The Journey Home - 2014-04-07- Former Protestant - Br. Rex Anthony Norris

welcome to the journey home I'm Marcus Grodi your host for this program every week I get to introduce to you men and women who experience the beauty of their journey to Jesus Christ in His Church and sometimes I also get to induced to you friends and that's part of the case tonight it's a great pleasure to invite to welcome to the journey home brother Rex Anthony Norris former Anglican well first welcome thank you brother ray it's good to be here it's good to have you here we've a friendship that I greatly appreciate we've often thought about having you here on the journey almost take in a while has taken I think part of the reason for getting you here in my view even hesitant to get you on the program is because of your own calling and vocation you know you're a Franciscan hermit and it seems like an oxymoron to have a Franciscan Merman hermit talking on the journey no program a little bit but I but but we'll talk about that later right but maybe before we jump into the story it'd be good to tell the audience about what you do in relationship to the work of the coming of an hour sure thank you well I think it was two years ago you contacted me and asked me if I would be willing to help out with this ministry and primarily I do that by praying for the men and women who are on the journey home offering them spiritual direction and spiritual encouragement as they as they make their trip into the church and because it can be quite tumultuous sometimes yeah they need to have someone that they can talk to in confidence about you know about what's going on in their life and also I pray for these people my primary vocation as a hermit as a contemplative man is prayer and so I pray for these men and women as they make the journey and as after they enter the church sometimes there can be some still some adjustments that need to be made and so I can pray for them about those adjustments as well so it's it's a pleasure it's a perfect fit for my belief then one of the reasons that we were drawn besides our friendship to invite you to do that you know not only as a convert yourself but with your training in psychology that that's a part of the journey is understanding the issues that people face among the journey sometimes barriers that they themselves may not be as aware of and helping them deal with the baggage that they bring along and the time we invited you you were using those gifts what local college right is a local college yes and with a been ministering to men and women in prison and jail in the county jail oh yeah right right so you bring to the work a lot of experience and a lot of gifts as well as your own experience as a convert so let's let's back off and get into that vite shoes take a big step back and start us from the beginning and share with the audience your own the beginning of your spiritual formation sure great thank you well I grew up not too far from here the Janesville as a child we attended I was baptized on Easter Sunday of 1960 at the First United Presbyterian Church in the same sure yeah a baptized into the body of Christ it took me 40 years that's adjacent to the Catholic Church that right yeah it took me 40 years to UM to really embrace that gift when I entered the church on at the Easter Vigil of 2000 so I've been given the gift our Lord gave us gave me the gift I didn't I didn't deserve it it was simply a gift that he bestowed upon me through through my parents and the you know the minister of the church and so began the journey home then was it a religious environment for you it was it was it was not we weren't overtly Christian but we we went it we attended church every Sunday I remember I I didn't mind Church at all I remember the minister and his big Geneva gown and his preaching tabs pacing back and forth on the deed says he would preach I sang in the choir as a young person as a young teenager and then with the confirmation class sounded so forth I still have the Bible that was given to me in confirmation class I read it Catholics read their Bible and so it was a positive environment and one of the other things that I remember about Church was that we recited the Apostles Creed em every Sunday and I I remember that for whatever reason I recited the Apostles Creed so I knew that there was a bigger story than the first United Presbyterian Church Methodism not necessarily originally but has grown over the years they have many many flavors you know emphasis amongst different Methodist groups if you look back on your on your own Methodist formation as a young man was there an emphasis on surrender to Christ was there an emphasis on Scripture was well I I was raised in the Presbyterian Church Presbyterian oh I'm sorry is there what I don't recall any of that sort of talk well that's about submitting one's life to the Lord you know Jesus cool so you you're baptized in the Presbyterian Church I'm sorry I'm trying yeah later on the Methodist tradition does come in okay it's later on okay well then in the Presbyterian I mean again it's interesting methods in Presbyterian really are part of there's a disconnect there it often in their theologies yeah and I don't think certainly as a child I wasn't presbyterian for any theological reason I'm not sure why we were presbyterian my hunch is that it was the closest Protestant Church in the neighborhood so that's where we went I mean that's my hunch as a young man at 17 teenager really I graduated from high school and I went off to the military and at that point my Christianity fell by the by it just wasn't I wasn't anti-christian it just wasn't an important part of my life and didn't darken the door of a church really except for maybe a funeral wedding until in my 20s so I joined the military that again now Christianity was not a part of my my life so because of the the guys you were assigned we're just the people that I hang around hung around with that's just not something that was important to that yeah I remember one person I was signed in I was a firefighter in the Air Force assigned to a base in Korea and the one person understand enough who who had any kind of faith life at all was a Mormon and he was a very devout Mormon and I have all the men that I served with he's the one I remember the most didn't know anything about Mormonism but I knew by the way he