Journey Home - Former Presbyterian - Marcus Grodi with Fr. Fred Werth - 07-25-2011

good evening and welcome to the journey home my name is Marcus Grodi host for this program every week EWTN gives me the privilege of introducing to you men and women who were drawn home to the Catholic Church sometimes with great enthusiasm some sometimes with reluctance depending on their background and I have the pleasure of having a guest tonight that comes from a background that I'm familiar with father Fred Worth is a former Presbyterian so we have a lot in common father Fred welcome to the to the journey home and you've told me through not necessarily a stranger to the journey home oh no it was you you were a big part of the continuing conversion story after actually entered the church and in fact I think at the time we had a different satellite network but they didn't offer any wtn and so I had that taken out and another one put in so that I just so I could get EWTN and I always found your programs are cleverly appreciate that right now I know that the EWTN you know mission is to carry the truth out there and often some think it's primarily to help Catholics understand their faith which is a big course a big party wtn but it's also reaching those outside the church to understand the truth about the Catholic faith so I'm glad that EWTN was very able to help you in that journey so you know what I always do in the journey home I invite you to take a big step back and let the audience know you know what kind of spirituality you had when you were brought up no I was raised to the Presbyterian by my mother my father was part was a searcher I suppose but I would I would describe him as a probable deist and he had also been raised as Presbyterian but had not taken it to any plane he was opposed to formal religious worship part of the comfort but my mother was of a very faithful Presbyterian before the country who brought up in Virginia in the Western Virginia okay and it was a cultural thing for my mother because the generations back as far as you wanted to go to the Reformation were you know Protestant and Presbyterian and so it's something that was part of her that might think about the Presbyterians of that part of the country I kind of think of Scotch Presbyterianism which again is a culture brought with the Scots when they came over and brought it with them that was as much about being a Scot as it got from Scotland as it was to be presbyterian very proud of it yeah yeah yeah yeah they my family my mother at least heralds the Scottish roots and I try to convince them that it also includes Irish roots and they say no no no they think you know it's Scottish but I can assure you that it is also Irish and a great affinity for the Irish but yeah we have ancestors you know they can identify the place in Scotland you know where they look at them from all right so you brought up in the the usual hoops as a young presbyterian yes you would be paid by a cousin or an uncle or something to learn the children's catechism you know that's what I found and I was I benefited from very good study school teachers and some very good ministers so by the time I was a teenager I was probably moving into the first stages of conversion rather than you know rebelling away from it oh okay alright so I went to the you know youth conferences and all that kind of thing and every summer when I was a kid I went to the Presbyterian summer camp you know but by the time I was 18 17 18 19 I pretty much drifted away from that and was interested in the Eastern religions and that sort of thing I would say sometimes never described that all the information came in but nobody opened the door down down to the heart all the way to the heart yeah yeah I mean I was dealing with it fine which will give you a lot of problems yeah unless you got the faith to open the ice of the mind oh so you sometimes actually you know I've often said and father you have a church and I'm sure you have youth and that sometimes I've said you for youth programs if you're gonna try and have a youth program it better be a good one or don't have one at all because if it's a bad one so we can inoculate kids from the faith they get a lot of negatives or information and then and then if it doesn't really convert them then little later they're gonna sue me I don't want this it sounds like that's what happened to you a little bit would you well I wasn't turned off by anything the Presbyterian Church at that the time my later mid to later teen years in fact we had a wonderful minister it's a great preacher very Scottish had a Scottish Scottish brogue and I was very attractive I am listened very carefully you know the what he said I was attracted by his faith but it was just my own inquiry I'm sort of philosophical by nature and interested in and that sort of thing and had a lot of questions that I did not seek answers for those questions with him the church said you got interested in the Eastern religions how's that start in high school oh yeah oh yeah by the time I was 14 or 15 I was you know becoming interested in Buddhism particular mañana Buddhism and then I discovered the book of Dow which as a you know as a religion is even practiced I mean coolest practice but as it practices that but I've not Taoism is a very widespread but okay in China but it's totally as practice is totally different but