The Journey Home - 2013-05-27 - Pat Ermi - Former Southern Baptist

good evening and welcome to the journey home I'm Marcus Grodi your host for this program our guest tonight is a former Southern Baptist Pat oh my it's great to have you on the program Pat thanks for joining us to share with us your journey and also you're going to talk to us about about your son right we'll get into that later you've written a journal about that we want to talk about that but first as you know what I normally do on the program is get out of the way as soon as possible and invite the guests to take a long step back and get it started on your journey okay my journey started actually when I was in high school and started dating and I was as you know raised in a Southern Baptist home great family we were very devoted very devout and church you know Sunday morning Sunday night Wednesday night and whatever came in between almost more than Catholics right oh absolutely absolutely and when I was in high school started dating it seemed to my mother's dismay that every boy that I became interested in was Catholic and she finally went to our pastor and she said what am I going to do with her it's just like every boy she brings home is Catholic and he looked at my mother and he says Ruby we're all trying to get to heaven we're all just taking a little different road to get there so she kind of calm down about that but I didn't end up marrying a Catholic boy originally I've been married twice so my first husband was Lutheran and I met him in Jacksonville Florida when he was in the Navy we got married we had our two kids and when he was out of the Navy we moved to Ohio and when we got up there we'd been in Ohio for a couple of years all of his friends were so single and he wanted that life too so you're not at all in your no it was just in name only so even now for you for your childhood Baptist faith they had it caught in your heart and what did you have a personal life with God I went to a car I'm sorry I went to a Baptist College got a full ride okay and so only thing I had was my needed was my spending money and the nothing ever really brought me down to earth you know just as a so to speak and so in anyway I married my first husband and so then your faith was kind of put on a sign I really didn't need that okay and so after our divorce and he remarried and went on his merry way and so then I met my husband now and his name is John he is a cradle Catholic he is Italian second-generation Italian and he would not go to the Baptist Church because surely it was just gonna cave in if he walked in the door and so you had returned then going to faith after your divorce had you tried to go back to I had tried it still just wasn't doing it for me and he would not go so and I wasn't good at his church because I didn't know anything about that and so we consequently did not go anywhere so when he retired from the military we moved to Las Vegas and Sin City of the world right so anyway we went out there and we were there a couple of years you see is that a good place to go with your on retirement it is because he went to work at the Sands Hotel oh there you go okay I knew there was some other abandoned okay and I was working on the Cross and Blue Shield and was transferred out there so we we did well so we got we were there for a couple of years and we got into horses and we had a little ranch we had horses in our backyard because you could do that out there and so my children and I really enjoyed our horses we rode out into the desert and we camped out and you did all the cowboy stuff a couple songs right I do sons and an Eric by this time Eric had been bored and so him so we had been there a couple of years Eric had a wreck on his friend's minibike it cost him than doing an MRI just routine because he was so sick from that wreck and that's when they found out he had a brain tumor okay so this is long before you've come back into the church yes yes well not long but well my mother I call my mother she was living in Florida she flew out and she was with me through the whole time of surgery of radiation therapy she stuck by my side every time forever with this and after about six or seven weeks I decided mama it's time for you to go back home because my stepfather was missing her terribly and she needed to be with him so she went home and then about a week later she called and she says Pat I'm not trying to tell you what to do but the child needs something to hang on to he doesn't have anything to hang on to I don't care what church you go to but you need to be in church so um I opened the phone book and I called the closest Catholic Church and father was your husband encouraged you to do that he didn't know he was sleeping because he worked nights he was sleeping so no I just didn't know my own and so that night the priest from our church it was felt father Jerry watt he came out to the house and he talked with John Farrar a little bit at both of us and then he wanted to talk to Eric and we were invited to leave the room and so he talked to Eric for a really long time and so he he asked Eric he said do you want to be a Catholic and Eric I don't know what Eric said I mean that was their conversation but anyway he told us that he arranged he's going to arrange for someone to come to the house to give Eric his instructions so he could make his first communion and get on his way to confirmation he was 11 years old at this time so we talked to John and I'm by Justin bass well the first Sunday would not go but I went had no idea what I