So this Easter will mark the seventh anniversary of our entrance into the Catholic Church. \u00a0It was at the Easter Vigil, 2006. \u00a0That\u2019s the night before Easter for those who don\u2019t know. \u00a0It was pretty special. \u00a0I was working for a lay apostolate that focuses, at least ostensibly, on helping Protestant ministers enter the Catholic Church. \u00a0I just started a couple months before. \u00a0We had just come off a string of months consisting of one disaster after another. \u00a0We lost a hunk of our savings (a portent of things to come), mostly due to my wife\u2019s dismissal from a Christian school because of our decision to become Catholic.<\/p>\n
A series of mishaps followed, including a bad car accident which, unfortunately, my wife caused. \u00a0Our only working car lost, her job lost, me just struggling to replace my own ministry vocation had caused us to be at the finical breaking point. \u00a0Or so it seemed. <\/p>\n
Then, suddenly, I was offered a job with that apostolate, and my wife got a full time job with an educational publisher, McGraw-Hill. \u00a0The money was pretty good. Combined it was more than we ever made before \u2013 evangelical ministers not known for their hefty paychecks. \u00a0We sat there that Easter vigil night, I was feeling so good. \u00a0Already I was in a position to keep my ministry wheels turning, we were financially well off enough to pay our bills and actually replenish lost savings. \u00a0The services were beautiful. \u00a0Doors were opening. \u00a0The future seemed on the right path. \u00a0We were taking some gruff from family, friends and former colleagues, especially about becoming Catholic while the sex abuse scandal was still fresh in the news.. \u00a0Our kids were a bit confused about the sudden upheaval in our lives. But for us, it was clearly God\u2019s will and I couldn\u2019t be happier. <\/p>\n
Nevertheless, there was one tiny issue. \u00a0The fellow who started the apostolate I worked for, the one who is seen by many as the face of protestant minister converts, was strangely apathetic about me becoming Catholic. \u00a0He wasn\u2019t there that night, though one of the employees, the liaison to the actual ministers who contact the ministry, did attend. \u00a0The founder of the ministry was absent. And more than that, he made no real effort to celebrate. \u00a0In fact, the following week, I had to remind him I was now Catholic. He said congratulations, but that was all. \u00a0Not even a card. \u00a0You\u2019d think a ministry centered around what I had just done, with one of its own going through the very purpose of its existence, would have been, you know, happy. Maybe even celebratory. \u00a0But nothing. \u00a0A couple employees said well done, but that was all. I should have known. \u00a0A mere bump in an overall fabulous road that would soon come to define that road.<\/p>\n
Two years later I was let go. \u00a0Officially \u2013 \u201cofficially\u201d \u2013 it was because of finances, but as likely as not, it\u2019s because I couldn\u2019t or wouldn\u2019t move to a different part of the state where the offices were located. \u00a0But it was more. \u00a0I was an evangelical. \u00a0He, the president and founder, brought a disdain for my tradition with him into the Church. \u00a0That was clear. \u00a0We never hit it off. \u00a0He was what I discovered was more common than not: a former minister who made much out of the fact that when it comes to partying, few Christian traditions match Catholicism. \u00a0Dirty jokes and bathroom humor, cussing, smoking, drinking and partying \u2013 that\u2019s the stuff that Catholicism is made of. \u00a0And though I enjoy a beer or glass of wine with the best of them, that sort of thing has never been my cup of tea. \u00a0Once when we were having lunch with his wife, and as they were throwing about the old poop-humor, she grimaced. \u00a0She then noted I wasn\u2019t partaking in the Eddie Murphy screes. Her husband said it was because of my Baptist ways. \u00a0I said no, it\u2019s how I was raised before I was a Christian. \u00a0I fear that things like that assured me of no real future.<\/p>\n
It may have been because of that I was often short shifted. \u00a0He obligatorily let me appear on his radio show, and once on his TV show dedicated to telling about journeys into the Catholic Church. \u00a0But he never rehearsed. \u00a0Usually guests prep with him ahead of time to know what to expect. \u00a0I was given no such benefit. \u00a0Each time, I was just thrown in and expected to do my best with no idea what to expect from him. \u00a0In charge of publishing, it was my job to tell him he had no clue about how to publish books, and my brief time with McGraw-Hill taught me a few things. \u00a0That went nowhere, and when our first book \u2013 In the Fullness of Christ \u2013 was published, he gave me no credit, no congrats, no thanks, no nothing. \u00a0I knew then my days were numbered.<\/p>\n
