Journey Home - Marcus' Pastor - Marcus Grodi with Fr. Jordan Turano, O.P. - 06-28-2010

good evening and welcome to the journey home my name is Marcus Grodi your host for this program every week I have this wonderful privilege that EWTN has invited me to do and that's to introduce to you men and women who because of their love for Jesus Christ or how the Holy Spirit was working in their life sometimes pulling them way away from a life way out there somewhere but back in line with our Lord Jesus and the church and so our guests are here to to share their journey of faith and I'm very privileged tonight to have a friend and my pastor at my church in Zanesville Ohio father Jordan Torino Toronto I was father Jordan as I always call your father he's what we call for one of a better turn a revert to the faith someone that's was brought up in the church and then took off and then by the grace of God has come back and he'll share his story with us in a moment and father Jordan let me welcome into the program Thank You Marcus good to be here it's it's good to see you in this venue I already saw you up front on Sundays and it's so much enjoy your preaching and thank you I'm gonna take this public opportunity to thank you for your your messages of the gospel every time that you have that opportunity to preach us thank you back into the word and back into relationship with Christ but I don't think you ever anticipated that you end up on this table with me oh definitely it's a lot more comfortable up there than it is here but I'm very happy to be here all right because that's what you were ordained to do this is out of the comfort zone all right but we do what the Lord asks us exactly and on this program which you've seen I always invite the guests to start by taking a big step backwards and helping the audience understand where you came from spiritual okay well I was brought up Catholic in Rhode Island one of five children my parents went to Catholic grade school it's like public high school and it was in high school that I started to drift we always went to Mass because you know if you live under my roof you go by my rules and so we went to church and I started the drift in school and then when college came it was my choice to go to church or not and I didn't I started to not go at all and begin to listen to the world just get involved in things that I really shouldn't have been involved in and you know when you go home for Christmas and Thanksgiving break you go to Mass because we were home and you had to and I didn't always go in the best of conditions and I'll leave it at that so I moved away in college basically and started doing my own thing in living a life that was semi contrary to the faith I mean I still prayed at times when I needed things like most Catholics and most Christians do if we need something God's always there and if things are going well we kind of forget about him I'm gonna posit if I'd only because I want to interrupt your flow but because I'm hearing in your story a common story so far mm-hmm I was brought up Lutheran similar I'm thinking our audience even some of the parents who are watching who had children who were brought up in the church they've heard that story before if you look back West you're looking back now from different ears as a dependent country and you look back on those days what happened I mean did you not catch it I mean you had all the hoops you went through all the right and you didn't miss any of the stages no no any of the sacraments any of the catechesis the training what was the time period in late 712 late 70s late 70s so this is after the council after all the craziness that wasn't the console but what people did with it right I mean when you look back now what was it was there something missing or just the normal flow of things at the time pretty much the normal flow of things I don't think the content was that good back then because of the council and people being confused on how they should present it and it was more less make them feel good rather than teach them the faith and keep them in it and I don't think we were taught that Jesus Christ is alive and well and living our hearts and our in our church for the most part it was Jesus is up here in God's up here and we just go along and he'll take care of us but that personal connection wasn't there so as a young person we think we know everything obviously you know most of us think our parents are foolish and as we get older we realize just how bright they were and that's was the case it's like there wasn't any personal connection with Jesus Christ or the church really it's just something I had to do and I thought I was smart enough to make my own decisions and do what I wanted to do and that doing things my way would take care of me the way I wanted to be taken care of and so God didn't have any place in that seeds were planted the seeds were there the foundation was there the graces of the sacrum absolutely you know I received first communion first penance I was baptized obviously confirmation as well so all of those things were there and present and in a good foundation my parents were going to church all the time my grandparents went to church all the time so the example of how I should be living was there and then things occurred and my parents split up and and that was very difficult and that's when I was in college and it's like okay this is a man that I cared deeply for and respected a great deal and all of a sudden he left my mom and okay what he was telling me about faith in God and whatever must be not true because he's not doing what he professed to do you know and I love my dad and I pray for him all the time he's still living but that was one of the instances where it's like okay if this is what we say and this is what you're doing then they don't meet and it's not just that because I made my own decisions it wasn't his fault obviously that I left the church but I stopped basically doing anything other than worrying about me and and I'm the talent of the baby-boomers and it is a me generation you know but it wasn't anything that my parents had done or not taught me it's