the the core the core books which is the book of Dow by Lao su and the interpretations comparables by Shuang saw his disciple very small but great how many were great so I'm very attractive to 15 16 17 year-olds and I became it was my own and I don't say I'm doing because it was away laying a foundation okay that I did not recognize so what was appealing about that for you was it did you feels getting more in touch with a God not personally it was it was a you know a very transcendent thing I by nature I tend to deal in general principles and I'm drawn I would say sort of naturally to you know metaphysics and it is very transcendent so it was an attempt on my part to try to grapple with this the existence and being of God okay and in that it's and it's quite poetic alright okay so you were drawn into this did you jump into it with both feet or what you can it was yummy the yarn talus around oh yeah this was an independent you know just you know line of study meditation if you will but it did not I I did not keep me in the Presbyterian Church yeah yes it did it wasn't it drawing me away was myself are as my own exploration well you know it's interesting that at least we Catholics one thing we Catholics believe that not all of our separate brethren believe and that is that God plants within every individual person that has ever existed a desire for God yes and in certain cultures if they're not evangelized that doesn't mean that they don't end up with a religion trying to fulfill that desire for God so we can see parallels it isn't the complete package but you can see beginnings and seeds and growths I mean as you look back would you see that in in that very time of your low absolutely looking back you know yeah when we look back we can see all of these things that God's plan unfolds in your life that you can't see at the time and maybe for many years after sometimes maybe never and this was absolutely foundational for me I didn't realize just as by Presbyterian formal catechesis had been mm-hmm the you know the scriptures the particularly Old Testament it's a good thing I got all the foundation Old Testament that I did when I was a kid because I would not have explored them probably on my own until you know the conversion team came about which was a purely miraculous so the were you rejecting Presbyterianism or just not moving well done over yeah you know Presbyterianism I think most I don't want to paint too broad a brush most Protestant denominations but it's not not so much a question I think in most people's minds of rejecting them it's their their you use them but you move on just like the people who get unhappy in a particular church they'll leave that church go yeah start another church I guess that is you know rejecting but in my case it was just I thought a you know growing away from that yeah there's a sense of it which maybe father that that seems to be the natural tendency of the whole denominational idea anyway I'm sure either confronted with the Presbyterians are rather the Baptist rather the method straight or you say what's really right is getting relationship with God and this group will help me and then maybe this group help me more and then maybe this group will help me more so you're not really rejecting the group because your focus is on trying to get closer to God for you at that point it was outside of the mainstream of what you usually think of in America well but in actually there were some similarities because you know these things really come down to the inner light and it is individual you know it's an individual relationship with God so in becoming interested in Taoism I was only moving I suppose through the inner light you know the grace that God was giving me the knowledge that he was you know giving me to to learn more I mean I think that's also part and parcel of all of how goddesses forming churches and you okay I mean it's really based on your own interpretation of Scripture your own where God is leading you right and therefore it's not bad to split off from this or that you're only you know not abolishing the Old Covenant the fulfilling it in there of knives in that perspective and I was doing the same thing I guess but how long did you stay and well first of all if any of our listeners would they be able to know that their neighbors and taoism Moors anything distinctive about that no and you're not in Taoism I suppose as I said I don't think for I don't know how many a thousand years or more maybe more it's ever been practiced as religion because it's really just a almost a philosophical system okay and but you know anybody who says you know I'm really a Mahayana Buddhist that doesn't they're probably not practicing Buddhism as a formal religion in the sense that it would be in India or China they may be actually in this country because Buddhism is got you know pretty very sure but like Confucianism which is more of a philosophy of ideals right well it became a you know a formal religion practiced not separated much from its roots Taoism on the other hand there's no connection as practiced as religion is no connection with that sorry philosophical so how long were you involved with that then well I I remained interested in it but I that I mean simply the writings where I've been I remained interested in all my life it is not it is not a religion yeah to me it's we're talking