lived his life that his faith was important to him that whatever his faith was it was important and I admired that and respected that so after I was done in Korea I was stationed at Loring Air Force Base in northern Maine and that's sort of where the main connection comes in later yeah loved loved northern Maine loved it and I think primarily as I look back as I was thinking about this most of the people in northern Maine are at least nominally Catholic it's a huge kind of population a lot of French Catholics and fell in love with me but when I was discharged I came back to Ohio and continued to work as a firefighter in the Columbus area and wanted to go back to me because I really liked me it wasn't godlike the hunt I like to fish said I want to go back to Maine so I tried every year I would go on vacation so this was like 1981 till around 1985 I would go back to Maine on vacation in October to go bear hunting and look for work look for work it's fine I'm a Franciscan now right I might of this whole thrust is sort of like I want to hunt and I would look for work well I wasn't having much luck finding work but finally I was able to apply for a position at the hospital from the VA hospital in Augusta Maine and I applied for a position as a firefighter it's a big enough complex and they had fire fighters and I was offered a position on a Friday and I said I needed a weekend to think about it so I thought about for the weekend decided I can think of all the reasons why I wanted to go to Maine I never considered the I never had fiduciary consideration they were pay they wanted to start me at much less money than I was making in in my present job so I came back to Zanesville I was talking to my family and my father just pointed out you can't live the sort of life you want to live on the money that they're going to give you you just need to take that into consideration so I thought about that and realized I really can't taking that job so at Monday Monday morning came I got back to the firehouse and I called the people in Maine who would offer me the position and I said I can't take the position and they said okay we'll just move on to the next person on the list and I hang up hung up the phone and poured a cup of coffee and sat down and I had an internal awareness I want to say it was a voice and the voice was Rex you have asked everyone about a job in Maine but you never consulted me that was it and I was like I'm not doing drugs I'm not intoxicated that was that was a god thing and I knew enough from my upbringing that if you want to learn about God you go to church that's where you learn about God is a you go to church so that next weekend I began worshiping at the local Presbyterian Church I knew Presbyterianism I sort of I was I knew the way I understood the liturgy such as it was I began attending church kind of Bible was involved in Bible study and so on and so forth so that was about 1985 shortly after that for not quite sure where this came from I think this and this longing was the Lord placed in my heart at that time as the longer that's been fulfilled in my vocation today but not having any any language this longing was sort of manifesting itself as well I think um I think I'm called to be a minister I have this longing it must be because I'm gonna called to be a minister so I went but as has been my pattern I was gonna say that I was gonna say that that that's not uncommon in the Protestant world know if you feel this longing well what are your options mm-hmm the ministry is really the thing that makes sense you're looking into that so I said well that's where you go right if you have a God experience spiritual awakening you go to church if it continues then you Minister so but I've always wanted my pattern has been and to my shame it's still a struggle today I'm perfectly content doing God's will as long as the lines up with my own perfectly content I'm all about God's will as long as he consults me first and I wanted to remain a firefighter and be a minister I said I'll be a fighter pilot chaplain that's how this will work so I went to the Presbyterian minister at the church where I was attending and I laid this out for him this is what this is what I'm called to do if God gets on board with this and the Presbyterian we're good to go right and he said to me bless his heart this is really quite funny he said to me you know what the Presbyterian Church is not structured in that way if we ordain you if you you know if you have a calling to the ministry you need to work in a parish he said well why don't you try the Methodists they'll do anything I was well the funny part was I went to the Methodist Church and the pastors like oh we can do that we could do that right so um I transferred my membership to the press to the Methodist Church nearby where I live I come out the door and I go one way I go to the Presbyterian Church come out the other way go the other way go to the Methodist Church it's all the same all right just not Catholic it's just all the same right that and really the Catholic issue Catholic theme and never really was not just not an issue for me I mean I mean it wasn't anything on my radar screen though I just wasn't Catholic as I said before we began I didn't grow up in an atmosphere that was anti-catholic right we had some family members who had married into the faith right wouldn't married Catholics no but it just wasn't something that was on my radar screen yeah so you you just decided because the options you go down to Methos good you know I earlier in a program I guess I had in my mind I knew you were previously method is that's why I didn't quite hear the Presbyterians I have you had that Presbyterian and but it's not a big deal it wasn't denominationally you were denominationally centered at this point you were how do I serve right right right and again we're not there was never any overt talk about have you submitted your will in your life to the lordship of Jesus Christ I think it was assumed maybe I just wasn't language that we used mmm and so I began worshipping at the Methodist Church and and laid out them laid out my plan to the Methodist minister and he said well you need to go you'll need to go to seminary well I didn't have I didn't have a college degree so I thought well okay but I still want to go to Maine so you know God's gonna have to make this work cuz