a decision that I made because I thought I knew better well there was that frog in the soup theory you know and you were a part of a certain soup I was too you know that's what I remember those times we were in the midst of that and we get out and we get in the water and we don't realize that we're dying and and truly that's what was occurring so I lived my life outside the church for a fair number of years 18 basically and what brought me back was the prayers of my mom and my sister Pam who remained faithful to the church my other siblings left but I had some I had a relationship that ended very badly and I was devastated and instead of looking to the world where I had looked for so many years for the answers I was devastated and fell to my knees and looked up instead of out and the Lord was there and my sister god bless her suggested that I go to confession which and if you knew me back then was not something you would tell me or asking me to do but she persisted in that and I went to see the priest at my local parish and was very unkind and unfair Atal to him when I went there it's like why do I need you why am I here and he was just trying to help me through this situation and recognize that God was there so after my uncharitable and disrespect of him he said well would you like to go to confession I was like No so we made an appointment and he gave me a examination of conscience which I hadn't seen I don't think ever so I took it home and went through the examination of conscience and looked at the areas and realized I was in big trouble I'm thinking that there might be some watching having no idea what examination of conscience is it was it fair enough a little poem it was it was a list and we actually went used the 10 commandments as a way of examining your life in the areas you may be weakened and basically we went through the Ten Commandments and it's like okay is this have you done this have you done this have you not done this so I looked at the Ten Commandments and how the Lord was asking us through his commandments to live our lives in and so that I didn't honor my father and mother I didn't keep holy the Sabbath I didn't you know I coveted my neighbor's wife and his goods and and lied and you know so all of those things so as I looked at those I began to write down things that I recognized now as something that was keeping me from God or something that I was ashamed of and I needed to bring to the Lord and ask for forgiveness so the next day I went with several legal sheets of paper full of things and I walked into the rectory and went face to face with the priest to confession where I you know the priest acting as the person of Christ listens to your sins that you confess and that you're contrite for and sorry for and then through the grace of God will absolve you from them so I went through them and he looked at me and said what are you doing with these and I said listen I've been away a very long time I don't want to leave anything out or take any chances and after you know I went made a good confession I think and after a couple of hours of doing that he gave me absolution and it was like the weight of the world had been taken off my shoulders and I literally floated out of not literally but it felt like I was floating when I left the rectory because all of that garbage all of that stuff that had enslaved me for so long I had given to the Lord and I had heard him say i absolve you from your sins I forgive you and it was a turning point that was the moment that I recognized that Christ was real and that there could be a personal relationship with our God and it changed everything I began to attend Mass on a daily basis I began to get involved in parish in lecturing and extraordinary Minister of Holy Communion and with the youth group because God was merciful to me and I realized that there were others out there that needed that mercy of God and wouldn't receive it unless somebody shared the experience with them so I began to live the faith and hesitantly because when in prayer and spending some time on treat I heard God say I want you to be a priest and quite frankly I told him he didn't know who he was talking to and it's like Lord you know you have no idea who you're talking to but as we know God knows us better than we know ourselves and so being out of school for 18 years and being away from the faith for that long I needed to see one if I could do the school work because it scared me to death so I took a class at Providence College and in Providence Rhode Island which the Dominicans run and I took a philosophy class and philosophy is a different language I'm a scientist by background so I studied and did very very well I ended up you know getting an A in the class and I had been open to vocation I told the Lord if this is what you want fine that's what I'll do and I did what everyone does I filled out the little cards in a vocations book and you can send it to different places by prayed so I was getting information from a number of different groups one of them being the Franciscan friars we know who our dear friends in and I help them with their house in Harlem and I went down to visit them and father Conrad Austin who was the novice director at the time and I was talking to him and he's like what are you waiting for you're old and I said I'm not coming here but and I and they said that half kiddingly but knowing that I would be very happy there but I wouldn't be fulfilled and I was driving home from class one night and and I heard the Lord say I want you to be a Dominican and again it's like no so I said okay it was a reason you're immediately responsible well because I thought the Dominicans were academics okay you know that they studied all the time and like I said I had been out of school for a long time and I was afraid of that what I've come to learn is that they're learning preachers we study not for study sake but so that we can preach the truth of the gospel in a way that people can understand and relate to and that's much more important so I wasn't pleased with the Lord's decision that he wanted me to mean to be a Dominican so I did what anyone