Journey Home - 2018-07-23 - Rob Marco

[Music] good evening and welcome to the journey home I'm Marcus Grodi your host for this program I here we are in the middle of the summer I'm over here getting through the hot up here we're taping this program it's pretty hot but it's it's a pleasure to be with you there's I often say it's a great privilege for us to to sit and relax and hear a story of how the holy spirit has touched someone's heart and brought them to a deeper relationship with Christ in His Church our guest tonight is Rob Marko formerly unchurched and as a he and I were just talking briefly before the program it seems like the population of unchurched in our country is is increasing more and more families or just they're not giving any information to their kids about faith at all and so I'm anxious to hear more about that and Rob story his just let you know his full conversion story is posted on the coming home Network website ACH network org or Rob welcome to the procas thank you for having me good nice to be here all the way from Philadelphia area it's good to have you here and I said be here let's hear about this story of an unchurched sure yeah thanks well glory to God so I grew up outside of the suburbs of Philadelphia I had a very good childhood no trauma my my parents my mother and father been they just celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary and I have two brothers so I had a very good childhood um you know it's funny because my story kind of starts in high school and I don't remember too much of significance before that but it became really significant in high school but growing up I you know I was active in sports I but but before then no church yeah so my father is a Eastern Rite Catholic he was raised in that tradition and my mom is an Episcopalian so they had a mixed religion marriage but it I would say they first of all they were very loving I had a very loving home and but their religious traditions they didn't have a kind of formation that you can't give what you don't have and so they had they had faith there they're people of faith my dad um you know so the way kind of growing up my dad would go to his church to the Divine Liturgy some you know some Sundays yeah sometimes some days no and my mom would go to her to her same kind of thing some Sundays yes I'm sometimes no and my brothers and I were kind of free to you know we we weren't forced to go we were you know we were not brought up to kind of we were just you know but I took an African nation to join my dad because I had a very you know I have to say my dad you know for not having you know a formation that passed on he really did show the love of the father just by his example he loved to me it really did because it made an impression on me and my mom is one of the most patient caring people I know so I had a very good you know natural formation but in terms of intentional passing on of anything but I would go to the Divine Liturgy with my dad he would say you want to come with me and I'd say yeah and when he would go I would go sometimes I wasn't it was when we attended you know you know the divine liturgy was very you know there's incense there was a can't cancer but no musical instrument so it's very traditional and it was in Ukranian and you know in English and it was more of a curiosity it wasn't it was kind of like I didn't know what was going on but I liked being with my dad and you know this is what he did and so you know so I did go up with some exposure to traditional kind of faith but the knowledge of you know what we believed was really one there so the one thing I remember my dad had a st. Jude card which he reserved for you know emergencies and then he also you know I remember him saying to me when I kind of inquired at one point in passing that you know he says we all oh you know I was asking about Christians and Catholics and everybody know the difference or anything and he said oh oh all Catholics are Christians but not all Christians are Catholics so that was kind of my initial understanding but um you know I was thinking that it's often hard anyway for parents to talk about their faith at home we always wish you'd be better it's often hard anyway I think it's even harder when both parents are radically different yeah Asians to even talk about it at home yeah they weren't like brilliant in like practicing the faith that that strong said it wasn't but there was tension there and I you know remember as a child growing up if I ever got married or anything you know later when I became a Catholic it was that I I want to marry another Catholic because I I saw the difficulties it wasn't that it's impossible or anything like that but it's just natural difficult yeah because your values are in the end by you know so so my my conversions really you know it it looks like a weight lifters barbell unless there's there's two very very strong informative formative years you know in high school and then I had 16 years and then the last two years have been very strong as well so I'll get to that but really it starts you know in 1996 I was 16 I was a sophomore in high school and we would have a we had a record store in town and I would walk to school when I would walk home so I would always walk by the record store and you know I had a group of guy friends that I was friends with and I always friends with everybody in high school really but I was competing from a young age racing racing bicycles and you know so I was into music and to get you know psyched up before races and stuff over this and the music and stuff you know the record shops they they had vinyl and it was time with a vinyl kitchen vinyl cassettes and CDs so you would get to you know go through the records and the CDs and stuff and they had a stereo there we were you know put on the headphones and you can cut in you know listening music and a lot of people from high school and they would go there and stuff so you know I had a very August in in you know journey because you know when I later read the story of Agustin and his conversion you know he saw he fell in with you know the Manicheans he had this you know period and the Grove where he where the scriptures he had struggles with sexual struggles and stuff but he saw truth in even if it wasn't the