about works in which I can see you know layers have receded not inconsistent with Catholicism and attack those metaphysical principles but not a practicing so I was a not of practicing anything as far as practiced religion goes from time I was time I went to college okay peytie so when you're in college it sounds like you're interested in metaphysical did you major philosophy was that your draw yeah especially there I was at a liberal arts major you know some English history philosophy I took VMI Virginia Military Institute was an engineering school also very good liberal arts but they didn't have much in the way of philosophy they had a philosophy department but did not offer it as a major but I took every course that they had in philosophy and I like the you know that was old that was a love of mine and then of course I a cradle Catholic okay from she was in my high school class and family as soon as I came out of VMI was she couldn't be married of course in VMI we got married and what was your perspective towards the Catholic Church growing up that as a presbyterian they were viewed by my family though not clearly stated but implied ly and in comments and so forth that you know Catholics are they're immigrants they're it's a lower class of and it's a really religion you know was papist and so they they certainly we didn't have Catholics in my area so it wasn't any kind of active persecution or there were there weren't enough of them in the area to look down on so we really didn't think about oh you didn't think about them I just really didn't think about him if you if anybody ever brought up the subject of Catholic it you know it would be you know somehow pejorative sense or slightly negative yeah well my people are very gracious they would never consciously and explicitly say anything but it was you know it was pretty clear so we're happy I think that I was or at least I know my father would that's the wonder well even you when you first started dating her was her Catholicism Edition at all for you or didn't make a difference when you first started well we're getting in her direction yeah we we actually started dating very late in high school and saying and through VMI which been very little dating cause it was a restrictive environment but I did not I did not give much thought to it frankly though we had arguments were both very strong-willed people and it was only when we were when I proposed we knew we were gonna get married and I had to go meet father Fahey you know and I was difficult of course I remember camera the exact words but I remember him talking to me which I did not know at that time how beautiful that was on his part that you're gonna erase any children Catholic you know and I said well let's talk about that this is how difficult I was I would say I don't have any objection to the children you know becoming Catholic and I will not stand in the way but when you ask me right now as to the my fulfillment of positive responsibilities say how and probably phrase go and finally is that that would be fine phrase I would just be you drop it all the philosophical categories a lot of pride but at the time as you were then preparing to marry your wife you weren't a practicing presbyterian at the time right you were practicing well I'm not at the church you know I was home of course comes to my mother's thing you did but no I went all right I would stand up and in the you know they they profess the Nicene Creed go out on Sundays just like the Catholics to which I didn't know at the time and of course they don't know what they mean by it but but uh I would stand there silently because I was about 22 were you making a statement I think I was you know I was too much pride and you know and I was maintaining my integrity you know like young people do they don't and you see that a lot I mean you don't want to be judgmental folk but when you see non-catholics sometimes visiting a Catholic Mass and don't partake in the physical aspects of the ritual of course you're afraid there's lots of issues there a lot of is no reason why they can't kneel before our God whether they believe in the Eucharist or not why not kneel but and I know that because I didn't either before I became a Catholic as I was visiting Catholic churches I mean I I don't understand this right you know and and what am i professing if I do make this gesture or say this word and by the time you married your wife you probably had not knelt very often and worshiped oh no Muslims we had knew back when you got married was she a practicing Catholic oh very much she was a faithful god bless her she was a faithful Catholic yes sir and it was when the I don't ever remember it being a question unless it was some special occasion me darkening the door see handling church with her she probably went to she was hurt on her own just until the kids came along okay and then you know parental responsibilities I would but I was not good and I was the world I was a good father I thought I was a good father but there were Sundays when I would be sitting on the back of the horse in the field waving goodbye to mom and the kids going off to church the kids screaming I'm gonna be with Daddy riding the horse you know how good is that that's pretty bad but but normally I would say I I went to church with them it became strong by the mass okay is that how the unconscious