Journey Home - 2018-11-05 - Dr. Dawn Eden Goldstein

[Music] good evening and welcome to the journey home I'm Marcus Grodi your host for this program and this program exists by the generosity of EWTN of course and it was mother Angelica's inspiration way back when mother thought after she had received so many letters from viewers who particularly were concerned about children and siblings who had left the church that after she had heard my conversion and others she had thought boy if if our audience could hear the stories of men and women who've come back to the church he would give them hope that maybe their children and siblings too would come back to the church and I think that's proved to be the case after 20 years of this program and as with all the programs et wtn it's an encouragement for people to hear that during rough times there's the church during rough times there's the church and her sacraments and her community and all that's here in the church and so that might be a bit of the theme that's gonna run through part of our program tonight our guest tonight is a returning guest dawn Eden Goldstein convert from Judaism etc well we'll talk about that but dawn welcome back to the program now probably need to explain to our audience that they remember maybe when you were on before but maybe the name was it slightly different that's right well I always loved that my parents gave me the middle name Eden so for many years I used that as my professional name but once I received my doctorate in sacred theology from the University of st. Mary of the lake also known as Mundelein because of Mundelein seminary there I felt that because it was thanks to my grandparents emphasis on the value of education as well as my parents emphasis that I was able to get a doctorate I should use the family name so I'm now doing Eden goldstein professionally as well as personally all right assistant professor of dogmatic theology yet holy angels college holy apostle excuse me what saying that holy apostles I think it's a holy angel - tree somewhere right there is also a holy angels seminary that's that's right so but also I want to mention that dawn Eden dot blog spot.com is the site where they can go find out more that's right about what you're doing all right well what I normally do with returning guests is I invite you to give us a shortened summary of your journey for those that didn't see the original program though you were on in 2012 so that's available on EWTN website as well as the coming home Network website and YouTube so you might you to remind us of how the Lord brought you into the church sure sure I'll be I'll be delighted to that there are two stories that that I tell and what is simply about how the word brought me into the church and the other has to do with some of the suffering I went through and in childhood and I'll combine those four for you because because I know that you know in our program today we're going to speak about about suffering as well so I was born into a Jewish household reform Jewish so the most or the more liberal branch of the faith and when I was when I was five my parents split up I was raised my sister and I older sister Jennifer and I were raised by our mother and it was just at that at that time also when I was five that I suffered sexual abuse for the first time I was molested by the janitor at the temple that my family attended and I was afraid to tell my mother about it the janitor said keep it a secret and like many child victims and adult victims of abuse I blamed myself and so and then when I finally had the courage to tell my mother she went to the rabbi and the rabbi called in the janitor and it was his word against mine and the rabbi believed him and then a few years later I suffered abuse in different ways that at home particularly from one of my mother's boyfriends more than that it was the 1970s now I'm not using that as any kind of excuse because I know some some people have used the blame Woodstock I excuse for for abuse and I'm not saying that but certainly I was not the only child in the 1970s who lived in a household where adults were experimenting with all sorts of things including household nudity I only learned as an adult when I started to research causes of post-traumatic stress after I was diagnosed with PTSD that it's not only contact abuse that can cause post-traumatic stress it's also non-contact abuse because children aren't prepared to see adults practicing household nudity or making sex talk around children that sort of thing and so these are various wounds that I suffered but I still was serious about my Jewish faith until my Bat Mitzvah at the time when I was when I was received receiving guidance being prepared for as one properly says becoming a Bat Mitzvah meaning I believe means daughter of the Commandant that's the rite of passage that that Jewish youths I go through to become an adult in the Jewish faith for a woman at spot Mitzvah for a man Bar Mitzvah I had one of the most difficult Torah portions of the liturgical year my Torah portion that I was to read in Hebrew and comment upon and here I was at the age of 12 going on 13 it was the section from from Deuteronomy I think it begins in chapter 22 it's called in Hebrew key Tate