The Journey Home - 2012-08-27 - JonMarc and Teresa Grodi

good evening and welcome to the journey home I'm Marcus Grodi your host for this program this is a special edition of the journey all this is the fifteenth anniversary of the start of the journey home we had our first program back in September of 1997 and so we begin now our sixteenth season amazes me I really don't know whether mother and jacque anticipated that this program would go this long but in in many ways it's work at the holy spirit in that we continue to have a long list of men and women whom the holy spirit is bringing home to the church so it's a certain stem we have no a want of guests for their journey home program what i've done in the past for this particular episode is invite back special guests our very first program with dr. Tom Howard it's been a pleasure to have Tom back several times in the journey home and during the years some of the guests I've included of course Mother Angelica herself well tonight on this is special 50th anniversary we have some special guests very close to me I'm not just that they're close across the table but my son John Mark and his wife and my daughter-in-law Teresa Grodi are joining us tonight Teresa is a revert for want of a better term I don't know if John mark calls himself a revert so much but he's got a story to tell let me shake hands with my son John mark it's good to have you in Teresa it's great to have you join us on the program because I know it's also good to have you on the program John mark because you when you join me the last time you were exploring seminary and since then we've had a lot of folk that have asked whatever your son is still in seminary so now we can color up everything tonight mr. s but what we always do on the program as both of you know is I encourage the guests to take a long step back to let the audience know where you've come from spiritually to understand then one of us that opened your heart to the church so which of you decided to start for I okay I started okay since our our journeys are intertwined I am a convert from Presbyterianism about the age of five so as you guys know from Marcus's story I our family entered the church at five I only have snatches of memories from that images here and there I do remember our little church and you being up on the the up in the pulpit and your big long flowing robes and all that so I always say that we we didn't have to us kids didn't have to experience any of the turmoil of conversion or the struggle of it but we got all the benefits because as we were hitting the age of reason you and mom were very excited about the faith new to the faith exploring meeting new people having a lot of great experiences so we we had a great Catholic upbringing you know an excited joyful Catholic upbringing and yeah so that's that but one thing I would ask is a hard thing for converts adult convert specially when you're clergyman is we want to bring up our children as Catholics but we're learning ourselves right devotions and different things so I mean I I don't know if we conveyed it very well but as you look back as parents was was that a barrier for you as the son of a product for myrrh Protestant minister coming into the Catholic Church well as I'll talk about later I mean I experienced some of what I think a lot of Catholics yeah Catholic youth do which is sometimes you know we get through Catholicism and we get a lot of this stuff and we don't always initially quite get canted with with Christ but I think but I think there were some real benefits to being part of the family newly Catholic because I think there were some real seeds planted anything but those seeds were we're just there there was an emphasis that you guys brought with you about being close to Christ and not that that's in contrast to Catholicism but that I that see was there and so eventually when my my personal journey came around that really really candid me and it really found its fulfillment in in my Catholic faith so I yeah and and maybe just tell the audience a little bit I this is one of the struggles we have in our work with the coming on network is we were helping Protestant ministers and their families make the transition but often especially the parents maybe deep commitment to Christ there's a lot going on in their lives when they make the transition in our lives I mean immediately we coming into the church and I'm in a ph.d program how am I going to support the family light light foundation Franciscan University EWTN all of a sudden I'm gone every week to did the journey home program and so it was tough Merrill and I are assuming you're getting the faith and was supposed to new Catholic families Catholic or assuming and getting to faith doesn't always catch ya but that's about about you Teresa um well like you said I was I was born and raised Catholic unfortunately like many people who are born and raised Catholic even 14 years of Catholic schooling I was very poorly catechized was the Catholic schooling in name only was there a good part of the Catholic faith communicated I mean I definitely remember religion class every every single year you know so it and maybe we went to Mass once a month I think between my grade school and high schools but you know um something that I I talk about often when I'm trying to you know to help people actually bring up their kids in the faith from my own childhood I think it would have made a difference if someone had actually adored Jesus and the Blessed Sacrament in front of me you know because Catholic schools are known for giving good education you know so in in literature class we're learning about symbols and you know rituals and and in theater your you know your your acting and stuff and so when people say you know this is Jesus's body and this is his blood but then there's no reverence there's no there's no any there's no there's no I would never get the impression that we actually worshiped the bread and the wine which isn't my you know I didn't actually know that we we believed in Jesus see non-catholic viewers i mean if you think about it if that is indeed Jesus mm-hmm then what you're saying is we should be on our bellies we should be before him in adoration and we've had a number of convert that have said but that was that the turning point that they realized that if this