started yeah I'm totally unconscious didn't know it's looking back I can tell where the mass straw shoes so when how long into your marriage before you started thinking that the Catholic Church was even a blip on the screen for you twenty years it was sudden we were married for we're married in 1970 and then in 1988 in the summer go into the little Church in North Carolina we were in Virginia we lived the Grayson County Virginia in the entire county there is no Catholic Church so we went across the river into about was about it's about a 35 minute drive from my house in the country to Sparta North Carolina beautiful little mountain place and when st. Francis of Rome George and that fella Raleigh house I think it was his first or second Sunday there and there was nothing different about me when I walked into that church that morning than there had been 10 years before in terms of consideration of the Catholic faith and within though it was that was September August something that I mean no it was like the June July August of the latest and by September I was in his RCIA his little tailor made our CIA program the next March 25th next which was the Easter Vigil I was making the profession of faith so what happened father Raleigh was the Lord it was a miracle I mean seriously everybody I ever knew anybody who ever knew me would have bet the farm against me ever becoming Catholic and I thought it was there was no rational explanation for it but I'll tell you yeah oh yeah please do please I think it was his first son yeah I'm not sure but he hadn't been there long and little Glen Mary priest and he as I walk out of the church I introduced myself politely to him getting ready to go on to the car and going about my business he said Fred Fred worth I've heard about you I'm supposed to I need to come to eat at your house can I come to dinner and so I was patti-anne it had she would already walked out with the kids I think and I smell of course father certainly you know when we tried to come you so what about this evening probably Rawlings great daddy ad head she said Odin tonight sure father and he came over that evening and we went into the front parlor big old farmhouse in the country and talked and I was polite and interested and father Raleigh and I talked for I don't know two and a half hours daddy and finally came as my wife I'm sorry teddy is finally came in and said if you don't stop this and come to supper now it's all not going to be worth eating and that's what stopped us and we had supper and he came back and it was a wide-ranging discussion cuz you were starting out I'm saying you know what's the problem is central problem first of all is God the existence and you know being of God so he started with some isn't just Catholic it's oh no it's it's Christianity oh absolutely yeah oh yeah Christian no no he was starting from Ground Zero with me and he had me every Wednesday night in his RS a program with him a month or two of that and all the way to the spring when I came into the church and in that period of time God opened my heart so that I in my mind sure the heart the faith he put the seed of faith Fair Oaks my my heart to it at least so that I could open my mind enough to be fascinated by what I was learning fascinated so it was very intellectual on one level it could never have happened except for this such a regular opening in the heart well did so this was after the morning mass you would you had come home for dinner with the priest and so it wasn't really anything in the mass that warning had no recollection whatsoever was just like all the other ones you've visited without it yet but I mean really really says a couple things one that the good Lord had not only put a receptivity in your heart for that but it put the spark in this priests somebody's desire to say I'm gonna come home with you it's almost like Jesus talking to Nick it was his name was Zakir it's up in the trees welcome you tonight yeah it was pretty amazing and it was a wonderful wonderful trip but it's so long ago and everything was so gradual it's difficult for me to now to remember I didn't record it keep a diary anything so scripture passages particular events I remember very well going to the program and he had this before the RCIA program had really it has just started and hadn't gotten used you know in Hughes and so he had had been doing missionary work in the mountains of Virginia North Carolina all his life as a glim Mary Leigh missioner I mean home mission and so he had developed his own catechesis that started from Ground Zero went up and for the next four years I I went through his RCA course four years in a row first years brought me into the church then I assisted him with it we taped it I had it on VHS tapes and I think my oldest son may still have those tapes is amazing great program even started with creation well I know you don't remember that the Pacific point-by-point detail that brought you into the church do you remember ever having to deal with the differences in your Calvinist Presbyterian background and your Catholic the things that struck me first or how much I admit in my education because I go into very good schools I've been near the Virginia Military Institute was from fair and good liberal arts school as well as engineering and law school at University of Virginia and which of course not general education