would do I called the vocations director but I called him on a Sunday now all of you out there and where are priests on a Sunday they're in church or at least they should be as far as I knew as a fallen away Catholic returning I called his office at Providence College and he picked up the phone and I was like oh this is not good like not funny he's supposed to be in touch picking up the phone and he said hi you know I said hi how are you and he knew who I was because he had send me information and I thinking Lord this isn't funny how he'll tell me to come and see him in a couple of weeks and I'll have to wash my hair or something and we'll just forget about the Dominicans God has a great sense of humor and the vocations director said well you only live in Westerly we're only 20 minutes away why don't you come up now and the Lord took away another excuse so I drove from Westerly Rhode Island to Providence College in Providence and as soon as I cross the threshold of the college I knew I was home there was just an overwhelming sense of peace enjoyed that I can't explain other than God wanted me to realize that this is where I should be so I met with the vocations director and one of the Power parlors at the University he was asking all sorts of questions and I was sitting there with this grin on my face because they knew that's where I was supposed to be scared to death not wanting to do what the Lord was asking me to do but peaceful and he asked me to go to a vocations weekend which would be in Washington DC in our Dominican house of studies if you're looking you go for a weekend and spend the time with the brothers praying and in recreative with them and eating and you know visiting library and what-have-you just to see if it's something that you would be interested in so I went and again when I got there I was in the smallest room in the entire building and it's a huge building I put my feet up on the desk and realized this is where I'm gonna spend a number of years of my life and went through the vocations weekend and asked for an application much to my chagrin and the rest is is history I was accepted even though I was 37 years old which was very old we generally cutoff at 35 but they make exceptions I still don't know why but they did and I began my studies in Washington while in California in Cincinnati for the first year and have come to this point recognizing that God was extremely kind and merciful even though I had gone far away he was still there holding me by the hand and leading me to this point allowing me to fall because of my own sinfulness but never allowing me to be hurt so badly that I couldn't respond when I finally listened and that's very humbling I'm trying to remember the Dominican writer that I read about you know understanding the the parts that God plays and we play in you know the way things turn out in our lives you know that you know you look at an evil like Hitler well where was God in that well he was allowing things to happen it wasn't causing things and I was a Dominican and I was thinking even in your own life those times away were probably intended by the Lord for a specific aspect of your character for your pastoral work everything that happened almost everything that happened has been used already in my priesthood and in my my life as a Dominican and preaching because all things work for the good for the good of those who love God and he uses those things though though painful to share with others he uses them so that others don't have to go through the pain or that for those who have gone through it and realizing there is a way back and basically that lifetime that somebody can throw on say I've been there I've done this the Lord can still help you through this and heal you of those things and bring you great join in peace and that's a wonderful thing it's it's interesting because I never would have if you would have asked me 15 years ago and one if I was going to be a priest I would have said absolutely not and to to be a Dominican no way it's just not possible but he's allowed me with my experience in with my background to to preach across the country at different conferences and in youth conferences and retreats and to help others recognize the beauty of God the merciful nosov God and that through the sacrament of confession of reconciliation we can unburden ourselves of everything that binds us and enslaves us so that he can move into our hearts and make us whole again unfortunately in our lives today we seek other avenues to try to deaden the pain whether it be drugs or alcohol or whatever what we really need to do is just let God in and let him heal us and expose ourselves completely to him and be completely transparent and say Lord this is where I'm having an issue this is what I need and this is where I need the healing and sometimes we don't even know what it is but that openness to let him in and realize that he's not going to do anything that will hurt us he will never do anything against our will and he's always doing what's best for us that he cares so much I mean he sent his son to die for us you can't care any more than that and if we let people in or we let God in he can do that and sometimes it's through other people through their experience through their expertise perhaps that he opens that door for us and we say wow if it happened for him it can happen for me if it happened for her it can happen for me well I want to talk about you to talk about that that experience that may have occurred only over a couple days maybe a week and that is that what one would what maybe my Evangelical Protestant background we've called you're born again experience but we we recognize the born-again experience is very connected with the sacraments as Catholics it's a really a work of grace but yet before you went into that before you started actually before you started doing the examination of conscience right you you weren't leaning towards a spiritual renewal oh definitely not but within a week your life had changed absolutely talk about that from a Dominican understanding how do we understand I mean there's different ways of looking at but