this is my right so I found that there was a small seminary in Bangor Maine a non-denominational ism but it was very ecumenical right eye and the seminary had an opportunity at an option so people who did not have an undergraduate degree could go to the seminary and do both at the same time I thought perfect oh god you're doing mine well this is awesome God is an awesome God he does what I want him to do isn't that great and our guest today is brother Rex Anthony North's and what he just said is not his we're doing in quotes anyway so I thought well that'll be perfect if I can get a job in the Bangor at the greater Bangor Maine area then I can go to seminary get my right so this is all working out perfectly now I don't remember be honest with you consulting God in any of this I remember going into a discernment process right that word was not something that we use just like this is what I'm gonna do and and I God must be on board because this is what I want to do false thinking by the way crazy kind of goofy thinking but that's what I was on my journey well lo and behold a couple years later so this was about 1987 I found a position as a firefighter in the Bangor Maine area and I'm thinking God is good God is fulfilling with my dreams the way I wanted to go you know I'm looking at back at this and thinking that um so I moved to Bangor Maine so now I'm back in Maine where I wanted to be I'm good to go to seminary or I want to go to sinner but could never quite figure I never quite figured out how I could work full-time and also go to seminary full time and do all the other things that I want to do full time so that never quite panned out and yet this longing this longing that I had to do something there's something more there's something more to being a disciple of Jesus Christ than just going to church on Sunday there's something more to being a disciple of Jesus Christ than reading my Bible which I did so I went to the Methodist minister in town and we had a discussion no oh the Methodist minister somehow to connection with the Jesuits I think maybe he studied under them at Georgetown is that possible within the Georgetown of Jesuit and we talked he said you know it and I remember saying to him you know pastor there's got to be something more to this Christian thing than just coming to church on Sunday now I look back and realized what's the something more is the Eucharist something more is devotion to the Saints something more is the fullness of faith that our Lord has given us as a gift through the Catholic Church I didn't know any of that then he said to me I think you might have a calling he used those words to religious life no I don't know what religious life is I have no idea he said and I think he said that he said that is a Methodist and because of his connection I think with with the Catholic somehow Georgetown or there was in Catholic connection there anyway and I thought well that's fine but I I don't really have any desire to be Catholic I'm perfectly content being Methodist but I'm willing to look into this religious life thing so I found a book iy snuck into the back of a Catholic Church in the area and I found a book called dumb Christian ministries or Catholic ministries or something like that and it was a book that I think is still published today it's got these little rip out cards oh okay you know what talking about you little rip out cards you sign your name and your address and they send you vocation yes it's all different religious ha ha ha ha right all different eras over exactly exacting everything you want to so I'm filling out stuff with the jesuits something lost stuff for the franciscans I'm filling out stuff for the Benedictines I'm filling out stuff first sisters you know convents you know it everything I just want to know all that I can learn about this religious life thing because this man is said to me maybe you have a call okay so I'm filling all this stuff and I'm getting all this stuff in and and and then oh my goodness the the vocation directors the people who are are in charge of bringing new men and women into religious life start calling like to speak with racks yeah this is me you know so there talk to me about Jesuits of the Benedictines of the Franciscan I'm like well I'm perfectly so my idea is you you let me join and I'll remain Methodist right and I can just see them on the other line god oh we don't do that you can't do that especially when the next convention when they're all sitting around the table you talk to rest no one everybody knows me today you're the one right women's women's communities the live of the novice mistress or the vocation mr. Smith cause say uh can we speak with rec rings Alex and no you know I said well sister I got a little rambunctious right I guess I can't join the community but they gave me great vocation information the what that did for me was whether it was whether it was of women's community or immense community is it gave me a language it helped me understand ooh because something began to click hmm this is like some this these are men and women who have given their lives totally to Jesus Christ in a particular way and I find that attractive so I began to widdle through all that thinking well maybe I should become Catholic what's why not I mean that's the biggest denomination right it's just like being methyl I know things Ville and there's the Presbyterian Church and there's a Methodist Church and there's the Catholic rites all right right what the heck just you know Park in the same spot so I began to kind of Whittle through those and I liked while I was reading about the Franciscans about st. Francis until I began to read about him and I liked the the emphasis on simplicity and joy simplicity enjoy whatever else the Franciscans were about it was about simplicity and joy so I began to to reestablish contact with those communities but again it was my will not yours be done right so I said okay look here's the drill I'm a Methodist and I'm willing to allow for you to accept me to your religious community but I'll remain Methodist and they're like no we don't do that but one of the novice masters or the location directors said have you ever thought about Anglicanism the Anglican Church has religious orders and I said well okay but can i okay so maybe I should contact them he said yeah I want to contact them so I contacted