say and it's all these laws on purity and so I had things like cursed is he who hangs from a tree and I didn't know what this meant I thought it was rather cruel to curse someone who's already hanging from a tree sounds like it's adding insult to injury and I remember asking the rabbi about these things and the rabbi basically said not in so many words don't you worry your pretty head about that stuff what he said was that there were scholars who spent years studying these things and I really didn't have to worry about this just get through my Bat Mitzvah and what I really took that as was a message that even though I was supposed to be becoming an adult in the Jewish faith I really wasn't an adult I really wasn't respected and so that put me off from Judaism and I was also entering my teens which is when you know childhood trauma can begin to manifest itself in my case I began to suffer from cyclical suicidal depression which plagued me through my teens and 20s I had the temptation to self-harm by cutting and so it was right at that time that I started to think well where was God can God really love me if I'm feeling this pain and I still didn't connect the pain at that time to childhood abuse I just thought you know I must be a bad person to be suffering this pain and God must not love me and it seems like there's nothing I can do to make things better I've been as as a teen in college I entered college a year I graduated high school year early entered college New York University at 17 I was living on Washington Square Park in New York City although I was never into drugs or drinking I definitely was seeking to self-medicate through through relationships through just wanting to be appreciated I should say relationships and and affairs with with with men really wanting love and thinking that the only way I could get love would be if I if I was sexually attractive to men and available to them I think I also had wounds from my parents divorce and my father being distant at that at that time I became a rock-and-roll journalist eventually a rock and roll historian I still love that era I don't know Marcus if you ever were into you you're a bit young young for this but if you were ever into the music of the 60s that's what I was I I was even into the music of the 50s so I'm a been around a bit played in a band called The Strangers in the 60s so a lot of times called the screams that was one of the were popular names there was a band in Greenwich Village that used to play the Cafe Wha so I became a rock historian and I interviewed artists like Brian Wilson from the Beach Boys Harry Nilsson Del Shannon Gene Pitney Lesley gore I also interviewed some artists that were newer from beyond my era like Elton John I was very much a music snob at that time thinking that I would just specialize in the music from just before I was born from so from the guitar that I have at home was designed and played by Deniz agar who wrote the the the most famous one-hit wonder he wrote yes that's back in the 68 69 I think that was right about right about them that's that's right I think it may not have actually peaked on the charts till 1970 it was just on the cusp Wow very good very good so so I loved loved that that music that brought me brought me joy and you know I can honestly say joy in the sense that that anything that God God can use certain worldly things that are not in themselves sinful to give us a taste of the goodness that that we will experience and it's in its fullness in heaven and there were certain songs there was a bad that I was into that was actually called the Millennium that had these songs that you know even though they were new new age these were songs that we're looking to an ideal time and ideal yes actually I actually knew pieps slow and in an interview to MPF Sloane who wrote Eve of Destruction Barry McGuire biggest hit so I so I that was where I was getting you know the closest thing I had to joy at that time and it was through my love of rock and roll that God you know just found that or made that you know crack in the door to begin to reach me with the grace of conversion I just want to mention that our guest is dawn Eden Goldstein well one thing you're pointing out that and what is good is of God yes what is good is of God even the no God can use a great variety of you know the song that came out at that time what the world's needs now is love well yes no we have we need the church to help us make sure we understand what love is all about but the church the world does need love and what that song said was true but it needs to be in the context that that's right and so when I was 27 back in December 1995 I was doing a telephone interview with the rock musician from a newer band called the sugar plastic his name was Ben ash buck and I thought I would ask him a really bright question because I was looking for affirmation and so I thought I'd show him how smart I was by asking him what he was reading lately now you may recall I didn't notice at the time but but CS Lewis spoke about how dangerous books can be because they can lead you out of you know your atheism or agnosticism in my case I was a card-carrying agnostic by that time in the 90s and so Ben Ashfaq told me that he was currently