especially a matter in a procession if that is Jesus then we should be worshipping no one's why the church has affirmed that what you're saying is that would have helped you yeah realize yeah realize that what we believed was true and not just a myth and it's tough because sometimes the language doesn't we take a lot of our Catholic language particularly for granted because we have a lot of catheters because we have a such a rich tradition in a rich theology that particularly in this age where most of our youth are coming out of this culture and in trying to learn the faith in this culture we just don't have a lot of the presuppositions that youth from oh maybe a different age would have had you know cuz there might have been a more religious culture there there would have been a culture that would have recognized the meaningfulness of things you know you know how words and and objects you know point to something greater than themselves we don't have that theological and philosophical background number coming out of so a lot of times as Catholics I think some of the words are kind of used and flipped around a little bit but it's hard for people to really pick up on though we really mean this is the body of Christ I mean like we're saying that for a reason you know we can be blind to our own assumptions that we just assume everybody else agrees with mm-hmm they'll bring it up we'll never know yeah and that was actually a big part of my childhood too is that half my family is Lutheran for the most part and then my mom's side is Catholic and very devoutly Catholic it was actually my mother's her actual prayer like in the act of praying that helped me know that God existed because I knew she was always praying to someone you know she wasn't just praying because we were praying in this little circle to each other you know she meant like she was speaking with someone and my my grandparents on my mother's side were very very devout Catholics and unfortunately I recognized that for the most part only after there you know looking back it like wow grandpa's bravery is just torn apart you know and this is why he always you know acted this way at church you know just things I I never had any any clue about torn apart from yous yeah yeah yeah Lord um from praying using it yeah that was his life devoted life yeah and you know like like many I think cradle Catholics I just kind of picked and choose you know from the culture from Hollywood actually you know I wanted to be an actress at a young age and so you know my religion was with Hollywood was magazines you know so if there was some kind of spirituality in a magazine you know like I will say this incantation and you'll see you know what your future will be like like I kind of started getting into New Age you know after a while even though I had no clue that's what it was you know I was going to you at that point you're like you know as you talk about the transition would you say that you you had just enough Catholicism but not enough yeah to be able to discern the difference between these alternatives that were coming into your life they just easily float in yeah there was no there was no personal relationship that was ever you know with Jesus that was ever even I mean the first time I heard that was from I think when I converted and you're saying like you know you have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ I mean that was the first time I heard that and I converted in my 20 well reconverted in my 20s but you know like my mom or grandma would talk about the power of the name of jesus and so i would think of it just in another way you would think of an incantation you know like i knew god was good you know because we you know growing up very poor like we always prayed and god would take care of us very you know in very miraculous way so i knew god was good but i had I knew God was there you know he was Janna and I never meet her yeah I never didn't or somewhere or for like you know just any wage kind of spirituality um you know any time I'd walk past a shop that would have candles or like you know I come in and learn you know the new prayer and then set up a little shrine in my my room you know and you know so I was always looking for miracle I was always looking for a proof that that God could show me in my life that like this kind of mystical stuff was true all right let's take a break we'll come back welcome back to this special edition of the journey home I'm sitting here with my son John Mark and his wife Teresa so John marker you can tell the story about slamming a door and joining the motorcycle gang a different kind of gang well I was you know obviously Catholic all the way up through my teen years and I really liked being Catholic I took a lot of ownership of it I liked the image I liked the like the literature I like the the doctrine it felt right and it it also felt a little counterculture rule which was cool too for a teenager I was discerning religious life a little bit and I had I had gotten all set to to it to attend seminary the Josephina in Columbus Ohio and as I was preparing for that I kind of reached the first I may be thinking about college and my first bit of Independence I and a lot of the extra reading I was doing I kind of hit the first real doubts of my life and what it came down to was i but I realized that my the faith that I had first of all wasn't satisfying to me and I kind of had a crisis about that because I believed in the church I believed in God and I wanted to I enjoyed it I liked it it felt good it felt right but but I didn't feel convinced about it and so it was it was a real intellectual cognitive dissonance that I if I could have just made all the doubts go away and just believed I would have but I couldn't and my conception at that point of what it meant to have faith was it was just that that if what it means for me to have faith the Catholic faith means that I may have doubts I may have questions that I may want proof I may have this desire to know more but faith means I just I just close my eyes I just put those aside and I just kind of make this I will myself to believe and I I felt like that was what faith really was and that I that's what worried me because I I was no longer satisfied by that and I get anyway you know I don't know what where exactly I got that from I think part