Journey Home - Revert - Marcus Grodi with Peggy Bowes - 11-08-2010

[Music] [Laughter] [Music] good evening and welcome to the journey home my name is Marcus grodi your host for this program each week EWTN gives me this great privilege of introducing to you men and women who were touched by the Holy Spirit their hearts were awakened to the beauty of the Catholic Church many of them were never Catholics uh had already had a conversion to Jesus Christ and then sometimes against their desires the Lord open them to the beauty of the Catholic church and then they discovered their need to come home others were born baptized catechized brought up in the church but for variety of reasons left and I know from many of your letters that a lot of you Catholics have children siblings who've left the church and you wish boy could the Lord open their heart and their minds to discover the beauty of the church well some of our guests indeed are those that by the grace of God were reawakened to the beauty of the faith that they had received as children as babes through baptism and then they've come home and uh that's our guest tonight Peggy Bose uh is what we would call a Reaver for one of a better term and she's going to talk about her journey back to the church and was particularly uh special about our guest tonight is she's got another advocation in which she talks about both her faith as well as uh keeping the whole person healthy not just spiritual but physical also as she looks at ways to use the rosary to help us uh both spiritually and physically grow closer to Christ and so Peggy welcome to the journey home it's an honor and a pleasure Marcus thank you it's great to have you here thank you and we' got a copy of your book here which we'll talk about a little bit later the rosary workout uh and um now have you already talked about that any WTN yet I think you have I have I was on a guest on the sunrise Morning Show with Brian Patrick and so we talked about that um earlier this year all right excellent well we'll get to that a little later what I normally do in the journey home is you said you've seen the program yes of course I try and get out of the way as soon as I can and invite you to go way back and give the audience a a a summary of your spiritual uper well I was I was born to a very devout Catholic home I was the oldest of five girls and ums all girls I know everybody says oh no your poor dad is what everybody said and we all shared one bathroom too so that was rough the worst of it all exactly exactly but um very devout family we um if you walked into our home you knew that we were catholic there were crucifixes over every bed there were um statues of the Saints and Mary and Jesus and lots of pictures and holy water fountains and so it was very AES obvious that we were a Catholic Family and uh we prayed together you know we'd pray together every night and um we were just it was the faith was inundated throughout my childhood um we'd go to mass and my mother insisted on um everybody in dresses and we'd sit in the front pews and my sisters and I as we got older we'd say they're counting us as we walked all the up the up the front aisle of the church and we as I got older we didn't like that you know my sisters and I we didn't like to be counted but um but we had you know very um very faith upbringing uh my mother taught me all the basic prayers and um Catholic prayers and especially the rosary we pray the rosary when we traveled as a family we U my my father was an Air Force officer so we were on the road a lot you know traveling to different places for his um where he was stationed and every time we're on a long trip my mother would lead the rosary and so that was um a seed that she planted that was as you'll see later on was very very important and um I uh my parents were from Owens Kentucky where the passionist nuns Monastery is and we'd visit the nuns and they were cloistered and I wanted to grow up and be a passionist nun and I think there's much mirth in heaven at that notion but but that wasn't meant to be for me but um I was very drawn to um to being being a nun and spending you know my life devoted to Jesus and um in fact my mother claims that my first word was Gigi which is Jesus because she took me to daily maass when I was a child and so I wonderful Catholic upbringing um went to Catholic schools and at this is the when I started school it was in the early 70s and I was really the first generation to go through a post Vatican 2 type of catechism and um of your family I mean the first one of your family yeah the family and just just you know all the children that were brought up in the SE in the early 70s we were kind of the first group to really you know go from that Old Baltimore catechism and the Apologetics and the Very formal structured way of teaching children to a more you know I guess it was free form I think there was kind of a a general you know backlash against the structure and so we sang a lot of songs and um did a lot of coloring and you know pasted pictures of Jesus yeah exactly I was I Mac my whole heart out giving gifts of of plant hangers to everybody velcro felt things that you know and you know your point is good and I want to make sure the audience catches on and thinks about that that really you're right the 70s was really beginning of the actual in many ways because the late 60s where a lot of people weren't sure what's going to happen right things were changing MH let's wait and see but then the Publishers got in gear and started producing what they thought was in line with the church yes and there you go I mean that's the stuff you were getting yes it was it was very Kumbaya you know we' sing Kumbaya and debage pictures of Jesus pasted onto plaques of wood you know and and um so and it was and I remember my mother had high God you remember high God that the the um it was a it was a a record a record for children that had these songs and I bet my sisters could probably still say every word to these songs and so even our music in our home you know we listen to the damiens and the St St Louis Jesuit choir and um classical music when we weren't listening to that so our whole lifestyle was really all about Catholicism but unfortunately at school I was not getting any Doctrine I was getting J you know of course you want to know that Jesus loves you and that God is our heavenly father and um but I didn't really get any solid Doctrine no apologetics no um real roots in the faith and I think you know my parents paid for Catholic School a great sacrifice for all five of us thinking that we were getting this very solid Catholic Education that we really weren't especially as the years went by I think Early Elementary School I was you know I remember I coming home telling my mother you didn't teach me the memorare because I learned that at school and I cuz I always knew all the prayers I was you know a straight A student and and to think that I was one I didn't know and I was very upset with my mother for not teaching me that prayer and she talks about that even today um but would do you think when you look back to those times were you start were they starting to