force of truth he saw things that he adopted too you know the Catholicism I was formative for the church so for me my initial engine I'd like to say I put my sound up Christian music CD he put it on and everybody let me but there wasn't the case at all so I started I found this CD that I put in and I listened to and it was is very it wasn't heavy metal or anything but it's very I had never heard anything like it it was very very fast very intense and hardcore music and it was not it was came from a reaction to the kind of nineteen seventies early eighties nihilism of punk rock so you know that was very self-destructive you knows that Doc Martens and the the Mohawks and things like that and it was you know getting high and getting drunk all the time and stuff and this was a really reaction to that where I it was you know it was kind of upper middle class kids from the suburbs who would play this really fast music and were really intentional about not being self-destructive so you know the the particular CD I came across was this straight-edged hardcore where the kids would the the sign of the music was that you would put X's on your you know you go to show and you put they put X's on your hand because if you were underage you know that meant you know that you couldn't drink and this is kind of a subculture of music where they adopted that and it was almost like a secular moral cream but there's this straight edge you know lifestyle rested on the powers of no no drinking no drugs and no promiscuity and really fast intense music so it had a attraction to kind of a structured moral code and that for me first of all the music you know when I first heard it it just just blew my mind it really was very fast and very intense and I had a very it's interesting too because the CD itself was put up by a company called revelation records and you know the pressing they had presence every Rev you know dot and then the pressing and I was not a lukewarm person I was kind of a hot or cold person so I connected with I connected the dots later in that but the frontman for this band his name was Ray capo and he he I could tell from his music and from researching his life later this has got to be for internet so he was a black-and-white CD in a very pre-internet time so you kind of had to dig around to find stuff he was a seeker he he you know he started this band they were all probably eighteen nineteen and they're playing shows in New York City and you know tour all over and he was a secret though so at the tail end of this this band before the grace was working His grace is working yeah and conscience yeah so and I identified with his intensity and his desire for something more so he end up going to India on a kind of a spiritual pilgrimage and he became it came back you know after reading all the the Hindu texts and things like that he came back as a you know Harry Krishna and I adopted this you know in the United States it was an International Society for Krishna consciousness so that you know these this branch of Hinduism I guess where he was fully devoted to this religious practice and you know changed his name and everything and he started a band that was called shelter and they I started listening to them too because of his influence and they would put lectures he would give like lectures you know his maybe twenty twenty one where he would speak about the another a higher realm of consciousness so kind of so this was the first time I heard anything like this because my my searching came from kind of a negative in a sense like I wasn't attracted to joy and you know the way that Christian would you know Joey is kind of contagious I had this yearning for something more in my life but I was constantly being let down disappointed in the summer or the the non lasting nature of material things so I really latched on to this unidentified with this this idea that wow there's something more than you know watching Saturday Night Live she didn't pull and drink a beer and that's that's this was a awakening for me so I have to think of it as people are so absorbed in the horizontal right that you're seeing wait is a vertical here it's not the writer that was my first exposure to something more and that's all I had it was like a general sense of disease with dis ease with living in the world and so you know I really got into this music and and it was about that's this time where I got I felt I was a big writer and a big reader in high school and I always keep a paper back in my back pocket but is about this time I discovered you know the Be The Beat Generation writers so as a writer you know and when I was 16 17 I was looking for my voice and I had read you know Jack Kerouac and Gary Snyder and these things I'm not I'm sorry these was 1960s it was kind of reaction to World War 2 conformity so these were you know poets writers beatniks and you're all sitting in physics I'm sure but Jack Kerouac had a writing style that kind of blew me away the same way so he wrote on the road which was his famous novel on one sheet of paper so is this very manic kind of on one scroll that he taped together on a typewriter and just handed it out so you know identify with his writing style but that was my first introduction into this this kind of 1960s Buddhism and you know attraction the eastern ways of because it was exotic it was you know it was not conformity it was you know breaking away from that so I picked up on this this this buddhism and i started looking into it more and kind of doing some research and stuff and I really connected with on a philosophical level the the tenets of Buddhism which was the four noble truth which was that all life is suffering which I could identify with suffering comes from desire so the the craving for permanence in his life there is a way out so there's an escape from the cycle and to follow the Eightfold Path which is the kind of a Beatitudes of the ten commandments of Buddhism almost if you want to draw a Christian parallel so you know so I this I didn't look at it as a religion that was kind of like a framework of philosophical framework so I would meditate in the backyards and under the maple trees in the summer and a beach mat out and kind of mimic what I saw in them in these these writers our guest is Rob Marco