the Anglican with some of the Anglican religious communities especially the Franciscan community and I said again so I'm a Methodist got no desire to be an Anglican right I mean I'm a Methodist perfectly content with evil there's a Catholic Church less Anglicans but in any case they said well okay we can't help you then if you don't review our interests in being Anglican we can't help you but we have helped an ecumenical group get together so so they can't they they got me in contact with this group called the order of ecumenical Franciscans now this was a group of men and women from from every imaginable imagined Christian tradition who were coming together around the spirituality of st. Francis right simplicity simplicity and joy but they were what we would call in the Catholic Church a secular order right a third order in other words they were men and women who didn't take vows like a religious consecrated man or woman take vows they just are covenant 'add together to live a particular worldview spirituality so I thought oh so now I remain a Methodist and sort of get a flavor of a religious life as I saw it so I joined that community in in 1989 now I didn't have to I didn't have to leave Maine I didn't have to leave my job you know they're set up just so that you can be you know remotely wherever you are you know you live where you live and then you come together once a year for a meeting or what have you stay in contact via telephones so I did that about 1989 and now I'm comfortable but the longing begins to you know it's funny once you settle down that still small voice starts bubbling up so the longing is still there and I'm thinking whoa now what and somebody plants in my head or the Lord did it or I read it in the paper work whatever about these evangelical counsels living live a living life of evangelical poverty living a life of evangelical chastity living a life of evangelical obedience in other words like Jesus lived that you can do that as a more intense as an intensification of your baptismal vows ooh I find that attractive I should look into that so I began to explore that well again the Methodism has no mechanism for that right though I will say that amongst Protestant traditions the Methodist Wesleyan tradition seems to have a more openness to spirituality spiritual guidance of the spiritual disciplines then let's say Calvinism or Lutheranism you know so I mean it isn't unknown I mean some of the the more well-known Protestant books aunts magazines on some journals and spirituality are Methodism babies I mean it's kind of their right but like you said it's it's still individualistic in many ways sure and if you talk to to the pastor or you talk to the district superintendent who's in charge of the pastor's they're like well we don't we don't have a pigeonhole for you we don't know you do that if you want to but you can do it under us or whatever like okay well I don't want to be Catholic and I don't have anything against Catholic with it but real I mean sometimes we forget that from the outside looking into the church it's just a bizarre you know statues and candles and you know people sitting around mumbling leather beads in their hand that's just weird it's another culture it's another world that I don't know anything about I don't against it but I don't have any desire to learn anything about it or so I thought so I I contacted the Anglicans in the area and began to converse with the priest there say well what would this mean you know could this possibly be a vocation to religious life and does that mean I have to become if I want to I want to take these vows do I have to become a member of an order so on and so forth because I'm pretty content where I'm at in about 1992 or 93 or whatever oh and in the meantime as a part of this small ecumenical community I needed a spiritual director and the only people in my area who did spirit reduction were Catholic priests so there was a Catholic priest in the area to whom I went it was a magnificent man he's still alive other Clinton but oh he's a great great man very holy man and we had wonderful conversations and he was he he had a magnet magnet nimma D is that the word about him just a generosity about him that he was allowed to listen to me you know talk about my world versus God well as long as God's on the same page as I am we're good to go you know mm-hmm and because I'm so full of me I would go to him I said you know I had this spiritual insight and I would share it to him I said I'm probably the first one ever had this insight he said well no saint so-and-so had I didn't sign that 13th century like German I'm like whoa she must be spiritually advanced as I am he's like or maybe not you know the Lord just keeps chipping away at my ego even to this day this is really good for me so I decided well if I join the Anglican tradition then I can join a religious community or whatever and fulfilled these vows I suppose this is what I'm going to have to do I have no desire to be Catholic so I join the Anglican or the Episcopal Church joining the Episcopal Church in 1994 and then things really start taking off because now I'm being exposed to liturgy the church that I attended was very what we would call anglo-catholic very smells and bells lots of incense and so on and so forth and I loved it I loved it and unless my train of thought all right so so I began to talk with the religious communities in the in the Episcopal Church just to learn more about them found them interesting but just wasn't feet on it you know and the priest where I went attended church was himself a part of a religious order in the Episcopal Church and it's funny about you know Hankel Catholicism I just say this on the side we pride ourselves on not being Catholic not being Roman I mean real or we know we're Catholic not Roman the whole branch theory sort of thing but in any case I said you know I really I really feel like main needs religious life right so we began to talk about the priest and I and and come to find out that there are these people who in the religion in the Episcopal Church they call them solitaries who live by themselves who are dedicated to God under these vows but live on their own you know do whatever they need to do to order to make a living to facilitate living in silence and solitude I said I find that attractive things are beginning to click