of it's just the culture that's the culture thinks of a lot of Christians you know that they're just kind of blindly believing they don't actually know any of this but also a lot of Christians too gonna give that that impression to that we don't know any of this stuff we don't really have any reason but we're just it's kind of a it's a comforting belief that we just buy into and so that was kind of raising up in me as I entered seminary which make that a little tough but the first thing that that kind of set me on a better path was insane right took a class on the Catechism and it was it was about the first few chapters of the Catechism and the reason that class and some of the classes I was taking really had a good effect on me is because I again with this idea of faith that I had I I kind of had this assumption that if I began to look for answers you know if I started reading if I started asking a priest if I start expressing these doubts I had about God's existence about the true nature of the faith that the answers that I would get I was afraid would be don't worry about it just believe you know that's what it means to have faith you just ignore that and you just believe and that's what I was worried about and so when I started to read the Catechism particularly it it really hit me because that's that was not what the church was telling me yeah I discovered you know I began to crack open this treasure chest of the intellectual history of the church and the rich theology and in particular the in the first sections of the Catechism it's talking about faith and what it means to believe and it particularly there was a line where it says faith is man's response to God and that kind of run with me for a while and I carried it with me because it seemed that if faith was man's response to God then I wasn't being asked by the church just to to do this but myself just to believe on my own power but that God can takes the first step you know that we're responding to something to God's prompting and so that I didn't fully understand that but it rang with me a little bit and so I they made me feel a little better and so for a number of years after that what I kind of changed you I kind of had this this different idea that maybe so what faith means is that there is and there are answers out there I need to get into philosophy I need to just read a whole bunch of books and I can prove to myself that God exists and that this faith is true and that'll be what that'll be what faith is faith will be this assurance that I've proved myself and I almost kind of fell into a bit of I think what well if you if you go into a philosophy 101 class and you talk about God there'll be that person who stand up in the class and say well you don't know if God's really there but but as Pascal Pascal's wager pointed out that odds are God is there and a lot of the proof points there so you just need to live your life on this gamble and and for so for a while that was kind of well again a different conception of faith that I had and I thought I just need to amass a lot of evidence I need to read a lot of books I need to kind of prove it to myself and that'll be what faith is the haldeman that wasn't satisfying either it was it was good it was helpful because I was learning a lot of really good stuff and you know if you stack up all the evidence I mean the fingerprints have got are all over the world but but one thing was happenings you you were gaining the confidence and able to ask questions you weren't afraid to ask questions mm-hm yeah but the problem for me I guess eventually was that it still wasn't what I desired in my heart of hearts I it was good to know about the world and to see God in it but I didn't I knew I feel like I wasn't learning more about God but I still didn't know him you know and as I looked at the Saints and I as I looked at the spiritual heroes that I had that's not the kind of faith that that seemed that they had you know they they knew God and so I was I still had had some journeying to do but why'd you leave Sumner well I am asking that because that's a question I get yeah well I spent a semester there was a good semester I loved praying with the guys and singing and and I would kind of go back and forth in my in my heart about a lot of these issues eventually I just decided to myself you know I mean I don't know a lot of things I have a lot of questions but one thing I do know is I'm not feeling a particular call to the priesthood and and I guess I met a lot of guys there who I didn't know exactly what was going on in their heart but knew that the call was real if it was there it was real you know I a call wasn't just a figure of speech that I just felt called to be a priest there really is a call you know if I'm if I'm supposed to be a priest then God is gonna put that desire when you and I had that lunch and you told me you you're kind of dead what do you think I really don't know I want to go back you told me why you knew oh I wanted to be married you knew that you were called to be a father oh you're not met recently said I know one call be a father but not a priest yeah well I guess so I met as I compared the again you know so a call you know as I learned it's a real thing we're not just doing lip service when we say that and as I look as I meditated and got to know myself better I realize that you know I I don't like I said I have a lot of questions but I don't feel called to be a priest and I've always dreamed about being a husband and father yeah so you know that may I add that point I was open to that may be changing but at that point I didn't feel like I needed to pursue seminary any further well I will say that your mother and I did not know you were going through this difficult get with faith and I say that because a lot of parents author whose children have left the church don't realize it we don't often talk about it you know or get busy in our lives and you and I were always in the music still are and I've often wonder where the cat's in the cradle and the song father and son was most descriptive of my own obliviousness to where you write spiritually but I think even in your own life that your parents know did your mother know that you were going through these spiritual struggles she'll say that she knew but I thought she didn't so um my mom always knows things