you know I remember I was a folk singer back in the sixties in the 70s I remember a lot of that maybe the great Mandela there were some of these songs that were I don't think Christians singing them we're always aware of wait a second this is coming from a whole different tradition it sounds similar but as you said there's the circle of life but there's a way out of it there's a way out of it yeah that's right was trying to help you that's right but you know Marcus would I had a vision kind of like I was just some mental image of when I started getting into Buddhism and meditation things like that it was very um you know you you your response it's wholly subjective and holy you're responsible for your salvation basically or your escaping from the cycle and I had an image of a disabled child I don't know where it came from you know somebody who's developmentally disabled and I would go on to work with adults and children who were developmental to save or so I had a experience now later but you know the question that was in the boys in back on moms how would this child save himself you know if you have no you know cognition or anything like that you know who's gonna save this child so that was kind of always in the back of my mind but you know as I as I moved into you know I was still listening to this hardcore music and I was working at a I was working at a cup scale in the nursing home as a waiter and my best friend and I worked there and I met you know my best friend actually I would say at the time was it was a Christian and he we never really talked about it much but um there's another guy we waited tables with who was a Christian but he was also in the hardcore music and he was in a Christian hardcore band so this was something that the music if he wasn't on the surface it would be like stay away from the stuff but if you read the lyrics who is very it was about Christ there was about salvation it was about being saved and it was adapted to you know they have Christian contemporary music versus Christian work really so he invited me to a show and you know I was 16 or so and I went to this base a lot of times they would have these shows and church basements so you know a lot of times in Philly they were you know the Unitarian Church in some other Church but so you know this is a really lot of energy a lot of just mosh pit but it wasn't aggressive it was like you know there was a you couldn't understand the lyrics but but at the end of the show I was in the crowd I was sweating and everything and this pastor comes out a preacher or something he was you know maybe wasn't young it was maybe in his 40s or something good beard and kind of had some tattoos and he you know thanked their comments of it and he he but he then he prayed over the crowd and this was my first encounter with the Holy Spirit because it and again you'll see a theme in my life these are not explicitly you know this is Christian but this is this is moving down this funnel and to yeah you know to come home but he prayed over the crowd and he you know it was very you know the sinner's prayer kind of thing and you know if you if you have you know if you were if you know your center and you accept Jesus Christ and things like that but I I can't describe it but I felt a rush come through and kind of like Oh as if like a wind would come straight through me and you know I I was sweating but I had you know tears and I I recognized my sinfulness at that moment I knew that I couldn't save myself so that's kind of where the Buddhism kind of ended because I knew that that could only take you so far yeah but I had a real internal conviction so my my conversion started and it continued it wasn't an intellectual it wasn't like I read books to come into the church or anything I've done that's some people's journey but for me it was very experiential of recognizing my sinfulness and pens and knowing that the Holy Spirit had touched me in that song so the pastor grace had real exactly yeah it was it was great I know I don't discount that because that I know that that was a real experience he came after he said if anybody wants to talk after the show about Jesus and Laura more come talking so he did and so I talked to him and afterwards we sat down and you know he told me kind of the basics of you know our need for a savior you know the Jesus Christ and who he was and things like that so I gave him my phone number he followed up you know called which is great you know great business practice to follow up and not just leave somebody hanging when I come home I kind of forgot about I wasn't interested and you know and the next chapter kind of starts my junior year of high school I was it's 1997 I was 17 and I had a real maybe was the influence of Buddhism but this this this need to test myself and survive in the world on my own so I I was I this I was 17 and I asked my dad I said my dad understood because we were very similar he understood I needed to do this so I I asked him would you I want to go backpacking I was very active in the outdoors but I want to do it alone so if you look at the state of Pennsylvania and then you there's a big green splotch on the map and this is exactly three hours and I said because I didn't drive at that time I said dad could you you know paper maps and I said you know here's the trailhead and you know we drive me up here and then come back three days later and we put a little pencil mark on the map where the you know the other trailhead was and you know god bless my parents because they you know my mom I think it was worried the whole time and really it was kind of a I when I set off for that backpacking trip i i i i packed pretty light you know I didn't have a fleece blanket I had a can of into more soup it was three days and I didn't see anybody for four three four three days that whole trip so it was a very existential kind of time and it was always very I didn't sleep at night because I didn't have enough thing to keep me warm I ran on food and had the pivotal point really was where I lost my map and I was about a day into the hike and I was in the middle of nowhere I hadn't seen anybody and there was a trail but I didn't know had once I lost my map and so it was a really panic I mean I I needed to meet my dad an endless we didn't