Journey Home: Fr. Guy Roberts - Former Lutheran Seminarian

good evening and welcome to the journey home my name is Marcus Grodi your host for this program and for a number of years EWTN has given me this privilege of bringing to you men and women who because of their love for Christ were drawn to a deeper relationship with him through his church and they're here to talk about their journey and often on a journey they didn't ever intend but are now greatly grateful by the graces that open their hearts and minds for the fullness of the church our guest tonight his father guy Roberts former lutheran and he's here to share his journey father guy welcome to the journey home thank you for program it's a pleasure to be it's good to have you here I know actually you've been on our list have on a program for quite a while so glad we finally got you under was supposed to happen a long time ago when I was a Dean maybe a year and a half or two years finally just think the paperwork got misplaced and and so I'm just glad to be here now so we'll see how my story compares to date that might have back at that time well it's also interesting as you know father that it's God's timing right that's sometimes the way our life goes through a variety of things and we really wait for God's invitation anyway even in service so but normally on the program the first thing I do is get out of the way and invite you to go way back to the beginning and give us a summary of your own spiritual journey okay I think definitely began with my parents they were the ones that taught me about our Lord Jesus Christ and thinking back I don't recall ever a time in my life when I didn't know the name of Jesus and my earliest memories just praying with mom and dad before bed at night and interesting on the way over I was thinking about some of those early memories because I knew you would probably ask that question and interesting the way God works in our hearts and minds but I remember praying at night before bed and in my mind there was always this vision of what I didn't know at the time was a big marble altar and there was a gold treasure chest and when I would pray I would see that in my mind and I never been in a Catholic Church at that point but I saw this gold treasure chest I now know that it's that's the Eucharist and this was an altar that the guy was calling me to even at that time so so started with my parents I remember earliest memories my mother setting up the nativity scene and telling me okay this is st. Joseph's as Mary and this is a baby Jesus and the wise men and my mother could tell you I was a Vacation Bible School fanatic and in the summer time I would go to all the different Vacation Bible schools and the time I was four years old I get on the bus and they used to have the bus service and pick me up and I'd spend maybe three or four weeks in the summer going to Vacation Bible School so I think looking back as a young man you wouldn't have picked up the nuances from the the methodist bible school or the Baptist or the Presbyterian or the Lutheran I was just I was just happy to be going to God's house where that happened to be and learning more about the Bible and you write at that level there's not a whole lot of difference in teaching the children is basically the Bible stories I know so as I continued to get older I really became the priest of the family I was the one who led the household prayers at mealtime and when I was old enough before bed and usually if there was some question about the Bible they began to come to me with it and when I was in junior high I attended a Baptist junior high school my parents had tried a lot of churches when they first got married and ended up going to Baptist Church so I was raised as a Baptist and went to Baptist junior high school and was very impressed by the Bible teacher there who also was a farmer that lived nearby where I was raised and so I knew him outside of the school as well but just his knowledge of the scriptures he could go back and forth and find things in the scriptures and so for an early age I said I want to be like mr. Smith and he's deceased now God rest him but but just his knowledge and love of the Scriptures and his ease with working through them and applying them to life which would have been a big part of your Baptist upbringing right definitely I mean Scripture preaching Bible study memory verses and a little card cards with the but with the spiral bindings and every week we have a two or three different memory verses to write out and from your background you probably had the same thing and have a test on on Friday had to memorize a chapter verse and all the words as well of course King James Version it was right we had to work with all right suppose that was your Baptist phase right it was a during that time that you were already discerning maybe a call to ministry I think the the call was always there I don't think that I was hearing it as clearly I remember at times going to church and thinking I could probably get up there and preach or I could probably do this kind of work or thinking more about what it would have been like to live in the time of Jesus and seeing the the old movies that were on television quite a big horse quotient that just network television back then but they would show at Easter time the stories of life of Christ and just just the game it would have been neat to be back then and follow Jesus within the Apostles but I think the the thing that really got my attention was Bishop true for my ninth birthday I was in a very bad accident and and really should have died in that accident it's kind of a miracle that it then the three of us that were in the truck didn't die but we were about a mile from our home and late summer and the growth around the railroad crossing was so thick at that time Indiana and the summer time has been had rained a lot slow and the intersection was not well maintained so dad was driving the pickup truck my little brothers both four years younger was in the middle I was on the passenger side and we've just been cutting grass for an elderly couple so we had a lawnmower in the back with a can of gasoline and in 1976 the tanks for the trucks were under the seat of gas tanks so dad had to pull on the track to see if anything was coming and the train did not blow whistle which is opposed to and so he was already on the track he tried to get across and and there's there's no time to react and I remember looking over and seeing this train coming out the passenger window and nowhere to run in the cab of a truck and it's all happening so quickly but time slows down and I remember just gasping out of fear and at the last moment I felt this sense of peace just wash over me and I heard this voice saying it's all right and there was such a bliss that I've never experienced since then and so often tell people when I'm counseling them who are dying cancer patients for example you know it's living that's the hard part and and when I woke up in the hospital three days later that's when I was in a world of pain but but that final moment was just one of surrender and peace and the closest I've come to that sense has just been in times of contemplative prayer and just that complete release to the Lord but woke up in the hospital and very serious injuries had broken both my femurs and ankles and had a depressed skull fracture the doctors say that even with one broken femur it can be fatal because usually