but uh so you're starting to delve in the New Age then yeah um what actually brought me back was my ex-fiance I met him and his church was let me free come back yet I mean I did you really did you know long were you out there away from the we actually away from the church are just more intellectually mentally away from you know actually mentally I mean we were we were never a family where like Mass attendance was like Oh God will understand you know maybe once a month at the least you go to Mass so intellectually I was falling more away because as as a as a female in academia you're gonna run up against feminism at some point and I did and I would I would say that right before the time of my conversion I personally would never have an abortion but I wouldn't ever you know push my my my thought on someone else you know I would drive my best friend to the abortion clinic if you know like she needed someone there you know so I was and um the abortion issue actually plays a pretty important role in my conversion particularly my intellectual conversion because my my conversion to Christ my personal conversion to Christ was very miraculous but mentally there there were other things that God was putting into place at the time that kind of brought me spirit and mind you know like back into the Catholic Church was their time in either view that you remember when right smack before the the your mind's eye you were confronted with rejecting the faith the church or was it just a drifting for you yeah mine was a very reluctant one you know I I was it was never tempted to do so it was more of a kind of an inevitability you know I couldn't I had this cognitive dissonance I just you know I really really wanted to have faith I really wanted wanted to know God but I had this fear that but the more I delved into it the less I was going to find you know and I was gonna my hopes were going to be dashed you know I was gonna find that it really was wishful thinking so the more I ask questions the more confidence I had because I realized that you know I had nothing to fear but if if what does bring you back into the church which we'll talk about in a moment hadn't happened where would you have ended up do you think spirit mentally spiritually um just think of a normal college kid living the college lifestyle you know money you know pleasure partying that probably just would have progressed into a job and into a very dysfunctional family life afterwards maybe going to church but just me yeah maybe going to church I hadn't I hadn't at the time of my conversion I hadn't actually experienced an anti-catholic prejudice so there was no reason for me to look at my faith and say I reject you it was more just like this growing of secularism in my life well the reason I point this is because I it's not just a Catholic thing I think you see it in and all Christian traditions where people may look externally like they're just fine but inside there they're not they're spiritually mm-hmm maybe it's because they're afraid to go farther because they've got questions they don't want to address them just keep pushing MA or maybe they found other things that have filled the gaps I think as we experienced we later on we both did a lot of campus ministry and I think that sometimes there's there's a double fear going on I think people have a feel as I did that if they start asking the questions you know and seeking the answers that they want that they're not gonna find them you know never to actually just find more more despair you know but then I think the other obviously the other fear is too that if they may find God you know if you search for God there's a there's a danger that you're gonna find him and you're gonna have to change your life you know you're gonna have to do some things that are uncomfortable so I mean both those fears often play a part in all right well why don't we pause there Rhett that crossroads where both of you re-examine your faith that may become coming in deeper I've seen you come back to this church all right let's take a break we'll come back welcome back to this special edition of the journey home I'm sitting here with my son John Mark and his wife Teresa and they're sharing their journeys both as those that were brought up in the church but drifted and though your journeys may not quote seem as radical as some I think the key is though in reality that your your journeys are probably a lot like a great number of our viewers and their children and it's tough as a parent to know and I thought before we go on with what was it that brought you into the church Teresa I've brought you back to the church John Mark was it was it hard for you you're kind of a PK a pastor's kid even though we became Catholic I'm no longer a pastor but was it was it part of the reason for your own struggle that you did have a father that was up front on the journey home traveling a lot in the name of the church in the name of the faith yeah I think I mean I think in the roots of the cause of the struggle that I went through were a lot of good seats planted because I think on the one hand I mean the reason that I had issue with my faith is cuz I had a desire for intellectual integrity I just got I wanted it to work but I just didn't have the answers so there was that but then on the other hand - I think it did play a part that I want I didn't want to do to disappoint I didn't want to be that kid you know and I and again I always had the even though I didn't know it intellectually I always had a feeling about the church and it felt right and there was something true about it there was some intuition there seeing seeing your guests and seeing you know the changes that bullet just what it meant in your life and mom's life and so I wanted that but I it took me a while to to get the answers to satisfy my you know my my desire for knowledge of that so I think the pressure that any married Minister has or or any leader in religious life when you have children is how do you make sure they catch the faith and you can fall into the trap of just assuming well I'm talking about it all the time you know I'm on TV talking about it you know they see me reading we may not we may not always be praying a rosary at home which is often a struggle for conference but I'm assuming you're catching it and if you don't see it you just assume