealing himself to me I that's all I wanted to do but I want to know his name and want to know what religion to follow to worship and serve him properly I couldn't think of this as Judaism and of him as the god of Judaism I now know of course it's the same same God as the Old Testament but in all fairness when you read the Old Testament the picture of God that emerges is of a God far more distant and severe and impersonal and judgmental and punishing than this God was in fact that's not because the picture which emerges in the Old Testament is incorrect it's because the entire relationship between God and man was different before the incarnation of Christ in the coming of Christ the entire relationship between divinity and humanity was transformed we know of course that Jesus was true God and true man that that he had a full human nature and a full divine nature the divine nature and the human nature flowed together in him and are now in union for all eternity I believe it was Saint Athanasius who said God became man so that man could become God the entire the what the entire separation between God and man was transformed with the coming of Christ in fact there's a prophecy I believe it's in Joel where the Lord says the day is coming when you won't have to run to this person and run to that person and say tell me about God because I will make myself known to the lowliest manservant and maidservant among you and that's exactly what happened with the coming of Christ and in fact st. Peter on the first Pentecost Sunday sermon cited that prophecy from Joel and said this is what happened so in anyway that's what happened and that's what this is all about and that's what the celebration of Christmas in some sense is all about about anyway so it's not just that the picture of God was wrong in the Old Testament that God did become infinitely closer to man and we we benefit from that and we benefit from that we benefit from that as a member of humanity but of course we benefit from that most fully by being a sacramental Catholic in a state of grace and participating in the sacraments and that really is the greatest gift that ever God ever gave mankind and we have it obviously through Jesus but we have it more specifically through the church and we have it in some sense through the intercession of the Jews for those 2000 years when they were praying and working and keeping himself separate in fact in order to enable the incarnation of Christ so again there's a I mean I don't mean to just be hammering this point but there's an in some sense is a debt to be repaid and the way to repay that debt is to pray for the conversion of the Jews to pray that they might themselves receive the benefit which they brought the rest of mankind through praying and working and suffering and yearning for the coming of the Messiah for this 2000 years so anyway back to this experience so I was i prayed as I was walking along I was still walking I I actually what happened in this experience was I mean I was I said I mean I was still walking I was completely awake of course the veil between earth the the spiritual world in the physical world had disappeared I was still seeing the physical world around me but through it and behind it I was seeing the spiritual world and I was not surprised that I could see the spiritual world the only thing which surprised me was I could ever have been blind to it because there's so much more real and so immediate and more immediate and more solid than the physical world that I could not comprehend how I could ever have not seen it and I couldn't imagine ever being unable to see it again so I was walking along and I prayed as I was walking to this God who was in the state of very direct communication with me let me know your name so I know what religion to follow to worship and serve you properly I don't mind if you're Buddha and I have to become a Buddhist I don't mind if you're Krishna and I have to become a Hindu I don't mind you here Apollo and it have to become a Roman pagan as long as you're not Christ and I have to become Christian I very literally prayed that he respected that prayer he didn't tell me his name I went back home happier than I had ever been in my life I knew we live forever I knew there's never any reason to be anxious about anything I knew that every hour has this infinite depth of meaning if only because we could do something for which we will be rewarded for all eternity I know that's a selfish point of view but in my defense I'll say give me a break I was a Harvard Business School marketing professor what'd you expect I mean everything was net present value and maximizing returns and I saw in this experience I didn't see right away thought it was wrong to be selfish but what I saw was that I had been foolish and selfish because I had been putting all my time and energy into things which wouldn't do me any good at all even a hundred years later after I'm dead and if I want to be smart and selfish the only thing that made sense was to try to be as much of a saint as possible and try to build up as much mayor in heaven as possible hence you see these lovely ladies in the front row there no no they're not doing it for selfish reasons of course but they're still doing something that's would be pretty smart from a selfish perspective anyway so I went back home I was happier than I had ever been all I wanted to do was know who this God was and what religion to follow to worship and serve him properly and so every night before going to sleep I set aside a short prayer I had made up to know the name of my Lord and Master and God who had revealed himself to me in that first experience and a year to the day after that first experience I went to sleep and I thought I was woken by a hand gently on my shoulder now I understand that my body was still asleep in bed during this experience but I didn't think so at the time it felt like I was completely awake my memory represents it so I was completely awake I can only describe it as I experienced it so I thought I was woken by hand on my shoulder and led to a room and left alone with the most beautiful young woman I could ever imagine and I knew without being told that it was the Blessed Virgin Mary and when I found myself in her presence all I wanted to do is throw myself on my knees and somehow honor her appropriately in fact the first thought that crossed my mind was oh my goodness I wish I at least knew the Hail Mary but I didn't so the first thing she said to me was she offered to answer any questions I might have for her I'll mention some of the questions and answers but before I do let me just say that as beautiful as she was to look at and she was absolutely perfectly beautiful even more profoundly affecting was the beauty of her voice and when her spoke when she spoke or is the only way I can describe her voice is to say that her voice was composed of that which makes music music and when she spoke this