Posted on 04/01/2008 4:23:02 PM PDT by NYer
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February 16, 2004 - Reported in Spirit Daily.com online newspaper. "In 1992 my life changed dramatically," says Father Donald Calloway. "I had a profound conversion experience after reaching rock bottom."
Rock bottom indeed! Now a 31-year-old priest who serves as assistant rector at the National Shrine of the Divine Mercy in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, Father Calloway had been a runaway youngster who was immersed in everything from drug abuse to theft.
"I had gone through all a boy could do up to the age of twenty," he says. "My mother had been married three times and we had no religion. The family was very hedonistic. There was a downward spiral in my life."
It started in Virginia Beach -- where his stepfather was based in the military -- and continued when the family moved to California. Drugs, sex, smoking, and drinking -- all by the age 11. "It escalated to the point of getting out of control," he now recounts. "We moved near Los Angeles. Then to Japan. That rocked my world."
Uprooted so continuously from friends and his environment, young Donald Calloway had decided to teach his parents a lesson. As soon as they got to Japan, he became a "living hell" for them. He tied in with the wrong crowd and started doing "unbelievable" quantities of drugs -- opium, heroin, alcohol every day, even inhaling the fumes of gasoline.
That escalated to where he ran away from the military base and fled around the foreign country, committing felonies -- stealing "massive amounts" of money, cars, mopeds. He even got involved running errands for the Japanese "mafia."
"I had no concern about anything or anybody," says Father Calloway, whose mother had a breakdown, ended up consulting a priest, and became a Catholic -- something young Donald knew nothing about. She was also forced to return to the U.S. without him. Police even tapped phones to the military base to try to get the youngster, and finally did apprehend him. When they did, Calloway spat in the face of one of the military cops. By now he was 15 with long hair and a profane mouth -- so wild that he was shackled and deported.
Thrown out of Japan, Calloway returned to the United States, where he told his mother he hated her but agreed to enter a rehabilitation center. In short order he ran away from there too and went back to drugs on an even grander scale. Heroin, crack, LSD, uppers, downers. And there were the girls. "There came a point where I started following the 'Grateful Dead' and living in places like a tree trunk," recounts the priest. "In Louisiana, I ended up in jail. It was an absolute mess."
He was a drop out, his hair down to his belt. He was tattooed. It was "a life cycle of death." There was another attempt at rehabilitation, but of course, that fell short again. In fact, the drug use got even heavier.
"Then one night in 1992 I knew that my life would radically change, that something was going to happen in my life to cause a radical change," he says. "I knew something was going to happen. Something was coming."
It was this peculiar, sudden, and powerful intuition that changed his life -- a feeling so powerful that he turned down the calls from friends to come out to party as he did on a nightly basis. He still has trouble explaining exactly what happened. The prayers of a mother?
For a while Calloway remained in his room waiting for this unknown "something" to arrive, then went to the hall looking for a magazine or book to read as he waited, guided by an amazing internal feeling. "I wanted to look at some kind of magazine with pictures while I was waiting, something like National Geographic, with pictures, and I went out there and there was a book that caught my eye," he says. "On the binding it said, The Queen of Peace Visits Medjugorje."
It was a book about the apparition site in Bosnia-Hercegovina by Father Joseph A. Pelletier and Calloway couldn't comprehend what the words meant. He wondered if his parents had taken up a foreign language! Looking at the pictures, he saw six children staring up into nothing. It was the seers during an apparition -- something he had never even heard about. He read the caption and it said they were looking at the "Blessed Virgin Mary." He was so poorly versed in religion that he didn't know who the Blessed Mother was. "I thought Jesus was like Santa Claus," he recalls. "I was a blank slate." Looking at more of the pictures, he saw other words like the Rosary, Communion, and the Eucharist that he had little idea about.
There was all this Catholic lingo, but he began to avidly read it. He couldn't put it down. "I read that whole book by 3:30 or 4 a.m. in the morning," he says. "I ate that book like it was life. I consumed it. And I said to myself, 'That is true. Everything in that book is true.' She was saying that Jesus was God, and I thought, anything she says is true. She seemed so beautiful and flawless. She captivated my heart. And I said, 'I give myself totally to this woman.'"
The young man went to his mother the next morning and told her he wanted to see a priest. She was shocked. He knew there was a chaplain on the base, and that's where he ended up going -- skipping with joy like a little boy, his long hippie hair flowing past marching Marines.