was doing but father met us at the door and introduced us to another couple who had actually lost a child to cancer and they sat with us and then took us over to the convocation center that they had there to have coffee and doughnuts and meet the people of the parish well all I could do was cry when I met people that's all I could do so then John started after that John started going to Mass with us well then he went to visit father and they had their little thing and we got an annulment and but I was sitting in the pew every Sunday and all I could do was cry and they were all going to communion my other two sons had already made their first communion because I made sure that they had done that because I sent them to Catholic school so everybody's going to communion except me and I'm thinking this was my thought where they're right or wrong or indifferent this was my thought thought I have been invited to this beautiful banquet and asked to leave the table at the main course and all I could do was cry about it so finally I went the Father and I says you know something's got to give here I have got to be able to receive Jesus with my family so RC I hate RCIA had just started I was a few weeks late getting into class but they caught me up and there were 30 people in my class and so I went through all of our CIA and was received in the church at the Easter Vigil and what an amazing experience that was I again all I could do was cry and I Father just with the chrism they were just like running down my face and with my tears and it was the most beautiful experience of my life well having a teenagers and preteens son I immersed myself in youth ministry I immersed myself in everything I could find practically so now all children are grown Eric passed away when he was 16 but he told me at age 13 mom don't worry about me God has his plans and that's okay so I did write this journal and about my experiences with Eric and our and with my other sense of my husband our journey through his illness for five and a half years and the end and so it's never been published but it's mine would love to have it published but it's mine it's something I can go and read and it's so healing for me to read is it a reflection of your thoughts while you a lot of a lot of my thoughts are in there a lot of my tears are in there a lot of my conversion is in there and that was truly an amazing conversion for me couple things back up yes a little bit that's right I do want us to talk a little bit more about your son's journey to it still kind of amazes me that when you realize those are advice of your your mother mm-hmm that you need to get back to church that you turn to a Catholic Church rather than a Baptist Church but what was the reason for that at that point well I knew in my heart that John would not go to a Baptist Church and I wanted us to do this as a family hmm and then after I started attending Mass and had this feeling that I was left out that I needed more and I truly believe at the consecration that this was truly the body and blood of our Lord that I was ready I was ready because that I mean there's to me that's a good message of this I mean it said in a very short time here but it's kind of the tip of an iceberg in terms of trying to realize that the need for bringing the Lord back and your life but when you have a husband that's not interested in your own the only faith that you would have known the whole time and coming back to then it's tough what do you do and so you make the decision it wasn't his decision for you know it was your have there been times all those years that you had left it behind with your first husband and now and your second husband he's not interested were there days were there moments when you were feeling a beckoning from God at all to come back or were you in the wilderness spiritually all those years do you think I think I was pretty much in the wilderness the Bible got shoved into the back of the bookshelf I didn't have a prayer life I did not read I knew and you know I just knew that that he was there out there somewhere but I really didn't have time for him right now right and nobody else was interested why should I be when you were brought up as a Baptist was you said your parents are not too excited about you dating these Beth these these Catholic boys yeah so they had an assumption of kind of an anti-catholic normally the usual American Protestant presumptions was that strong in you or was it just a lingering thing there for you it was something that they were teaching me it wasn't that strong and we actually rode the Jacksonville Transportation the bus not a school bus but regular bus to school and the kids that were going to the Catholic school rode the same bus that we did but we were not allowed to talk to them because they probably had horns oh so you really did have this and that was a lot of prejudice and then your time with your your Lutheran husband with no faith when I think about you then coming back to think about the Catholic Church did any of that stuff kind of rise up again that previous anti-catholic stuff had just been far enough behind no no I embrace the church right away because I felt I could actually feel the presence of Christ when I walked in and I could feel that in me and today I can tell you that not only Jesus is right here but Eric is standing right here with you I've always felt his presence to talk more about that that journey so he the cancer was there before the accident the accident is nobody discover it yes the accident was actually a godsend