convey almost an um a remorseful or apologetic apologetic in I'm I'm sorry exactly not as opposed to the idea that that we used to say this was the true church but of course now we're more ecumenical and it's not were you starting to get some of that in your churches yes yes more it was all it was okay we were all loved by Jesus and you could go and do bad things but then Jesus loved you because you could just go to confession and wash it all away and and U there weren't any you know we didn't learn about plary indulgences we didn't learn about um you know we didn't do Stations of the Cross that I really remember maybe during Lent of course but um the the de the the devotion the Catholic devotions weren't really drilled into my head at school of course at home you know we would my mother would take us to Stations of the Cross and we'd pray the rosary and did you ever started discussing non uh catholic christian religions we did in high school okay High School yes in high school it was it was in California and we'd had classes like death and dying and um you know very Catholic light um and we'd have it was just it was not a solid um you know in high school it's so important to be prepared to go to college we didn't have anything to prepare our faith it was to PR prepare to defend our faith to go out in the world and in fact um I was confirmed uh in ninth grade in in um at high school and um I didn't even have to do any works of service or anything because everybody else had been confirmed in eth grade and we moved in and so the confirmation was just more of me getting a nice dress so it wasn't really um wasn't I I didn't really feel like I was a soldier of Christ I didn't feel like um I I just it wasn't to me a memorable experience other than I remember the dress I wore um a Vain and shallow creature um but uh and it was really in high school that I started to drift away from my faith I started to be embarrassed you know being in the front row at mass and and once I got my driver's license at 16 that was my kind of Escape I could escape from my parents who were very strict and as the old daughter um I had a lot of restrictions but they they trusted me and um let me have my freedom um and and unfortunately I abused it I um would go see movies that I was not allowed to see um I would sneak magazines into the house that I was not supposed to be reading it's the four M um MTV Madonna magazines and movies and I thought my parents were old terribly oldfashioned and um that they didn't understand the real world and um that I knew what I was doing that I would you know they they didn't know what they they they were doing but I knew what I was doing and it was okay I could still be a good person and read these magazines and see these movies and um it was funny my sister's MTV was just starting up in the in the that time period and the second my mother drove out of the driveway MTV was on and we'd have a lookout posted on the you know out the front window she's here you know and then we switch it to Gilligan island or something you know equally innocent and um and it was and so this was starting to influence me the the pop culture um and I would have arguments with my mother and tell her um that I was going to be you know I was going to be one of these modern women because at the same time women were starting to crash through the glass ceiling and women the super mom the Superwoman was starting to come about where you know a woman could walk into the boardroom and run the meeting and then go home and cook a homemade meal and um and still have everything together and so I bought into that I thought I you know I can be like that and my mother would say well what about your children and I'd say oh you know I'll get a nanny they'll be fine um so I had no idea of of what real true femininity was I didn't you know although I read the Saints my we always had books on the Saints and I'd read the female about the female saints and of course the Blessed Mother but I thought of them as these remote figures and say with the image that was rising in the 80s and 9s of the woman Modern Woman compared to the way the the the stories of the Saints I mean these are so far exactly exactly and then St Janna wasn't around or um you know these the the more modern representatives of of how it you know you could be a Catholic in the modern world as a woman were not really around so um and thank goodness for St Giana what a wonderful inspiration she is for today's woman I wrote an article about how she's the true super mom um but anyway uh so it just it was very it was my at the 16 really where I had my car and or had the family car and could go out and I lied to my parents and I betrayed their trust and um it was terrible I was a straight A student I was a good girl um and so they trusted me and just assumed that that I would um you know act honorably when I went out and I would you know sneak wine coolers into the dances because I look 21 and so I could I could go to the liquor store I knew this little liquor store I could go and buy by wine coolers because I was dressed up for work and then I would give them to my friends and I mean what a horrible and my sisters what a horrible thing I was doing your parents picking up on all this at all that you know of um you know one time I came home um after A Dance where somebody had to drive me home because I'd had too much to drink and at the time my aunt was visiting it was very embarrassing for the family and um my parents just thought I learned my lesson I was grounded um I was punished um and they thought it was a onetime thing it was a one-time thing and they thought oh you know nothing was really other than a punishment there's no teaching going on and I think my parents just trusted that they that I was a good girl that and and I know I don't do not blame my parents for any of this or the schools it was my own own bad choices in life that led to me straying from my faith and I make no excuses for that and um I'm just I I've mourn those Lost Years um so many years where I could have been studying the Bible or reading all these wonderful catholic books and um and so much out there about our faith and to think that I I didn't even father I just mourned for those years of course sometimes it takes the the hindsight of maturity to be able to see that exact so we can't hit ourselves in the back of the head with a board moaning the way we done we we wish we'd have been different but now what did we learned from that and how can we help others which is exactly what you're doing now but by the time you left High School were you still as far as your parents concerned active in the church oh yes I went to math every every you know Sunday um I'd have to sometimes I would drive my my myself I would take my sisters and we were not going to go in the front Pew you know we did not want to be counted in fact we look for entertaining babies so that we could sit behind an entertaining baby and that would entertain us during the mass so I didn't really have I didn't understand what the mass was about I didn't understand I was not given that that education in my Catholic schools that I attended