incredibly beautiful voice just flowed through me carrying with it her love and lifting me up into a state of ecstasy greater than I ever imagined could exist and so the first thing she said to me was she offered him say any questions I might have for her I kind of wanted to ask her to teach me the Hail Mary but I was too proud to admit that I didn't know it so the first question I asked her was what what why prayer to her that she liked best and her first answer was a little bit coy it was I love all prayers to me but I was a little bit pushy and I said but you must love some prayers to you more than others and she relented and she recited a prayer it was in Portuguese and I didn't know any Portuguese so all I could do was make the effort to remember the first few words phonetically in the next morning when I woke up I right away woke wrote them down phonetically and then later when I met a Portuguese Catholic woman I asked her to recite the Marian prayers in Portuguese and to the best of my ability the prayer was o Mary conceived without sin pray for us have recourse to thee I mentioned three or four other of the questions and answers I will say that in during this experience I saw her her stature it's kind of impossible to describe but but I saw I saw her her I know what to say her role her her stature I actually saw how she was sort of a conduit between divinity and humanity and how all of the graces that flow from divinity into humanity flow through her sort of like a conduit like a pipeline and so most of my questions just came from that just came from being just just astonished stupefied by who she was so at one point I kind of stammered out it was more of an exclamation than a question I said how can it be how is it possible how can it be that you're so glorious that you're so magnificent that you're so exalted how can it be and her response was just to look down on me almost with pity and shake her head gently and say oh no you don't understand you don't understand anything I'm nothing I'm a creature I'm a created thing he's everything and then again out of the desire to somehow honor her appropriately I asked her what title she liked best for herself and her reply was I am the beloved daughter of the father mother of the son and spouse of the Spirit now I of course I understand or recognize I mean I can't bring myself to say how good her answers were that's really damning with faint praise but now I understand more of the depth and precision of her answers at the time that I had this experience I knew absolutely nothing about the Blessed Virgin Mary I knew almost nothing about Christianity I had never literally touched a New Testament much less open one and read one this is all entirely entirely new to me the the maybe the last question an answer that I'll mention now is okay by now I figured out this is the Blessed Virgin Mary it had been Christ and that first experience this is all about Christianity I'd better get up to speed pretty quick and all my life I had heard the expression the Holy Spirit but I had no idea what it meant and so I apologize for the way I phrased the question but I said to her what's this business about the holy spirit and her reply was just to look up words with an expression melting with love and say he's his gaze so I asked her about three or four other questions they went downhill from there the other questions were either personal or or foolish but then the audience was over I went back to sleep the next morning when I woke up I knew I had been Christ on the beach and I was hopelessly in love with the Blessed Virgin Mary in fact my first thought when I woke up was oh boy I can't wait to go to sleep again tonight and see her again and when it didn't happen I said to myself well it's got to happen at least like once a week or once a month and so forth and by the time I realized that I would have to go through life and die before I got to see her again in that way the memory had faded to the point where I could face the prospect of going through life without seeing her again but it was a grace that I didn't understand at that morning because if I had woken up that morning and known that they would have been very hard to face life because everything in this world was so tasteless and colorless and cardboard and gray compared to being the presence of her love and that it would have been torture to imagine having to to go through the rest of this life before getting to see her and so that's a pretty short version my witness testimony is basically it I woke up that morning I knew it had been Christ I knew who the Blessed Virgin Mary was I wanted to be as fully and completely a Christian as possible I had no idea of what the difference was between a process and the Catholic all I could really do was open a local phone book and find a church to go to which of course was a Protestant church but as soon as I got to know the pastor a little bit I kind of shyly asked him what about the Blessed Virgin Mary and when he answered without the respect that I knew that she deserved I just knew this is no place for me and the other thing that was going on was that I was spending all my free time at Marian and there was a shrine to Our Lady of La Salette not far from my house about 45 minutes from my house and I would drive up there four or five times a week just to walk the grounds and to kind of feel her presence and kind of commune with her oh and of course it was a Catholic shrine and sometimes it'd be a mass going on and whenever I was around a mass going on I was filled with this tremendous III apologize for using the word but the closest word is lost to receive the Eucharist this tremendous you know irrational desire to receive the Eucharist and so those two things led me pretty directly into the Catholic Church knowing who the Blessed Virgin Mary is and wanting to receive the Eucharist daily if at all possible so that meant the Catholic Church and that's really it how's that you didn't want me to go over time and I didn't go over time you can go back to the serious stuff now prayer oh I I mean I I understand I understand the schedule we have this business and we have little refreshments upstairs then we have like question-answer kind of more informal so that I guess we'll kind of continue upstairs after the rest of this part of the evening right [Applause]

Channel: Saint John Paul II National Shrine

Views: 19,517

Rating: 4.896183 out of 5

Keywords: Saint John Paul II National Shrine, Evening with the Merciful Jesus, JP2 Shrine, Saint John Paul II, pope, museum, shrine, catholic, national shrine, john paul ii, immaculate conception, washington dc, divine mercy, divine mercy chaplet, jp2, jp2shrine, kofc, live mass, daily mass, online mass, bible museum, rosary, online rosary, @jp2shrine, Jewish Harvard Professor, catholic convert, Roy Schoeman

Id: Enr-iLahEI4

Length: 25min 33sec (1533 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 07 2020