because they caught it pretty quick but then it started metastasizing after you know he would get treatment he would be cancer-free for maybe nine eight or nine months and they would raise its ugly head we went through this four or five and a half years it went into his bone marrow and he had three brain tumors that were they were all operable but it was I can tell you the name of it it's medulla blastoma it's a granulating tumor it kind of does what it wants to do it travels the spinal cord then it metastasizes into internal organs and that's what happened in the end was when you brought him to the Catholic faith you brought that priest in do you feel that that priest was not entering into a wilderness with him but was entering into a life that Christ was already present in your son yes oh absolutely absolutely and you would have to fought no father Jerry he had such a way with children and could explain things on their level that they completely understood and so he was always there for Eric Eric can go to him and because we enrolled him then in the school there and when he could go to school he normally had a home bound teacher but when he was able to go to school that's where he went listen to Saint Christopher and he just really embraced the religion he really did and I think it was there for all along yeah and talk more about the message when your son said God has this plan I'm ready right I mean that's kind of what he was saying oh yeah he was ready I've never let him to see me cry again after that but um he I'm not sure exactly you know he never talked about it again after well than ever but he did talk with the nurses at the hospital because I would be staying at McDonald Houses house the nurse would call me at night and this is for Derek said and at one point they even said Eric knows he's dying but he doesn't want you and his dad to know that and I said really because he didn't talk to us about it do you have a sense in which the lord then was was very directly preparing him guiding him bringing him home yes he there at the end maybe about five days before he did pass he had a lot of death bed visions and he saw my dad who had died several months before him and then he saw my husband's dad whom he had never met had passed before we ever married and he recognized him and knew who he was and told John there's your dad and then there was another gentleman there and I for the life of me cannot remember who he said it was but then one day he woke up and it was a dream and he says I dreamed of these three priests there was a tall and a short one and a fat one knows and he they all three asked me if I wanted to go to heaven when I died and I said yes and they said turn around and he said I did and there was Jesus waiting for me so and there was just a few days after that that he passed so I know where he is that's what your journal it's in my journal how if I might ask how about your husband and all this they didn't bring him deeper to his own faith oh absolutely a lot deeper and he boy he watches this show religiously but he also watches he WT and that's the way he goes to mass he's not able to get out anymore he has a bad back and and legs and all that so he doesn't get out anymore but one of our deacons brings in community during the week and I usually bring in communion on Sunday and he watches Mass there on Dean wtn he watches this show and he is an amazing man and now because I have taken the lay ministry course and graduated from that and I'm so active and other things I'm constantly reading everything your your stuff too that I can get my hands on as a matter of fact one of your books was one of our textbooks for low ministry and he now he asked me questions about did they teach you about so and so oh yes I did and I'll explain it to him and so he's good with it yeah you said you almost as soon as you got back into the church you lean towards youth ministry it's because I had children that were of that age and so when we moved back to Ohio then I again immersed myself into youth ministry and I've been to two royal youth days I went to Germany into Australia with kids none of my own kids went but I went and I was able to see Pope Benedict twice and that those journeys however John Paul was my Pope because he was there when I converted and so it was very sad that he passed away right before that Germany World Youth Day I was very sad about that but then was able to embrace a Pope Benedict at World Youth Day so he was a good man looking forward to working with Pope Francis our Pope Francis a great model of simplicity and reminder of simplicity yes and getting back to our roots that's that's right in your lay ministry program what kinds of stuff does that get you involved with now right now um I'm an associate with the Sisters of Mercy as a matter of fact I just came back from doing a mission in Robredo Texas which is called border quest and we were working with the immigrants at Matheny house they're in their places feeding them and that um I also do an elector I'm a communion distributed I distributive I taken me into the shut-ins we have a schedule for that I'm very active in chrissteele I play guitar as a matter of fact I'm on a team next month but I'll be in the prayer ministry part of it so that's how I just immerse myself in church my husband says if you look in the dictionary for no you won't find paths me so I fell when I do prison ministry to @n Mansfeld every key so he came from kind of all ahaha got a whole hum - oh I mean the other way around that your was laid over for