Once I was let go in the spring of 2008, things went downhill. \u00a0After years of trying to get my name out in the Church through various avenues, I was getting nowhere. \u00a0Despite doing some well received projects for local parishes, and receiving much appreciation for lessons and teaching I did for their RCIAs and parishes, I was getting nowhere.<\/p>\n
Then my Dad\u2019s health failed. \u00a0My sister\u2019s family unraveled. \u00a0My wife\u2019s sister got a divorce. \u00a0Then my Dad died, my Mom moved in with us in our starter home we\u2019ve never been able to leave, and in December of 2011, as if the rest wasn\u2019t bad enough, my Wife lost her job in a tribute to modern Darwinian Capitalism. \u00a0She and hundreds of her coworkers. \u00a0Merry Christmas.<\/p>\n
Since then we\u2019ve lost all retirement, almost all savings. \u00a0Our little starter home is crumbling from lack of funds to keep it in repair. \u00a0I\u2019ve now been all but told flat out that there is no place for me in Catholic ministry. \u00a0Not as a priest, deacon, teacher, nothing. \u00a0The fact that I was a vocational ministers is received in one of two ways. \u00a0One, it\u2019s irrelevant. Or two, the fact that I was a former ministers is itself the problem, and nothing I ever do will erase that. <\/p>\n
Wow. \u00a0Quite a difference in seven years. \u00a0My current job is nothing special, I\u2019m underpaid. \u00a0My schedule is a wrecking ball in our family\u2019s life. \u00a0My wife is working part time in a woefully underpaying and under employing job. \u00a0Our oldest is soon to graduate, this being the last years of his time with us. Our two youngest have almost no memory of stable, secure times. <\/p>\n
So what\u2019s it all mean? \u00a0What happened? \u00a0I have no clue. \u00a0How it went from \u2018God\u2019s will as He opens doors and leads us along our glorious pilgrimage\u2019 to \u2018hell no there\u2019s nothing for you, starve if you must (but make sure you give to the Bishop\u2019s annual appeal\u2019 is something I can\u2019t answer. \u00a0All I know is that it\u2019s made a life of happiness and joy in the Catholic Church a tough one.<\/p>\n
So why stay? \u00a0Well, there\u2019s the rub. \u00a0Because I believe it\u2019s true. \u00a0Because I believe the historic Church, that Church that existed pre-Protestant, is the True Church, and the fullest expression of the Faith in \u00a0Jesus Christ. \u00a0At this point, if there is no historic faith, there\u2019s no faith in Christ. \u00a0So to paraphrase Peter, where else would I go?<\/p>\n
That\u2019s not to say I\u2019m all tingly about what\u2019s happened. \u00a0I\u2019m not. \u00a0I just remember that the Church may be the Body of Christ, but it\u2019s also full of people. \u00a0And it\u2019s that last part that\u2019s given the Church some of its more dubious reputations over the years. \u00a0Sure, many Catholics I\u2019ve met are fine people, and probably have little to no clue what\u2019s happened, why it\u2019s happened, or the extent of what we\u2019ve gone through. \u00a0But in the Catholic Church, at the end of the day, they don\u2019t matter. \u00a0Which has been the issue for more than a few centuries.<\/p>\n
So as we crawl and stumble toward Easter, seven years from that fateful night, all I can say is that we\u2019re hanging on by a gossamer thread. \u00a0But we\u2019re hanging. &
\nnbsp;How things will unfold, or what will happen, I can only guess. \u00a0Perhaps hope. \u00a0Maybe pray. \u00a0But right now, we are bending all we have to push past the rubble strewn ruins of our life, and keep our focus on the core of our faith, one that once so dominated every corner of our lives, now at times a far off glimmer in a long, dark passage. \u00a0Perhaps it will shine brightly soon. \u00a0We can only pray. \u00a0But that\u2019s the way it is this Holy Week, 2014. \u00a0Till next time, perhaps on a new or fixed computer, Happy Easter.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
So this Easter will mark the seventh anniversary of our entrance into the Catholic Church. \u00a0It was at the Easter Vigil, 2006. \u00a0That\u2019s the night before Easter for those who don\u2019t know. \u00a0It was pretty special. \u00a0I was working for a lay apostolate that focuses, at least ostensibly, on helping Protestant ministers enter the Catholic […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2805,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1692","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n