When Calloway caught up with the Navy chaplain, the priest told him to go to church and sit in the back while he said Mass, and then they would talk to him. Donald did as he was told, waiting as a small group of Filipino women recited a repetitious prayer -- which of course was the Rosary. Then came the moment that changed his life. The priest came out with robes. Calloway thought it was some kind of performance. He had no idea what was going on. "I was amazed. All these ladies were kneeling and standing at the same time."
But it just clicked. All of a sudden, this young man -- this drug abuser, this runaway -- "knew" what was happening, that what was transpiring was a "real" re-presentation of what had happened 2,000 years ago, and that it was being poured out again. "Time ceased," he says. "I saw myself at Calvary with the faithful beholding the sacrifice of the lamb." Everything about it captivated him. He felt the Presence of Christ -- knew He was there -- as the priest held up the "white circle."
He was twenty, going on 21, and "all I knew was that I was madly in love with God and Our Savior."
So touched was he by the Mass that Calloway was ready to go door to door to tell everyone about it. The enthusiasm exploded. After Mass he went home, tore down all his posters, grabbed several big black trash bags, and threw away just about everything in his room -- replacing it all with a picture of the Pope and another of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, which the priest had given to him (along with a Crucifix).
"I don't remember ever having said a prayer in my life," he says of his return to his room. "I looked at the book, the six children, who were on their knees with their hands folded, and I did the same thing and just looked. I had no idea how it worked. I didn't know what was supposed to happen next. My eyes focused on the picture of the Sacred Heart and as I looked at that image something within me knew that was the God-Man hanging on the Cross -- and that everything the Blessed Virgin Mary said was for people like me.
"I cried profusely. You could have filled a bucket. I was so remorseful for the things I had done. Everything came on me at once. It was like every fluid in my body was coming out of my eyes. Yet at the same time I knew there was hope, and I was crying tears of joy. I was almost laughing. I knew that this Jesus died for me and loved me.
"After a long time I laid on the bed and for the first time in years I felt free. An unbelievable peace came over me. Something happened to me that I don't know how to explain. Right on the verge of sleep, something came from behind me and knocked me out of my body. My soul or spirit or whatever was leaving my body. I couldn't say anything, I couldn't move. The only person I knew to cry out to was Mary, and I cried out spiritually. I was terrorized with fear. I screamed with everything I had, "Mary' -- and all of a sudden I was pushed back into my body with the force of a universe come crashing down upon me and I heard the most beautiful feminine voice I have ever heard and will ever hear say, 'Donnie, I am so happy.'
"No one called me Donnie but my mother," he notes. "It was unbelievable."
And so was what was to come next:
Instantly, Calloway had lost his craving for all his vices -- from impure thoughts about women to cigarettes. There was no more desire to do anything he had been doing! "God had simply changed me, and it was unbelievable," he says. "Christ just overwhelmed me with His love. I started 'living' in the church, saying the Stations of the Cross until I was worn out, even slept in the pews. I began reciting the Rosary, wearing a scapular, reading everything I could on the saints."
He says he experienced a supernatural "infusion of knowledge" about the faith and became a Catholic within nine months.
Shortly after, he joined the Marians of the Immaculate Conception and discerned a priestly vocation.
Last September, he finally made it to Medjugorje -- where he delivered the homily as forty other priests joined him on the altar. "All I knew was that I loved Jesus," he says. "I loved every minute of Medjugorje. I'm going back in March. It's the edge of Heaven, wonderful." At the seminary, he says, most of his peers had also been there. "Our Lady is building up this army, this whole new generation, layer by layer. Rank by rank they are coming out of seminaries to take their places. There's a whole generation of priests coming, and they're just like me. No nonsense. I always tell people, get ready, because it's coming to a parish near you. We've only known one Pope, and he's a saint. We've been formed by the Blessed Virgin Mary and her apparitions. So many of the guys I knew in the seminary, they loved things like Medjugorje or Betania or Amsterdam or Kibeho. They don't have a problem with it. They bite onto truth like a shark, and they're going to be the guys in the seminaries teaching. They're going to be in the parishes. One cardinal said if it were not for Medjugorje, he would have hardly any seminarians. I compare it to Guadalupe."
Hell broke open in the Church, Calloway opines, due to a lack of emphasis on both Mary and the Blessed Sacrament. "You take away the Eucharist, and you take away a priest's passion, his understanding of who he is," he says. "And when Mary was deconstructed -- made just a sister -- it tore priesthoods apart. I attribute a lot of the problems to feminism. We need to go against that."