what happens and how do we help people out there experience that that's a that's a very good and difficult question we have to realize that the Lord moves us even if we're not following him he'll he'll move us I mean the reason why my sister was there at the time or that I accepted her invitation to go to a priest is Grace and and we've been given the gift of faith we have the Lord Welling within us and what happens is a lot of times we work only with our hearts it's an emotional thing and in the dominican side is its will and intellect so we use our heads and realize what can occur through the grace of God and into the sacraments and teachings of his church and how we get someone else into that is just helping them to recognize that it can't only be the heart although that's very important but we need to use our heads because our intellect will stay relatively stable but our emotions go up and down and if we allow our motions to rule us we're always on a roller coaster and something down we get emotional and we don't always open ourselves to up to what the grace of the Lord is wants to give us and we don't reach out for that we're if we use our intellect and our will and our emotions those appetites can be controlled so that we can accept God's grace in the situation's we're in it's not an easy thing to do because our society doesn't teach that it's all about how I feel what I'm doing how this makes me feel you know it's all feeling which is good to a point but if we don't have our minds in it then we just run rampant and it wasn't something that you made happen you know father Gary blue grande she was Dominican he wasn't using coining this phrase but yet they called it a passive work of the spirit passive purgation you know that's something that the spirit is doing but our part as parents right is to love and pray for and plant the seeds and nurture the soil like in the parable of the soils but let's add some thinking that's if I love that aspect of people's stories is that something happened to you in the course of an hour basically it changed your life to this day but because that's because the seeds were there and I understood as best I could the forgiveness of God from from my youth and from the sacraments and from the teachings of the church at that time and it had been watered all those years and people have prayed for its growth all those years and I was standing on the ground holding it down not letting it come out basically and then when I finally went to confession and receive and accepted the grace of God I stepped out of the way and it sprung up it was always there but I was the one that was squashing it and not letting it come through the ground and sprout and bear fruit once I accepted God's grace and I stepped out of the way and let him do what he wanted then the growth took place and in the fruit was there but we try to do things ourselves all too often especially here in the United States we're self-sufficient we're a great country we have all this technology all this wealth and in a lot of times that puts a wall between us and God because we don't think we need God we can do it ourselves we can't it's it's impossible we can go for a period of time and do okay but the eternal happiness and the great joy is letting God work through us and work in our lives for the betterment of others and ourselves so we need to get out of his way basically often on the program when I have complete converts from other faiths I'll ask what was the biggest barrier the biggest doctrine to get over or maybe the the doctrine or teaching of the church that was the most drawing but as a returning Catholic that's this is interesting in this aspect that there are probably parents out there that got their children that are out there and yet there are different kind of barriers what would you've said was the biggest barrier or barriers to you coming back to the faith did you find that the the devotions what you had learned as a positive journey back or who didn't in some ways that they know that was definitely positive the biggest obstacle was my own pride absolutely because the pride kept me from realizing the beauty and the glory of God and once I swallowed that Pytor made it a virtuous pride rather than a vice it allowed God in and the devotion and seeing my grandmother going to novenas and things like that in adoration made a difference my sisters you know my sister Pam who asked me to go to confession her going to Mass every day and doing 40 hour adoration things like that fasting I was like okay why is why is she doing this and what value is it but you see I saw her joy in my grandmother's joy and in my mom's joy in asking why okay I'm a mess but you guys are calm and peaceful what what do you and I didn't say that what I was thinking that's like okay I'm falling apart in and not in a really good place and you're reacting in a peaceful caring manner what is it that you have that I need desperately and to see that and to recognize after the fact that it was that they were going to communion they receiving our Lord you know in the Eucharist that they were going to confession that they were had these devotions and just great faith change things you know the stumbling block of my pride once that moved out of the way everything else was available alright father we're going to take a break and we'll come back with some more thoughts I always thought welcome back to the journey home our guest tonight its father Jordan Toronto and he's my priest over here at st. Thomas Aquinas perished in Zanesville Ohio so it's a great privilege to have you here father you didn't expected they'd give your whole story but it's isn't it true though that our conversions are only partially for ourselves absolutely there for others I mean every in in in Scripture we read you know the spiritual gifts are given for the benefit of the growth of the kingdom of God so our stories aren't in our conversions aren't only our reversion done only for ourselves but they're for others to help them recognize that the Lord is active in our lives that he's there he's caring and he's willing to accept us back and accept us