reading a book by an author I had never heard of I'm sure you've heard of him GK Chesterton and the book was called the man who was Thursday and I thought well I'll go out and pick up this book so that when mr. Ashbaugh comes to town I can impress him by telling him I've read it I had no idea that Chesterton was this great Anglican convert to Catholicism and so I just started reading this novel and when I got from it was this powerful theodicy this this kind of discourse it was it was an exciting spy novel on one level but on another level it was a powerful discourse on evil on where is God when we are suffering and it ends with this suggestion it's very subtle it doesn't hit it didn't hit me over the the head with a hammer you know but it ended with this suggestion that God himself in Jesus Christ had interior knowledge of suffering and I had never heard that before as a Jew hearing Christians talk I just thought of Christianity's being very triumphalist very about you know the victory and I hadn't thought of Christianity as being something that might give meaning to suffering unfortunately learn an awful lot of Christians that don't appreciate that aspect of the faith either I mean that's like you said when you get outside the boundaries and you start reinterpreting what the faith means outside of the boundaries of the church you can you can have a Christianity without suffering and there it's out there and and that's a big point about the Catholic faith as well as the Saints that we draw attention to that suffering is a very important part of our grown closer to Christ it's so true and as a student of theology when I began to study the Second Vatican Council I learned that the bishops extraordinary Senate of 1985 said that one of the most important messages of the council that needed to be taught was the theology of the cross yeah and then one of the most difficult passages in the New Testament for many of our non Catholic Christians is Colossians 1:20 for you know how Paul says I celebrate I I rejoice in my suffering and complete what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ for the church in equation wait a second you know how do you understand that well John Paul after that wrote an entire cyclical yes on that passage you know yes that's right and I actually I actually wrote an entire dissertation that I did my dissertation on on recent Catholic Magisterial teaching on redemptive suffering from Pius 12th to the present day and what I found in studying what the Church teaches about that is that is that our Lord Jesus Christ suffered in time and he and all the power of redemption comes from His redemptive act on the cross and since we are members of his body we continue his redemptive suffering in our lives so the way I like to say it in my book my peace I give you healing sexual wounds with the help of the Saints is that Jesus suffered for us but he's not yet suffered in us I he wants us to say yes to to uniting our suffering with with his so that our suffering through always through his power might become adaptive as well that was a saving truth for me you know the thing that that I've learned it's taken a long time it's maybe because of my metal denseness obtuseness but but the the beauty is when we look at the lives of the saints and even some of the writers is that suffering is essential for our moving forward in holiness and Paul talks about that Romans 8 but because God loves us he also as it says in first Corinthians gives us what we can handle and the grace necessary some people are given more suffering than others and rather than get the dangers we get caught up in why me why me rather than saying okay Lord why me why me in other words you've see something in me that needs to get cut out really badly or I need to surrender more or it's he buddies the goal always is drawing us closer there's or there's someone whom I would like God to save and God is permitting this suffering so that through my prayers he might save this person there's something beautiful that Pope Francis said recently in I believe a Wednesday audience he said that the question that God eventually brings us to is not why I'm suffering but for whom am i suffering and maybe to me the most powerful most deep statement in scripture about the life of accepting suffering is John the Baptist simple statement I must decrease he must increase for that to happen takes some stuff to get cut out of me and letting go right I mean that's it's it's so true I so the rest of my journey to Catholicism went from reading Chesterton for about four years I was a hard nut to crack I didn't come in right away then becoming a non-denominational Church I got baptized actually I became did I say that became a church I became a non-denominational Christian actually I was baptized in an Adventist Church but I asked if I could not make the Adventist promises and just be nondenominational and the pastor kindly agreed I was determined to be ABC anything but Catholic my mother had actually entered the church back in 1986 that was fourteen years before I was baptized in 2000 but by the time I was baptized long before my mother had fallen away and so from her I had the impression that you don't have to be Catholic to be Christian which