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<\/a><\/div>\nBefore I was a Catholic, yet seriously considering\u00a0 the idea of becoming one, my wife made a suggestion to me.\u00a0 My daughter was preparing for her First Communion and while the children were being prepared, there was someone speaking to the parents in the parish hall in the interim.\u00a0\u00a0My wife\u00a0said he was a very good speaker and that I might enjoy what this person had to say. I was dubious, to say the least. She couldn\u2019t remember his name (we were still new to the community) but she said he was a lay person who worked for the diocese in some capacity, and she spoke glowingly of his charm and his ability to speak in a way that held your interest.<\/p>\n She was right about him holding my interest, but it was a different guy who spoke on the Saturday when I attended. My speaker worked for the diocese all right, but he was a retired Marine Lt. Colonel. Marines understand each other. He was the head of the diocese Office of Justice and Peace (OJP).<\/p>\n After his talk, I went up and introduced myself.\u00a0 I was still pretty stand-offish, not quite sure about whether I was being called to \u201ctake the plunge\u201d and join the Church. He had been an aviator, and I had been an ordnanceman responsible for loading, unloading, and maintaining weapons systems on A-4 Skyhawks and A-6 Intruders (that\u2019s the Intruder below).<\/p>\n I shared with him that I had just retired as well, from an artillery battery<\/a> where I had been the Ammo Chief, again responsible for supplying the ordnance, so things could go BOOM for the howitzers as well as small arms ammunition, grenades, flares, etc. Danger was my business. Was<\/em> being the operative word.<\/p>\n As it turns out, the affinity torch was rekindled again because the OJP Chief had been in a Forward Air Controller capacity working with Marine Artillery units at one point in his career as well. Small world, small Marine Corps, and shared experiences. This was making for an easy conversation.<\/p>\n I didn\u2019t want to take up anymore of his time, but I asked him again, What do you do for the diocese? My hearing isn\u2019t what it used to be, and I thought he had said he was a Justice of the Peace or something. He chuckled at that and explained briefly that the Office of Justice and Peace<\/a> is the office that works to plan and fulfill projects\u00a0built around the\u00a0Social Doctrines of the Catholic Church.<\/p>\n He handed me the handsome book in the photo above called the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church.<\/a><\/em> It is 450 pages thick! I took it and thanked him and went home and told my wife what I\u2019ve just told you.<\/p>\n She looked puzzled and eventually stopped me and asked me to describe what this guy looked like. I gave her my best guess on height, weight, and hair color, and she laughed and said, that<\/em> isn\u2019t the same guy she had heard. Interesting, she thought.<\/p>\n Do you want to know what I think? I think it was one of Webster\u2019s minor miracles<\/a> that the guy who I\u00a0hear<\/em>d speak was one of my Marine brothers. Maybe it\u2019s all just a big coincidence, but I have my doubts about that. Perhaps The Comforter provided me a messenger who would make me comfortable<\/em>.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Below is a short section from the Compendium<\/em>.\u00a0 This is timely in that it mirrors and deepens what I wrote about in my post thanking Anne Rice<\/a> for her question.\u00a0 When I first read this section, it was a eureka moment. The puzzle pieces of life started fitting together and the call I felt to join the Church grew stronger. First the title of the section,<\/p>\n Christian salvation: for all people and the whole person<\/strong><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n I\u2019ve always liked the whole man<\/em> concept. The Olympian ideal.\u00a0 The scholar-athlete. One who excels academically and physically. <\/em><\/p>\n The salvation offered in its fullness to men in Jesus Christ by God the Father\u2019s initiative, and brought about and transmitted by the work of the Holy Spirit, is salvation for all people and of the whole person: it is universal and integral salvation. It concerns the human person in all his dimensions: personal and social, spiritual and corporeal, historical and transcendent.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
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\nOriginally published on February 10, 2010.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/a>Marine pilots love their crews from all the shops that maintain their aircraft, but they really love their ordnancemen because, without us see, nothing goes BOOM. As Marine Corps aviators will tell you, their sole mission is to put ordnance on enemy targets, either on the ground, sea, or air.\u00a0 You can understand the affinity aviators and ordnancemen have for one another.<\/p>\n