where we are and move us forward into greater union with him I mean that's that's the key nothing is for ourselves completely and and our selfishness keeps us from the lord if we're willing to share and step out in faith and out of our comfort zone like being here today and sharing those things with the Lord for the his glory and for the help of others our neighbors that's word service I mean we're called to be servants not to serve not to be served and that's very important so the more we serve the better God is talk about the necessity of conversion anyways because I mentioned father Gary Gulick runs it of the multiple conversions Teresa of ávila talks about the multiple conversions it's it's a you know you we use the term revert but really what you were experiencing was your continual conversion talk about that our audience needs to know this well on a daily basis we're called the conversion you know every single day we need to grow closer to the Lord he says you're either hot or you're cold we don't want to be cold we don't want to sit on the fence we want to continue moving forward so it's a constant conversion constant and growing one in the knowledge of God and the love of God and being more trusting in the Lord that giving of ourselves completely and totally like we're called to do in marriage we're also called to do in our faith in our relationship with God we're called to give ourselves completely and totally to God and to trust him well we don't and why don't we trust the Lord the way we should one because we've been hurt we've had people lied to us cheat whatever and we've done some of those things ourselves so we put God in a box and say okay I'll trust you but only as much as I can be trusted and so that daily conversion to grow in the trust to grow in love of God into to continue to put ourselves out there is what we're called to it's it's a constant thing if we stop converting we start dying we start moving away from the Lord because if we're not going forward there isn't any standing still in the spiritual life we're going backwards and that's the key is to continue to strive for holiness continue to accept the grace of God you know mother Teresa said it's there we just have to reach up and grab it it's all there for us but we either don't take the time to reach up and grab the graces or accept the graces or we don't think we need them and which is actually more dangerous so the constant conversion in constantly seeking the Lord in entrusting more and more completely every day is is something that is vital to all spiritual life I even think of that as connected very deeply with father with Dominic himself in the founding of Dominicans in the fact that I correct me if I'm wrong that that what he was called to do was in terms of trying to bring back the a group of heretics but he was able to do that because the group before him that wasn't very successful in a sense needed to conversion themselves because they weren't willing to let themselves down to be Jesus for these people but Dominica Dominic was well and that's why you know we're a mendicant order we beg for what we have and Dominic realized that if we were going to combat the Alba gen teens who were living poor in simple lives that we needed to do the same thing that we couldn't ride in horses we needed to walk we needed to preach the truth in in the places where the people were in that sense of giving everything to God and trusting that he would take care of us was very important because the agente ins were trusting that somebody would take care of them as well and so he met the people where they were you know he would walk miles and miles and miles go into the taverns in the cities go into the street corners and preach where they were preaching and basically said no this is incorrect this is what the Lord said this is what the Church teaches and when we were founded our motto is Veritas truth and we would contemplate the Scriptures for the preaching of the truth in the salvation of souls we were founded to preach and hear confessions bringing people back through the Word of God in the truth and bringing them back through the mercy of God in the sacrament of confession and accepting their grace he did it from the start where we went out to buy to like the apostles who never by ourselves so if you asked me a question and I don't know it my brother would so it was in and he knew us you know he knew human nature where we would be uncomfortable by ourselves but with someone else in support of one another and it was well organized in the spiritual battle right you know alone you just can't deal with that which is why the Dominicans also promote the spiritual direction we can't be alone we need men and that's why we as Dominicans we live in community so that we can support one another and when one is out preaching the others are praying for him that's why Saint Dominic founded the the sisters first the nuns first and they were asked to pray for his mission so that as he founded this band of brothers and and all these young men that they were praying so that we could do the job of going out and preaching throughout the world so without the sisters and the nuns Dominic may have never been able to do this and we give them a great deal of credit and we've been doing it for almost 800 years bringing the truth of the gospel and that's the thing you know we were always in situations where we were the bad guys or we come across as the bad guys sometimes because we preached the truth regardless of the circumstance the truth is the truth is the truth and if you're being taught something or preached something that is not the truth will preach the truth what Jesus Christ said will preach the truth of the church that Jesus Christ founded will preach the truth regardless of you want to hear the truth or not but in a way that's caring and compassionate like our Lord did but there are so many out there and throughout history that have tried to manipulate the truth for their own purposes that the order was founded and at you know back then the only people that really preached with the bishops and all of a sudden this new upstart