and you know 12 years of Catholic schools and I didn't understand that the mass was a sacrifice to not understand that um the true meaning behind the Bible of scripture and I know no Bible study ever in in high school or or even in elementary school so I didn't have a foundation to me it was just punching the ticket I went to maass I'm a good Catholic I go to confession every now and then because if you would have asked me during this whole time I would have said yes I'm a good Catholic um because God loves me because that's what I was being taught God loves me and as long as I you know doing things you expected were expected to do basically right right exact journals of the faith exactly and I didn't have really a prayer life um I didn't I'd say this Mumble this kind of half-made up lame prayer every night before I fell asleep and you know often I didn't finish it thinking okay I said my prayer I'm okay I'm covered you know I have my bulletin from church I have my ticket um and occasionally I would pray the rosary um but once I left I left home I went to the Air Force Academy I I received an appointment there and um I got there in the summer of 1984 and that was the most difficult thing I'd ever done in my life basic training you have a six- week basic training program that you go through before you can become a Cadet and we had to the first day um they gave us we had to March we were didn't have uniforms yet but we had to look straight ahead not look left or right and marched and they took us all to these different impressing lines and they filled our our laundry bags with socks and shoes and uniforms and everything you showed up with pretty much an empty suitcase they gave you everything you needed and then um we went back to our room room we were three to a room and um they an upper classman Cadet came in and said put this all in inspection order and we said well how do we do that and he threw this binder at us this giant thick binder and so you know we started looking through it and he said he said you have an hour and they came back an hour later and the room was still an uproar and we you know you get yelled out and all that sort of thing but um but then that evening they all of a sudden they said okay it's time for Chapel or time to spend in your room and I thought oh I get to go to to the chapel and I don't know if you're familiar with the Air Force C the chapel is a is a is a landmark that can be seen for miles it's beautiful and I thought we'd be going upstairs with the stained glass windows and the giant organ but that's where the Protestants go so the Catholics go to the basement which is equally just beautiful and the the priest would joke well the the Protestants upstairs because hot air rises so there's always this kind of rivalry between the Catholics and the and the the you know in the basement the Protestants upstairs a very friendly rivalry of course um and the the the whole Chapel was filled with B basic trainees we were you know every Catholic I think that was in basic training was there because it was such a traumatic experience and I remember the sign of Peace we all tears rolling down our faces and we were all hugging each other and and it was nice so nice to have that they encouraged a spiritual um you know spiritual journey in the academy they wanted you to be able to have that opportunity and every day during basic training we had that opportunity and so I I usually took advantage of it because it connected me to home to my to my family always heard that about the academy that that that there was the spiritual element exactly they do they do promote that and um then uh when we went to the tent area you have to live in the tents for a few weeks and we go on these long marches and the first as we went in the marches and I had we carried this heavy rifle it was an M1 rifle with the barrel filled with lead so it's very heavy and and I was you know I was not a military type of girl so it was It was kind of interesting but um as we marched I started praying the rosary because it connected me with those trips that my family had done as a child and um so I felt very much at peace praying the rosary while I marched and um and just so so the audience understands I did not understand that the rosary was meditation that it's all about learning the gospels and learning Jesus in Christ through the rosary I did not understand that um I just prayed the prayers it was just the Rope prayers so I I did not the the true soul of the Rosary is the meditating on the Mysteries but at the time I didn't realize that but in any case it it kind of tied me back to home and um then I joined the Catholic choir and um so we had you know be Mass every Sunday to sing and um so my first year at the Academy was still pretty spiritual you know I wasn't I still would read the magazines I wasn't supposed to be reading and and kind of had the whole women's Li thing going on you know here I'm at the Air Force Academy I can do anything and and um and I was going to be a pilot and so I was very excited about that and um you know the time there you know women had just started really becoming pilots and um um it was just it was the first year was very good and I I did well I was I you know was still a good girl and um my second year when I started going to Cher practice I noticed that everybody would be friendly to me and during CER practice but then we'd go out in school and they act like they didn't even know me and I thought they're phony they're fake and I gradually became disenchanted and then another member of the quoir you know confided me that she had had several abortions and um and you know I just wish that I at the time had done something to stop it and I think I prayed for her but um it just it seemed to me that it was a shame that these people really weren't practicing their faith and so why should I and so I stopped going to mass I quit the choir um I didn't go to mass I'd go out and I was the party girl you know I had some freedom and so I'd go out and and drink and and have fun with my friends and and I still thought you know I'm a good girl because Jesus loves me God loves me and every once in a while I go to math every once in a while I go to confession but I really was not living my faith at all I was living a sinful lifestyle and I was manipulating people and just in general not being a holy person and was your conscience kicking in all during this time I mean were you seeing that or was just the way you had come to understand that's what it means to be a Catholic well I think I just thought I'm a modern girl you know Madonna I listen to Madonna music and and you know watch these movies that were very you know the ' 80s were full a lot of immoral movies um read a PG you know if you rent them today you think oh my goodness that's PG um can't spell that to my children but um it was just the culture of the time and and there wasn't there I didn't have any role models I didn't have any friends that were very devout Catholics I had lots of friends who were Catholics but they were out doing the same thing I was they were out drinking and cousing and and not living holy lives and were