an embolism will go to the heart and you can die very easily but I survived had a long long recovery period it's in the hospital a number of weeks and then had a hospital bed at home and in the living room when I was well enough to go home and they figured I would recover better there but at night everybody was in bed and I wasn't tired if I was in bed all day so I began to lie awake and talk to Jesus and had a children's Bible that was appropriate for level about 9 or 10 years year olds and would stay up and read the scriptures and and talk to Jesus and so that's where I really began to listen I think that's an important part of anybody's journey too to the to Jesus or to the Catholic Church which is of course the fullness of our faith in Christ so I think that's always my advice to anybody who's discerning a call to the Catholic Church is listen and take the time last Lindt not this year but the year before I did all my Linton homilies on an icon of Jesus hey Hagia Hezekiah in the Greek the holy silence and I had the iconic icon in front of the church and each of the six weeks was a homily about how to be silent and listen to the Lord in preparation for Easter so so my parishioners can tell you I'm a very much went on being still being quiet psalm 46 be still and know that I am the Lord and we can't really know him if we're not listening okay I was thinking about that the psalm that talks about you is you're saying because I've often thought that there's a sense in which David was blessed because he was at a time when his mind hadn't become so full of all the noises and so it becomes even more difficult to be silent yes today to get comfortable with silence because you can't get an elevator you can't go into a store can't go in the restaurant get wood anywhere without in all cellphones the iPods and everything is working out with so is this that it's this the heresy that we have to be occupied every moment or being entertained or engaged in something last month and feast of st. Patrick I was talking about Patrick's life and how he was taken as a slave and he became a shepherd and and hid part of his hearing the call of the Lord was just having to be out there with the flock and there was nothing else around it's just the silence and so that was very much a part of his conversion and his st. was just that that quiet time and so so we need to give ourselves permission and even as a priest I have to remind myself I'm first and foremost a man of Prayer and I can't give what I don't have so so I still take the time to listen in daily meditation well during this time of your life when I know with hindsight you look back at the time did you have a full realization that that what the life you had left was truly a gift of God in His mercy the light the time when you were recuperating and no definitely uh you know of course my father I've had conversations with him driving the vehicle I've said you know don't don't feel any guilt over that because I don't believe that God made it happen but I believe God uses every instance like that for good he brings light out of every darkness and I don't think I would have been a priest or maybe maybe would have been a priest in a different way had that accident not happened I don't I don't know if the journey would have been quite the same because I remember in recovering from that just thinking about life and death issues at the age of nine and what's really important in Salem look beyond this life and I remember going back to school and not quite fitting in those next several years because the kids were all fighting over silly and trivial things and I'm thinking about but there's life and death issues there's something more to life than nothingness and so okay so you know in my recovery so I couldn't kick the ball as good as the other kids and you know I just let it kind of roll off my back and did my thing and became pretty independent I wouldn't say necessarily a loner but I had more mature hobbies that I got involved in looking back a lot of my friends were older people I would go exploring and I had several friends who were phd's and I would go ask him questions and just trying to learn as much as I could is that I think the whole experience made me hungry for a greater truth and you were still Baptist all through that period I was Baptist until I went to college and what I really thought my calling was going to be because I began spending more and more time outdoors we always lived out in the country and I began to developer really love for for nature and just the wilderness camping out and just being outdoors I found a piece out there that quiet so I thought well I'll make that my life I'll be a wildlife biologist or a forest or nature and my ambition was to go up to Alaska and work with the brown bear population at that point already get into Fisheries of something something that would get me outdoors and so my first year of college that was my major and the next year came around and I was getting ready to enroll for classes and just a tremendous sadness that came over me and I love the outdoors I loved hiking fishing camping and did a lot of hunting and so this isn't it this is this I enjoy this but this isn't where my heart's taking me in the studies in the Natural Sciences it just was leaving me empty and really thinking at that age you know just be in college what is life about why am I here in and I remember going back to mr. Smith's classes and in junior high school at the Bethesda Baptist school we spent a lot of time studying the life of David you know the young David that you mentioned earlier and just for this voice I'm not hearing voices in my ears it was more avoid the voice in your heart saying be like David be like a young David reach out and do something that's that gonna take away the safety nets for you come and come and follow the Lord serve the Lord and so Isis I went to my counselor and changed my classes from from forestry science to to theology when home and told my parents they said would you get registered for your classes I said yeah I'm taking the Book of Isaiah and this and this all these theology plans what are you taking those for and at that time we weren't really going to church regularly my family was never one to to be there every Sunday we were sporadic we'd hit six weeks in a row and then take a few off and of course Christmas and Easter the big holidays and and when I get into high school I wasn't going to church a whole lot but I was reading the scriptures every night I had a bout I was a holy hour that I was doing in my bedroom and I was using the Psalms as the framework of that and I didn't realize until I had become Catholic that's the bravery and the Liturgy of the hours and the Lord who was guiding me to do that and and so I would usually read several of Psalms and I did it coming from a Baptist background I didn't I know nothing about chanting but I just began to chant the Psalms and I would make up chance to kind of go through that seemed to me they should be chanted and so looking back that the Holy Spirit was guiding me in that so I was praying there briefly before I was even what I breathe wanting it and I want to come back to this later because you have this vision of the Eucharist and the tabernacle and then that's very interesting on so the Lord has got I was preparing you before definitely setting me up for it and I have a stubborn streak so I think he knew if he was too confrontational