itself it was before cell phones and stuff and I prayed I remembered in that that time at the show when the Holy Spirit came in and and I also remembered it came later but it was in the same way that the Israelites would before you know they knew God's name it would cry out in their slavery and so my prayer was very like help me I I don't know what to do i if there is a God I don't know your name I just need help and I I retraced my steps and I was looking all around I felt this you know I'm sure you know it's hard to describe these experiences but I felt my my body being cupped by a hand and being kind of led and at one point I went when I felt that I put my hand down in these bushes and I found my mouth and so that left a really strong impression on me because I met my dad you know three days later and I um I came back home so I I had this I came back very humbled because first of all I always I realized that self-sufficiency and and I was I don't know if I was getting ready for the zombie apocalypse or something I knew I was trained you know they survived but I realized that I needed some help in life my seat my I so I finished up my junior year my senior year of high school after I graduated I wanted to go back to the wilderness into the woods so I had plans to hike the Appalachian Trail and I had a friend I had two friends my best friend was a Presbyterian and he was he was a good Christian he didn't he didn't curse he didn't drink and he was but he was involved with the youth groups and things like that and I also had this other friend who I in cross country with we were hears that you're younger than me and he was gonna join me for two weeks on the trail and he was Catholic but he didn't he wasn't really I didn't know it but I knew his family and he came from a large family it was the first big family I knew and when we go to this houses some minutes ball and stuff his mother would have pictures of the Sacred Heart and pictures of the Immaculate Heart and I didn't know I knew it was Jesus but I didn't know there was my first exposure to a cath like a big Catholic and I think she was praying for us the whole time he joined me for two weeks and then my plan was to go to New Hampshire from the southern tip America Pennsylvania and I I end another friend from high school I see these are these seats that are being planned out because she heard mom was it Christian I didn't know because her husband and her rode Harley's and they didn't look like Christians basically yeah but she gave me a Bible a small New Testament before my trip because I had a big party and stuff and send off and everything and it was actually I brought it with me coming out here it was 6:18 1998 and it's a you know Rob you're on the journey you know and take this with you so when I was my friend went back home and I was alone on the trail and there were shelters along the trail they said three three-sided shelters I would I had this Bible with me and I would read the Psalms and this is the first time I read the Bible and I read the Psalms and the the particular Psalm that stuck with me it was very human it was very I couldn't because I was I was homesick I was you know I was 18 I was you know but when you know David writes about you know you brought me up from the miry pit and you know put me on a firm foundation that that's stuck with me and I I kind of did the same I had the same experience where in the wilderness a year before where I would walk on the trail and I would kind of keep my my right hand out and it sounds very kind of corny and mushy but I felt the Lord walking with me and my right side so I didn't you know I had these kind of seeds planted and about Jesus and things so you don't have to apologize to me okay because I have no questions and our Lord works in our life that way and sometimes it's just for us sir it loses its power and in the telling because it wasn't for them turkeys it was very personal as walking with Jesus literally so I finished I came home a little early and then I I had I always had a strong attraction I want it to be free and I valued freedom more than anything but I also had this kind of curious like real desire for authority in my life so it wasn't that my parents you know kind of let us do whatever but I wanted to be under Authority and I had applied to West Point so the Unites States Military Academy and Penn State and I ended up going to Penn State but I always had an attraction to that this kind of structure that comes with that that structured kind of life in the military but I ended up going to Penn State and before I left for college my dad gave me a printout of the religious services and he just gently said this is you know if this is when the mass times are if you decide you know you want to go when you get there and I took it and I you know now a lot of people you know coming into college if they were raised in the faith and things they they are quick to leave it that's that's an unfortunate thing but I kind of understand it but I was going in the opposite direction like I I took my dad up on that offer and at Penn State the the masses were I wandered into a mass I mean I kind of I knew when it was I dressed up I wore you know kind of my best dress shirt because you know I guess that's what you do when you go to Mass and I went to the auditorium where mass was being celebrated and I want to say so that's that's my introduction in Catholicism is very innocuous it was I went to a mass and there was you know people were you know shorts and flip-flops and jeans and I was a little out of place and I didn't you know because was a Roman Roman Rite Mass it was new to me because I had some exposure to Eastern Rite Catholicism but it kind of moved I I didn't know what I had it wasn't like I was attracted to the community or anything I just knew that I had these experiences of the the Lord and I kind of learned my faith after I I went to a priest afterwards I said I'm interested in becoming Catholic and learning more and it turns out that is the RCIA kind of cutoff so they started in the fall and I think this was probably September October maybe so it had already started and sigh patience is not one of my virtues and so I I kind of went so the back door of I searched out a business increased so our our