you comparing it all to the evangelicals on campus there weren't very you know I remember a Mormon a young man who was a Mormon and he went on his mission really great guy um he left the academy and then he came back the um a couple years later yeah two years later after the mission and I thought wow it's pretty impressive but um there W really weren't very many Evangelical Protestants on campus to a certain extent outside your Chapel Services you you went into the to the work other work of the academy and the faith was kind of kept it was it it was not I was never made fun of because I was Catholic I was never um wasn't an issue it wasn't an issue it was a non-issue but there the chapel was always right there and um you know you could always go and and talk to the priest and and our choir director was sort of a mentor too he was a really wonderful man and um but then when I went away from the choir and you know seeing all the the fakeness of the the Catholics in the choir it just it just turned me off so your trajectory by your second year was slowly just BEC less and less active it was exactly exactly but then I had an incident where I got in trouble and um I had I had to stay to the academy I couldn't leave for uh two months and I had to sit in my room on the weekends in uniform with my room all straightened up and study it's called a confinement it's hour and 50 minutes and all weekend long I had to do that and every once in a while I go out and do what's called tours where you march with your rifle back and forth outside right in front of the honor wall where it says I want you know you have to just because you know they wanted you know okay this is this is what you're supposed to be as a Cadet and so um it was very embarrassing for me and very humiliating and I was always the straight A student I was always the good girl I was always you know the role model the perfect person and for me to have this this shame this humiliation was you know sit me into spiraling into depression and um I was supposed to be in a play and that was taken away from me and um just it was horrible and at one point I took a bunch of pills in front of my roommate you know thinking what do I have to live for it's kind of a half-heart suicide attempt and I don't I didn't really want to kill myself but it was a cry for help and my roommate you know she said you got to throw up and and then that night I thought what you know I'm here I am about to take my own life and you know even halfheartedly but what is there left in my life and I was at Rock Bottom the lowest point I'd ever been in my life you know before or since and all of a sudden it just occurred to me God still loves you and so I I went to the chap straight away to the chapel and luckily it was unlocked and um and I I just prayed and and um and I thought wow God does love me and and and I I have more I there's something I'm worth something in his eyes and I was able to get through the depression with some help um from a teacher that was a psychologist and once I came back out of that depression you know I'd go for to mass it regularly again and then I thought okay everything's okay and then I started straying again and and I you know I wish I was the lost sheep you know I wish like the parable the lost sheep where I didn't know what I was doing and and I went away and Jesus came and got me and brought me back into the fold and everything is all right or the prodigal Sun where I went away and wasted everything and then came back and was back in the fold but no I was the little smart sheep that knew exactly what she was doing when she sneaked out under the fence and thinking nobody you know I'm there the fold the rest of the day and then I'd sneak out under the fence and go do my thing and then come back back you know right before um I were supposed to be back in the pasture or the back in the sheep sheep pin and like nothing had happened that I'd go out and do my own thing but I was really part of the Sheepfold and it was interesting because I think of Jesus as the Good Shepherd who knew exactly what I was doing and thought she needs to learn some lessons and you know she needs to learn them on her own but every once in a while he would come out and look for me and those are those moments of Grace like this moment you know and but it took me a long time a really long time and and um through when I graduated from the Air Force Academy and was a pilot I went back to the same kind of sinful party girl living and um still active in the church though yes yes I join yeah I would join a parish and I would go to mass and frankly going to mass and confession was my insurance policy against hell that's the way I looked at it because I thought okay you can't send me to hell because I just confessed all my sins and I go to mass you know not regularly but every once in a while I'm a good person and God loves me cuz that's what my f Faith Foundation was you know God loves you never what do I need to do to Merit that love or you know you don't Merit that love but what do I need to do to to be a holy person to be on that right path to heaven and I just was not ever given any you know I never saw out that um and actually at the Academy I was went to a curo there was another one of those moments you know I went to a curo with my roommate and I was going to go out and fly for the glory of God and had this wonderful you know grace-filled experience in the curo and then again I revived my faith and and went to mass regulate but slowly drifted back out you know and and um just continued a sinful just a generally sinful lifestyle where I was not reading and watching you know and listening to things that were that would make me a better person would make me holy I was listening to I was of the world very much of the world and um never really lived my faith just I just thought I'm a good person so I'm okay well I don't want to jump ahead to the conclusion but if this is jumping ahead then let's just pause not go there but I mean would you if you look back on that whole period of your time when you seem to have all the facts of the faith down and even the devotions of the faith and you know what you're supposed to do externally in the faith what was missing would you say that you were here and you and yet there was no relationship ship with God I mean is that what you would say yes yes God was very remote he um and and Jesus and Mary and the Saints very very remote to me I didn't feel well I go to mass and I would not feel feel anything I was you know you you hear about people speaking in tongues or people having this great experience and um and I I never felt that I just thought I was just you know like I had my whole life pretty much just following the rules and my husband likes to joke you know the first thing I do go to read the rules um so and of course I wasn't following the rules of the church I was living a sinful lifestyle but I thought math going to math and and I did not realize you had to compartmentalize this is that you as a Catholic exactly when you did these other things long as I went to confession all that than what I did over here so you here you are a