I might resistance so he was setting me up to fall into it I think and it to be to be familiar but I wasn't going to church much so my parents said so what are you gonna do with this theology degree you're gonna be a Baptist minister and they said well you know you don't have a great love for the Baptist Church I had loved going to church but I was at a point in my life where I felt like there was something more than just the preaching I feel like there was something that the ritual was missing and I didn't know how to describe it but I filled it was missing and I said no I'm gonna become Catholic become a priest and of course move away completely and my mother who knew very little about being Catholic she said oh no they're gonna have you at the airport selling flowers and I said no that's that's the difference that's a little different group but it does that mom but um so we talked about it for a little while and she's a white e1b cathetus I don't know there's just something in my heart that's saying that's the church and you know the Catholic priest gives his whole life to Christ and follows him in a very special way so they said let's think about this a little while my my mother said I have a friend who's a Lutheran so why don't you go visit her church and see what you think about them so the next Sunday I visited the Missouri Synod Lutheran Church and I liked it because it was like nothing I had seen before and it looked like the Catholic Church there were investments they had the Lord's Supper which we call the Akali Eucharist - but they referred to it more as the Lord's Supper and there was a liturgy and I said well this this might be it and it's still it's still Protestant it's not gonna tear my family apart if I if I do this they're gonna be behind it and so I joined the Missouri Synod Lutheran Church Paul just second cuz I'm trying to think about what as a college student had you was a Catholic Church on campus or was what was the where was that getting the idea weird all come from just from I I really don't know where it was coming from because I had been in Catholic chapels like in hospitals have you been visited by for example when you're in the hospital do you know I had never to my knowledge at that point really met or had a conversation with a Catholic priest but I had read about the church I had seen movies and just every time I Drive past a Catholic Church was something that was there that I felt was very real and I didn't feel the same when I Drive past a Protestant Church nothing nothing wrong with pause in church but there was there was a presence in a Catholic Church so I couldn't describe it I knew that there was it was a magnet for me so so I don't know you know it's just it was just the Lord calling and kind of humorous how he sets us up for what he wants us to do but so you sense though that and by looking at Lutheranism that at least this maybe this was what you've been sensing all along I thought well maybe this is a good good compromise and in looking back on it I think in the back of my mind I always saw it as a compromise and so I finished my undergraduate studies in fact what I was planning on doing is becoming a church planter someone that would go and start a church in an area where there was no Missouri Synod Lutheran Church so on the north side of Indianapolis there's an area called Geist reservoir area and my own pastor and my home Lutheran Church said so well you know you're you're serving in the parish here already this is why I was still in college your missions directory evangelism director said how would you like to get paid and help start a church and you know besides going to college and so that'd be great experience so they were starting a new church up on the north side of Indianapolis and my job was to go to find a congregation so there was a pastor who was hired to be there as a church planter and they were meeting in a town hall until they could get a church built and as you know what a lot of Protestants do is they'll build actually a daycare first and they can use the daycare building to worship in and then the money from that generates enough to build a church later but my job is to get the maps of the city and go cold calling and I would canvass an area and we get the names from their utilities lists and begin knocking on doors and but what was really bugging me when I would do that because in the back of my mind there was still this Catholic thing and I had I had not yet come to grips with what about the Catholic Church and this was it was a compromise that I was kind of telling myself this is where the Lord wants me to be in the Lutheran Church I'd knock on doors and I love the homes where they had Marriott in front or st. Francis Brubeck because if you get ex Catholics they made very good Lutheran's unfortunately so so those were easy because they didn't know anything about the scriptures I shouldn't say anything that Catholics have a good description backgrounds it was easy to argue them into coming to church but there are some times I'd knock on a door and they say well um you'll see a Lutheran or I'm Wisconsin Lutheran or I'm a Methodist or this or that or what makes your church different from the other Lutheran's are from the Methodist Church on the corner and I'd always say well were the right ones you know we're the ones that and that have the answers and I've researched this and I in the back my mind little Bell was going off saying you don't really believe this on a percent so but I hope to start a Lutheran Church went on then when I graduated college to actually the Lutheran seminary in Fort Wayne Indiana Concordia Lutheran Fort Wayne was there for the first first semester and there was just something I just felt very deflated I was excited when I first went when I was there just something was just not feeling right and so I began to think well maybe I was mistaken maybe I needed to review my call after all so I left the seminary and worked for a little while did some landscaping work and went back the next year and the same thing happened I stayed a semester is it just just doesn't feel right something's not right well some of them I'm just curious because you know taking religion classes out of college or even at a seminary doesn't necessarily mean you're getting good stuff right was that part of the struggles there what did you receive a good I had a good background in theology good you know as well as can be expected from the college level it really was not an academic rustic struggle I love the studies but in the gut and when I do spiritual direction I'll tell people as sometimes the Lord speaks to our head sometimes do the heart sometimes to the gut there was just there was some fighting going on at the time within the seminary that was over who's going to be in control and interestingly I went ahead and took about a year and a half off then transferred to the st. Louis seminary again for the Missouri Synod Lutheran Church there were two men that arrived there at the same time that had done the same thing and they said you know there was something at that time that we just didn't wasn't right at the seminary so we transferred and I loved Concordia st. Louis it was it was clicking very good education and I don't say this too loudly in front of Bishops but I think I get the better theology there than I did in the Catholic seminary at least at that time we had to have Greek and Hebrew to get in to the