community at Penn State was staffed by Benedictine priests from st. Vincent's and Latrobe so they would come to Madison there was the three or four that would came in and we had a chaplain but there's also a businessing priest that would come up occasionally or actually on every Sunday to celebrate the Divine Liturgy so I found him and I said would you teach me the Catholic faith because I am interested in becoming Catholic and and he he did he he Eastern Orthodox business Byzantine it was a Byzantine so I was a to grew up might follows Ukrainian Catholic it was a businessing Catholic right yeah nothing to do with orthodoxy it was a Catholic and his church was about twenty miles off campus okay and he he agreed to instruct me so I had a I had a one-on-one catechism for you know things kind of moved very quickly I I learned the faith and as I learned it I was more attracted to it because might be experiences I had my exposure to Protestant Catholicism or Protestant Christianity was a little limited I mean my best friend he was a good guy and he was a good Christian but the extent of his the you know involvement was you know kind of youth groups and doing fun things and I I would ask some questions every now and then but I didn't there wasn't I wouldn't say you know I want to denigrate it wasn't that there wasn't that but it wasn't it was a different approach to you know it was kind of like fun wasn't media I guess and that's I think what I was looking for but he lived you know by example and I'm convinced that he was part of that journey but the four marks of the church when we paused sure well that's good let's pause here you are in your journey being introduced to thousand through the Byzantine a priest who visits at Penn State and I'm anxious to hear it sounds like you kind of come into the church and then discover more about Italy yeah let's come back just a moment Rob Marcos of eternity [Music] [Music] [Music] welcome back to the journey home I'm your host Marcus Grodi and our guest tonight is Rob Marco and so I interrupted you when you're being catechized by the Byzantine mm-hmm Eastern Rite Catholic priest yeah so my attraction to it wasn't so much the right this really kind of was like I had a sense of urgency in becoming Catholic and this was the best way to do it so the the priests that worked with me he instructed me in the faith it was a I and so what attracted me would I wanted to back up a little bit and just explain that you know these experiences I had of the Holy Spirit working of encountering the Lord and you know in the woods and in the shows I knew they were real and I wanted to guard them because they were very personal but I you know I knew they were kind of like a pearl of great price you know that when God works in your life in a way that you know is real you want it you want to kind of guard that so you know I didn't know much about Protestant Christian having come from that background I kind of you know I knew my mom's my mom's Church but and I had my best friend but I really would bothered me was I there was no central authority and I had a real attraction to being under under something and he would go to one church and you know they would teach one thing and so I and somebody else would have a different interpretation so I think that's a common kind of struggle for people who were looking for truth and and willing to submit to an authority and and you kind of yeah that point what is true where is where is if such-and-such pastor says is this interpretation that has consequences for your choices so I was a you know the more I learned about the church and you know that she was one so this idea that you could be in I travelled a lot you know when I was in college and being any part in the world and knowing that the mass was the same was it was a big attraction to me and it felt like it wasn't a nationalistic it wasn't you know it was global and you know and supernatural but I could be in you know Russia or Mozambique or Kansas and it would be the same mass so the one and the fact that the church was holy you know I didn't have a lot of baggage about the church like I wasn't I was kind of a blank slate and so I was you know I even some sense but I also recognized a supernatural nature of the Catholic Church that you know as I would discover the sacraments and things later the grace that comes through the sacraments and and everything that that if there's nothing Catholicism is not a denomination it is is that the church that Jesus found and so to talk about it as if it was another denomination didn't I I knew there was something different about it yeah so one Holy Catholic that universality of of a common creed a common you know fellowship of believers that even if there was a diversity in the Saints or a diversity in the communities there was a common thing that bind us together and apostolic so the that was part of the authority part so knowing that this was a faith that was passed down through generations and guided by the Holy Spirit so when I became when I was going through my cases so this was probably September October I about three months and I was getting ready to to come into the church and it was December of 1990 so I I don't know if this is normal or not or not or this is ahead of a door approach but I was reading voraciously I read the Catechism that the priests had given me and some books and things but the the priesthood himself you know I you know it wasn't a great formation I guess because I learned a lot later but that will set the stage for kind of part of my attorney later I didn't really I was so grateful when I was when I walked down that aisle and I did my first confession racine my first communion what's confirmed at the age of 18 I felt like this I had a lot of interests and fads and things like that but I knew that says this was for life we felt like getting married you know marrying the church I knew this was for life so you know my dad came out and he was and I had a sponsor that were in the minute church but to continue on there's really a second part of my journey so when I was when I was at Penn State I there was a great Catholic community there but like I said my formation wasn't I didn't have it developed over time but I was confirmed in like three months and