now coming from a Baptist background through a kind of a nominal Lutheran background with your your first husband how was it for you to moving into Catholic devotional life you know liturgies novenas didn't have to be novenas as a baptist growing up you know it's a whole different world catholic devotion how was that in the journey for you at first I didn't get that they hold a rosary thing and don't vinas and prayer life but now I'm an avid reader I do morning devotion evening devotion or the Sisters of Mercy I the Rosary is very important I always have my rosary with me now and it's very important my prayer life is very important I go into my room my bedroom and prop myself up in my bed and closed the door jesus said we should go to a closet I can't fit like I said masago to my bedroom I shut the door and this is I have my books there my rosary my sister's a mercy prayer book and and whatever book I'm reading at the time devotional I agreed up father Mitch Paco's books at your books so whatever I'm reading at the time and so I've now had to buy bookshelves because I'm the person that by the book and no I'm not giving it away yeah it seems like for so many converts which we deal with here in our work coming on network that the first step is is getting over the the information ignorance issue you know what's what's really happening on a rosary or a novena what's it all about what a Catholics really believe because those are often the things that stand in the way that prevent us but then once we understand them it's still such a different practice that was so foreign to anything we did before it still takes a while until experientially we experienced the touch of the Holy Spirit the presence of Our Lady and so we realize this is a this is a channel of communication and of intimacy with them it's a powerful thing Catholics is known forever it just takes some of us a while to catch on with the beauty of that I'll tell you what really got me um acquainted with rosary and more a devotion to our mother was I don't know if I had a dream or if it was a vision when Eric was so ill I was in my bed and I saw her walking down my hall and into my bedroom and she said on that foot of the bed she put her hand on my knee and she says I will take care of him and she got up and walked out now it could have been a dream it could have been very well a vision I don't know but that's when Mary became so so very important to me because she knows how I suffered losing my son because she did yeah well I haven't and as I would gladly make public here I have no question from my own personal experience that the Lord uses these kinds of intimate appearances to awaken us to faith Catholics or non Catholics right you know God answers the prayer of people that desire to be close to him because I know in my pre Catholic days that's how I got through rough times when our Lord would make sure I knew he was there in a variety of ways often they lose the power in the telling to other people because they don't understand they don't get they doubt but usually those moments were for us right yes that was our lady encouraging that was for you that was for you who cares whether anybody else in the world understands for you and the beauty of st. Francis DeSales encourages us is to be listening for those moments when God inspires us then how do we respond mm-hmm is that of the Lord okay well then what am I to do I mean that's really for us and it sounds like even in the way that the Lord through your mother encouraged you to get back to faith it was exactly at the time not just for you but for your son Eric that was all over the Lord wait you've got the opah the Catholic Church I mean instead of you could probably 100 different churches you could have called in Las Vegas oh yes absolutely right this is the way the Lord works all right let's take a break Pat because I want to come back we've got some emails and maybe some more questions especially about how parents deal with the passing of a son okay you know we didn't talk much afterwards you know that's something worth talking about yes enough time or it is well after the break we'll come back and talk about that hope all right see me welcome back to the journey home I'm Marcus Grodi your host for this program or halfway through with Pat or my former Southern Baptist and I mean a big part two things that jump out a couple things that jump out a big part about your story courses a journey from Southern Baptists a whole different tradition with the different ways the Lord was kind of touching your life to be open to the fullness of the Catholic Church for those early guys you dated and that but really the experience of your son was really the key and that's something that I want us to talk more about particularly is how you deal with the passing of a son how did his siblings deal with it your husband you named your little journal no time to die okay um I thought the name of this no time to die because Eric even though as ill as he was and the beginning he would bounce back every time and he wanted to be in the marching band at school he wanted to do all the youth things like the lockouts thing you know he never went to Washington for the March but this was something he wanted to do whenever the band would take a trip they even marched at Disney World one summer you know and he didn't want me to ride on the bus with him as a chaperone because he wanted to do this by himself so he was very active made great grades in school he was at the top of his class in the National Honor Society so