strictly speaking is true what I didn't know is that is that the Catholic Church truly is the church that Jesus founded and only here are the sacraments that come to us from his beating heart so eventually after church shopping I became drawn to the church really through its teaching on life and the dignity of every human life and interestingly enough God even used the scandals to help to bring me into the church in 2002 a couple of years after my baptism I was in this G K Chesterton reading group in New York I was one of the only non-catholics in that reading group and i remember mentioning the scandals in the reading group and my impression was that catholics just thought that the scandals were concocted by the media which hates the church I thought that the Catholics thought that the scandals were just a lot of wind so I mentioned this in the group I said to to the Catholics there I said I know you don't think that the priests sir really abusing and they said what are you talking about of course we believe you know these reports and I said really because when I see Catholic spokespeople they just say it's that the media hates the church and they said no this is our church we want it purified we want these things to come to light so that there can be a purification and reform and that made me begin to take the Catholic Church's claims seriously and then as I learned what the Catholic Church teaches about the dignity of human life from conception until natural death and I began to study what abortion really is what in vitro fertilization really is and why the Catholic Church stands firmly against these things because the Catholic Church believes that every child has the right to be be born from the union of its parents and every child has the right to be born that drew me into the church through a story that I tell in the 2012 episode of journey home that's available on YouTube and which you know just four lengths sake I won't go into now when I was working as a headline writer and copy editor for the New York Post I found myself given a story to copy edit that was Pro IVF and I wrongly altered it to make it pro-life I say wrongly because I didn't ask permission I should have asked permission and then if I were fired for refusing to copy edit this this Pro IVF story I would have done the right thing instead I tried to change it into a pro-life story without telling my bosses and I got fired not only for that but also more the bigger reason why I was fired was that I had a pro-life blog which was discovered at that time I might imagine that writer going out for a drink after work and then someone said hey I didn't know you were probably the reporter was furious but now I can thank her I can sit here and I can thank Susan Edelstein of the New York Post for getting me fired and call Alan who was who was the editor-in-chief then for throwing me out of his office and saying you are a liability you know now I can say praise the Lord you know Genesis 50:20 for you meant it for evil but God meant it for good that's that's how I feel about them now and so that that you know drove me into the Catholic Church being fired by the post because I kind of thought wait a minute I've just been martyred for life and it's kind of stupid to be martyred for defending the dignity of the unborn and not be in the church that's been making martyrs for the dignity of human life for 2,000 years so praise God I entered Easter Vigil 2006 and then I became an author I wrote my first book on chastity for grown-ups who missed the memo on abstinence the thrill of the chaste finding fulfillment while keeping your clothes on I I wrote that while I was in our CIA and I later rewrote it in a Catholic edition for Ave Maria pres and then I went on to study towards my doctorate in sacred theology and I wrote two books on healing from trauma the one I mentioned earlier my peace I give you healing sexual ones with the help of the Saints and a more recent book of Ignatian spirituality for healing of memories called remembering gods merci you know we get back that's one of the first things I want to talk to you about and that is you know and we don't want in any way make light of the hurt that that people feel but want to get back um I talked about how in fact there's an edge to when a scandal happens publicly or this made public that it has a way of helping people heal who had the stuff down yes in their lives it gives them a chance to maybe talk about that when we come right back and for those of you that are watching just a reminder if if any of the things that we talk about in this program including someone's becoming open to the church touches your life and you'd love to discuss more and how you'd like help on that journey please call the coming home network or contact us at the CH network.org website CH network.org you'll see information on on the on the on the screen on how we can help you on your journey home to the journey [Music] [Music] welcome back to the journey home I'm your host Marcus Grodi and our guest is dawn Eden goldstein and so we've other than my interruptions and they're really interruptions I helped you get through your story but I wanted to come back to this issue of I mean here we are in a time when people are