I I got involved with the Catholic community the Roman Catholic community and I'll usually go to the Roman masses - I would go to the Byzantine the Divine Liturgy sometimes but I would I would I got involved with retreats I ended up being a retreat leader for this year's retreat my senior year I went to Haiti on mission trips I was into Saturday night alive in Christ and these kind of things but I wasn't really I didn't know where I fit in the Catholic community because I had met some good people but I wasn't I wasn't a good boy I mean like I didn't feel like I was a good I felt like the community there was kind of a haven and at Penn State there was a lot of a lot of party and a lot of things like that and the the Newman Center there was kind of a safe haven for people who were you know in the faith all right but I I struggled Marcus with with your past life you know and your new creation in Christ that took a lot of gears I had one foot in the door and one foot out and so you know I was I prayed I I never lost a day that I was further than two but because of that lack of formation I really I would continue to party I continued you know I had a lot of encounters that were not you know I had one foot in the door in one foot out so I was trying to maintain my life pre-conversion and have my cake and eat it too kind of basic and it's good you're mentioning that because I think it's more common than people have been I really do even when I was a protestant seminary I knew of other seminarians there on the surface their holy and preaching and all that but they're struggling in their private lives they're not quite like Alma gantries sure but they're still struggling with how do you apply this faith to the reality of life that's exactly right and it had any team you know appetites I mean like you know for just I wanted to experience life I didn't want to be a square religious you know I didn't I wanted to say that they're any kind of I became Catholic and my life before than everything but so for but I will say that my that my priest at Penn State had brought me to st. Vincent's for a weekend because he was a monk who was also a priest and very quickly on I just saw I started I went to this vacation retreat and I never felt the call to be a priest but I did feel that serious Catholicism was wrapped up in being a monk so this was a weekend it was a very powerful experience of praying the offices and living in the monastery and that going back to that wanting to be under a rule and the rule of st. Benedict and the authority was very attractive to me so for for that was my first introduction and it was his name was father Fred and he was our chaplain and he just he planted a seed and he said I was come and see you know and I came with a couple guys we drove out to Latrobe and I I would I would hitchhike out there at times I would visit for the next over the next ten years I visited monastic communities and I thought I was going to become a monk so this was really part of my mica I identify my Catholicism with Manette monasticism and I really I when I read st. Paul's that it's better not to marry because you can serve the Lord I kind of took that to heart so I for 10 years I visited you know I visited st. Vincent's I went to New Mexico I visited Benedictines there and in New York State I did it I did a summer after my sophomore year after college I spent a summer part of a summer as an a location program there and I even I visit the Trappist and Virginia and I even wrote to the carthesian monastery in Vermont because for me you know when you read the history of monasticism this was like a reaction to the worldliness of you have you know Christian so this was if I was going to be in I was gonna be all inand part of that was wrapped up and in becoming a Monken that's where I put all my eggs in my desk I didn't do any internships or anything I didn't I I traveled a lot I hitchhiked places I had that kind of beat that kind of Buddhism kind of thing still lingering so when I applied to be a Pathan at a monastery in 2008 so I I graduated college I had I was working with the poor in the inner city I was running a house of hospitality for men with drug and alcohol addictions and eventually I was working but I always had I was always a visiting communities and I had to get that door open in 2008 I wrote to one of the communities that I you know visited as an observer and I wrote and I petitioned to become postulant and I was rejected i they he I think I the the abbot recognized that I didn't have a vocation and that distress of community life and I I don't know if I would have been a good set but I was devastated i I being a monk was where I saw myself I put all this and and after that I didn't know what to do it wasn't a crisis of faith but it was a crisis of what I do now because I yeah so that was 2008 and I was finishing grad school I was it was a very tumultuous time because it was I didn't know I didn't know what I was supposed to do I there was a time where I I left everything and I saw I've moved on my part I sold all my things I moved into a school bus and I wanted to kind of live a monastic hermit life kind of but it was about that time I met Matt who would later become my wife and the journey really I I takes off from here because she was having a she we met on a Catholic dating site and it was the thing where he kind of answer questions about you know do you believe this and I would say were both six out of seven Catholics so he would answer asked questions about this and my big sticking point like my John six moment when you know it says that this is a hard teaching who can accept it was his birth control now this was not a this was a fear this is a theological thing but it was not applicable to my life at the time when when my wife and I who would be my wife and that later I knew this was becoming this was what this would be an issue later because if you get married and you have children what do you do about children so I was very I struggled with that that was a big thing because I I never had to worry about it before and then when we we got engaged after five months and we knew and she knew after the first date that this was the one and we had she had some Christian friends that were praying for her so I know that