everything's fine and so I'm very grateful to God that you're sitting in both of you in front of me because it may have been otherwise because I know there are guests I'm excuse me people who watch the program was who wish their children were in the church fortunately all three of mine are by the grace of God not because of anything I've done and and Theresa you were just about ready to kind of on there because now you're you're you're though maybe your parents pretty much I think you're fine in the church but really intellectually you're you're out there exploring maybe even cognizant that you're exploring right is just it's just what the world is in in the culture that you're in of a college yeah they always they always mentioned to me that they were always affirming me in and they were always telling me about their past indiscretions and so they were just so happy that I was doing better than they were it looks like but it was actually my my ex-fiancée's family's devotion that kind of brought me back towards the church they were in every Sunday Mass family and even though I hated it you know like go like it's not really that big of a deal you know I was at mass for a you know a good year year and a half every single Sunday you know and I really attribute the grace being able to work in my life being exposed to the Blessed Sacrament all those all those you know weeks even whether or not I knew you know I think I went to to mass and figured the readings and the the homily were the most important part of them yeah but when when we began dating is a very you know into the church and we were into the church and going to youth group are helping it youth group because we are past that point but as we kind of started to drift away you know and and get more into the party scene or whatever I noticed that our relationship was suffering and in my mind very selfishly I was like well if I keep getting involved in the church and if I keep going to these youth group things and helping the kids he'll remember you know how much he loved you know like helping out at the church in our relationship will be healed and you know and it was actually going to several pro-life rallies that I for the very first time began to hear that what we what we believed as a religion was reasonable and it was thought out and people were asking questions I remember particularly Rebecca Kiessling giving her talk about being conceived in rape and I had always thought like oh that's a physician you know like absolutely if a woman wants to get rid of a pregnancy you know that it was conceived in rape how could she carry that child for nine months you know but here is this this lawyer this educated woman who is not only conceived in rape but giving these these real rational reasonable reasons that were much more rational rational than what I believed as as a feminist and as an intellectual you know and it became more attractive to me and as it became the faith became more attractive to me I started God began showing me where in our relationship and in our you know partying and whatever just what a detriment it was to us you know as as human beings and I started reading the Bible more and it just seemed like every page I would turn to in the Gospels would be like addressing our exact situation you know and and I I would just you know I was I was it delved into into the into the Bible even before I had this this personal conversion to Christ and that moment actually happened I had come back from a pro-life rally and he he we broke up right at that you know right when I came home door you know kind of thing and something in my heart knew that I couldn't fix fix this situation so I just put my heart totally into prayer to God I don't still to this day I don't know why that was my reaction but I think again that the magic part of God was kind of you know like I want this and if I want it hard to know if God will give it to me you know so I'm not going to try to fix this God will fix this you know I'm just gonna go to Mass and read the Bible and you know pray and and be in prayer groups and but I was still horribly devastated do you know like it's a breakup and so I spent a lot of time crying and it's been a lot of time crying in front of the crucifix and during that time of tears and crying and the suffering like that the agony you know of losing someone during that prayer I came to know Christ I'm gonna back up just a second though because something that was is just as pivotal as this moment probably bout a week after I break up my mom gave me this book on Marian apparitions that she had been trying to get me to read and at this point you know growing up Catholic I think that Our Lady of Lourdes or a lady of you know Good Hope Our Lady of they're all different people and they're just like ideas of I don't know maybe like like Greek gods or something like um but I had always loved Our Lady I'd love her statues I love seeing pictures of her you know she was always in blue and maybe blue as a calming color and Jesus was always in red and you know I don't I don't know what what young Catholics think when they're growing up around statues um but finally you know I was just like well what else am I gonna do with my life you know my life is over it's ruined you know I might as well read this book that my mom has been shoving at me for years and I I guess I had thought at that point Marian apparitions were things were like Mary appears in a grilled cheese or on the side of a building you know you see this this shadow it it never once occurred to me that you know when we've been hearing about Our Lady of Lourdes or Fatima and she's appearing to these children that it was like an actual like a ghost I guess I would have put it back then you know like someone from heaven appearing to in full body for him you know it blew my mind and a lot of this particular book that I read actually the woman who wrote it was New Age and she put on a lot of stories about people who were healed of of New Age and I'd never heard that term before you know like crystals and candles and and spells Ouija board I think God I never did the Ouija board but like things I knew of that other people did that I would have been open to doing you know her had done she was a ex New Ager yeah yeah in other words she was the woman writing this had come out of the