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."
and no one is saying she hasn't been made perfect now.
Well, that's nice.
But she is not the One for whom all things were created, the Firstborn of every creature, ...
Agreed.
...,and yet this is what Catholic theology claims.
I'm sorry but the only possible response is a reference to a certain material found on bovine brood-stock farms near where the studs are kept.
We claim no such thing. It's exactly as Bishop Sheen said. You would be right to condemn the notion that Mary is the first born of Creation. I would join you.
Now before you come up with some quote from it's context's womb untimely rip't, PLEASE make sure you check the context carefully. We, nominated, elected, and confirmed as Pope Doggus the Ist of the Church of The Piedmont VA (and even then I had to rig the election in the sheep stalls and lambing pens) declare define and pronounce that anyone who says that Mary is the First born of Creation and by that means to make her equal or even prior to our Lord, let him (or her as the case may be, and if this letter is caused to be read among the Californians, him, her, or whatever else you got) be anathema or, at least, have a REALLY bad hair day.
It's so sadly funny to have all these Protestant protecting us from what we don't believe and throwing Melchisedec at us, when we've been reading Hebrews (Okay, AND Revelation) and almost nothing BUT - oh, whatever psalm that is since Easter Sunday. Sheesh.
I think your energy would be better spent arguing against something we DO believe. Tilting against windmills is one thing, tilting against nonexistent windmills is quite another. But that's just me.
I think that even the soundest of theologies CAN be a way to avoid IHS.
I have a really serious question: Why can Catholics not just admit they worship Mary, give up all the wordplay and double talk and just admit it? Like Dr. Phil says, you can’t fix what you deny
For those of us who cannot type their names w/o misspelling them such abbreviations are a mercy.
I think that even the soundest of theologies CAN be a way to avoid IHS.
= =
Actually, I agree with you.
The Jewish religious leaders 2000 years ago demonstrated that quite well.
And here I thought you joined the Xmas crowd
The trick is in the word "worship"... What some see as worship others parse the concept.. LIKE; many prostestants actually WORSHIP THE BIBLE.. but would deny it to your face and huff and puff as they walked away from you calling you a moron.. BUT; they do nevertheless.. Doubletalk must cleaned up at home before you start cleaning up your neighbors house.. Nez Pas... Not all roman catholics (or EO) worship Mary and not all prosties worship the bible.. but doubtless some of both DO..
To want that more than the truth is to prefer falsehood to reality.
I won't admit it because I don't do it. Why would anybody ask us to lie? Perhaps because lies is what he's familiar with, the land of lies is where he feels at home? Out here where we struggle to speak truthfully those who have some aversion to the truth feel anxious?
So an argument which leaves a Protestant momentarily without a real counter-argument and facts, I say again: FACTS, which disprove his contention are "wordplay"? Someone says, without evidence, that we make Mary the first born of Creation, and our saying we don't is a game?
How do YOU pronounce "blessedness", by the way?
How about if I say that some Protestant are unable to look at the truth about Catholics because their religion is based not on Jesus but on feeling superior to some despised group, namely Catholics? Shall we argue that looking too closely and carefully at what the Church teaches threatens the core of their faith in their own superiority, so they don't do it and when that facts are thrust in their face, they shut their eyes and start making personal remarks and characterizing the Church as being in denial?
Why not? It makes about as much sense as adducing Dr. Phil.
From this ad hominem attack of yours am I to conclude that you have no reasonable argument to make to the issues?
We've adduced some of the fundamental texts displaying the Church's teaching of Mary's utter dependence on God. Against those is made the claim, without any facts brought forward, that we think Mary is the first-born of Creation.
Truth evidently is not a value for many of those who argue against us.
It is an example of grace not resisted. But examples of grace resisted, and very hard, are in the entire Reform movement. It consumed centuries, and nations.
“Doctor”, I repeat my request to point out anything in the quote that you posted from “MARY, MEDIATRIX OF ALL GRACES” that contradicts the Holy Scripture.
So far, what Blue Duncan did on your behalf showed how the quoted text contradicts Calvinism. This is not what I ask.