Lutheran seminary and your classes in Scripture if you're looking at jeremiah you're gonna read it in hebrew and if it's romans are gonna read it in greek and you come into the scriptures backward and forward and I think they just challenged you more to think theologically because once you're out in the field they want you to be able to to be in hope to do your own research so I went through the Lutheran seminary in st. in st. Louis a very good education then you go on the vicarage year before your redeemed vicarage you're like an internship and I was sent because of my background in church planting and because I wanted to pursue that they gave me an assignment where a church in Connecticut was starting a daughter church out in Bantam Connecticut and so I began to do the same thing there and knocking on doors helping them to get a parish established and about a month into that assignment I started again flirting with the Catholic Church and there was something that wouldn't go away and it's this question should I do this now I pretty much knew at that point I was going to become Catholic the question became should I do it now or should I get a retain first will it make any difference so I began looking for a Catholic priest to talk to him had this been a I mean integral bit but in your seminary training amongst Lutheran's during that period of time when there was concern about the different Lutheran churches where they did did any of them talk about flirting with the Catholic Church no one knew that I was i I didn't get I didn't really share that with anybody there was one professor who I think sort of knew that I was on that at least I was exploring very deeply the Catholic Church and he approached me once he said he said down the road after you get her Dean would you ever think about becoming a liaison to the Catholic Church because he loved my papers I'd usually write about something comparing Lutheranism this was systematics course I'd usually compare Catholic Church or Lutheranism and and he had those leanings himself and I think had he been a much younger man he was he was about 70 at the time I wouldn't surprise me if he'd have done the same thing and become Catholic but I had some professors when I was in Lutheran seminary who would write on my papers this is very Catholic or this - Catholic and I think I was the only Lutheran seminarian with a poster of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in my in my room with the indulgence prayers at the bottom so as some other students come in and say you can't have it in your room here they said it's a Catholic prayer and say well just don't look at the bottom and it's it's still the Sacred Heart of Jesus don't look at the indulgences at the bottom so I was keeping it more to myself and of course in the Lutheran seminary you don't really have a spiritual director like you do in there in the Catholic seminaries it's more academic and formation is there but it's more on your weekend assignment the pastor you work with on the weekends is more your formation in person but but I had this whole year then to work in a parish exclusively and a lot of time to be away from the studies in the seminary and just to think and to pray so I went to a Catholic bookstore thinking mom wait for a Catholic priest to walk in here and sure enough one came in he was a priest that had been ordained in about 40 years at that time father George Laurette II and Italian priests obviously his parents were first ones to come to this country and he was at a point in his vocation where he was just he was tired and not that he wasn't a good priest but he was just at this point where he needed something to refresh him and we had these in this conversation many times how the Lord used us for each other his last 10 years of priesthood were helping me and and getting me going in the priesthood and so he said there were some of the best years of his priesthood there at the end but he was one who walked in the door and I introduced myself I happen to be wearing a collar at the time because Lutheran's also wear the collar and he said oh you must be a young priest I haven't met yet and I said no I'm a Lutheran and I introduced myself and I said I'd like to talk to you sometime I got a lot of questions so we agreed to go to lunch on Friday and it turned out Friday was my day off so it became a routine the rest of that year on Fridays I would go to the noon mass and attend Mass wasn't receiving Communion obviously attend Mass and then he and I would spend the rest of the day just talking about my questions and he laughed pretty hard the first meeting because he said okay what are your questions I reached in and pulled out my he calls it my shopping list all these questions that I had to get answered before I was going to become Catholic and he said you know if you'd have taken if you'd have stayed on that approach you never would have become Catholic so I remember the turning point I that year it was routine I would I would talk to him on Fridays a couple times a week I'd call and just asking questions on the phone and at night I would pray and I would have my I was so used to do my holy hour ever since high school and through college and I'd have my holy hour and I remember just asking the Lord you know just tell me what you want and and discernment is a painful place to be and if anybody out there is discerning you've got my prayers behind you I don't wish that on anybody and yet it's a glorious thing you know the Lord is calling but he's playing peek-a-boo with you and he's he's he's setting you up he's got to bring you to a point where you're ready and there's you know very well to the point where you're ready to say okay your will be done and you you will you're not just saying it verbally you're you're willing to do whatever he would ask of you so I kept praying it to the point that I would I would shed tears at night saying Lord this is just tell me what you want and I'll do it you know you appeared to Moses and you told him he appeared to Paul on the road to Damascus you tell me what you want me to do I'm willing to do it and the breaking point came right after Christmas I got a chance to come home see my parents in Indianapolis and I got on the plane to go back to Connecticut and as I sat down in my seat scales fell from my eyes and I soon as I sat down it wasn't you know I don't know how to describe it just I said I know what I'm gonna do I'm gonna become Catholic this year and I knew I had to finish up my vicarage because I we were starting this new parish and they couldn't get another vicar until the 12-month cycle hadn't rotated around so I didn't want to just walk out on them in the middle and leave them without without a vicar to run the parish so so I called father already when I got in that night and said that's girls let's go forward with this and he said okay RCIA was not really an option for me because I was trying to keep this kind of quiet from the Lutheran's and I didn't want there to be any disruption so we agreed to kind of work on the sly and he I would just continue work with him on Fridays and then at the end of the year when my time was up I said my final liturgies for the Lutheran's did a Bible study that morning they had a little farewell party for me and I drove over to follow the Reddy's church and was even to the church became Catholic ten days later I was at Mount Saint Mary's seminary studying for the Archdiocese of