there were seeds planted but when we got married we had children you know right away we had two children and after that that's when you know the contraceptive culture you you know you're good you have two children you know you did you and I I started to you guys before this you got more than the American average everything that and this is good so I was raised to be very you know responsible or pragmatic and stuff so that was kind of my attitude but also it was wrapped in fear and pragmatism so after our second child was born in 2013 I started to get like this was kind of a crisis point so I had one point I had I think it was 2015 a couple years later so we were we were not you know in a state of grace but I to be honest with you we didn't know any big Catholic families we didn't we didn't we were we had some Christian friends but they had no problem with birth so when I talked to him they would say you free in Christ and this was not an issue for them but it was an issue for me because I knew it was wrong but I didn't have any examples of how did how does this work so in about 2015 I was I kind of stumbled across a debate between dr. Janet Smith and talk chores Quran and it was it was I think the University Dallas and that was by way of that I discovered her contraception why not and this was kind of a thorn in the side because of a few years before that I was visiting some friends in Phoenix and one had given me a book called the good news about sex about sex and marriage her emergence something along those lines and I read it and I I when I read it I threw it across the room because I he hit hit a hit a thorn or spot was it was giving a faithful Catholic perspective it was arrested for Wes I think broke in so it was but theology the body and I wasn't ready for it but I touched a nerve so that was a couple years before but then this this came up and really the the grace Mary was never I was I didn't pray the rosary Gregory and stuff but I think it was getting to the point of sixteen years of this kind of inconsistencies I think the mother of God really stepped in and the way that happened was when in August of 2016 my wife and I had been married about six years by that we went down to the beach for the weekend and we we went to Mass and we there was a metal in the Pew and my wife picked it up and we thought somebody left that there belong to somebody else and I don't know where the words came from but I said that was that's for you you take it and you bring it home and it was a miraculous metal and I didn't know anything about it at that time and I don't know if there was somebody dropped that planted there or whatever but yeah so we my so that was in August in September my wife my wife's mother passed away suddenly so she my wife had this metal in her purse and on the way to the hospital she started wearing it and it was a that was the first time that this this idea of sacramentals or anything came in at this time in my wife's mother passed away in September in October I had one night I was at the kitchen table when I google Catholic babies fear and it was like keywords and a woman's blog came up who says now a dear friend her name is Leila and she had a blog that was about surrounding yourself to will abandon fear and surrender yourself to to God and it came through the this idea of of trusting the Lord with things so in that was in October and then we were be so we were being our hearts were melting we were starting to I was starting to be conflicted about this and we were really we came to a point where we had we became pregnant and we were we have a loss and this was it was a very strange thing because it was in November and it was the feast of st. Catherine Laboure which was strange because that's that's when we found out but when my wife was was praying in an adoration Chapel that October before she had a heard heard the voice of the Lord that said you will name her Katherine this was before we found out they were pregnant and there was also another instance that kind of gives me chills I think about but before we found out the news she we were in the living room and she she thought our daughter was you know running across the hallway and she said Monica you know don't run and she went up there and and there was nobody in there so she had this this this feeling that something wasn't right and we had a loss and that broke our hearts open because we knew it was kind of like oh what have we done you know because we didn't feel like this you know we weren't using board of patients or anything but that was you lost we lost the child that we when we were pregnant Tom and we but that changed because we felt we were grieved my wife was grieving her mother and were grieving the loss of this child and that started to change things for us because we recognized that life was a gift my wife was 42 at the time so we weren't playing they kept reading about that changed us and then we went on to the mother of God was working and softening our hearts to be open to life and we went on to experience another loss but miraculously you know in May we we became pregnant and it was we were holding our breath full-time and but the pregnancy kept progressing and thanks be to God we have you know a third child now and he was born in January and his name is Christopher and he is our miracle baby so we we were so grateful to the mother of God for that grace that came through the sacramentals we consecrate her family on the 100th anniversary of Our Lady of Fatima to the Immaculate Heart and we're devoted to her we prayed the rosary every day now and we are so I'm so grateful so you're recognizing as a part of your journey that this vertical but you've been kind of all your journey or recognizing there's something more here there's something more here now at this point you're recognizing something which are separated brother don't recognize is the problem of the intercession of Our Lady that's correct she she I think she saw that I needed help or I I knew I needed help and you know bring out the big guns she stepped in in a way that and Mary is so it's something so unique to our faith but she is such a powerful medium of grace and we I recognize her as you know and all the kind of Protestant misconceptions about her you know it's it's