I'm gonna pause you there okay brother just cuz we need time to take a break because I want to come back because I think it really is important as you're hearing this to to continue that juxtaposition of it what point is this about Rex mm-hmm and at what point does some come about Jesus you know because I know how important that is do you want to make sure we get there we get back from the break we'll do our guest his brother Rex Anthony Norris former Anglican and well which continued with history you it's such nice relaxing music is a brother race you know we get kinda used to that welcome back to the journey home Marcus Grodi your host and our guest tonight is brother Rex Anthony Norris and we've paused in your journey when really for the first time has been laid before you there's an idea of a solitary life in obedience to Jesus but really at this point I mean yo have you had your awakening to our Lord Jesus yet at this point in your journey yeah that's a great question um yes and what happened know what I have found in my own journey is that woven into the the crazy things that I think that the missteps that I make our Lord was continually beckoning me to come home come on I know I didn't see it as that at the time but I have said my yes to Jesus and so everything that I'm trying to do even though my will is woven in there right I'm trying to say yes to Jesus but there's a struggle like Paul said why do I do the things I don't want to do the things I do want to do I don't do there's that continuous struggle right which by the way in the Catholic tradition I think we understand it we talk about it more right that's why Jesus gave us the sacrum of reconciliation um so the Lord is leading me right to where I am today but there's a lot of me mixed in there yeah yeah which is the long journey I mean is for all of us you know it really is the most time were blind to how much it's about me you know that's one of the beautiful things I like about well this Franciscan spirituality is that Francis was very aware of his own shortcomings and and you know defects of character his own sinfulness he was very aware of that and that's what the Franciscans were noted for in their early preaching was we need to tell the people two things God loves you and you need to reform you because of God's love you need to transform his life in this idea of living a solitary life that all of a sudden you had been introduced to and that certainly wasn't something you've been hearing all along of course there's no category for that at mentalism or Presbyterianism no category whatsoever and and even when I think of Franciscans I don't really think of the solitary life I usually think of more that's wrong begging or giving to the pool that's right the interesting thing the beautiful thing about the Franciscan charism is that it in rates it encompasses all of that so there are stories about Frances you know there are Hermitage is all over Italy where Frances would go and spend time in solitude we know from the research that he spent if you put all the time he spent in solitude together he spent a full six months of the year in total solitude in Hermitage --is even above Assisi there are Hermitage there where Francis used to say but you're right that notion of going into the Hermitage to to recharge your battery if you will you know to play the the Martha in the Mary and go out you know and then it's certainly very much a part of the Franciscan charism and that whole notion of community which does come into my story at the time that you're doing this you open to this were you aware for example of Thomas mertens own desire for the four solids yes I became introduced to Thomas Merton through some Catholic friends I began to read some of his early works that I've already found a tional for me thoughts in solitude and so forth and his own journey you know into the into the Hermitage so um so the Lord has continued to backing me beckoning me back beckoning me into the Catholic Church but I don't see it as that I just see it as well okay I'm gonna take the next step right I tell I tell converse on the way over just keep saying yes to Jesus just keep saying yes to Jesus that's all you got to do when you get out of bed tomorrow morning say yes to Jesus and walk in the light of Jesus you know now that's hard that's very hard to do you keep saying yes to Jesus he will lead you home so I contacted the Episcopal bishop in Maine and I said look I feel like I want you know I have this this desire which seems bizarre to a lot of people right tell these evangelical counsels in the council's of the gospel the good news of of living poorly simply under obedience to you and the Lord primarily and in chastity making a decision not to marry for the sake of the kingdom so he said we can do that right we have the capacity to do that we have that in our canons to be a solitary religious it was called a solitary religious but you need to go away for formation first so I said okay I I picked the formation based on where I went for formation I picked it based on what I thought was the health of the community how well the community got along together and it happened to be a Benedictine community so I went away in April of 1994 I left my job I'm living off savings I went away for formation in prayer spirituality consecrated life with with an Anglican community in New York State stayed there long enough to get a foundation you know just six months or so came back to Maine and the bishop received my vows okay so all this time I'm doing good I'm thinking okay I'm fine now right I'm living a solitary life not not really secluded or insulted because the the Episcopal Church had never really fleshed that out what does it look like to live as a solitary so I was sort of on my own working with the bishop how we make this happen so I began in good Franciscan fashion to work at a homeless shelter work with folks at homeless shelter and live in a converted chicken coop when I every option I had that was my first Hermitage was a converted chicken cook this is where it all takes off beautifully it was a community it was founded that the homeless shelter was founded by a community of Franciscans and nuns catholic catholic nuns they were the ones who said well if you need a hermitage we'll give you a chicken coop oh my god thanks sister that's great well it's all we have you