Homosexuals in the church are the result, he believes, of "the devil twisting" priests and seminarians. "With no Mary, there is a lack of tenderness and they seek in a new way," he asserts. On the current culture, says Father Calloway: "It's not the kingdom of Heaven. We're going back to Sodom and Gomorrah, and we're there. And we better get ready for the Father's discipline. He loves us, and because He does, He's going to chastise us." With youth, the biggest problem is indifference, he notes -- the attitude of "whatever." Everything is okay.
What is the most important thing parents can do?
"The best thing that a kid can see in the parents is for a man, a father, on his knees," says Father Calloway. "That is strength. When a man is on his knees, that is stability. When a kid sees that, it's a confessional statement. It speaks volumes. And when they see a mom and dad being kind and loving to one another, that's also important -- showing kindness to each other."
As for his conversion, Father Calloway notes: "There are no accidents in life. Everything happens for a reason, because of God the Father's plans." And as for Our Lady of Medjugorje: without her, he says, "I might be dead."
Ping to myself.
We don't always disagree. ;0
I don't think she did either. She reacted like a concerned parent when they noticed that Jesus wasn't with the caravan and rebuked him when she found him. She rebuked him because she was so worried. If she could fully comprehend why worry.
I'll go back and look at you prior post.
No cheap shot intended, but it is pretty confusing.
Mary, being fully human, could not have known what the future held. Nowhere does any Catholic doctrine proclaim that the Blessed Virgin Mary, when Gabriel visited, suddenly became omniscient. The fact that she did not, does not negate her role in pointing us toward her Son. Which is what she apparently did for the young man who is the subject of the article that began this thread.
She co-operated with God for the benefit of all mankind. She points to Christ as her salvation, and the salvation of all of us. She was the first Christian, and her acceptance and obedience to God Almighty are an example for all humanity.
“But her actions don’t indicate she fully comprehended what was happening.”
I’m not sure why you are making a point that she may not have fully comprehended. She may not have fully comprehended the future of her life, but I’m pretty sure as a mother myself, that knowing the prophecies, she had some inkling of her Son’s future.
She is also prepared by God, The Almighty to bear this holy child. I do not believe that God would not give her not only the knowledge and ability to bear, care, and live with the Son of God, but also a perfect body and soul to do so.
Again, though, Isaiah writes of the “suffering servant, the man of sorrows,” He writes of the physical travails of this man that he will suffer, but not word for word and some veiled. How many stripes? By who? Not noted.
Obviously, she “pondered these things in heart,” Finding in the Temple, you’ll forgive me if I use some shorthand here, when Jesus was 12.
She also encountered not one, but two prophets at Jesus’ Presentation at the Temple, Simeon and Anna.
Mary was told then upon seeing her and the child, “Behold this child is set for the fall and for the RESURRECTION of many in Israel and for a sign which shall be contradicted.
And thy own soul a sword shall pierce, that out of many hearts, thoughts may be revealed.”
The appearance of the angel to Joseph who I’m sure told his bride that, “Hey, this angel dude appeared to me in the dream and told me to take you and the kid and vamoose into Egypt,” is another key to her state of mind and her thoughts of this extrordinary child and her state.
I think she had a very good idea of what was happening and being warned that her heart would be pierced was a good indication to her that this would end in sorrow for a time.
I want to know your thoughts. Why are you attempting to determine her state of mind?
“Where is the Trinty in Scripture?
You find it throughout Scripture.”
That’s another discussion. Yes, I believe in the Triune God, but in the Scripture it is NOT elaborated.
Let’s stick to Mary.
” If she could fully comprehend why worry.”
Wm, I have a genius son. He’s truly brilliant. A PAIN in the rear, but truly brilliant. He does things like design programs to drive navy ships, launch missles, odd weapons and lots of other stuff.
And yet, I worry he won’t pass his PH.D.
I may have a better handle on this as a mother.
Gotta run, later
Thanks for this post , Judith Anne :-)
Something that seems to be forgotten is that in the first chapter of Luke, we are told that the “Holy Spirit overshadowed” Mary. Scripture doesn’t illuminate to us the full meaning of that text, but it is obviously a very important happening.
She may easily have understood a great deal in that “over-shadowing”. It certainly seems so, considering her response to the Angel Gabriel; we call that response the Magnificat.
However, actually EXPERIENCING the prophetic nature of the words spoken to her is different from understanding what may come to be.
We can’t know for certain how much the Holy Spirit imparted to her, because, as Scripture itself tells us, many things happened that are not recorded.
I agrtee with you, the minute I hit the post button I saw that I put non-Catholic instead of anti-Catholic.