pilot right yes and you mentioned that word compartmentalization because that's the way they describe Pilots because to be a pilot when you go up and fly you have to compartment aliz everything else and we watched a film on on how Pilots you know naturally compartmentalize things and um and so and that's my faith was in my little faith box my faith compartment and when I went to Mass on Sunday I would you know wear a nice dress and um and just you know there I was that was my faith compartment but it was it was just sort of an obligation it I had not studied the Bible at the time I was not did not have a prayer life other than my little half my lame half mumbled prayer before bed every night um and then when I'd have these these moments of Grace where Jesus was bringing me back and trying to bring me back into the fold I would suddenly get devotion and maybe I'd pray the rosary and um maybe I and you you had backed off a little bit ago from the idea that you were getting Merit but was there a sense in which you may have felt that when you said the rosary you were gaining some Merit you were gaining you were doing a good thing yes to to get it exactly the check mark yes I know see I'm praying the rosary I'm a good person let's pause here all right pegy and we'll come back and pick up on your story after the break okay okay see you [Music] B [Music] welcome back to the journey home our guest this evening is p Peggy Bose and uh I've interrupted right in the flow of your of your story you're now a pilot yes in your journey and uh to most least at least in your own mind to the outside world you look like a good Catholic you're doing good once in a while you get excited about your faith but uh you know it's up and down right sometimes you drip back the other ways and I'm wondering really you're following in the footsteps of Catholics you would seen growing up in some ways very much so model for you both at at the Academy as well as maybe other times in your life so now you're flying I mean that's that's where you in your journey yeah and there's a wonderful poem by John Gillespie McGee Jr called highlight are are you familiar with it isn't it beautiful and then um in the last part says T put out my hand and touch the face of God and I'd feel like that when I was up in the air um I flew the t-37 which is a very maneuverable jet aircraft and we would do acrobatics and sometimes we would just have a little extra time to play in the clouds and that's when I just felt close to Heaven because I thought oh my goodness only a wonderful great God could create this this beautiful sky and the clouds and and um just it it really was very you know very a spiritual moment for me sometimes when I was flying and just had that freedom and um I would sometimes would would go on these long cross country trips um and they let us go by ourselves a few times and I'd pray the rosary because again a journey so I pray the rosary while I flew and um and it was about you know a couple years into my flying career that um I started feeling a a searching you know I felt like I should do something about my faith and I made an appointment with a priest and um my pastor and he talked to me he said you know you're at a sixth grade level of Catholic faith and I thought gosh at least put me at a 12th grade level you know my parents paid for that school and um he said you're just you have not really gone out and learn you know you haven't learned the Bible and you haven't um studied the Bible and you haven't done you know there's so much more that's out there as an adult you need to to become an adult Catholic and he recommended some books but this is before amazon.com you know there's no internet so I made a half-hearted attempt to locate some of those books and couldn't write away and and then um I picked up my Bible I actually went out and bought a Bible and um a Catholic Bible and I started reading it but I wasn't studying it and so to me it was just the same stories I'd learned as a child so I wasn't really um learning scripture I wasn't learning the message behind scripture so that again that was abandoned um and I came kind of came to another moment of realization that I was not living a holy life and I made some very positive changes to to eliminate some sinful practices in my life and almost immediately my husband showed up the man that was become my husband showed up and um so I'd had a lot of you know I was the queen of the three-month relationship I never really had a a serious relationship and at the time I was 26 and uh met my husband and he's this wonderful man he's not a Catholic he's a Christian and he's a better Christian than I could ever hope to be and he took me to his Baptist um a Baptist um service and and it was very interesting and I as a Catholic I'd never been to any other type of of U Protestant service and and everybody was very friendly there was lots of music there were the testimonials and um I thought wow you know this is you know does it really matter if I'm not a Catholic now can I just be a Christian because I love this guy and um I happened to mention it to my mother and she said you cannot ever go back there don't ever you know you you can't throw away your faith and so out of respect for my parents I didn't go back to and he was not really a very you know he he kind of um he was raised B Baptist but he was actually baptized a Catholic um and so we were married in the church and um and he we had a beautiful Catholic wedding and in fact most of the people that attended were not Catholics but the priest did such a wonderful job of explaining everything that um afterwards we had many compliments from non-catholics and they said um it was a beautiful beautiful ceremony and and so was I were you the two of you not going to his Baptist Church or the Catholic Church no I was going to to to Catholic church and he was going to the exactly and he but he's kind of stopped going to that Baptist Church and he would come to mass with me occasionally and I remember on the night we he asked me to marry him I told I told him I said you know we have to be married in a Catholic Ceremony my parents won't come and I said also we have to promise to raise our children Catholic and at the time we had no you know we were so I was so far apart from the Catholic idea of marriage that we just decided we weren't going to have any children we were just going to go out and have fun together and and we didn't understand the the you know the whole purpose of marriage was to or I didn't that was to create life and um so uh he said okay I'll you know it's no problem you can we if we ever have any children which we're not going to anyway we can raise them Catholic so he um he you know he did make that commitment to raise our children Catholic and you know after we've been married a few years I I would go to mass it was hard being married to not Catholic because you know he'd say oh well we can just enjoy um nature you know and be close to God when we hike and so I thought you know I guess so and so we go for a hike and Miss Mass but I really started feeling more and more that I needed to go to mass and so I I just said okay