New Age movies books I think I'm not in France okay she was a New Ager when she wrote the book I know she but she come out of the head talking about how in fact the apparitions a reality of the especially approved apparitions that people were being healed from those crazy ideas yeah yeah and um and I obviously it spoke to me you know because this I rely saw this in my own life and this is what I had been leading and I just had while reading this book grace was just poured into my heart I couldn't have stopped it if I wanted to you know and everything became clear God who Jesus was the Catholic Church being the Church of Christ what they meant that Jesus was present in the Eucharist what prayer was what that heaven hell and purgatory existed you know and and the benefit of praying for Souls and other people's souls you know I understood this just miraculously over over the space of a couple of days and so this is happening around the same time as the breakup while I'm spending time crying in prayer you know like just this perfect storm and I had already started you know the chinks in the armor of feminist feminism were already there and at that point it was just gone you know and I saw I saw the horrible situation that women are in today particularly with abortion and contraception and these things became that the eye of my heart was open the eye of my soul was open you know by by God's grace and I experienced a true grace period and you know within within a few months you know like I had been going to UFO conferences and then all of a sudden you know like I'm I'm jet-setting off to this tiny town in Europe and and witnessing miracles miracles I had yearned for my whole life you know wanting to do the New Age stuff and hoping that something would appear or someone would talk to me you know and here I'm in this this tiny town witnessing God's miracles and there was a peace in my heart you know that that it really rained and I I believe I had a very miraculous conversion but God was also working on my intellect as well your academia one of the keys that confirms that it's a real touch of God is the humility that comes with it no but it wasn't I was so smart or look what I yeah it's this well why thank you you know like why why are why am I seeing all of my friends continuing along the path that I was continuing that I was on why me you know like why was I allowed this kind of been live and what you gonna cease it already been there I'm gonna get the cup bring out you know so I just needed to grow to sprout yeah all right so while this is all happening yeah let's stop someplace my conversion actually occurred right when he was leaving seminary is an actual moment we figured out later on that we were yeah parallels going on us putting us together God in my grandma anyway yeah there's lots of different conversions happen a lot of people I think just because God knows them and he's he as a father he knows how to speak to them he may be speak to them more in the miraculous and for me it wasn't even though if I went through a long period time where that's what I wanted you know I wanted proof I wanted evidence you know I thought for me to really have faith in God it means that I have to I have to have proved beyond a shadow of the doubt to myself that he exists and that will be what faith was but as I as I said before the more I got into that I realized that that's still not what I wanted and it was useful it was good to started the universe into it and to see God's fingerprints there but it's not what I wanted and I thought about the gospel with like the the disciples you know so they met Christ and what did they go run off and do that they didn't run off and immediately begin to theologizing come and meet Christ you know come and meet this man he speaks like no one we've ever heard before he does things no one has ever done he he would awaken something in us that no one else doesn't I realized at one point that I wanted a personal relationship with Christ and not only that I realized that faith only makes sense if it's a faith if it's faith in a person it's putting your trust in a person so when people when those disciples you know upon hearing about him came and met him you know in crisis follow me faith is there saying yes Lord and following him and and so the more I thought about it I realized that again what I was was working for wasn't faith you know it wasn't a relationship with a person I'd been in philosophy classes and again not we get a lot of these impressions by what the rest of the world thinks about our faith and I'd had we'd be talking about the existence of God and someone you know another Christian in the room would say well I know that God exists because I have faith but you know I realize that doesn't make sense to say something like that we don't put faith in an idea you know I mean I we we put faith in a person so the reason that I well so I realized that I wanted that that that faith in Christ I wanted to know Christ and faith has that relationship just like in you know in human relationships we get hints of this you know what when I got married in Teresa I didn't know everything perfectly about her you know I hadn't you know there's there's an infinite mystery to every person you know and so faith is part of that relationship of trust of it's not theological it's not irrational but it's a little bit beyond reason it's it's it's super rational so I realized that and I realized that that that faith in Christ that faith in the person of Christ is what is what makes it all fit together you know the reason that I that I say that I believe in the or the reason that I know God is this is because I know Christ I've met him and all the evidence awfully obviously points to that but it's nothing if I don't have that encounter with Christ I realized that I'd always kind of thought of of Christ as the god/man 2,000 years ago and that our faith was just we wish we had been there but we're just not and so we just kind of have to believe but no that's not what our faith is about I mean Christ is present in the body of the church he's Christ he's present very incarnation aliy and all the sacraments he's present to us in prayer so we come to know him and because of our faith in Christ we said yes to his church we say yes to his teaching we say yes to our scripture and