saying you know how the church get so bad and in some ways I jokes it well so it's that we just found out more right and I've always joked that you know if you think the church is bad it got worse when I joined it you know we're all sinners so we're not standing your pointing fingers at anyone but we're trying to help people understand how to deal with it and it's in the news as you were talking about earlier in your interview with people that sometimes go on the news that don't represent the church very well but just before we took to the break I wanted to talk about how in fact a scandal can offer channels of healing for people because it helps them deal with stuff in their life that they've kept down that's right so I have knowledge of this just from my own experience of interacting with readers with the with writing my books on healing from trauma my peace I give you remembering God's mercy I found that with my peace I give you which is a not graphic but frank book on recovering from childhood sexual abuse about two-thirds of readers would get through the introduction which is where I again not graphically but frankly speak about my own abuse and this these two thirds of readers would then just put down the book for about three months and then they'd pick it up again some of them would at least and those who made it all the way through would then thank me they'd say oh it's so helpful but what I realized was that they not yet really begun to address their own abuse they had not yet really begun to admit they were abused that the first step to healing is to say what happened to me was abuse it was wrong it was not my fault I need help and that's the hardest step you know this is similar to the first step of Alcoholics Anonymous other 12-step programs which were I which certainly AAA was developed by someone who had had an encounter with Christ and who also received some guidance from a wonderful Jesuit priest father Edward Dowling that's the first step to admit that one needs help so I ended up when I wrote remembering God's mercy leaving out any discussion of what I suffered to make you just gentle so that that's the the soft introduct introductory book so that if people can get through that which thankfully they do then they they're ready for the previous book I wrote my peace I give you so in answer to your question I think that when people read stories about abuse not only clergy abuse but other stories of abuse that have come to light in recent weeks and months they can begin to process what was done to them as abuse and then begin to get help entered a healing and by help I mean help for every aspect of the human person because we're not just mind we're not just body we're not just spirit we're all three so if a person has suffered any kind of trauma to get the best the fullest healing they need not just psychological help not just medical help if they have some physical symptoms because there are certain diseases like fibromyalgia that are linked to childhood trauma but they also need spiritual help help from meeting Christ through a close relationship with him in the sacraments the Word of God and and also you know I've certainly found myself that my own healing has really been aided by regular spiritual direction as well as a professor of assistant professor of dogmatic theology you know I find interesting thinking about the boundaries that dogmatic theology talks about the of the truth so we understand yeah it's very important because throughout the centuries people help dealt with sins of the flesh in different ways there are some that said that no more of a gnostic perspective that what I do with my body on the one hand could they could say it's the body is completely bad anything I do with my body ultimately is bad all that counts is my spirit my soul so they can have a mentality that almost shuts down the body or any relationships because it's bad it's all about what's going out of my mind the other extreme is doesn't matter what I do with my body it's only what I do with my mind that makes sense so whatever I do with my doesn't matter so they had these complete Gnostics dreams but dogmatic theology teaches that no we're body and soul that's for one person the importance of understanding that - dealing with the aberrations in our culture it is it's very important and I think our culture really lives this Gnosticism we see this in the post sexual sexual revolution idea that people should be free to do whatever they wish sexually with with their bodies and not have any kind of dogma telling them that it might harm them and certainly I was victimized by that mentality I'm not refusing to take responsibility for sins that I committed when I when I was an adult and conscious of my action but I was influenced by that mentality thinking that if I'm engaging in unchastity and unfeeling emotional spiritual pain from it thinking well in the culture is telling me that in that case I'm doing it wrong because if I'm doing this this sexual activity right I shouldn't be feeling pain well as I say in the thrill of the chased in fact in fact that is what does normally happen if one is engaging in sexual activity outside of marriage or any kind of unchastity and unchastity you know married people