group was given permission to preach all over the world and Dominic realized that we had to pray and contemplate the scriptures if we were going to do this correctly so like I said earlier we're learning preachers we study so that we can preach the truth of the gospel better and we've done it for a long time I know something we had really plan to talk about but why would you tell the audience that there's a direct connect between the fact that you're sitting here with me and the French Revolution right in other words the Dominicans came to the States because of what was happening in the late 1700s they're over in Europe right and so you came over here looking for a place to to preach to bring the good news of Jesus Christ in the truth of Jesus Christ to the people and I mean we were here from not quite the beginning but I mean even in yeah in Zanesville we've been here since 1820 the first parrot first church in Ohio is in Somerset which is founded by the Dominicans and we were sent here we wanted to be in the East and I'm from the East so I appreciate that even more but we wanted to be in the East in the bishop sent us to Kentucky Kentucky the Saint Rose in Kentucky and then from there they traveled on horseback to the outer areas Ohio Indiana preaching on horseback bringing Jesus Christ to the people the only way we could at that time by horseback in preaching the truth setting up little masses in in people's homes at times but recognizing that the truth needed to be taught faithfully they need to be taught zealously and vibrantly and we needed to love the Lord ourselves and wanted to bring that out you know there's the old adage if you see a grumpy friar Dominican run away from him because that joy should be part of who we are doesn't mean we're always happy enjoy honor but that we have that sense of joy in our hearts to share that joy with others because if we look around there are a lot of people who are very sad and broken and hurt and the only person that can fix that is God and having that relationship with Jesus Christ brings us that joy and healing that that we all so desperately need I'm guessing that a lot of Americans don't realize historically that was all most difficult times in the history of the church to proclaiming the gospel in this place in the world because of the newly released freedoms of the intellectual world American Revolution the French Revolution here we have America all the other sects that were here it was even the time when when all the transcendental sects were rising up Mormonism was rising up all these music it was a wild time to proclaim the gospel in the wilderness when a lot of people that come to the wilderness were interested in the faith they were only interested in making money I don't know about all of them but a lot of was reason they came looking for a new start and I'm away from authority true and that's why it was so important because the secularism in the quest for money and property and wealth was leading people away from God so they came out into the wilderness and preached and it wasn't easy I mean there was a lot of a lot of resistance to that and even in in the areas where there were cities at the time it was gravely anti-catholic I mean if you look at old newspapers you know we could be put in jail and and some of the men and women were the sisters were treated very badly but they continued to preach the truth of Jesus Christ because it was important in thanking God for the persecution that we had received because of him I mean that's a blessing it's hard to think that today because we have so many freedoms and we're not really persecuted individually for the most part but recognizing that the church will the media still takes on our Holy Father and perhaps for every single day wrong and I wasn't gonna go there but absolutely but again we should thank God for that that we're you know able to be persecuted for the sake of Jesus Christ in realizing he said nothing the gates of Hell will not prevail against it they're trying really hard but you know the Holy Father has given that grace as the Vicar of Christ on earth to preach the truth in season and out to have the courage and the veracity to stand up and say no this is still the truth this is still right this is still wrong regardless of what society says because we can justify anything we want and and I know I've done that people and still do the same thing well let's face it the Holy Father is being blamed for the faults of a few and I'll talk a little bit about just historically that we know back when I was a non Catholic and I would hang at the Catholic Church what I generally did was point out the bad Catholics throughout history yes we look at history and one could say that the the worst guys in the church are the ones that receive the most sacraments so what the sacraments must not work is look at these Pope's and bishops and priests that's not the issue talk about how do you make the distinction I mean you get all the sacraments but yet a scoundrel right well and again our fallen human nature we are all sinners we all have that bit that we do not want to follow what we should be doing and that happens with everyone now it doesn't mean that somebody who is a bishop or a priest or a sister or whatever who has received all the sacraments and received all that grace from the Lord necessarily accepts it and lives it out completely you know people always say oh you know they're a bunch of hypocrites they're in church well they're not they recognize that they're sinners and they need the mercy and love of God in the grace of God to continue to try to move forward it doesn't make us hypocrites that just makes us intelligent sinners so we have to do it and when we point to certain people obviously you always look for the figureheads those who are supposed to be in charge and mess up throughout history we've had some really bad people but God has always protected the church as a body from false teachings and things like that that's why we look at people and fail ability T ching of the church we've had some scandals as popes - thank God they were so busy doing what they were