Santa Fe well well then let's take a pause there we come back I'd love to hear about that that entrance into the church but also to look a little deeper into your actual discernment of your call to the priest certainly all right welcome back to the journey home again I'm Marcus Grodi your host with this program father guy Roberts is our is our guest for tonight and boy it just worked perfectly just left us at that spot where you've just come into the church and boy you're already you said in your story you were already getting ready to enter into mom the st. Mary seminary right right right but talk about the reception of the Eucharist the reception of the saccadic sacraments for your first time I mentioned I finished my last day as a Lutheran vicar and said goodbye to the people there they still did not know I was becoming Catholic I wanted to leave them with a happy thought and read another button to find out later when I was gone drove over to father Loretta's church his two sisters who are nuns were there and my sponsors coming into the church just a feeling of I've come home and of course the name of your show coming home never journey home it just felt very natural where I was supposed to be nothing fell foreign to me and just to receive confirmation to know that the gifts of my baptism we're now being unlocked and and I could I could use those those seven gifts of the Spirit as a witness to Jesus and in a way that I hadn't before and I just remember the laying on of hands and they the oil on the forehead and just I didn't I didn't really know if I should wash that off or not debating that that evening should I wash or should I leave it for the next day at least and but just the receive First Communion to receive Jesus that way I had known him all my life as I mentioned nursed and I don't recall a time in my my life when I didn't know about Jesus I didn't feel that I knew him personally and now to receive him and his his body and blood was very very special I just felt like the the completion of a long journey and it was it felt right when did you remember that vision from a childhood well it was actually during my preparation time as I was preparing for the sacraments and again I didn't go through RCIA I just studied with father already and pendant lien and he said with your background you'd be from far beyond our CIA level anyway so we go into some very deep discussions on theology no preparation but but I remember sharing that that account with him was I did come to my mind he's always been praying for the Eucharist and say ah now that makes sense to me what I was seeing in that vision and so so you know a lot of looking back on this myself it gets a little a little confusing little tiring in that how my dad sometimes it boy you know I'm 42 years old it seems like I've lived twice as long sometimes the things that I've done and you know what God has accomplished in my life but they to get back we kind of skipped over some things and coming into the church I was already accepted into Lutheran or into the Catholic seminary before I was even Catholic I don't know if that's ever been done before because of the situation I was looking for a diocese that would that would pick me up and I wanted to go you know as soon as possible I was in Hartford so I spoke to who are the Hartford diocese and they didn't tell me no but what they had asked they said well you know Lutheran background why don't you go back and do at least a year of undergraduate and do the 4-year Master of Divinity all over again and I said I've been through this the Lord's calling me to get to work as soon as possible and I said if I really thought it was fair but I didn't think it was fair so started looking around elsewhere my home Diocese of Indianapolis didn't tell me no but they were a little I think caught off guard at the time what do we do with this guy and I wanted answers right away and once I've made up my mind or feel that I'm going to directions get out of the way it's gonna happen and you know I felt that this was right the Lord was calling and so they said well we're not really sure I said what kind of timeline are we looking at how many years but I have to study and they said well why don't you just come and live in the diocese for a while I'm from the diocese I know the people of Indianapolis so so I you know I didn't want to wait around so I started looking elsewhere called different dioceses look into some religious orders I had an aunt at the time who lived in New Mexico in the Albuquerque area and well I've got Aunt Grace out there I'll just call out there and see if they're interested and I knew that they had had a lot of the sexual abuse scandals in the early 90s that had a new bishop who had dismissed a lot of priests from the past well maybe I can make a difference out there maybe maybe this is what the Lord is calling me to and so I called out there talk to the vocation director and he asked a few questions on the phone asked me to write down some things type it up and send it to the archbishop and within a day of receiving my letter they called back and said we want you to come out here I was gonna cost I figured what the price was but for some reason airline tickets were really really high that year and I called him back I said do you only want to pay this much they were gonna pick up the tab me no that's that's pretty expensive he said I'll tell you what drive down to mount st. Mary's seminary I was in Connecticut it was a few hours drive down to Maryland so go down there and meet with the rector and the Dean of men and if they accept you will accept you so kind of a sight-unseen deal I didn't know them they didn't know me so father already went with me and we kind of snuck out of town without telling the Lutheran's where I was going in and drove down to mount st. Mary's met with Monsignor Golson who was the rector at that time now now deceased I was privileged to serve with him the next year as his deacon he went back to the parish and but a year after that he died of colon cancer but it was the academic dean that very good man father Dan meddling if he's listening and he's got my respect he's a very very good man very good priest rake me over the coals for about two hours you know why do you want to be Catholic why now why should we let you in you know under these circumstances and finally we were both exhausted he kind of sat back in his chair and wiped off his his face and he said I'm gonna give you the green light I said but you're an experiment I'm gonna be watching you and so so I started in the third year of the four-year program mount st. Mary's by Archbishop Sheehan s request the bishops have a little power to tell the seminaries kind of what they want so Archbishop Sheehan basically said I'm gonna send this man to you for two years if he has enough credits to transfer to get the mastery of Divinity fine if not I'm gonna retain him anyways so I did get the master divinity enough my credits transferred from the Lutheran Church I made it by one credit I think which is enough so as I was studying for the archdiocese in Santa Fe Archbishop Michael Sheehan good enough to take a chance on me and study for the two years there and got ordained and and made my trip out to New Mexico as a as a priest got ordained in the Cathedral there in Santa Fe alright did you do you when you look back do you think that your Lutheran background offered you a unique Baptist and Lutheran after