have to live chaste ly as well according to to the duties of married life and so what normally happens in the order of one of things is that one does feel the pain that comes from from sinning and it's a sick culture that teaches people that they have to numb themselves from the pain that comes from from sin so as I studied what the Catholic Church teaches about about chastity I and about the unity of mind body spirit I found this actually makes sense with my personal experience a teacher of dogmatic theology teaches that the spiritual battle the battle that every single one of us goes through traditionally has been described with three things the world the flesh and the devil we live in a culture that doesn't believe in that third aspect and if you leave that third battle out so that our only battle is with the world and with the flesh you set yourself up you set a culture up for a losing battle and individuals and I was thinking especially in your case in the sense of when you went through the cyclical suicide if you don't realize it's a spiritual battle on going on with that third part of the enemy trying to get you and you know then you don't realize that then it's either just me it's just a way that I am or I've only picked it up through my environment the word old or it's a part of me I can't help it the flesh do you realize there's a panel or the idea that God hates me because because the the devil you know even the devil will cite scripture for his purpose and so if people are even thinking about God he may try to convince them that they're hopeless cases that there's nothing they can do to attain God's mercy oh yes I don't know who said it I'm sure you do that that one of the devil's greatest tricks is to try to convince people that he the devil doesn't doesn't exist that's certainly what we're seeing in our culture and you know as Catholics we do have to be balanced as as st. Ignatius of Loyola says our acts can be inspired by either the good spirit which is to say the holy spirit the bad spirit which is the enemy or ourselves so you know we we can't you know always say the devil made me do it but I now know as I look back on on you know before I knew I knew the love and mercy of Jesus Christ that there was a spiritual battle going on and that was aggravating the pain from my cyclical suicidal depression yeah we can joke use cartoon to joke about the little guys in red suits on her shoulders and angels and her shoulders and say oh yeah murder there's a kid that's just a big joke it's all myth or old good old Flip Wilson saying ah yes I do but there's truth there though there's truth there and that's the way the devil laughs is that if we can belittle doubt the devil then he can continue to whisper in our mind especially people that are discouraged or they've had things happen to them and then in the end the devil can get them to be convinced that they're not worth it that God doesn't love them that there's not a salvation that is not hope yes that does that can't happen and you know thank thank God as I believe uh st. Paul says God gives more grace so God always has far more grace you know available then anything the devil can throw at us and I now know particularly from my research on on the theology of suffering that God never positively wills that anything evil should befall us he only permits evil because in His divine providence he can bring good out of it I I from time to time have the blessing of getting together with family I have cousins who are women about my age and when I see them you know they're they're still they still can consider themselves Jewish to the best of my knowledge they didn't suffer trauma such as I suffered in childhood and they're reasonably happy so that really helps me because I see a comparison and I and I see that I could have been reasonably happy had I not suffered abuse and I would have remained a practicing reformed you I'm always be Jewish in my identity and so what what I see is that I know that even on my worst day as a Catholic even when I have a flashback and I'm suffering PTSD I still feel a joy within that I didn't know on my best days before I knew the love of Christ in His Church and so I can thank God now for His divine providence because if I hadn't suffered those traumas I don't know that the Lord would have made me realize how much I need him how desperately I need him so you know in that way as we were saying before with Colossians 1:20 for I can rejoice in my sufferings Dawn eaten gold as our guest today talked about if you would excuse me there are three things that have helped you through this and maybe more but three basic things that helped you and talked about how they can help others in the midst of it you talk about truth you talk about the sacraments you talk about prayer seems like those three things are really key to help a person through a difficult time very much so first the truth is being honest with ourselves about what we have suffered or what we are suffering truth also means recognizing the demands of justice you know Saint Maria Goretti is one of the great Saints for victims of abuse and she's rightly held up as a saint of forgiveness but there are a couple of things important to notice number one when Saint