doing that they didn't mess up any of the faith in moral teachings of the church but it's very easy to to point out the sins of a one man or the faults of one man and make it corporate when in actuality it's just our fallen human nature struggling in their sinfulness and not allowing the Lord in completely to heal that we're all sinners no I was thinking that getting the spiritual battle that here you know our own parish st. Thomas Aquinas will hear st. Thomas himself you know gifted preacher teacher writer but look at the resistance he got I mean the devil did everything he could to destroy Thomas Aquinas and and and used his family to try to do that you know so much as brothers you know brought in a prostitute to try to keep him from coming to the Dominicans because they wanted him to be a wealthy priest in abbot and and he wanted to be a Dominican and they brought in a prostitute to tempt him away and he chased the woman out of his room with a hot poker and thankfully her sisters helped him escape and go to the friary but even Thomas wrote a great deal one of the great spiritual doctors of the church and the end of his life put his head against the tabernacle said this is all straw compared to you Lord that's a very humble recognition of our place God and then US and realizing that the Eucharist which is the heart and soul of the church is the most important thing and Thomas recognized that and he wrote great treatises on many many many things I realized that Jesus Christ was the most important thing in everything he had written compared to God was strong why burn at the Eucharist I want you to talk about that because you are in you know one of the most privileged positions I think about I've been giving the great opportunity to bring us the Eucharist was that a part of a conversion to for you I mean to experience that yes the it is a privilege it's one that no one is worthy of to truly you know act as a person of Christ and use this these human elements of bread and wine through the power of the Holy Spirit to make then the body and blood of Jesus Christ nobody nobody is worthy of that and when you and hopefully you always think about that when you celebrate Mass is when you you recognize that that at this moment God is working through these sinful hands in this sinful body to bring his people the body and blood of his son the first time after my confession that I received it was like being hit with a two-by-four because all of a sudden I recognized oh my gosh this is Jesus Christ that should bring you to tears it should bring you to your knees and just thanking God for the opportunity not only the grace but the opportunity to to consume the Son of God body blood soul and divinity spiritually present it doesn't get any better and to be able to convict the confetti Eucharist through the power of God it's it's frightening actually in a good way an awesome Frank it because you realize it this is Jesus and as you're holding him up for all to see and the elevation and you're looking at that piece of bread which looks like bread and it's not we see Jesus Christ there and it's like what I shouldn't even be holding you I have no right to do this except you gave me the right you made me worthy to do this and to be able to give him to the people it's just an incredible incredible gift like the sacrament of confession you know someone comes into the confessional and bares their soul to Jesus Christ and because He has called you to be the priest and to act in his person you are allowed to say the words that come from his mouth i absolve you from your sins in the name of the Father Son Holy Spirit you meet Christ face-to-face there you receive him you know imagine God lets you put him in your hands if you so choose you know we received the Lord way back when the Holy Father received he didn't take he received the Lord as well in the first Eucharist I just struck me for the first time the the parallel between the the surrender of God for us into the womb of Mary allowing to be born as it the most helpless child we get that happens every single time when he comes into the very hands of a priest and lost himself to be in your hands for our benefit as we receive that which is what we save every every Sunday for your benefit in that of all church I think we have an email that I'd like to to go to here if we can get it back up here real quick because I think it talked about the struggles with that we have do we haven't may we we don't know oh yes here we go yeah it comes from caring from Detroit says I've lived a very secular life for most of my adulthood but lately I have sensed that I need to return to God I'm afraid though of all that would entail does father have any advice for me absolutely carry don't be afraid the fear is coming from Satan and that God and he's always he's there and if we look at the picture behind me you know he's there waiting to embrace us like the prodigal son the father from the prodigal son he is reaching out to us and he'll meet us where we need to be met so don't be afraid and come back he's been waiting and and we'll accept you graciously and lovingly there's another email that similar to that maybe just a little expansion this comes from Dominic from Alberta I've always been a Catholic and love my faith but God seems so far away I go to Mass in confession but can't seem to draw closer to God and my prayer life seems dry is there something I can do to deepen my relationship with God Dominic the one of the things I would do is just be go to church spend time in front of the Blessed Sacrament if possible and just be there many times when we're praying that's what we're doing is we're talking and you know the old adage is God gave us two ears in one mouth for a reason and sometimes just spending some quiet time with the Lord and just being there and just letting him speak to us saying Lord I'm here what do you want and just being open to that yeah if I would presume to add something to that I have a father but what it struck me lately in my own spiritual journey the the significance of the theological virtues of faith open love and sometimes I think that by our