I'm going to go to mass and you can stay home and so I'd go to mass but I still was not really um terribly devout um and then I got pregnant with we decided we want to have children and you know we got to that point in our marriage we loved each other so much that we wanted to create new life and and I got pregnant and um with my son and um that's when I became very close to our blessed mother because I had hyperemesis which is morning sickness for nine months oh who and so I would have I would be nauseous and vomiting you know 102 30 times a day and it was I suffered greatly and um but I offered it up and I became and it was the first time in my life that I had done penants because I was so I I knew that I had this life in inside me that I need to protect and I would turn to the Blessed Mother um I vividly remember i' take this medicine that was supposed to help me and I would close my eyes and I would just put myself in her arms and I would say take care of me and then I would drift off to sleep and I would feel better so I really for the first time in my life became devoted to the Blessed Mother when I became a mother myself and I started praying the rosary again again I didn't know I was supposed to meditate still um and I just felt very close to Mary and I would go um to mass and I bless my baby I'd ask the priest please bless my baby and I just would do anything for the health of that baby I was so committed to this child and and um there's nothing like having a child to make you realize how great God is and um and it was very much a a a big step for me toward my faith and um we had our our son baptized of course and um and then um I'd take him to mass but it was difficult to have a baby I'd be in the the cry Chapel trying to nurse him and and they get to that stage where it's just almost impossible to take them to mass and so sometimes I would have my husband watch him but U my son but um you know I would still miss Mass occasionally because I it's just too hard then I got pregnant with my daughter when my son was only a year and again the same nine months of nausea and and it was but I I knew that that I could offer that up that that um it was part of my my prayer life to offer my suffering and I offered it so willingly and it really brought me very close to Jesus um because I would you know try to unite my suffering to his sufferings on the cross and um you starting to understand this better the time you think a littleit a little a little bit I think it was just sort of a you know some everything that I'd learned in my Catholic upbringing um something came back and I thought I my mother always say offer it up offer it up um and so I understood that part of of sacrifice and I didn't really think of it maybe as Penance I was doing Penance but I don't think I was was really knew that I was and um again now having two babies to take the mass was very difficult and it was when they got older and they started to realize that um you know I started to teach them that we're supposed to go to mass on Sundays and um my husband you know he would go to mass with us sometimes but not all the time he's very very supportive of of my faith and um and and of the children being brought up as Catholics and finally I got to the point where I said you know cannot miss Mass anymore and um otherwise I'm going to be like a hypocrite because my son very intelligent boy and he would say he would say or aren't we supposed to be go to mass today that's Sunday and um I got to the point where I couldn't you know I couldn't give an excuse anymore and it was about that time that um I got a call from my Parish uh when IID registered every Parish I registered I said I want to be a Lector um but nobody had ever taken me up on it and they I got a phone call and they said will you be a Lector and I thought oh wow somebody read my form and so I became a Lector and um you can't read the word of God and not be affected and to me that was my way of okay I have to be at Mass because I'm I'm I'm reading and that was my way of of definitely um making it a a commitment to go to mass every Sunday and um and and just learning to read the word of God and unfortunately I was not studying the Bible really I would um I would read U there's a website where I could kind of get the general meaning of that of that piece of scripture that I was reading but I was not able to place it in the context of Salvation history and church teachings because I had not yet studied the Bible and um that I I know I needed to do that but I just didn't have time you know I had my two children I was very busy but um I started to I started reading more books about the faith I'd read books about the Saints and I was very much drawn to the Catholic faith again I started going to daily mass and um it was about this time where my husband suggested a very radical idea for our family and um he had always wanted to travel in an RV because um he his parents had done that he grew up camping and to me you know a vacation isn't a nice hotel or somebody picks up the towel but as my children got older I came to realize that you know we go to a hotel and there's nothing for the kids to do so we started we bought a little RV and we started camping and I remembered vividly it was ju week weekend of July 4th and I was sitting outside in this comfortable chair drinking a glass of wine my husband was curing steaks and I said I could get used to this and he said let's do it let's sell our house I'll retire from the Air Force and we'll go travel on an RV and we did six months later from that day almost exactly six months we had sold our house we had sold almost all of our possessions and um we had bought we we had to homeschool obviously and I researched and found this wonderful Catholic um um homeschool program classical Catholic and I of course being a type a person I ordered all the books thinking my children were going to read read the classics in their original form and had to adopt it over the over the years but um it was such a wonderful journey and I was at peace with that and if You' asked anybody at the time they people were shaking their heads going she's not going to make it three months you know my sister said has a Phoenix Sun gotten to your head you know are you you're going to go live in an RV what are you thinking and I was at peace with it because I knew that's where God was leading me I was at the point now where I realized that God was directing my life and had plans for me and um one of the books I ordered as ignatious press Faith and family it was um a wonderful catechism program and I was reading the second grade book to my child to my children and it talked about the mass as a sacrifice and it tied it in with the Old Testament and and this you know we representing the sacrifice of Jesus and through through Bread and Wine that's been consecrated and that blew me away I thought oh that's what the mass is about and then I started feeling wow now I I'd go to math and i' I'd understand and and I became very hungry to learn more and I ordered Scott hans's books and I started reading um you know started doing all this all this reading and and God put