Maria Goretti forgave her attacker he wasn't holding the knife up to her at the time that she forgave him she wasn't forgiving him while he was actively abusing it was at a time when he could no longer harm her that she forgave him so forgiveness is not excusing the evil it's not enabling the evil and and as the Catechism tells us not in so many words but if one looks up forgiveness in the Catechism one sees that forgiveness is not the same as reconciliation ideally it leads to that but the Catechism says that forgiveness is interior moreover it's not our work thank God it's the work of the Holy Spirit in us and it's an act of the will I mean yeah cheese you don't like feel yes exactly but I think about those remember the Amish families that lost all those those girls that were shot and yet they forgave the man well it's an act of the will it's a choice of that or John Paul when he forgave the man who had shot exactly that's why our Lord tells us that it's 70 times 7 that we that we forgave it maybe 70 times 7 forgiving the same person the same thing in the same day as often as it comes to us we will to forgive and it Saint Maria Goretti also even as she forgave her attacker she described him to the police so that he could face the demands of justice so that's important justice and mercy are not opposed they're two sides of the same of the same coin and I think another aspect about truth is that and this is a different aspect than what you're talking about the truth in other words what we in the midst of a scandal we don't see the church fudging truth that's right to fit what a few leaders might think the direction it should go no this is what's true that's why we're Catholic because we see this continuity and the authority behind what is true about life and when the church holds to that aim amen yes and that was very important for me and entering the church seeing the church's consistent witness to the dignity of every human person and the dignity of every human life consistent over 2,000 years so the second thing that you mentioned the sacraments so I didn't really understand the power of the sacraments until I became a Catholic I envied those people who say as they were Protestants I think Scott Hahn is one of these people that as soon as they saw the Eucharist being celebrated in a Catholic Church they knew that was Jesus I didn't automatically know and even today every so often the Lord will give me a grace where I will really feel in a sensible way that's Jesus but you know more often than not I say you know at you know the elevation of the Eucharist I believe Lord help my unbelief that's a good prayer I think we should all you know pray that prayer as needed on an as-needed basis but once where I really began to believe in Jesus real presence in the Eucharist was when I began to see the effect it had on my life I remember when I was first getting treatment for Pete SD which was as a Catholic it wasn't until until I was 40 that I was diagnosed with PTSD it's often misdiagnosed in fact even what I had that was diagnosed as cyclical suicidal depression was really PTSD with my receiving Jesus I was healed of the suicidal aspect praise God because I I knew that God loved me he had a purpose for me I couldn't even think of harming myself anymore but I still would get flashbacks tyrannous anxiety so I remember when I was beginning to deal with this in therapy also in spiritual direction my spiritual director said to me gently why don't you make a novena of daily masses and I now realize that was his pretty way of trying to trick me into getting hooked on daily Mass and I have to say my healing really got jump-started with daily Mass and of course if one is receiving the Eucharist often one wants to remain in a state of grace so that one can receive the full effects so I began to follow st. Francis DeSales advice about confessing making confession every two weeks more often if I need it but you know as a general rule of thumb every two weeks and that's when I really began to see the effects of grace in my life and finally prayer before we go they always would add one thing that because you mentioned that proof that wonderful prayer I believe Lord help my unbelief I sometimes think that yeah we've had some guests on the program I think of dr. Kenneth Howell particularly who when that was it once he saw the host he knew and and God almost infused a love and praise God it doesn't happen for all of us and I think it's especially those of us that have a long history as a Protestant pastor long history as a pastor that only believed in the Eucharist as a symbol at best that we sometimes carried that as a suffering to offer it for the many who because of the barriers in their life would never be open to the sacraments and so Lord picked this for them that maybe by grace they might be open to the beauty of the sacraments because we put so many barriers to people out there and it's not helping now because of a scandal in church that might even be a bigger barrier to them being open to the sacramental Grace's so that's our way of saying Lord okay I pray for you please give me a deeper understanding of but really please help them you know it's so interesting to hear you say that Marcus because I do have a