the brain tumors never affected his mind he would not take take pain medication that the doctor would prescribe for him for our headaches or bone ache or whatever was going on with him because he didn't want to go to school and took a pain med because he didn't want the kids to school to think he was doing drugs so he was very witty one time he went to the barbershop with a with his dad my husband has well he was bald I married him but he's bald and it wasn't healed no we've tried that at the Newark but they walk into the barber shop in there it gets up the chair and he says how would you like your haircut son he says all like my dad's you know so if that was funny for John and if they went into McDonald's to get some and they would ask my husband you want the senior menu and he wasn't even 50 yet John was Derek would laugh at him and make fun of him and so he was very witty like that he was very active in his schoolwork you in his school and with a band and also he that's why he just didn't have time to be bothered with dying what about you after the dying how did you and your husband deal with his passing line we didn't know each other anymore we had been sick for so long for five and a half years everything we did was with him in mind whatever he wanted to do whatever he put her wherever he wanted to go whatever he wanted we devoted all of our attention to him so it was after I called it the funeral days and everybody had gone home and it was just he and I in this big two-story brick house and it was like I looked at him and said and just who are you in my space and this one owned for a year and then we separated I just couldn't stand any longer he wanted to go to this out to the cemetery every day and I'm not a cemetery person because I know that Erika's not there it's only a headstone and so we separated for a while but then when we got we came back together our loved was so much stronger and his my house when I walked back into my house he had not moved anything everything was just like I left it it was clean puppy cleaner than what I loved it but it was clean he kept everything just like I left it because he said I knew one day you would be back and so are you know that that was great and God was in that would you say that it was more than for him merely returning to his faith but that he and in fact had an awakening of his faith yeah in the process of that process absolutely and he we both kept attending church I didn't go to the same one but we both stayed in church and so I think that was the the the tie that bind so there's another way in which your the way your Lord used your sons critical experience not only to bring him to faith and you to faith but healing your marriage yes it absolutely all of this was because of the crisis yes and he now it's the most important thing in my life my husband and I would do anything for him although you know right now he's wondering I've been gone so long I've been gone since um Sonny was a week ago just with my mission I went home for one night and now I'm down here so but he is just them my love won't ask you another question that kind of I didn't mean for this to kind of slip through but I'll make sure that we address this because it's easy for people in their faith to go from one church the next church or when done devotion to the next devotion or one next practice to another practice where was Jesus and all of this an intimacy with our Lord was that a key part of this journey for you I don't believe ever believe that the int of intimacy with our Lord came until I became part of the Catholic faith where he was so real to me in the Eucharist he was so real that was something that I could not get that I wanted so badly because I knew it was Jesus I needed him and me and so that is that is that the answer to your question yeah because people say well wait a sec does she have a personal relationship with Jesus you did in the exact way that he said if you eat my body and drink my blood I have you know this unity abiding experience with eternal have all that he promises in John 6 which the church is recognized from the beginning this is the way that we abide in our Lord Jesus and have that intimate relationships through his sacramental presence that he provides and you were seeing that even before you realized that that's what the Catholic Church is about you were drawn to it as you were sleeping there not being invited to the table of the of the banquet right all right we have an email Megan for Virginia writes how can you help a friend who is going through a painful situation with a child having serious health problems she's angry with God and seems to no longer have the strong face she used to I struggle with myself I struggled myself with reconciling the suffering with the knowledge that God is good and all-powerful how do you help someone that struggles with that faith and guide yet seeing the suffering in in that person and they want to say where are you God where are you for myself if I see someone that is maybe going through a similar situation as I I try to be present to that person and let them know that I'm here for you if you have questions about it God has a plan in all things and the plan for Eric was for in his short life he brought me back and his faith was insurmountable he was and so with people going through the same situation childhood cancer being my main my main focus is God has got us a plan God has a plan for it all you have to do be faithful be open and God will know sometimes I wonder if today when they talk about I heard