know you want to take and the Bishop of Maine the Episcopal bishop of Maine also said I think it should be because community is so important in the Franciscans you should be hanging out with Franciscans well there was a Franciscan community in Portland Maine at the time the order of Friars Minor Roman Catholic Franciscan community and I began hanging out with those guys and those guys were magnificent men they loved Jesus they loved the Catholic Church they loved their priesthood or their day a canoe that they were deacons or they're just being brothers they loved it and I loved and I'm like man this is what being a follower of Jesus is all about yeah and I would walk into the fryer I would go every couple of weeks to spend the weekend with them and you know I walk in and father Karen Monahan who I hope is watching this show while the Karen would say to the people that would come to the friary or to masses a this is brother Rex he's an Episcopalian you don't have to be nice to him right that was always that was how it was always how he lived with the beautiful white one thing was these Catholic people just loved me they just loved me you could tell they just they were just full of Jesus they just loved me it was great I'm like wow this is what being a Christian is all about this is what being it must be this is what being a Christian is all about I remember saying in to some of these people I want what you have and they're like why don't I do what we do well what do you do oh we see the Eucharist we go to you know we go to confession and we pray the rosary I'm like okay well I'm trying to do all this but I'm I'm a press-on Episcopalian it looks good but then then what happens is the Episcopal priest of our Anglo Catholic parish retires and all of a sudden we're not--we're no longer anglo-catholic we're just sort of middle-of-the-road broadchurch Episcopalians we got a new minister different agenda no snow worry about this smells and they know incense is not important genuflecting before the tabernacle is not important none of that stuff is important anymore and the Lord spoke unto me and said Rex is it's time to come home you've been dancing around the edges of my church lo these many years and now all that everything has been removed and there you stand right there you stand and so I began in earnest to ask questions to really search out what is it about the Catholicism that just what is you know what is it that these people have I began attending Catholic Mass not receiving the Eucharist but sitting there and seemed like everybody in the congregation would go forward for the Eucharist and I would begin to weep and I'm like Rex you better take a look at this what's this about was about Jesus it's always about Jesus even my vocation is about Jesus right your vocation is a married man it's always about Jesus in the Catholic I thank God for the you know Pope Francis and the other Pope's have talked about that personal relationship with Jesus Christ is not something added on to Catholicism so finally one night I was struggling with some of the stuff about Catholicism there were just some things I did not quite understand and thought well unless I can get this all figured out I can't join I was reading a book by Avery Dallas and Avery Dallas said in his book you know it is possible to be Catholic and not fully comprehend a teaching you can say I'm not sure I understand this teaching correctly and if I do understand it correctly I can't see how it can possibly be true nevertheless I am willing to admit that the church has 2,000 plus years of grappling with this very issue and that maybe there's somebody in the world smarter than I am maybe Christ is still leading his church maybe that what Newman talked about the development of doctrine maybe there's something to that and Avery Dallas said if you can if you can take that position you're not rejecting anything I'm not rejecting it I'm just saying I'm not quite understanding it but I trust the church I trust I give my will in my life to the lordship of Jesus Christ in the context of the church that he found it I said I can do that I can do that I mean it's like you hearing the words of our Lord and what you said you know unless you eat my body and drink my blood you cannot have life within you how can that be try to understand hmm yeah and then you start looking through history and you realize what's early fathers believed about that and what Agustin believed about what Aquinas believed about that what st. Francis believed about that and the prison you say these guys mm-hmm a whole lot smarter that's right than me that's right I don't quite get it but but but what a cloud of witnesses that's right I'm going and I'm going to trust them I'm going to trust the church that they know more that there's something that's no longer about me it's no longer about me it's about what does Jesus say to this church what does Jesus say in his church and do I trust that and I said I can do that so I got on the phone and called a Canon lawyer that I knew from my time spinning him with the franciscans and I said I think I'm ready I don't think I said I didn't say I'm ready to come home but I think I said I'm ready to join the church and he said it's about time we've been waiting on you now this brings up the issue what about me and my religious vocation such as it is it happened that the bishop at the time wasn't of a Benedictine monk Bishop Joseph Carey's now the emeritus bishop he's retired back in his monastery back home as he says um so the Canon lawyer said let me talk to the bishop he called me back and he said you are absolutely correct when you become Cataclysm that wasn't a matter of if so when you become Catholic your vows such as they are become null and void and I said okay I don't know what that means I got no idea what that means for my future I got I've got no work I'm still living off a little bit of savings I don't know what that's gonna look like but I'm going to trust Jesus and it's funny you confirm one of the parables that Jesus uses that's important to our work and that is when Jesus talks about you're invited to the wedding feast and he says don't expect or demand the front role right I said you take the back well that's right and that's what they were telling you that's what you willing that's right to take the back row you're welcome home into