doing unique preparation for the service God's called you as a priest I really in many ways thank God for the journey that I've had because you know talking with a lot of my classmates in the seminary at the Catholic seminary I had a lot of men that started seminary when they were young at certain point twenty years earlier and we're very discouraged by things they saw in the church at that time and left and after 20 years we're coming back to become priests again so I I I'm almost glad that I didn't have to go through that heartache and summit changes in the church and things that they were experiencing I think the scriptures you know my parishioners can tell you I'm always doing Bible studies I want them to know the scripture is always challenging them to to study at home off and give penances go home and read the scriptures and I'll give them Psalms to read or something but I wouldn't have had that background I don't think and I just you know come from the Catholic background so I'm blessed in that way you feel equipped differently not that it's necessarily better but it's a different equipping and I've been able to to use those insights knowing what Baptists teach and what Lutheran's teach and you know I try to be very sensitive to our brothers and sisters who are in in those churches they are the anonymous Catholics they're Catholic and don't know it so it's just a matter of them also coming into the fullness but yeah this past Easter Vigil we had 24 people come into the church they were saying Joe Navarro about seven of those were baptized it was coming in but I teach you a good number of the RCIA classes myself and and I find that you know they're very interested because I'm a convert myself so there's that connection with with those that are becoming Catholic and a lot of them will begin the the year of our CI with a lot of apprehension I don't know if I'm gonna finish this know something it's okay just come in come and see discern this and and a lot of times I'll make a private appointment with me and say you know was this a problem for you is this a challenge for you and I'll say yeah but this is how it kind of worked out and that's the question with the other shopping list I love ready say if you go through everything one by one you're never gonna become Catholic I came to a point in my discernment that I said you know what if the Catholic Church is the church then all these questions are ants if I can embrace the church then even if I don't understand something completely it's it's gonna fall into place for me later on so I think that's a if anybody is discerning that's what I would say to them if you can come to the point where you embrace the Catholic Church and just trust that this is the church Jesus established the questions will get answered and some people have asked me has the Blessed Mother been a stumbling block and all already gave me my first rosary it was a rosary from Holy Land one of the olive wood rosaries he had been several years before and said here take this home start praying it and see what happens and and just the thought of getting into it was awkward but it actually came very easily once I started talking the Blessed Mother felt her embrace and it wasn't anything for and it was very very natural so so for me mary has not been a stumbling block and also seemed like God was preparing you for the Liturgy of the hours and sometimes I wonder whether the liturgy hours catches on to all priests when they come through the formation you know whether it becomes for them a true aid to prayer to channel of grace or whether for many of them just becomes a drudgery something they've got to do I mean it was seemed like God was preparing you for that all oh yeah I had been praying the Psalms since high school not knowing you know I'd make a holy hour kneeling at my bedside every night and focusing on the Psalms and some other scripture readings and and then just praying about whatever whatever I wanted to pray about and then just taking the time for silent prayer that's very poor important but I've used the bravery as a way to lead me into the silent prayer because when we come to the hour time of prayer especially if you're busy in a parish you've got your mind on 20 different things and in different people's situations and so I've always found the bravery a way to begin to leave my mind into focusing and then that's that's the the threshold and then it gives way to the contemplative prayer or the the more meditative prayer I'd like you to talk about the importance of continual conversion yes because I know that we know for all these years in the journey home we've talked about had many guests talk about their conversion in often it's a spiritual experience or apologetic Journal issue but part that we don't often talk about is is the internal the character the change of attitudes and things talk about that as your own journey I think for any convert or any Catholic for that matter we're called to ongoing conversion and I think even as especially as a priest when you're first ordained you get an idea of what you're supposed to be and definitely I had strong ideas when I was first ordained especially because I was trying to prove to everybody that this convert to could could do it and and I wanted to be the best priest I could be and I sometimes look back now after I was through 13 years of ordination and laugh at myself and I was so serious and so you know so by the book into it to a fault almost but that was what I needed at the beginning and but at one point in my ordination after after one year in New Mexico Archdiocese of Santa Fe I was made a pastor made a pastor of two parishes with a total of eleven missions three all three thousand square miles one year in new that's pretty typical in a lot of the Western diocese because they're just so short-handed of with priests and so I was an associate for one year very large parish 20,000 parishioners in Rio Rancho and then I became pastor of a parish that was 3,000 square miles actually to legal entity parishes one of us one of the two was actually a combined parish so but 11 little churches and and I was driving about 3,000 miles a month and so that was kind of my baptism by fire as a pastor and isolated the next the nearest priest to me was probably well it was 75 bus 75 miles to the next town where I could get groceries so one way so 150 round-trip to get to a Walmart or to a grocery store where I could get some supplies after that I became pastor of a combined parish on the Colorado border town of about 80,000 people mostly Catholic had a school and cemetery all part of my continuing formation and I was learning more about being a pastor of course but also began to sense some interior struggle the how do i how can I be a pastor and how can I be a man of Prayer and just trying to come to the balance everything and more and more responsibility at that time I was also made one of two directors of the permanent Deacon information program for the archdiocese and there are more there are more permanent deacons in Santa Fe than there are priests so have great respect for the permanent the a cadet but then I got a call after a couple years in that situation to go back to Rio Rancho where I had started as an associate to start a daughter parish and so I was thrilled with that because I wanted to be a church planter for the Lutheran's and this was a chance to do it for the Catholics so I took that very seriously