not I think it was this year the first time I heard them say that the new 30 is 70 is what they're saying you know with all the modern technologies and all of this stuff that people are living longer and longer and longer and so we have this underlying presumption that the normal life not only the normal life but the normal right that every person have is to live 70 80 90 200 with the idea assumption then is anyone who dies earlier has been robbed of this life and with that attitude then you're going to be it's always going to be the hat that the the glass is half empty no matter what happens and there's going to be bitterness rather than recognizing that even a day is a gift yes every day we've been given whether we live one year or five years or ten that's the gears our Lord gave us to enjoy this great creation absolutely we're not promised the next minute right right so looking in you know that with any relationship to Eric he had the time our Lord gave evil unfortunately during those last time he was able to have that intimacy with our Lord preparing him for entrance his life didn't end no oh no absolutely no yeah I mean it's just whoa it's a start I do have to say about my older two older sons Wayne and his wife Kathy on the she is an Orion and they were a great help to me at the hospital with Eric the nurses that children so appreciated the two of them there and Tony and his wife Jenny they were not married at the time they were just dating but they were driving back and forth from Mansfield to Columbus every day they would work they would come down and they would sleep in the waiting room and be there present with us and such a support system I had with my whole family John's whole family and our church family so we did have a great support system in your journey one another doctrine belief that connects with your son is the communion of saints which was a part of the not a part of the bath no not at all no how was that understanding helped you deal with the passing of your son as well as your own continued relationship with him okay um at his confirmation he chose the name Dominic and I didn't read up on it but I'm sure he did but I had no I no clue who Dominic was until his funeral and his Godfather which is a deacon in our church I talked about Dominic being Eric's confirmation name and how Eric's young life parallel Dominic's young life Dominic died at a very early age from whatever disease I can't remember but how that the two lives paralleled that touched me so then that got me so involved with reading up on the Saints I need to know there's a Saint Patricia okay I had to know what she was all about so I now have a dictionary of Saints and I read and sometimes I get books on Saints and read of their life are the movies they run on EWTN and are fascinating to me if they're not only great heroes of the faith that give us a model to follow to inspire us to help us understand really what this life is all about because that's what they showed us in their lives but they continue to intercede for us they're our prayer partners yeah well it's one big family we're all together and we should not try to walk this faith alone that's why God has given us this great family got any other email Roy from Warren Michigan and I've had trouble lately with my prayer life for years now I have been praying about a particular situation with my family and nothing seems to change or get better it makes me wonder if God hears our prayers since I don't see any progress Roy it's in God's time not yours we still pray we still pray for the same things sometimes God's answers no and sometimes this yes we wanted always to be yes but it's for your good you know on this program so many times over the years I've found out after the program that the guest realized that somebody had been praying for them all along and the conversion and everything was really the results of God responding to somebody's prayer well you weren't praying who was praying it had to have been my mother it had to have been my mother god bless she passed eight years ago but it had to been my mother because of the phone call I don't care where you go what church you attend but Erica need something to hang on to and so immediately my focus went right to the Catholic Church and that's why whenever I'm asked what do I do to help somebody come back to faith I come back to the church it sounds trite to say the prayer is the most important prayer and be an example being an example of God's love and being willing to admit we were wrong or that we have not been a good model I mean you to take an advice from your mother to go back to church might have not have been the easiest thing to do when you haven't been in church for a long time right yeah be willing to do that exactly yeah take that advice now my sister there's only two of us my sister has breast cancer right now and she is been so you know Southern Baptists but and she belongs to church but she's not really active about going and I said Sandra you you need to go to church and so while I'm down there at Christmas visiting with her because I felt I needed to be with her she arranges for her best friend to take me to Mass and I said why don't you come go with us well at that point she really didn't feel like getting even getting out of bed but I encouraged her I go to mass with Margaret go to mass with Margaret and I usually say this once a week so will you wear that little pink finger band to remind you to pray for her so with this program we're inviting anyone watching to pray for your sister