she is you know she's a mother with God you know and to have her work in her life with her very powerful would you say then that through all this minimal catechesis and then some you know filling in the gaps that this awakening to Our Lady has brought you closer to Christ it has yeah and you know I try to go to the only Mass every day but aside from the religious practice I found a great community of people on Facebook who were some people I've never met before but they they are Orthodox faithful so I went from kind of a more of a liberal Catholicism to recognizing the the doctrines are important even though it's I saw it as kind of a fair ascetical tying up heavy burdens and laying them on the faithful I read it's for our good and I I was railing against it for Seoul I didn't realize it was you know the the Orthodox beliefs you know or life small is for everything God is as far as it's far a good and so we are you know we are we are living in a state of grace we are graced with children we are evangelize regular a beacon to tell what God has done for my wife and I we shouldn't have met we shouldn't have the children that we have all these things are the work of grace and you know the Sacramento is for us were important in bringing that yeah how would you explain to someone watching that is from a tradition that has no sacrament understand what they are and relationships are the grace that our Lord gives us sure sacramental yeah what I think you know in the same way that in relationship to sacraments of course yeah yeah it does relate because it you know the sacrament of you know the Holy Eucharist is is bread and wine that our earthly elements transformed in a supernatural way to the body blood soul and divinity of our Lord and sacramento's are a meeting them okay so you have to have Derek there ignited by faith and they the mediums of grace can come through that's not superstitious but you know we we wear Morocco's medals and I wear a scapular and it's for me I consider it armor and tools to grow in holiness and to you know to resist the evil one which is you know working in our world and so it might not be in other traditions but I think it's a real gift that you know sometimes you throw out the baby with the bathwater yeah I'm not very good at explaining this audience but I remembered st. Teresa of talking about Sita res and talking about when she's washing dishes or she's mopping the floor that by praying while she's doing it in essence changes that into it of grace so no matter what we're doing Benedictine tradition to that when you're working you're praying everything is working working prayer work in prayer and learning Luxio Divina and things like that every moment that we have is an opportunity to encounter Christ in the poor and to encounter a sacrament of the present moment and to do the will of God and all of those moments so for me those little moments or opportunities to serve the Lord and submit to his will which is always what I always wanted to have that structural already to do that have you found then as a Catholic after all all these years but feeling a committed Catholic the authority you were looking for a constraint to freedom yes well it's funny because in the monastery the abbot gives us a lesson and it came from GK Chesterton but he didn't say that at the time I didn't realize it later but use the analogy of children playing on a mountaintop and in the fog and they were horrid huddled together because they didn't realize where the boundaries were so they were afraid of falling off but when somebody put a fence up they played freely so I think Justin uses that analogy to the boundaries there's the freedom that I was looking for depending on constraints it wasn't like I was a crazy wild person but I have a freedom and a joy in my life I've never had before and it lasts it's it's the well that the woman goes to and that Jesus I'll give you a living water and you'll never be thirsty again that's what it really it's like that map going through the the wilderness that you lost you needed the constraint of that map to know this is the trail but you were free you mean you could have taken off and been creates a lot of anxiety when you don't have that because it's every there's no road there's no path it's very existential and you know the Catholic Church is oh yeah now you have a blog right yeah I do it's called wisdom and folly and that the address is WWF a blog spot.com and it's kind of a light heart it was a nickname from high school but it's I write about Faith Family Catholic manhood chastity and spirituality so it's it's you know I've a regular readership and I invite I love making friends on Facebook so if you find me on Facebook please send me a friend request because that's for me been important and having a support network of other Catholics where I'm not crazy you know these are people with big family that's worth about is faithful and I'm very grateful for to them but it's exciting for you I think to look back and see that those little moments of merciful Grace were for now oh yeah it's what it's you know you don't realize it when you're going through it but looking back and kind of writing it on and turning now these two years initially and I've come back full circle you know to to you know I was searching I've lost and now I'm found I was a prodigal son I've been given the inheritance and I wandered away from it and I've come home and father there's no one that's beyond even if you are Catholic you brought in the church and you know no one is beyond God's Grace's they took the mother caught that coming and sometimes God uses different maybe even weird things like certain rock music or stuff but he's like the old town of heaven poles hurry he's after us Rob think Marcus thank you so much oh thank you so much what again is that blog site it's www table Duff ha blogspot.com very good we'll make sure that's posted so that's it thanks a lot thank you and thank you for joining us on this episode of the journey home I do pray that Rob's journey is encouragement to you god bless you [Music]

Channel: EWTN

Views: 19,519

Rating: 4.9186993 out of 5

Keywords: ytsync-en, jht, jht01620

Id: u5KXqqQScqs

Length: 56min 10sec (3370 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 23 2018