but when I discovered through my own first first two months this RCA course I'm just listening within without a third month of it I'm digging on my own I've got a lots of questions and I'm out there looking at stuff I've never looked at before and I realized that in this country in the United States the education right through college leaves huge holes even if you're a you know a history major what you're going to learn from that occurred in the world from 500 AD to 1000 AD it's practically nothing called the Dark Ages what yeah Dark Age oh my goodness so if you had if you take philosophy courses you certainly will hear about Thomas Aquinas what are you going to study anything really no so when I realized the whole the void that was missing in my education I started right then to learn and so I read the ancient fathers you know I remember you like this I am NOT talking no I remember telling father coming in once to the sacristy I think it was before mass father Riley rushed in from this other church you know that's father I've got this great works called the D - and he didn't even know I was tell him all about the dedications and he said don't fret but wait a minute what's this I said I'm probably not saying right I thought it was from the fringe but it's di da CH all the dealing I mean that's how little I nin so from from somewhere in Midway in that RCI course Hong I gave up reading all fiction of course I'm practicing lawyer during this time so I'm very busy and but what time I had for reading was exclusively on the theology of the church the history of the church the ancient fathers especially and so whole rise of the world though the universe was opening up within three years of that how a lot is your wife doing backflips she my wife is very happy yeah but you know like this is probably true of most converse you know within two years of my entering the church you know she's saying it's hard to live with because I knew more about you know church history of many aspects of formal Church theology that my wife did within a year and she'd been raised from childhood as a Catholic when we paused there first part that's a good place to pause then we'll come back because your journey doesn't stop right never stop that's right back this bit welcome back to the journey home our guest tonight his father Fred Werth former Presbyterian you may be following the story so far and wondering but wait he's got a wife and she's jumped she's excited about becoming Catholic but there he is the priest so that's why I said the journey goes on right father so you've left the story you've come into the church couple years you're you your wife is almost saying in a shut up a little bit because you're I excited about the church but I'm sure it's inspiring her to appreciate the faith that she had always had all her life as she and my family is certainly my daughter was very young still very pleased very pleased but not as pleased as I was nobody could really fleece design but yeah we were it was well that was March 25th 1989 the Easter Vigil that year was on March 25th and I was ordained deacon transitional deacon and in the seminary on March 25th all-sec oh but look it was 12 years later that she we were Fox honey in Ireland my wife now got whole family very big and horseback riding we had horses and we did that you know as a family thing and we'd gotten into jumping you know some years before and so I had taken her once before to Ireland for a wonderful foxhunting vacation and we went back the second time in 2001 January 2001 and she came off the horse and sustained massive brain damage and she was she died at least three times on the ground we were well out it wasn't during a fox hunt that chief it's a long story anyway we were out in the hinterlands of Ireland and she was lying on the ground there and we were with very good friends a couple also fox hunting and he was a board certified internal medicine doctor many years experience and he kept telling me you know she's gone Fred but she didn't die and finally she got to hospital and Cork in Ireland there only two hospitals that had neurosurgery Dublin and Cork and so she hid there about 12 hours later doesn't see the long drive from from those two places where you probably were and so anyway multiple craniectomy Zand but amazing that she could even survive but then of course she was in a coma from which he couldn't emerge at her agent with the massive amount of brain damage but she did anyway and so we got her back to United States eventually where she they discovered a brain infection that was the next thing that was going to kill her and she survived that and then we got her to rehab this long story but you know five months after I got back to my home you know for the first time and she had survived she had survived and was conscious and about that time able to move and a year and a half later to make the story very short that this miraculous gift God had given us we were going to celebrate her birthday she was you know she was a great celebrity by that died and we were going to back to Fredericksburg about a five hour drive from our house in the mountains to these same friends celebrate her birthday and on the way back she and she was she had a great birthday party went to mass I was on Saturday night mass Sunday morning and after mass we left we're driving back to our home in