Christ's Church on Christ's terms not yours I'm like oh such a paradigm shift and he said and then he said and further if you still feel this desire you and the bishop will enter into a dialogue together in over a year at least if it takes longer that's okay too and you will discern together it's no longer Rex deciding what Rex must have do us now his hands are in the hand of Christ as he comes to me through the bishop and through the church and I just I guess it was grace I said okay okay I'm willing to do that I'm willing to enter into that dialogue with the bishop that was so I entered the church Easter Vigil of the year 2000 now all this talk before about you know I'm willing to do what I want to do as long as God's home you know I'll do God's will as long as he's on board with me I remember the priest came up to me after the vigil at that little reception he says how does it feel and I said it's nice to be in a tradition that can hold this big enough to hold my ego right and he said to me well that will change now those are wise words because what do you meant by that is that if you really give yourself to the lordship of Jesus Christ it's about whittling away that ego yeah the whittling away is humility humility humility that's why I love st. Francis that's why I love st. Jose Maria Escriva he talks about that even as a saint he said we are all we go back and forth we're humble then we're proud that were humbled and we're proud and we need to just be conscious of that just be conscious of that I'd own that as I and so after a year of discernment with the bishop we both agreed that he would receive my vows on a temporary basis as a hermit there in Canal and canon law now what that means in the Catholic tradition is that I remain for the most part in the silence of solitude praying for the salvation of the world and the conversion of sinners and the good of the church in other words I'm loving Jesus that's my job my job is to love Jesus in that way and so in 2001 he received my vows three years later he was he had retired and the new bishop building on the precedents of the former bishop received my vows again for another three years and then in 2007 I took my final vows as a hermit in the in the Catholic Church and Hermits no matter what I'm a male or female if we're a hermit under the bishop in the diocese we we have a particular usually have a particular spirituality that we find attractive and so that's sort of how we channel our our vocation so in my case it's Franciscan there's six or seven Hermits in our diocese I'm the only male the other ones are you know we have a couple of Bennett who channeled their vocation through the Benedictine worldview a couple of through Carmelite nuns a Franciscan so just throw the worldview you know how we is this more common than your average person realized yes yes it's interesting the research suggests that whenever there's an upheaval in society that Hermits the location tends to rise up and I think I think that's the case because the Lord wants to show people you know we need to get back on track the important thing is our relationship with Jesus Christ and that's supposed to be what the contemplative life is about whether it's whether it's in community or whether it's the Hermit but there is one thing necessary and that is your submission to the lordship of Jesus Christ and I need to be a witness for that and you need to be a witness for that in your own formation in our work which we do together the coming home network does not go ever go out after non-catholic is to try and convert them we've often recognized that that's that's really not how we understand our the mission that our Lord has called us to we're here to stand beside those who contact us alright but one of the things that we have to do is to help them become aware of baggage that they bring with them and sometimes that baggage is coming from a culture that has many anti-catholic threads in it that we can can sometimes keep hidden below but then come to the surface at different times and how about you're in your own journey within yourself or dealing with people that don't understand what you're doing with your life you know how do you help people on the journey deal with those issues well I think for me it's it's because I've come up against things in my own life I said what is that about right what is that about well I've become begun to realize is that it's all a piece of the whole and it all makes sense when you trace it all back to this is all connected to this and this is all connected to this and it's a beautiful tapestry of life when people come into the church or contact us one of the things we have to do is talk about you know well what's this whole thing about Mary or what's this whole thing about the Immaculate Conception right and so we have to lay the groundwork because their their understanding of say the Immaculate Conception is based on Protestant premises you say well let's back up and talk about you know Christian anthropology from a Catholic point of view and how that all makes a sense if you understand where it's coming from you know it's always the thing they want to they want they want a 10-minute answer that takes you gotta give him 300 years of history in ten minutes or two thousand yeah and and you come from a tradition that does not have pigeon holes for solitaries for Hermits you know that's why as you said you'll see the Catholic lady over there mumbling over beads well we had no concept right of praying the road talk about the rosary in your own journey right Mary's my experience with Mary has been always in the background but always always there she's always been there right and I it's a beautiful thing for me to think you know I've got I've got the number one Saint in the whole world on my side you know she's praying for me and she's there interceding for me and I just I just ask her Mary would I ask you to pray for me I asked Mary to pray for me you know she doesn't she doesn't diminish our Lord when properly understood in a Catholic context she's always pointing to Jesus that's what we're all supposed to be doing pointing to Jesus each mystery of the Rosary mystery being the particular scene in the Gospel story whether it's the unseen or the presentation or whatever it is either that in every case it's Mary looking at Jesus right everyone is Mary looking at