in it thank you when she's struggling with right now an email from Valerie from Chicago writes my husband is not Catholic but goes to Mass with me regularly he is upset with the fact that he isn't supposed to go forward to receive Communion and he thinks that since Jesus welcomed everyone to eat with him that he should be able to receive Communion - do you respond that because you remember that difficult time and I've heard that so many times since - and I believe that you have to believe that it is the actual body and blood of Christ that you're receiving it's not a piece of assaulting cracker and a grape juice or it's you know it is the actual body and blood of Christ you have to believe that and and it's just not a matter of getting out of you and going forward you can go forward if you want to with your hands crossed and receive a blessing yeah but and that is and that is very acceptable however um you really need to know some of the background you have to know about Mary you have to know about the the Tritton and what the period of time that we're in yeah and again it's scriptural first Corinthians 11 directly where we find the words of consecration they're the words of institution in first Corinthians 11 you keep reading it and it talks about the the danger of receiving unworthily if you don't understand what the scripture says so the church in recognition of the inspiration of Scripture recognizes the importance of being of receiving worthily now how do we receive were the when we say in the mass I am not worthy right we say yeah worthy comes totally by grace towards the work of grace scripture teaches us to confess our sins teaches us to leave the gift at the altar and go take care of problems before we go back to the altar all these the Catholics are called to be vessels that have been purified through confession before we receive the Eucharist a lot of Catholics out there should be receiving the Eucharist because they haven't been a confession or need to be to confession and or say they don't need it well it isn't just for non Catholics to not receive the Eucharist we are to be ready prepared worthy by grace to receive our Lord in the Eucharist so that's why the church says hey timeout here and the truth is we've got a lot of separated brethren non Catholics that have a closed table too it's some denominations you can't receive it unless you're a member of that church so it's nice they understand they're going by Scripture that's what the church does so but the church welcomes you to come forward but also welcomes you to start studying the church that you understand as you said well um Marcus let's talk about confession coming from a Baptist background that is one of my toughest toughest things to do you go in there at what you know you take all the sin on and you go in there with such a heavy load and you come out feeling a hundred pounds lighter and before I went on my mission to Laredo I thought I cannot go down and minister to these people unless I go to confession first so I did that I did that the day before I left I I went to confession before I left my trip I'm sure went much much better yeah often the question that we get from non Catholics why do you have to why do you have to confess your sins to another human being most because God knows us it we do need is something about the emptying of saying it through a human being to our Lord Jesus that God knows that's what we need to do and I approach to sitting there um The Vicar of Christ he is representing Christ he is Christ at that moment and I've often had priests several four different priests say you know I hear so many confessions I cannot tell you what you said when you were in there so that is a gift that is a gift in case we too often leave it for unsaid when we have any of these questions if you want to know the answers we strongly encourage the Catechism oh yes absolutely if that was a part of your own journey of the catechize yes I read that I like a book and and it is very interesting somebody said you've got a catechism book do you actually read it yes I do there's lots of good stuff yes the next some accents one of the best gifts we've had in our lifetime yes that the church has given us the Catechism email Dustin from Florida writes what would you suggest for someone who feels that God is leading them to the to be Catholic but the person has been previously married I've heard that an annulment is needed but I just don't understand what the big deal is if we've already been through the pain and heartache of divorce why do we have to go through another process um to become Catholic you know but it's not first unless you're married yeah okay if you're not married again you're you're fine you go to a priest you knock on the parish door I want to be Catholic however I have a divorce in my life but I'm not remarried can I do this and I'm sure that the priest would say come on in well the issue will be question is was that marriage a sacramental marriage okay yes that's the issue and you know as we say in the marital vows you know till death do us part because that's continuing on the fulfillment of the understanding of marriage as to becoming one and so as let no man put asunder what we have no right to put asunder and that's basically we're saying so the question is there was a divorce that doesn't necessarily reach so that's what's determined in an annulment was it a sacramental marriage and so that needs to be determined in the before a person can receive the sacraments of our Lord yeah once again anyone with those