western part of Virginia and we're hit head-on by a car truck actually so I'm doing about 60 he's doing about 60 and and he just fared over directly in the car later thought it was probably a suicide attempt oh but it was a choice on his well we can't hurt ya but any minion survived it that well so both my wife and daughter were killed instantly and I was here left in the hospital unconscious and but nobody could have come out of the car alive it would there was nothing left from the front to the trunk and yet I came out alive and we're getting consciousness in a day or two and I was out of that we had lots of injuries you know deflated lungs and all my ribs broke and these kinds of things but nothing absolutely nothing permanent and so that's that's when I had a period of time to sit and think and I was wondering how you ask God please bid through all that period of time I mean that's that's that that in that alone is what sustained me it was amazing and not only that I did not go through the normal grieving period that was God's work he had something for me to do which I had not the foggiest idea but you know looking back on this plane this nose on your face and so I couldn't do anything physically for a month and a half two months and to make a long story short I I'm sitting at my mother's never went back to my family home sitting about mothers and I mean where my wife and children would and praying reading trying to ask God what it was I'm supposed to do now you know my reason for existence is over you know I mean I still have children I have I have some grandchildren and see now I'm not children except for Sally who was 23 when when she died in that car accident the others are grown and gone okay and so now you're alone so I figured there must be something there's no reason I'm left alive right I mean I couldn't come out of the Rick I'm left alive for a purpose I'd better find out what it was hey I was quite serious about that and so I made the resolve to go to a retreat never been on a retreat in my life never done lectio Divina in my life I called up of course father Raleigh and also my pastor father Mark Lawler at that time wonderful wonderful man and yes go on a retreat father Raleigh said go to a Trappist retreat so yes sir go into this can't get into the Trappist retreat so I just went on the internet and I found st. mine roots arch Abbey in Indiana yes they'll take me I call him up they'll take me any time I said I may need to be there for a while I don't know if it's going to be three days a month how long said you come for as long as you want so in January I was going to go the day after Christmas my uncle died had to be with my mother then I actually ended up going got the raw fingers on the 3rd of January so patti-anne at dad's September paddy and Sally died September 22nd 2002 January 3 2003 I'm sitting in the in the monastery and then it would take way too long to take take a couple of programs tell you about the series of miracles that occurred but we under here he's one of them well it began I guess because you began with nothing priesthood right oh no no if I I guess if if I was trying very hard I really was trying very hard to be totally open I don't care what it is you just show me Lord right but we all have our agendas and through total ignorance because I knew nothing of the religious life really I thought must be I must be called to be a monk to be religious right I could be a doorkeeper porter in the monastery but it wasn't really a desire it's just a thought maybe this is what he's calling me to do because I would have thought at that time that I might go into the contemplative life that my god might call me there I now know that would been a total disaster that the Lord knows that you know but so I went there and as I said I can't tell it all but a wonderful monk there he was at one eye and he was his name was mato Bennett these are Benedictines and never been there in my life of course and I told him just that I wanted to discern no gods when I told him I lost my wife and daughter and I was here to look for whatever God wanted me to do and he said have you ever used lectio Divina and I said no I've heard of it but I've never used it so he said here's what we do I give you four readings you know gave me the short course and I'll meet with you again tomorrow and such and so so in my typical fashion I take that bull by the horns and you know I constructed like four homilies but I didn't know that at the time but I wouldn't read exegesis of homilies either these things Rogers working furiously intellectually and inductive in that process that first night from say three of the afternoon until after midnight while I'm pouring over and I'm not saying I did not also pray but I mean essentially was still an intellectual exercise I learned I learned what lectio divina was so by the next the next night next afternoon I was settling in what I was doing I mean I could leak all of the scriptures I was given and the messages I receive but finally on I think it was the I think it was about the third night I was there but I keep saying night I was doing this during the day I was going to Mass I was walking around the campus you know and I was praying but I was also working on this at night and in the late afternoon on about this third day and the I think it was the third reading of that day I was