active involvement in the church we can get very you know our tanks on faith and hope can can get full but the love is not getting our tanks full but but going out there and taking an act of love reaching out to someone and I think one way of course to grow closer is to love absolutely who is there in our life that we need to love more to give more to surrender pray for but that's the hard part yeah the action is really easy it's the reaching out and giving of ourselves for another and loving them that's hard and and that's generally where most of us fall down is we can be really busy doing stuff but when we have to say you know like Montrese are picking someone up out of the gutter meeting them where they are and showing them the love of God that's that's hard and but it's necessary it's maybe one more email Donna from Kansas I am a mom with four young children does father Toronto have any suggestions for how I might give love for Jesus in the Catholic Church I'm so concerned that they might leave the faith when they become adults that's a typical question from a parent and and the one thing I would tell her is is you know there's nothing that you can do or say or do that will make them make the choice the way you want we have to live live the life the best you can be in love with God yourself and be that example but kids are going to do what kids are going to do I mean my parents were faithful my family was faithful and I left wasn't anything they did it was my decision but it was the foundation that I was given before that allowed me to come back when the time was right so I would say just continue to love them pray for them and be the best example you can be of being in love with God and joyful about being Catholic and faithful in a couple minutes I'm gonna ask you a very difficult question all right okay I was one of those like many who pulled Catholics out of the church back when I was a Protestant pastor and one of the reason was I had a very simple gospel for spiritual laws five spirits long as I could put it in a real little card and that was all what is the gospel from a Catholic perspective it's not that you haven't said it but just to make sure audience understand from a Dominican perspective what is the gospel the gospel is that God loved us so much excuse me that he sent His only Son into the world and that his son is present on that altar every day when the Eucharist is convected and if we want him he's there waiting it's the whole gospel for Catholics is Jesus Christ in the Eucharist crucified died resurrected and present in the Eucharist for us simply he's there for us the priesthood is there for us it's not my priesthood it's Jesus's Christ Jesus Christ's priesthood made available so that he can be present in the Eucharist and we just because of time we haven't talked that much about Our Blessed Virgin Mother but our Blessed Virgin Mother is about our Lord Jesus Christ absolutely and and part of my kin and part of my way back is I was before I entered we have to enter debt-free and it was a couple of weeks before I was supposed to enter and I still had some debts and I was at mass one morning reading our lady the riot act like mom your son wants me to do this he needs to take care of this now he needs to make these bills go away now and as I finished that discussion with our Heavenly Mother someone tapped me on the shoulders and said how much do you need and I was like I'm sorry it's like how much do you need it's like what are you talking about it's like I was praying and the Lord put on my heart that you needed money how much and I started to cry it's like you have no idea what you're talking about and they continued to push and push and I said you don't know how much money you're talking about and the woman who was a person who I really didn't know at the time Joe and Jackie Sarah said if you're at Mass tomorrow morning we'll give you a check I was at church the next morning and they gave me a check for the entire amount and I just wept through Mass saying I'm sorry I asked you to tell your son and I didn't think you were listening she's a great intercessor she's our best example of how to live a life as a human being and to follow her son regardless of the circumstance father as we close could we have your blessing absolutely may the blessing of Almighty God descend upon you and remain with you forever Father Son Holy Spirit amen god bless you thank you Father I I again I want to thank you for getting on the program and as you said it isn't as as comfortable as the pulpit absolutely not but but I'm happy to be here but we love you having you in the pulpit thank you in our parish they're representing not only Jesus Christ but you represent the st. Thomas Aquinas teaching us because most of us can't get around to read in the Summa so we wait for you to kind of summarize it every Sunday thank you all right father so thank you government do anything is on the program I appreciate that I want to thank you for joining us on this episode of the journey home I don't always get the privilege of having my pastor with us here but I it's an honor for me both the Mazzone witness in terms of the lord bringing him on his own journey you know I often get it's amazing now good comments about the journey home some will say you don't have enough former Catholics or you know or people have gone on the journey in terms of priesthood but what I've wanted this to help us recognize is that every single one of us everyday is on a journey of faith it always involves surrender it always involves breaking from pride it always involves cutting away by grace the things that prevent us from seeing Jesus and then the process discovering who we were intended to be who God wants us to be even now the person who wrote feels a little afraid of what would have to be given up there's nothing you can give up that God can't replace was something that is so much better including his son our Lord Jesus god bless you you

Channel: EWTN

Views: 20,210

Rating: 4.7530866 out of 5

Keywords: Catholic

Id: VBa2A3VGqCk

Length: 56min 21sec (3381 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 29 2010