these wonderful people into my path you know throughout as we traveled people would come up and hand me these you know I'd meet the one Catholic in the campground and she would give me a prayer book that would inspire me to do something else and so all of a sudden these people started coming in from all directions and um and we were staying at one Air Force basee for a while and I started um going to um to Bible study it was the Great Adventure you know um Jeff Cav's great adventure and for the first time I realized that I could read the Bible because they made it very do he made it very doable with with a timeline program and so I would be up at night unable to put the Bible down because it was so interesting and I had no idea of all these stories and I started to grasp salvation history and then I would go to mass and the readings would make sense I would understand oh that's why they chose that Old Testament reading that's why they CH this chose this this selection from St Paul because it ties in with the gospel and I began to understand Christ figures that Christ was all throughout the Old Testament and um and Mary too and I would go and pray in front the Blasted Sacrament and I'd be filled with the presence of Jesus and it was just I I was at the point sometimes where I would just I would lie face down on the carpet because I was so in awe of that presence of Jesus and and knew how much he loved me and it was just amazing the the types of of Grace I felt and um and and I finally receiv received the Holy Spirit must have been what 20 years after I was confirmed 30 years after I was confirmed um when I was I was sitting up late one night everybody else was in bed and I was reading the Bible and I felt this warmth come through me and I felt like a giant hand was patting me on the head and saying you're doing a good job and later on I found out that the warmth is the Holy Spirit and and that just was the most I it's just such a vivid memory to me and it only happened recently um and then um I was uh started praying the rosary while I I love to exercise and I'd start praying the rosary while I ran and while I biked and um and I found out that I'm supposed to meditate and now I had this salvation history background this biblical background where I could start to draw in um parts of scripture during my meditation and um I would I would go out and one day I was out for a run and I was supposed to do intervals it's just where you speed up and you slow down praying the rosary and it occurred to me wow I could speed up during those prayers that separate the rosary the the Our Father the F of prayer the glory be and the Mystery announcement and then I can slow down during the decades and that can help me focus on the mystery and I thought oh it's kind of a rosary workout and I came home and of all people I told my husband about this we were out walking and he stopped and he said you have to write that I thought what are you talking about cuz he's he's not leaning Catholic no he doesn't know anything about the rosary he just said that is a really cool idea and um and he said you need to write that I said what are you talking about just it's just a workout and um then just I started being pulled in that direction so I started exp I didn't mention this earlier but after I got out of the part of of um when I was pregnant during the Air Force I couldn't fly so I worked in a health and wellness department and I would do testing on on physical fitness and I was always really into fitness and I became a personal trainer and um an aerobics instructor and I kind of did that part-time when my children were young and um I got into metabolic testing and and program design and so I really had a very solid background in Fitness and so it all came together and I started using my fitness information to design different workouts using the rosary and I would go out and pray the rosary while I ran and biked and oh these Revelations that I would have because if you've ever um had that they call it the runner's high where your mind kind of clears and I used to but you know what I'm talking about or even you don't have to run you know that the exercise especially run more more a couple feet but but even walking or or um you know on the treadmill or the rowing machine you kind of get this this feeling the rhythm of the exercise clears your head and you know a lot of people will go out and exercise because they've had a bad day and then they feel better but what I started doing is to direct this Clarity of mind to meditation and the opening of My Mind through the exercise just and and what I started to learn and study Through the Bible and and through the books I was reading meting just started pouring in and I'd have these wonderful Revelations about the different Mysteries and I thought wow this is really something and um I started working on the book and the workout part I wrote in an afternoon that was the easy part because I had the background but then I found I didn't know much about the rosary so I started studying the rosary I started um you know grabbing every website I looking at every website I could every book on the rosary I would order scriptural Ro rosaries I'd experiment with different types of finger rosaries and um r rary CDs and audio rosaries to try to to uh find the best way to do these different workouts and um and just reading meditations on the rosary so I really really felt drawn to Mary and ultimately to Jesus Through the rosary and it really it was it sealed my return to the faith and I will never ever ever leave the Catholic faith again I can't imagine and and now I'm just trying to work out my salvation with fear and trembling as St Paul says um with the Graces we receive from the sacraments yes and all of that right exactly exactly and and now you know daily mass is just part of what I do I I work my day around when I'm going to daily mass as opposed to the other way around you know and and um and just and trying to educate my children and the faith and um you know that home those four home school years were a wonderful opportunity to build this Foundation of faith in my children and I don't want them to go on the same path as I did and when I go off to college it's my you know my my mission to make sure that they've received apologetics and and that they know exactly what they're doing and they're rooted in their faith well your book is the rosary workout and uh I think the audience can find out more about it from um uh what's your website you you have it's rosary workout.com and it's published by bezel books It's a Wonderful small independent Catholic publisher but what I wanted to ask and we do have it l email here we'll go to in a moment but I want to ask is that sometimes I mean you see on the television and infomercials a lot of people sometimes combining faith and and and uh uh their workout but sometimes it almost seems like a gimmick but I which is uh you know the book by Kevin uh V yes yeah yours I think to me really though emphasize that uh there's not a separation between our physicalness and in our spiritualness no that's called gnosticism yes exactly that really the soci