meditating on Psalm 121 you know you have to know that it at say mine words there is this which you know beautiful arch IV but over on the hill not far away is a beautiful little Chapel of Our Lady of Monte Cassino and it's tiny and it's all its walls and ceiling our titles and depictions of Our Lady you know a tower of ivory Help of Christians you know it's absolutely gorgeous and in the front of it there is this crucifix outside directly in line with the front door I think of it as life-size but it's actually not quite well I had been there at least by the second day who had prayed in that little chapel and so on the third day in the late afternoon and I'm I'm just I don't know I don't know that i was praying or anything at that moment I did but I had been meditating on I've been reading Psalm 121 and I hear a voice I have to say interlocution because I don't it was like physical I mean it was like audibly physically hearing the voice but anyway I'm just sitting here dead quiet now here run to Mary and it was so clear and natural that I actually looked around to see who had I mean nobody could have cut in my Lowell room nobody was there and I just said okay I just went but now now I went back to reading to something in you so my mind is actually engaged now I'm not just sort of drifting and I hear louder and insistently run to Mary and I knew I had to get up and move not figuratively run to Mary and I said what am i doing I'll go to the chapel at Our Lady's chapel and the the psalm you know I lift up my eyes to the mountain and this this chapels on top of this little what they call him out I said that's where I will go I will lift up my son I'd got in my car because in some mile away maybe I drove up drove by the chapel pulled directly in front of it nobody's there this a cold windy January day and I look out right part I just parked conveniently in front of it and I look out the one before I even get out of the car and I see that crucifix directly in front of the front door the chapel this crucifix and all I can tell you is that at that moment I knew I was supposed to become a priest it doesn't make any sense I'm 50 55 years old none of that even entered my mind I knew and I got out of the car I walked her directly in front of that crucifix and I lay down with my arms outstretched and form across directly with my face on the ground and finally crucifix I said Here I am okay if this is it very important I mean I know it doesn't make any rational sense but I tell you it was very real and I knew from that moment on without question that I was supposed to go that I was I was supposed to take whatever steps were necessary to become a priest I didn't know I would become a priest I just have that's the path I'm to follow well you know that's what we believe God does communicate that way to us a part of us wants to doubt that in our lives but that's a weeble do believe that God does do and that's it's really is that was a message for you that was the point it was a message for you not for us and not for just it was personal exactly exactly but I'm it was a bit of a surprise for you right to consider the priesthood oh yeah I had not had not considered that of course ahead and I was too old for one thing I mean I mean what will the Lord do with a 55 year old lawyer you know but when that happens when those when when God does grant you that particular miraculous grace for his purposes there any question about it you don't even ask yourself questions at that time it was days later before I would ask myself how am I gonna you know follows path is not going to be possible because the Lord continued to confirm that day all day in the midst of the these are the other miracles and other things which you don't have every barrier melted away yeah I called father Rolly that here I was so excited that even I tried to go back actually dutifully to finish the four three of my lectio divina I was so excited I couldn't and I call father Raleigh that night and said father you're not gonna believe this but I know just listen to me I'm here at this retreat and I found out no no listen I found out that I'm supposed to become a priest you know and I knew he was gonna say that's nice Fred you know and it was his long pause and father Raleigh said I was crying I say that it says Oh Fred that's what I've been praying for mother how's that possible and I came back I I remember asking father Raleigh you know well if I'm supposed to be apprecia suppose weekly Mary priest that's what I've known that's all I've known he said no no suppose people had married priests huh Fred do you go to see father mark my pastor what see father mark I'm 55 years old my wife and daughter just died months ago there's no white right and he said can you go down to Charlotte said sure whenever you say I go wherever you want whenever he took me down to the location of director within a week or so I had met that guy father John Allen wonderful fella had met him for the first time and 1/2 hour into the discussion he gets up says excuse me and gets up because in comes back from using the phone it says I want you to go up to will you go wherever I want you to go to see thing they're not sure whatever you say so once you go to Boston no one should look at this seminary that's the seminary for what the second career pope john xxiii national seminary national seminary for