Anti-Catholicism is a disease.
I think that an excessive concentration on why others are wrong is a sign of a disorder. A person who can’t be happy in believing what he believes is true, living the way he thinks is right, doing what he feels he is called to do, but instead must attack others, is a person with a problem.
If I went through life angry and upset that there are people in the world who don’t agree with me, I’m sure I’d be a total pain.
For the opposite approach, there’s G.K. Chesterton’s response to the question, “What’s wrong with the world?”: “I am.”
Blessed, one syllable. Not bless-ed, two syllables.
Mary was blessed by God to carry the Christ child to term.
She has a part in God's plan of salvation as every one of us does. But she is not responsible for anyone's salvation. She is not a "dispensatrix of grace" nor a "co-redeemer."
That is such a great error that Bible-believers really cannot fathom how RCs can swallow this anti-Scriptural lie. It is preposterous in fact, and damnable in truth.
Well, I hope you have a blessed evening. Please use one or two syllables, as you prefer.
And the longer I am Catholic and studying it and all, the more I realize that it is a very different mind-set. Who else talks about virtues as though the idea was (a)more specific than, 'do good stuff'; (b) actually relevant to "real life" AND to life in Christ.
Our "class for adult converts, aka RCIA, probably met for around 20 or so 2.5 hour sessions and it was almost all "Catholicism 101". What is taken for hiding doctrinal stuff from the laity often amounts to the laity want to have the 'chops' of theologians without doing the work. And so when Mary Ann Collins talks about Papal infallibility and displays ignorance of what it really means, part of my 'harrumph harrumph" is that if she was Catholic AND a novice, the least she could have done was study a little.
In other news: I hope to have something useful to say about your remark about "tradition" in the NT at some point. It's a good chase and thank you for setting me on it.
Zzzzzz
I think the legacy of that is why my Oxford edumicated Mother said "herb" with a pronounced 'h', while Americans pronounced it with due honor to it's French history and as a Cockney might - "'erb".
Around here the country folk call a female sheep a Yoe - to rhyme with "doe" - which seems to me consistent with how we pronounce sew and how "shew" (= "show") is still spelled in some English books - or was until recently, while we "refined" people pronounce it to rhyme with "you".
So "blest" is probably older. As to which is right, I wouldn't presume to say. Ceretianly in Shakespeare sometimes the scansion of the verses (IIRC) depends on a prounced 'ed'.
I actually say, “Have a bless-ed evening” or “have a bless-ed day.” Referring to a baby being born, we call it a “bless-ed event.”
Common usage around here, don’t ask me why or where it came from, I have no clue. Seems a bit strange to make an issue of it, surely it has no theological meaning.
Then why do you people keep spreading it?
Honestly, it's as if no matter how many times we explain the Eucharist to you people, you keep telling others that Catholics are cannibals.
What we RCs don't get is how those who claim to be Christians can be so viciously hateful and willfully misrepresentative over what amounts to nothing more than disapproval of our nomenclature.
Y'all know we don't think the BVM is "another way" but you insist on acting as if we do.
That's the point.
We don't say "we are bless-ed by God." We say "we are blessed by God."
Thus Catholics say "Mary was bless-ed," as if that quality were something inherent within her, as opposed to "Mary was blessed by God" by being selected to carry the Christ child.
The single syllable references the action of God -- blessed by God.
The double syllable renders a quality within Mary herself -- she was bless-ed.
Whenever the RCC has a choise between giving the Creator or the creature the credit, we see whom they generally pick.
Why, when I address ONE of your questions, that of "special powers", do you re-direct me to some other questions about the Biblical basis for this or that? Can't we hack through "special powers at least to the point of outlining the battle lines before we have to go run over to another front? I don't see how we can get anywhere doing things like that.
Also, as you say, we view the role of Scripture and tradition very differently, so these questions seem really to be more an articulation of an opinion than real questions?
as to praying to God "through" I do that no more than I pray to God through my MIL. I ask my MIL to pray for this and that, and I ask Mary to pray for this and that.
I would like to see a BEAUTIFUL statue of our Lady. At my shoppe we replaced an insipid "Our Lady of Fatima" statue with some larger fiberglass monstrosity. If I happen to find myself kneeling in that part of the Church I find it helpful to close my eyes, or at least blur them.
Even in front of the icon of Dominic,
while it's a very nice icon and all, it makes him look olive skinned and dark-haired, unlike the very nice Fra Angelico Dominic:
which at least seems to have the hair and skin right.
Oh well ...
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