probably too seriously and I was I was trying to develop this role of father Roberts and it was almost the times like I could step outside myself and there's this character father Roberts this is what he does this is how he behaves this is this is his lifestyle and I was getting tired and between the the permanent Deacon program one of the other priests at that time had left the the program and we were bringing a deacon to take his place there Archbishop asked me to write a new curriculum for the for the Deacons I was starting the new church everything pretty much it was kind of a nice opportunity to to not inherit other priests have done everything was pretty much new but I began to work a little too hard and get myself a little bur extended I was praying but within me there was a lot of conflict and I wasn't listening to my needs and I have a friend who's a priest that actually be katun became my counselor later on for a little while who said you know what you were like the Tin Man and The Wizard of Oz you were empty inside you had this exterior that was galvanized and and and everybody thought you could do anything in fact at one point I woke up it was on a Sunday morning been working very very hard and just some personal struggles in my life on top of everything else and I began to shake and I could it was like I was cold but I wasn't close just the nerves shaking I said I gotta pull myself together for mass and I went looked in the mirror and I just looked terrible and I weighed myself and in about five or six weeks I had dropped over 20 pounds and I was trying to lose weight and I was trying to eat but I was I was taking stuff for the stomach to get and keep things down and just wasn't feeling real good but I just kept plugging along say well you know I've got all this work to do in the church st. Paul would do it st. Francis would do it you know why can't you and so just continue driving myself on and after that Sunday I got through the day that evening just collapsed on the floor and next day went in to see the archbishop and so what have you done to yourself and look pretty bad he said you know I said I don't know if I can continue on as a priest it had gotten so bad that I just it all hit me that that night before I said I don't know if I nothing was making sense and I didn't realize I had become emotionally ill physically ill and I needed some time off and I took a six-week leave of absence that when I got back to Indianapolis to stay with my parents gotten to see some doctors and they said you're not going back in six weeks you're you're gonna kill yourself literally and it worked yourself to death and so that my nerves were frazzled had to take some time off to rest fighting they wanted me to take a year's leave of absence I took seven months I became very angry with the Lord how could you let this happen you're supposed to have my back I gave my life to you and I was working so I was killing myself in your service why did you let this happen and as time went by I began to realize it needed to happen because I could not have gone on for 40 years in the priesthood or even even 10 more years the way I was going it would have been a follow already said you would have been a shooting star instead of a you know a guiding a guiding light and so when I left I knew I was gonna lose the new parish I was starting someone else would have to step in and I just had a lot of stuff to work through I became angry with God I was ashamed of myself anything to do with the priesthood at that point I really had to tell myself put that on the back burner I'm probably not gonna go back to it I don't know what the Lord's gonna do with me but I don't know if I want to go back to parish work so I had to learn to know the Lord in a new way and I had to learn to do priesthood in a new way and I had to come to the point where God was no longer in my portfolio as I thought of him and I was no longer as everything I knew and believed and was just blown to pieces and it was a starting over again it's like being called again for the first time and the Lord saying ready to come back yet yeah I I don't know how this is gonna work and I went back into parishes einman in Indianapolis I'd asked to transfer dioceses at that point and the bishops graciously agreed Archbishop decline in Annapolis and Archbishop Sheehan Santa Fe and just kind of let things play out when I got to the rectory where I was staying they put me as an associate for a few months at the st. Luke Indianapolis there was a plaque on the wall and don't remember the quotation from Scripture but it said something I'm paraphrasing I know the plane I have in mind for you is a plan for good not for evil I thought well that's a that's a roll so bring slap in the face by God he's saying I'm here and I've got a plan you don't know what it is yet and I'm not going to tell you yeah but you're gonna have to let it unfold and so I'm much much happier as a priest now and I'm much more realistic about what I can accomplish I'm not Superman I had friends from my past that got angry with me because I failed and I was there that was their hero and I wasn't allowed to fail and I said I don't want to wear that hat again I'm fallible I'm weak and but I'm also giving myself permission to to be Who I am and to know the Lord and much more at peace within myself and and story goes on and I just stepped back more and more instead of trying to make so much happen i watch it happen and I'm every day amazed at miracles that happen in the parish just because I'm not in the way of Lourdes saying you know it wasn't me expecting all that hard work from you you expected it from yourself I want to give you an analogy and and hear your thoughts on it and also talk to the audience about what they can do when I was a Protestant minister one of those common things I used to teach it's how we were to be channels of God's love you know the God's love was to to flow into us and then we were to do everything we could to get out of the way so they could flow through us and that's why I used to teach and then when I became a Catholic I read a great book called soul the apostolate and in that there's a quote from Saint Benedict that says that we aren't channels were to be reservoirs in other words what's to come out is to come out of the res does that describe what you discovered yourself definitely and we just had Divine Mercy Sunday last week and the image of the Divine Mercy it's the Heart of Jesus that they cannot contain his mercy in his love and you know I try to remind myself of that when I left New Mexico I had a nice portrait of the Divine Mercy in my little chapel in my rectory and I was so mad at the Lord I left it behind when I got to my new assignment I got another one and that's remained one of my favorite images of Jesus and I've said my heart also has to overflow that way because it's filled and I have to constantly be filled instead of being empty and I had emptied myself to the point that I was no good for anybody and and I often told you know my parishioners that your hearts too are supposed to overflow the 23rd psalm my cup overflows you know it's just that no more can be poured in it has to go somewhere so we have to let it flow out to everybody else around us and to be that that that light of Christ I'm wondering let's say someone who's watching has felt the same way you do in other words they've given themselves mm-hmm and maybe their heart is full