idea of becoming whole and holy is we are all one person and they're connected yes the catechism teaches that that the body is so linked to the soul as to be a form of it and we are given bodies as gifts of God we're stewards of our bodies and you know within your own limitations of course everybody has their own limitations but we need to care for our bodies you know through through regular exercise and healthy eating so that we can become um the best instrument that God can use for vocation and the rosary this and this is not just a gimmick this is um a journey because the rosary as Pope John Paul II talks about is a school the school of Mary and you start out by learning and I I worked this book along those lines you start out by learning the basic prayers you know that's the ba that's how I I was stuck in that that form for many years in fact in my adulthood I had to look up The Mysteries of the Rosary because I'd forgotten them and it was funny I I was watching EWTN with my children one day I turned turn it on uh and the rosary was it's that wonderful Rosary where the the young girls in the in the meadow and that's been with Ed in a long time yes the artwork it's beautiful beautiful and so I what time is that on you know and I start to to watch it every day and then they they play the Luminous Mysteries and i' never heard of those I thought what is this and I thought it was a European version of the Rosary I thought the Europeans must have added the Luminous Mysteries and then I come to found find out later of course that that um Pope John Paul II in his encyclical on the rosary um added those mysteries of light which is really going back there used to be 150 Mysteries that's what people don't always realize he didn't invent five new ones he really was bringing back yes a part of the tradition of the Rosary right it's all based on the Psalms and there were 150 Mysteries it just was shortened because of publishing concerns really is if you look at the history of the Rosary but I it just fascinating that the disciplines that many of us are very familiar with to discipline our body you know if we're out of shape or we're overweight well what what does it to do to get back in shape there are disciplines well they parallel the spiritual disciplines exactly they really do and it's the same God that created us whole and we can learn from our spiritual disciplines the same way that we have to discipline our will I mean the very same muscles in a way that you use spiritual as well as physical muscles we have an email from Terry from Arkansas I recently was received into the Catholic church and I'm still not very comfortable with praying the rosary and other Catholic devotions am I a Catholic oh no no no I hear that from con converts a lot the rosary um is and even from Catholics my husband when I after I published this book he he would go ask he'd talk to Catholic said do you have a rosary and they it's right here it's in my car it's do you know how to pray it no and so they kind of it's not a good luck charm it's it's it's um it's a compendium of the gospels as Pope John Paul II so astutely said once you pray the rosary and learn the Mysteries then you really learn the whole gospel in its entirety because it all ties into to those Myst Mysteries and um so it's it's it's can be intimidating the rosary can be intimidating and the first step is just to learn the prayers to memorize the prayers and after that what I recommend is to read the Bible references for each Mystery because then you get an idea where the scripture ties in and then from there you learn meditating is difficult it's very difficult and it can help just to do it one at a time one decade at a time if you can't if you're overwhelmed by an entire rosary just pray one decade and um looking at beautiful Rosary art if you go I like to use Google images and you just type in the name of the of the mystery and you'll receive millions and millions of of beautiful artwork and just look at that artwork and to study artwork can also um help you because those medieval or those Renaissance paintings have a lot of symbology to them and I I got an email you want to make sure I get it in here because of time Eric from Washington DC writes what advantages would there be to a faith-based method of exercising oh there are so many advantages because you're caring for your body and your soul together you're um you're you're exercising um and it's not really multitasking because like I said that that mind clearing effect of exercise really opens your your thought to meditation and it's I mean there are times where I fin I'll be meditating on what I'm going to have for dinner and um and so I have to redirect that Focus but by self-discipline through exercise you learn self-discipline in your prayer life or vice versa if you're already very self-disciplined in your prayer life then you can apply that self-discipline that um that Temperance you know to um to your workout program and and really you're you're becoming a better vessel to do God's work and U there was actually a a study that was published recently that that older people um are more likely to stick to an exercise program that's spiritually based and of course there's all kinds of you know Fitness to Christian music and Christian aerobics and that's I researched that doing my book but this is something that really will teach you you to walk you know with with with Christ and Christ himself exercised he went up on a mountain he didn't take an elevator he didn't take a tram he W repeatedly he went up to the mountain and pray he had to be physically until the 20th century that that we lost the the idea of walking was really the primary way that we one of our our family's favorite pictures of John Paul we used to have on a refrigerator was a picture that was taken of him when he was at World youth in Denver and it's him walking in the in the woods praying the rosary I mean it's just a beautiful image of John Paul and and I remember being trained in Opus day that when they said the rosary together they were always walking around the room I mean that was a part of things Peggy I want to remind the audience of your book the rosary workout and that's the name of the website yes Rosary workout.com okay because time flies yes and I wanted to thank you so much for sharing your story with us and your work here and uh and an encouragement to everyone both physically and spiritually U to to draw closer to our Lord and the Catholic Church part of our devotions is not merely a head thing but an entire commitment of Our Lives of our bodies to a Devotion to Jesus Christ so thanks baby thank you Marcus it's been a pleasure thank you for joining us episode of journey home God bless you I look forward to seeing you next week and and check out all these resources on EWTN and the resource catalog they're there to help you grow closer to Christ and his church God bless [Music] again [Music] [Music] be

Channel: EWTN

Views: 30,225

Keywords: EWTN, Journey, Home, Marcus, Grodi, Peggy, Bowes, Revert, Catholic

Id: 0Rp94E6dwnM

Length: 56min 18sec (3378 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 09 2010