similar prayer when I'm confronted you know at the elevation with my desire I wish that I could be like the Saints who actually saw the Child Jesus being held up you know when I'm confronted with that desire and and I get you know frustrated why don't I actually see Jesus then rather than remain in that frustration I think well I am going to offer up this vision of of the Eucharist for the holy souls who in purgatory who longed to see his face I will offer it up for all the people in countries where they're persecuted or in places where they don't have regular access to a priest and to the Eucharist and I will ask God to take whatever graces I'm receiving just from looking at the Eucharist and to give it to those people no no the third point on prayer I mean you've already been talking about it yes ask an Scripture very very important reading Sacred Scripture daily lately I've been spending way too much time on a computer screen I teach online now and I'm also completing my my next book which is my conversion memoir and and so I find that I need to do as Pope Francis says carry the Gospels with me a small book that fits into my purse and when I'm on the metro train in Washington DC instead of taking out my my phone when I can get service underground instead just taking out that Bible and making time at different points in the day to read and definitely to be in habits of Prayer as well when I think about prayer in the midst of suffering that can be sometimes the most difficult time Wow to really turn to prayer when you're angry and bitter and I think about some of the Psalms that David wrote and you're wondering I'm trying to imagine him writing this Psalm like someone thirty out of the depth yeah to be read in front of a midst of a bunch of people that you're expecting them to have some common liturgical statement of be pleased O Lord to deliver me O Lord make haste to help me let them be put to shame and confuse you to seek my life led to be turned back and brought to the side who desire my hurt but to be appalled because of their shame you say I mean he's just gotten it out there because this is exactly what many people feel did the Psalms themselves and help you in your life from Judaism into Christianity yes one thing that definitely was a prelude to my encounter in Christ was reading Psalm 27 every day I was at a job where I was being persecuted for being Jewish my boss hated Jews and it didn't help that I said to him I was an agnostic he persecuted me just the same and so I thought well gosh there must be something good about being Jewish if he's persecuting me so I asked my mom who by then was identifying as a Messianic Jew so a Jewish believer in Jesus what to read she said Psalm 27 I also just want to tell you just as an aside since I mentioned that my mother was away from the church that my big prayer since entering the church was that was that my mother would return to the church and that my stepfather who was at that time also also a Jewish believer that he would come in with her and the just this year praise God after 20 years of marriage my stepfather entered into full communion with the church I'm now his his godmother so so my stepfather jokes that he's his own grandpa which is true yes and the pastor father Joe at Saint Antoninus in Newark I think he was the one who joked that I was was now my mother's God mother-in-law so I now have have the Catholic family I've always wanted of course now that means I have to change my main intention now I'm praying for all my other relatives all the Jewish people to know this joy in Christ it's not wanting them to stop being Jewish it's wanting them to understand the fulfillment of the Covenant that God made with the Jewish people in the New Covenant and in the Jewish Messiah our Lord thank you John maybe one more thought you you're teaching online at a seminary now and you've taught a couple seminaries you studied at seminaries maybe maybe for our prayers what's your experience with those who are studying at seminaries concerning what's going on in the church not any special prayers we should offer for those men on the journey we should definitely pray for pray for them and we should pray that our Lord uses these events to help them to enter more deeply into the identity that they will have as a shepherd you know on the one hand the sacrament of Holy Orders imprints upon them the character of Christ the priest so there there is a change in being an ontological change as we say but there is also a psychological a spiritual change that the years of seminary formation are intended you to enable so to pray that the seminarians use this to enter more deeply into the heart of Christ the Good Shepherd God thank you thank you so much Lord bless you and your your continued teaching and your writing and all the ways that God is using the possibility for his service thank you thank you so much thank you for joining us on this episode of the journey home I do pray that Dawn's journey is an encouragement to you god bless [Music] you

Channel: EWTN

Views: 13,003

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Keywords: ytsync-en, jht, jht01633

Id: ACp2eQAQ7-k

Length: 56min 10sec (3370 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 07 2018