diocesan diocesan canons regular and Dawson priests amazing and when I arrived there the average intern age was my age was about 55 filled with stories this place is filmed the story sure yeah and and you know I had a law practice to shut down a house to get rid of every I got rid of everything we had a lot of things going on and of course my we had a lot of things and it was all accomplished argument of August I was sitting in a chair in the classroom in seminary not possible and then what three years three years of seminary was it 2 3 4 4 years of lawyers major theology yeah these guys you know they're all been in the world for 13 years most of them had college degrees and it's many advanced degrees and but that in itself sounds fascinating I've gone through four years with all these men with all these different backgrounds was amazed to late we had everything I had a full bull colonel in the Marine Corps retired and I got senior Navy chief retired we had would retire diplomats doctors salesmen everything is incredible so how long have you been a priest for years completely I've just completed four years I spent first year as propio vicar and a beautiful wonderful what we consider it large church probably six thousand families well and then I was sent to the mountains to these two little churches as pastor so I got two little churches now with sort of a sort of for community center because we have Hispanic and English in each bolter don't ya okay we have an email here which is a nice email given the journey you've been through comes from Gabe from Nashville as a young person in my 20s I'm having a hard time figuring out God's will for my life are there any suggestions father would give me so I can better know where God is leading me first thing particularly that at any age really the considering myself at least in my twenties to be really open because we think we're being open when we deign to listen or we deign to read something at but we carry all of our prejudices and all our supposition still with us and whether you're a Catholic or not a Catholic if you will open yourself up to be truly hope to what you may learn and you study the Catholic Church the history the theology particularly if you can and I think of course this way I started with the from the earliest church from the Apostolic and post-op suburb Stalag fathers it's an inevitable path which are on one of my favorite scriptures is proverbs 3:5 and 6 I'm wondering if you agree that this is true trust in the Lord with all your heart lean not on your own understanding in all your ways acknowledge him your paths absolutely absolutely yeah we're going to trust in ourselves but he does guide us we will be open we've got to believe just believe that yeah to believe that you really got to believe that there's a personal God you got to believe that God not only exists but is not a purely transcendental entity but has an interest which as humans we can only describe as a personal interest in you these other Eastern religions we're getting close to the transcendental aspect but not the personal reality right the intimacy that a God that would love us so much that he'd died for us you know that become one come on of us I mean the power of that we've got an email from Debbie from Savannah what advice would father give to a couple contemplating marriage but one is a devout Christian practice any religion at all well I was I was in that boat myself and I look back and marvel at the patience and the prayer the goodness of you know the people that were making up for my defects do not expect to convert we know we don't make the people reach the end that God has for them you makes you make sure that your intended spouse is truly not opposed because I think that is a very difficult situation where the future spouse is actually opposed to the religion of the other spouse if you're going that's not probably the case for someone who has no affiliation of their own and just pray for them to you know to be open and let them always see your faith in action who knows how many what influence it did for me I'd have my wife as an example well I was thinking about that you had mentioned that after you had had this awakening at the at the monastery then you found out later that that's exactly what your priest was praying for for you to enter and you didn't mention it but it may have been that your wife had been praying all those years that you would be open to the Catholic faith I know she was somebody she never told me but I think you realize it right yeah I think in terms of even that's what you could this question here you know we never want to give up praying for our spouse and never for their spiritual journey and how God might open open that up father a couple couple seconds to close could you close us with a blessing may Almighty God fill your hearts with his love your minds with the light of his truth may he preserve you in his law protect you in his truth and may he make you and keep you always as his good servants now in an eternity and may Almighty God bless you the father and the Son and the Holy Spirit you

Channel: EWTN

Views: 9,773

Rating: 4.7916665 out of 5

Keywords: EWTN, Journey Home, Marcus Grodi, Fr. Fred Werth, Former Presbyterian, Catholic, JHT01322

Id: z1rncAWAD5A

Length: 55min 6sec (3306 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 26 2011