of bitterness and and all that and maybe they're genuinely saying okay what what what do I do that's that moment of my accident again at the moment of death it was just that surrender I can't do anything else at this point except to say lord I don't believe I don't know what I can believe anymore I don't know if I can trust the Lord but I'm just gonna have to be completely vulnerable it's kind of like when you jump into water over your head you just have to kind of float there and let it lift you up and say okay I I don't know how this is gonna pan out and what's gonna happen but the Lord is in charge unless your God become greater and I had a pretty great God I thought but my one of my favorite Saints John of the Cross of course in Teresa of Avila I'm very much a Carmelite in my spirituality and just to kind of paraphrase John of the Cross as work we keep putting God in a box and we have to keep letting God out of ekb keep getting a bigger box and each time we let him out of the box we think oh now I've got now I know God and a little while is gonna pass and then we got to get a bigger box and so but sometimes God does have to bring us to a crisis and I was telling one of my parishioners who knew I was coming on the program I said you know thinking back on my journey I would describe it is very painful but it's the kind of pain that good comes from it's makes you stronger and so you know I looking back on the accident that brought me to where I am my crisis within the my vocation made me bettors made me stronger and another priest told me one time he said you know people are gonna see that in you he said they're gonna see your woundedness and they're gonna be attracted to it and I can't stay ahead of spiritual direction nowadays I have so many people that come and want to talk to me and you know it's just it's it's not me that they're hopefully what they're seeing is the Lord in me and overflowing and I just wanted to give them give them Jesus Christ that's what they come for I want to ask a question also about that time you're talking about because there's the spiritual battle world the flesh in the devil and I I think our audience needs to realize that when you commit yourself and surrender yourself and offer yourself the enemy is not gonna like to see that happen when you look back on that time how much of that was that trying to take you out of service I'll tell people when they come to confession or spiritual direction they're they're very tired of their weary you know so you know a lot of because they're trying very hard to please God and also you know what when you feel that whip cracking on your back that's not God that's the devil and the devil was using my love for the Lord in my vocation to drive me into the ground and for seven months I was worthless to to the church I was out of commission so I always say yeah we have to be very very cautious about the devil's gonna strength he's gonna attack us where our strength is where our perceived strength is and of course the mystery of our faith is that by dying we rise again and so the Lord you know I from mythology when my favorite images is the phoenix bird that that burns up and goes into ashes and rises again from the ashes newer and better and that's the story of our faith we die and rise again from those moments of bearing the cross let's take a quick email I'm sure we'll just need a quick answer but I think it's an important email Alexis from Oregon writes I'm a Catholic but have Christian friends who profess Jesus as their Savior but don't feel a need to go to church anymore I just father Roberts have any insights I might share with them I mean as long as you got Jesus you need Church of course I was I was there I was not going to church for a lot of years you know sporadically but there was that that calling why would we want to separate ourselves from the Eucharist and and there again why would we want to separate ourselves from our brothers and sisters we need each other and my experience having having toppled down as a priest has made me rely more and more on people when before I thought well I can't rely on people I have to be Iraq within myself know it's we need one another and so often as a priest I'm inspired by my people that I'm supposed to be shepherding just their acts of faith within sickness or within a tragedy in their life so we need each other and why not come and renew the Covenant where Jesus is present in fact this morning at Mass I told my parishioners I said why isn't this chapel filled to capacity and why isn't the main church why aren't they lined up down the block if we were handing out $100 bills but here's Jesus in the flesh if people only knew what they're getting and they would look beyond what the appearance is the little wafer which is the body of Jesus and the that wine that's not always so tasty though the sacramental wine is not that great but it's the blood of Jesus and he uses those humble things to defeat us he says come come to me but so it takes humility to belong to the church and to say it's not just about me and Jesus it's about us and Jesus normally I ask a question about what would you say to someone to encourage them come back to the church and you just answered that I got another question like that let's just say there's a priest watching it's going through a dark time what would you want to say then I would say it's okay to be where you are the Lord is the Lord knows where you are and if you need to you know I don't say give yourself permission to go walking in the darkness but if you feel the need to drift a little bit from what you've known that's an act of faith it's to say you know I'm exploring a larger God here I'm exploring you know I'm not gonna put my limitations on God I'm gonna let God be mystery and I'm very much drawn to the mystical writings of the early church fathers the Desert Fathers and they say it's you know it's in the Cloud of Unknowing it's better not to know than to No so it's not a bad place to be it's a frightening place it's a lonely place because no one understands especially a priest in that situation but but that's when you turn all the more just reaching out and saying it's not that Jesus I used to know this is the real Jesus I'm taking the mask off of him letting him be who he is I think we have your blessing as we certainly through the intercession of Our Lady Blessed Mother in Jesus Christ may you be blessed in the ministry you perform here at EWTN may I continue the ministry that I've been called to and may Almighty God bless you the father and the Son and the Holy Spirit amen thank you very much the guy is wonderful that have you sure your journey with us and thank you so much give us as a model of the struggles we all go through you know keeping our eyes on Jesus it's a very humble message of your life thank you for joining us on this program I pray that it's an encouragement to you one of the reasons I wanted father to talk about that aspect of this journey is because a lot of us go through that and sometimes feel very much alone who do we talk to we've got Jesus and we have his church as he says never abandoned the Fellowship of your church turn to him you'll always turn to you god bless you you

Channel: EWTN

Views: 28,331

Rating: 4.7622375 out of 5

Keywords: EWTN, Journey Home, Marcus Grodi, Father Guy Robert, Catholic, Lutheran Seminarian

Id: zdQctEMOVp0

Length: 56min 11sec (3371 seconds)

Published: Wed May 26 2010