Jesus pointing to Jesus and we have an email from deacon Dave what were the first stirrings which led you to consider that Catholicism is the fullest understanding of the truth which Christ left also what is the most significant battle for you as you continue in your faith journey great questions deacon Dave I know Deacon Dave I think so the the again when when the Lord began to pull out all of those those those scaffolding that I had constructed scaffolding is that the right word scaffold that I had scab that I had scaffolding rented a scaffold with scaffolding that I had constructed around my life as an Episcopalian you know it all looked like Catholicism no but there was no nothing underneath it right and just stuff that I had made up so when the Lord began to pull that I like when the priest retired and we were no longer Catholic what how did that happen does that happen if you're rooted in Jesus Christ in the tradition of the church how did that happen so that was probably it right when all this stuff that I had made up I had made up this great life for myself and when that all began to crumble and then I had nowhere to look but to the Lord and the Lord was saying if you want what I have to give you come on I want to give you the fullness of what I've given you all these years the fullness of salvation come and so I think Newman's statement about to become deep in history is to cease to be Protestant and I mean that was his own personal expression not everybody we know whose deep in history as hasn't become Catholic but was that also true for your journey yes in college I took a degree in medieval history and it was a secular college but the history professors were very they just said this is what happened this is where you know I said they were not anti-catholic and I was like wow wow I don't know what I thought I believed or you know knew about Catholicism but as I learned about Catholicism I well this the church is full of sinners like me and the church is also full the saints like I want to be or I am in potentia Wow wow this is awesome and if they can you know the church is big enough for Saint Francis's and then some you know I don't know reprobate Oprah whatever like I it's big enough for me right so I mean that was a beautiful thing so I learned that what I now what I hear of when I hear Andy Catholicism I'm like well that's just not even true deacon dave also asked what's your continuing struggle journey you say the biggest barrier when I'm on fire for Jesus and some of my Catholic brothers and sisters aren't it baffles me it's like no seriously we just received the body and blood of Jesus Christ it doesn't that jazz you up I don't say that but I want to say you know or the singing you know I bring up from my prostitution I love to sing you know so sometimes I'll stand on the outside of the aisle so that the people can't get out right you mentioned that you had built the scaffolding of this anglo-catholic world that quickly fell away can that be a blinding danger for Catholics is the scaffolding of our faith can in the process prevent us from knowing Jesus yes yes yes I think that I've heard well I go to Mass but tell me about your relationship with Jesus and they'll look at me like I've got three heads we just don't talk that way you know so that it can be we can get caught up in the externals which are important but the externals are there to feed that relationship with Jesus Christ and that could be the barrier for non Catholics looking at Catholics that who Catholics that do all these things but they're not hearing the language that they're accustomed to hearing about a relationship with Jesus dry-ass which is which is the one other thing one of the reasons I like what the Pope's in recent decades have written because it's our brilliant minds talking about it's about it Benedict the sixteenth talks about it's about an encounter with a person yeah well hardly a day goes by when we don't hear from Pope Francis saying the very things about our Lord Jesus Christ and seem especially our Lord Jesus in the poor in the needy and the sick and then even in the wealthy who are blinded by their wealth right yeah Jesus never tells us to hate the wealthy let's say we've got someone listening now in our last minute or so who's who is now where you were mm-hmm what would you want to tell them about why they should follow the same journey you've done two things if you love Jesus if you love Jesus keep saying yes to Jesus and go where he it feels like he's leading you and he will lead you home you know and if you want to talk to you know find a find the Catholic priest in your area or a Catholic spiritual director and talk to him you know or if it's a spiritual director who's his sister talk to her find out about their love for Jesus Christ and question question question you know we've got nothing to hide we've got nothing there's no secrets in the Catholic Church it's all in the Catechism but defeat if you don't know what the Church teaches I would rather have somebody reject the church because they understand what the Church teaches rather than reject the church because they have no idea what we teach yeah you know what Christ is taught through through his church your website little portion Hermitage dot org what would they find well they can find there's a prayer request button because my job is prayer please tap on that prayer request button and send me an email it's all confidential I'll reply and let you know that I'm praying for you also they don't find more information about the about consecrated life more information about the aromatic life there are the hermit life and once in a while I have an original thought and I put it on there brother Rix thank you thank you sharing on the journey home but also for your work thank you for coming on Network thank you really appreciate you and you're our partnership and this works together so thank you bless thank you for joining us on this episode of the journey on my home that the story of brother Rex Anthony Norris is an encouragement to your walk and surrender to Jesus Christ god bless you can see next Oh

Channel: EWTN

Views: 16,389

Rating: 4.9252338 out of 5

Keywords: Catholic, EWTN, Christian, television, Protestantism (Religion), JHT01428

Id: N4xnYyLDQJk

Length: 56min 14sec (3374 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 08 2014