tradition because God as it says in the Catechism God comes to meet man you know in that in those early chapters of the Catechism and so once I realized that I knew what I wanted and I went back to prayer with that and again some people's conversions are miraculous instantaneously mine was just kind of it it was it was a final growing piece you know I spent a lot of time in front of Blessed Sacrament and you know after years of wanting all this stuff and searching and reading well which was good I just came to know Christ and and you and my heart I knew him in prayer and you know the rest of it kind of came together with that yeah an aspect of both of your stories which I've always felt very important is that you both came back to a strong relationship with Christ and His Church while students at a secular University let me talk about that I mean that is is a powerful witness that God can work anywhere but I mean God is very active and alive yeah I needed that I don't because I think for me one of my problems was that we have this word like I was talking about earlier we had this word faith and we kind of take for granted that a lot of times when people say it they mean all kinds of crazy things you know when another student in my philosophy class says faith they just mean that that the Pascal's wager kind of faith you know they they don't really know God but odds are God exists and maybe I'll get heaven if I believe in him so I just I just choose to believe but they don't have a relationship with Christ so people can mean a lot of things by the word faith and I really needed the we had a great Catholic community and Bowling Green University but I needed that contrast I needed to see not just the difference between well the difference between you know our Catholicism and and the the faith of other Christians we need I needed to see that the contrast between our Christian faith and the culture has lived at the University and even I needed to see the difference between some Christians who who said they had faith but didn't know Christ some Catholics who said they had were strongly Catholic faith but didn't know Christ and the difference between them and then those real spiritual heroes that I met and read about you know and to see this contrast that I could come to a real understanding of what it meant to know Christ and again that was true for you too I mean there in that in a secular environment I mean the you know that both met as a result of that Catholic community at Bowling Green yeah yeah we met at one of the Catholic student organizations meetings and I actually I went to talk to him cuz kind of standing in the back and and I thought maybe he might lose his faith if nobody comes up and talks to him and invites him into this group so but then I I I found out he was younger than me so he kind of went off my radar until he he you know well we I was the president of the Catholic student group before for a year and and and had been in the core team before that and then Teresa did campus ministry for the last couple years old we were up there and I had asked her out a couple times and she had asked me at once before we finally began dating and eventually got engaged and we were married in 2010 so I didn't watch EWTN my grandma watch yourself people always tell me you you're your program is my mother's favorite I remember one time I was I was in my dorm room with one of my Catholic household members and we were playing video games and Teresa came back from her grandma's house and said my my grandma said the funniest thing today she thinks we're gonna get married someday because she found out that your father's Marcus Grodi and and Teresa's like like that'll ever happen and she walked away and I liked her at this point so I turned to my friend and said what am I supposed to do it yeah we've got an email Gemma from Wichita I'm engaged to a great man and I'm looking forward to hopefully many years a good Catholic marriage what would John Mark and Teresa recommend as a piece of advice towards keeping a marriage authentically Catholic okay well two years here right yeah years and we'll prepare well who yours that's right we did a lot of praying you know we we we stayed pure before marriage we we went we went through the hoops you know we went to the classes with father Mike and so there's a lot of preparation I think sometimes people and I guess this connects with my journey little bit sometimes people are kind of are afraid of going through the the marriage preparation stuff and asking all the right questions because they're afraid well if I asked too many questions we'll get spooked off and we won't get married well if it's meant to be then you got to examine those and you're only going to come out better for it you know so I think we we we talked out a lot of things beforehand and we we prayed a lot don't we we I think we were on a very good page same page with one another by the time we were married which was good so yeah I think we experienced the first year of marriage the year we were here you know the the year before we were engaged in this beautiful yeah when people say the first year is the hardest but we even before we got married I mean we talked everything out you know we picked our battles you know I especially that's really important you know you're gonna don't need to get mad you know where were tiny things but we kind of we kind of approached marriage as like a no it's an all-or-nothing so we're gonna talk about these issues now because if I mean if this is a deal-breaker we need to know before you know before we're married and and in that sense we we really took marriage seriously it's not just like well now I'm in a relationship with this person you know and well we've been together two years and I love him of course you love him you've been together for a long time but we really took it as you know if we if we want to live marriage as a sacrament we have to you know like we have to examine all these things and make sure we're coming into it you know giving ourselves a fighting chance yeah well that's talked a lot about what it really meant love what love really means I'm see great examples of really great leveling pedlow on our secular campus because a lot of people think that love is just the feeling it's just what's something that happens to you and something