questions go first to the Catechism in the course of your every question beyond that ewtn.com is wonderful online resource can take you beyond any of those deep questions on these issues which we of course won't have the time to cover in this short program let's take another email jonathan from washington my family is newly catholic and is having a hard time our parish is big and unfriendly and we don't seem to have any connection to other local Catholics my kids have started saying they wanted to go back to our old church so if they miss their friends about that state kids that you come into the church you don't feel welcome they don't feel fellowship you don't feel any connection and it can be tough for people wanting to go back to the phone that really wasn't your experience per se no everybody was very warm and welcoming but I belong to a small parish of what I would do in a large parish a number one if you sing join the choir I learned to play guitar at age forty so I could sing with the choir and play music so I do that I got involved with CCD back when it was CCD not PSR but it was CCD I got involved with that which taught me a lot because you have to study for those classes and prepare I also got involved with the ladies than Church in our church we have a quilting Club which it's um they do it for people that are ill their prayer quilts and they present them in church and people tie pray and tie knots so yeah if you're a sore get involved with it with that there are numerous numerous ministries within the church Knights of Columbus is one way for the man to get involved so you know there's there's numerous things you can do yeah but if you're totally isolated and a person says I have no friends and they are literally isolated then that's one thing but when we're in areas where there are other people if someone complains I have no friends they're focusing on the wrong friends not about having a friend that's about being a friend it's the Cursillo thing is make a friend be a friend and bring that friend to Christ was Chrissy a big part of your own journey yes it still is as a matter of fact I'm on a team next month and it is a very big part of my life yeah because it really is an awakening it experience Chris sale means a short a short course in Christianity yeah yes yeah yeah but I mean very much getting away for a weekend with a very powerful awakening of faith it's really a great thing and and I wondered it that if that was how long did you go through your Castillo after the passing of Eric was at a big step for you or probably about 15 years from 10 to 15 years afterwards no and usually almost anyone I've ever talked to has gone through it it wasn't merely a continuation of before but it's always a high point it's always raising people to a deeper awareness of what the faith is all about since you know women work women's teams men work men's teams the women would come and of course the first night you're getting acquainted they'd stand up and why are you here my friend told me I had to or my friend drugged me here or she's been after me for years to do this and it's not finally to get her off my background been doing it by Sunday evening they're not wanting to go home you know so it is a real experience yeah yeah very powerful pretty for but let's say we've got some some slide and Baptists out there watching us backslide and mapped is not very active what would you like to say to them maybe back side a little why why they should consider the same journey you've made I've never found anything in my life more fulfilling than seeking out the Catholic faith it is not it is not kneeling and bowing and it's really an encounter with Christ it's a real encounter with Christ and you encounter it every time you go to Mass and in your own home I have a holy water font in my back door you know as we come and go because it just like Midwesterners we don't use the front door as the back door and you know it's just immerse yourself find everything you can to read about the Catholic faith and embrace it go in with an open mind and what about someone out watching that's lost a son that's really struggling with our child who has lost a child that's really struggling the child was given to you as a gift the child has had a purpose on life in life on Earth when the purpose was fulfilled God brought him home and that's that's a life and the purpose for a person's existence wasn't about me but one of the reasons that Lord the Lord gave that person into this world one of the reasons was for me how I would love that person or be affected by that person so we do see that so your son's entrance in the world wasn't just for you but a part of it was to change you even your husband he drawn back to God and be thankful for that he saw after people to do that why would God do this to me well wait a second how open are you to the beauty of what God wants for you exactly open - it always revolves involved surrender surrendering love Pat thank you very much you're sure with history journey on the program god bless you continued work and your apostolate that you continue to do and your mission trips and all that you do thank you for giving your life to him thank you thank you thank you for joining us on the episode the journey home god bless you we'll look forward to seeing you again next week you

Channel: EWTN

Views: 9,672

Rating: 4.7288136 out of 5

Keywords: Catholic, EWTN, Christian, television, JHT01393

Id: b5Q8QiUHz0E

Length: 56min 45sec (3405 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 04 2013