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."
23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed, 26 to demonstrate at the present time His righteousness, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.
Why would Paul need to make an exception when writing the “alls” of Romans 3 to say or imply “all, but Jesus?” Paul clearly understands and explains to the reader that there are two categories: those who sin, and one who is righteous.
sin is not something that automatically does not apply to Jesus because He has two natures.
Confusing statement, but I would like to comment on this. Jesus was born sinless because of the Holy Spirit; He remained sinless because He was obedient.
Equal as fellow believers with God, through Christ.
Mary has no more a special relationship with Christ's his earthly mother than any other believer who does His will on earth.
She was a sinner saved by grace like all of us and was chosen for a special task that she completed while on earth.
Nothing more and nothing less.
And that was the point that Christ was making when He emphasized His words and not Mary as His mother.
OK, that makes sense. So Jesus is actually excluded by the immediate context.
Now explain how “all” applies to the Holy Innocents and to everyone else who the scripture describes as righteous.
(If you read the whole thread (a)I will pin a medal on you and (b) you will understand the blessedness crack. No big deal. )
(What scares me about that quote is I think I understand it.)
You said (with emphasis added, of course) in post 921
Then you said (I cehcked it was you or someone using your 'handle') in the post to which this is a reply:
I never brought up the issue of the Lord correcting anyone.
You conjectured that I was putting up a straw man when I denied that we claim that Mary is the firstborn of Creation. You said then
I do not know what Protestant made such a claim, but it sounds like you are putting up a straw man argument.
So I showed you where it had been alleged by a Protestant that we make that claim.
That's enough. I have nothing further to say to you. Have a blessed evening, but please excuse me from any further discussion.
I believe that there are only two kinds of righteousness, actual and imputed. The only way anyone other than Jesus can be wholly righteous is to have the righteousness of Christ imputed to them. If anyone could actually keep the law and become wholly righteous on their own, there would be no need for them to have a Savior.
From your question, it seems that you believe that the Holy Innocents were righteous. Yes? How so? I only know the will of God as it has been revealed in His word and I do not know His will (judgement) for babes who die before they can commit actual sins. I know they bear the curse of original sin but I do not know if God graciously saves them by imputing the righteousness of Christ to them. I take the view of King David, that God saves them by grace but I do not know.
We are all capable of the most heinous of sins, and only God's grace keeps any of us from being as those described in Romans 3.
We have an uncomplicated text analysis here. Do you think when St. Paul writes “”their mouth is full of cursing and bitterness: Their feet swift to shed blood” he means to apply it to killed babies? It is not a theological question.
But even in that passage, the Lord corrects the woman (the only time the Lord corrects any woman in the Gospels) and states that blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it (Lk.11:28). Then you said (I cehcked it was you or someone using your 'handle') in the post to which this is a reply: I never brought up the issue of the Lord correcting anyone.
You really do have a problem with reading don't you!.
Note the words, I never brought up the issue of the woman being corrected, I didn't say that I didn't mention it.
But that wasn't the issue, the issue was that the Lord pointed to His words.
So, you were making an issue out of something that I wasn't making an issue of.
You conjectured that I was putting up a straw man when I denied that we claim that Mary is the firstborn of Creation. You said then I do not know what Protestant made such a claim, but it sounds like you are putting up a straw man argument. So I showed you where it had been alleged by a Protestant that we make that claim.
And once again, when one actually reads what was said, it is clear that Mary being the first born was not the point that Silverlings was making.
Silverlings was dealing with Christ as intercessor, and that the Roman Catholics have replaced him with Mary as such and thereby replacing Him in effect as 'the firstborn of creation'.
The emphasis was on the role of Christ as intercession as could be clearly seen by the context of the sentence.
That's enough. I have nothing further to say to you. Have a blessed evening, but please excuse me from any further discussion.
Well, it will give you time to read some Aquinas and find out how the male transmits the sin nature.
That may even help your reading comphrension ability as well.
[ But even in that passage, the Lord corrects the woman (the only time the Lord corrects any woman in the Gospels) and states that blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it (Lk.11:28).]
So, I was only responding to what the verse said after you brought it up and my emphasis was on the blessing to those who hear the word, not on the correction of the woman per se.
So in the case of the woman who calls out "Blessed the womb that bore you and the breasts that have you suck," (from memory), I don't know what YOU see, But I see someone who is implicitly distancing herself from the love and holiness (and blessedness -- a word the pronunciation of which some Protestants seem unwilling to reveal) which Jesus offers to all of us in Him.
[ I didn't use that passage, I used Mk.3:34-35, where Christ said all those 'who do the will of the Father, the same is my brother, my sister and my mother'. ]
So, it was you who brought up that verse, not I and I only responded to what you were saying.
Just want anyone who is lurking to know exactly what the truth is.
The point that Silverlings is making is that the Roman Catholic Church is giving Mary the role of Christ, who is the firstborn of every creation.
Silverlings was not saying that the Roman Catholics were claiming that Mary was the First Born of all creation, but that was the implict effect of making her the 'queen of heaven' and assuming the role of Christ as intercessor.
So, my original statement stands, and you are simply swinging at straw man
As I said, this conversation is over.
As I said, this conversation is over.
And don't forget to do that reading on the transmission of the sin nature by the man!
The full context of the passage in Romans 3 is Paul’s teaching of a universal principle – all men are under the Law (vs 19) and unable to keep it. All are capable of actual sins including the ones you have excerpted. Universal principle, but not a universal application.
Were/are killed babies born in sin? David writes in Psalm 51, "Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity."
Very well, therefore you correctly propose to read “all have sinned” in Romans 3 as “all are capable of sinning”. Indeed, Mary, as well as Jesus, the Holy Innocents, Noah, and others were capable of sinning.
No, I don’t.
Then you contraduict yourself.
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