you do and we know from our Catholic faith and from the the rich philosophical tradition that that love is something a lot deeper you know it involves your will involves your whole self sometimes it it it plays with your emotions sometimes it's it involves your emotions but but charity really is a choice really is an action and you know so we were very blessed to to have probably about 12 couples who were actually mutual friends most of them getting married the same year and going through the exact they all went through and a fee classes almost all you know together you know and the marriage preparation classes and we were all talking about preparing our weddings at the same time so there was this you know good community as we're going in we had a lot of support and also if I remember the good part of that community was you're all kind of students of theology of the body I mean so that really said your understanding from the beginning yes of a good wholesome Catholic solid Christ centered in the meaning of marriage is the meaning of love you know and yeah a lot of them correcting a lot of a lot of assumptions again we bring from the culture you know about marriage about okay good another email Carl from Harrisburg Pennsylvania my daughter recently told me that she is interested in the New Age she was raised Catholic and I don't know how this attraction to the New Age developed I would like to know if there's anything I can do to bring her back to her Catholic roots I mean there's no silver bullet I wish there was this is the to be honest New Age is so esoteric and like hard to pinpoint you know some kind and that's part of the way that the devil works I what I think works best with people within the New Age and very deep within the New Age is hearing other people's conversion stories they can because a lot of new ages feeling so if you can say all that person felt the same way that I'm feeling now and they tried out this thing you know new just trying out things you know you try new things so they're there several devout I mean even Catholic speakers out there who were new age and they came over Maire Noonan Peggy Noonan yeah you know I think we're the reason that those conversion stories are powerful because it particularly yeah like you said with New Age all the time it's it's dabbling you know it's people they have a certain desire or something something lacking that hasn't been filled and so they're just kind of searching around for something to fill that and so if they hear the studio stories of the Saints and stories of a good Catholic converts they can see that that desire that they had you know it really was in Catholicism but they just hadn't seen it they hadn't encountered it yet and and they can hopefully that can give and so and so we're gonna part that too it's also getting you know maintained in that relationship you know and putting charity first there and so that hopefully you can help that person identify what that desire is what's that lack that they're feeling they haven't experienced that may be a false ISM all along legit they just haven't seen it yet and in the meantime if you can get them to spend time in front of the Blessed Sacrament or can go to confession even if they don't believe in it you know you're still getting this grace from the sacrament confessing your sins some there's tears coming down upon you but telling them about the power of the Eucharist because again you may just all about power and part of the the goal and helping people are being drawn to the counterfeit is to show them the real you know and and the real understanding of the Trinity and understanding of our faith the depth of that hearing our stories and often it said that especially the meaning of marriage and how and to become one they become so one then out of that one comes another right and I think another might show up soon as we sit here on this stage even as we speak you we have Marilyn my other with our first grandchild Dominic he looks like I'm the main one that puts him to sleep but now you know for certain that he's not in seminary anymore this is this is our first grandson with Marilyn and my youngest son Richard has joined us Peter's away at school so I'd love to have him here if may be a good way to end for our audiences if they're if they're any folk out there watching that are now where you were what would you say to them why they should come home go fullness of the Catholic thing oh well you know pursue truth pursue the answers they said we have few years sometimes that we're not gonna find the answers that we seek in sometimes we have fear that we're gonna find the answers and they're not gonna be what we we wander and change our life but it's always going to be God is so much greater than we could possibly ever imagine or expect and so just just seek out the answers and don't don't give up on that well if you're seeking peace Jesus Christ is the Prince of Peace you will not find peace unless he's in your life and I think that's the most that's the most important thing I needed to hear and one of the exciting things that I think all of us here demonstrates is something that we Catholics believe very deeply and that the sacraments make a difference if anything if we could look back why are we here is the power of baptism to change lives it changes even a little one that doesn't understand it yet but that the graces are there or I look at my my big young son there Richard up there recently confirmed you know it's not correct to say but he's ordained to the lay state to be a warrior for our Lord Jesus and so we see the power of it of course behind me always see the power of marriage and the beauty of what grace can do to bring us all together and us as a family so god bless you all thanks for joining us joining me on this program like my family and thank you for joining this episode of the journey Hall what a great way to start a sixteenth season with the journey home to be able to have my family which my son Peter is also joining us but we pray for him as he's away at school discerning himself whether he has a call to the religious life so thank you all and God bless you all join you next week on the journey

Channel: EWTN

Views: 33,233

Keywords: Catholic

Id: _kPSbl07Epw

Length: 56min 25sec (3385 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 30 2012