God Himself tells us to meditate upon it day and night, plus lots more, yet there are no instructions from Him regarding worshiping creatures. And that is the difference, the bible is not a creature.
Really? Is it a question, or a false witness masquerading as a question?
Why can Catholics not just admit they worship Mary
That would be a lie. You're asking why folks don't lie about themselves. That's beneath contempt. It's appalling that anyone would even ask the question you just asked.
“It does not address the issue of venerating her or any saint, however insignificant in relative terms.”
Mary says, (Luk 1:48) “For he hath regarded the low estate of his handmaiden: for, behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed.”
Later on in Jesus’ ministry, that prophecy comes true when a woman in the crowd who has witnessed one of Jesus’ miracles says, (Luk 11:27) “And it came to pass, as he spake these things, a certain woman of the company lifted up her voice, and said unto him, Blessed [is] the womb that bare thee, and the paps which thou hast sucked.”
Jesus responds, not by denying that Mary is blessed, but says in comparative terms those are greater blessed that hear and obey.
Luk 11:28 “But he said, Yea rather, blessed [are] they that hear the word of God, and keep it.”
Jesus uses the same comparative formula concerning the righteousness of the Pharisees and the person of John the Baptist. He does not deny that the Pharisees are righteous, He says that kingdom righteousness exceeds that. He does not deny that John the Baptist is considered great, He says that those of the kingdom are greater.
Mat 5:20 For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed [the righteousness] of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.
Mat 11:11 Verily I say unto you, Among them that are born of women there hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist: notwithstanding he that is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.
“(4 and 5) start with a correct statement that angelic life of the heavenly dwellers such as Mary and the saints differs radically from our life on earth. From that it doesn’t follow that all saints in heaven are the same and lack individuality, or are incapable of interceding for us. The proper conclusion is the opposite: that since the scripture shows angels interceding and having diverse roles, the saints who are like angels have different roles and intercede also.”
Ephesians 3:14-15, “For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,Of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named”
There is only one family of believers and only one parent, God the Father; all others are His children. There is no scriptural warrant for any one other than Jesus or the Holy Spirit interceding in heaven with the Father for mankind, in fact the only person mentioned in the bible whose ministry is helping us to pray is the Holy Spirit.
What did believers do when they had no bibles?...
You know... for several HUNDRED years..
But helpful nonetheless!
LOL
When was God’s people ever without Torah? From the beginning, when Melchizadec brought Abraham bread and wine, they had God’s Wisdom.
In fact, He does not say that anyone is greater than Mary, He simply says that Mary should be venerated along with others who hear and keep the Word -- that is, Him, -- but not for the physiological aspects of her motherhood. This is a prooftext for veneration of all saints, Mary chief among them. At least, this is how the Church reads this scripture; I am aware that alternative readings as well as misreadings, exist, but, again, my question is not to explain to me what the Protestant range of interpretations of the scripture is, but where the contradiction of the Catholic mariology is with the scripture.
There is no scriptural warrant for any one other than Jesus or the Holy Spirit interceding in heaven with the Father for mankind
First, there is a warrant: Mary intercedes in John 2, Timothy in 1 Tim 2 (the shopworn Protestant false prooftext for Mary not mediating) is instructed to offer prayers of intercession for all men; Jairus intercedes for his daughter. It seems that if Mary or Timothy can intercede on earth, they should be able to intercede in heaven, just like the angels do throughout scripture.
Second, I do not ask why sola scriptura people (who depend on warrants for chewing gum, apparently) do not venerate saints, I ask where Catholic praxis is contradicted in the scripture.
Not true... Not all RCC or EO's worship Mary, but some DO.. I know some of them.. Some even prostrate themselves before Saints.. or alleged pictures of Saints.. Denying it is silly and disingenuous.. Now if you cut them a blank check for reverence, thats another thing.. Buts its still idolotry.. nevertheless..
Unless they say "I worship Mary," how do you know?
Who are you to speak for what is in their heart if they say otherwise?
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