Book on Mary turns runaway youngster immersed in drugs and crime into a priest

Visions of Jesus ^ | February 2004

[NYer]

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."

[fortheDeclaration]

Well, in approximately 67% of the recorded times (that I can remember) that He spoke To her, he addressed her as "Gynai." But in referring to her in John 19:26-27 the Evangelist calls her he meter autou and when Jesus 'gives' her to "the disciple whom He loved" He, Jesus, refers to her as "he meter sou". So we are left with no record of His calling His own mother, "Mother," but He calls her John's mother.

That is correct, He calls her John's mother, He never addresses her by that designation.

He rates all those who follow Him and obey His words as equal in status to His mother, brother and sister.

So, why don't you do the same?

[fortheDeclaration]

I would enter here on this thread where angels fear to tread: Jesus called his mother “woman” because in His culture, it was a term of respect; one could say that its equivalent today would be “Lady”. I’m surprised that this fact of the culture and language use of Jesus’ time isn’t better known and taught among those who read and cherish Sacred Scripture. Also, from the four ways of understanding Scripture (literal, moral, analogical and anagogical), Jesus is letting us know—(those who heard Him in the real moment and those who will hear Him down the corridors of time)-—that there is a new “woman”. This new woman is the one who will counteract the disobedience of the first creature whom God said would be named “woman”. It’s in OUR present day culture that one may use the name “woman” as a term of lesser respect; the opposite was the case in the time, language

I am sure the term was not one of disrespect, however, He did use the term 'mother' when He turned her over to John.

So, the fact that during His ministry He never addresses her as such shows that their relationship had changed.

He made that very clear when He was told that His mother and brothers were seeking Him and He stated that His 'mother and brothers' were those who followed Him.(Matt.12:48-50)

[Running On Empty]

I believe your answer to be a non-sequitur to your original post about Jesus calling his mother “woman”.

Also, it should be very clear to anyone who takes the time to really understand and apply the teachings of Jesus, that His mother was obviously the first to show the way of following Him—from her assent to the message of the angel, and throughout all the “hidden” 30 years of his life with her and Joseph in Nazareth.

Please note that she followed him during his public life as well—including being at Cana; also she was along the Way of the Cross and stood at the foot of the Cross. She was in the Upper Room at Pentecost.

There is no reason whatsoever to downgrade any part of her presence in the public existence of the Lord. One of the Seven Last Words of the Lord from the Cross were to Mary and to John the Beloved. He gave them to each other and in that more-than-symbolic action He gave her to all of us, and all of us to her.

[fortheDeclaration]

I believe your answer to be a non-sequitur to your original post about Jesus calling his mother “woman”. Also, it should be very clear to anyone who takes the time to really understand and apply the teachings of Jesus, that His mother was obviously the first to show the way of following Him—from her assent to the message of the angel, and throughout all the “hidden” 30 years of his life with her and Joseph in Nazareth. Please note that she followed him during his public life as well—including being at Cana; also she was along the Way of the Cross and stood at the foot of the Cross. She was in the Upper Room at Pentecost. There is no reason whatsoever to downgrade any part of her presence in the public existence of the Lord. One of the Seven Last Words of the Lord from the Cross were to Mary and to John the Beloved. He gave them to each other and in that more-than-symbolic action He gave her to all of us, and all of us to her.

No one is 'downgrading' her at all.

The Lord Himself placed all believers equal to her and that is clearly stated in scripture.

Now, on the Cross He acted as a faithful elder son and made sure that his mother was going to be cared for.

That is all that action meant at the cross.

There is not symbolism at all.

Now, you would rather ignore what Christ Himself said about Mary in relationship to other believers (Mk.3).

It is you that is placing Mary above where Christ said she ought to be, and disobeying Mary's own words, 'whatsoever he saith unto you, do it'.

But, you would rather make up your own traditions that have nothing to do with scripture than follow either the words of Christ or Mary.

Christ never said to honor Mary above any one else and the last time we see Mary is in Acts 1, and she is not heard of again in scripture.

The Mary of the Roman Catholic Church is not the Mary of the Bible.

[Running On Empty]

You are presumimg to read my mind when you say I’d “rather ignore what Christ Himself said”. You cannot know what I am “ignoring” about Scripture or what I am understanding from Scripture.

Then you go on to say to me; “you would rather make up your own traditions that have nothing to do with scripture”. Can you read my mind?

Please don’t attempt to determine what I am thinking regarding Scripture. This is a matter of what each of us understands and interprets from Scripture. That we have different understanding is clear. What is not at all certain is that you are an authority over my understanding.

So we have reached an impasse. I am, for the record, glad that I have offered my understanding. Your evaluation of it hasn’t done one thing to change my mind.

[Judith Anne]

I see that my tactic wasn’t entirely successful: the RCC watchdogs are obsessed over the unknown author, avoiding discussion of the points made - which were in answer to a question.

I see no one here who is "obsessed over the unknown author" and I see no one "avoiding discussion of the points made."

There is merit in giving the source, who for all anyone knows may also have said the earth is flat. Credibility goes with the identity. To quote someone and fail to give the source could indicate the quoter is embarrassed about the source, or ashamed of him/her. It could also mean that the person quoted has embargoed using the material elsewhere, and the quoter is concealing that fact.

[Judith Anne]

So, the fact that during His ministry He never addresses her as such shows that their relationship had changed.

We do not now know that, because we were not there at every instance that He addressed His mother, nor has every instance of Him addressing His mother during His ministry been recorded. In other words, you may call your mother one name during your private moments with her, and something else entirely in a public situation. All cultures have instances of that.

[Judith Anne]

That is all that action meant at the cross.

There is not symbolism at all.

That would be your private interpretation. I find it interesting that protestants individually pick and choose which statements are symbolic, which are literal, but seem to deny the same privilege to the Catholic Church.

[Mad Dawg]

He rates all those who follow Him and obey His words as equal in status to His mother, brother and sister.

So, why don't you do the same? Because I have a brain and I use it?

Is this the kind of conversation you want to have? If so, include me out.

[Mad Dawg]

From the site:

One place where the Catholic Church is strong is Spain, which is known for the Spanish Inquisition.

LOL. Honestly. You can't make this stuff up.

[Mad Dawg]

So, the fact that during His ministry He never addresses her as such shows that their relationship had changed.

You do not know that.

[Petronski]

THAT belongs in the Friday Silliness Thread.

[Petronski]

Credibility goes with the identity. To quote someone and fail to give the source could indicate the quoter is embarrassed about the source, or ashamed of him/her.

[Mad Dawg]

I live in Virginia, which is known for slavery.

Good find on the site! I have no more questions about why Manfred didn't want to give us the URL, which is known for silliness

Anyway, I addressed the alleged arguments. The difference that knowing the URl makes to me is that now I will giggle while I address any subsequent arguments.

Mad Dawg, who is known for giggling.

[ArrogantBustard]

Dude ... please be careful ... you're starting down a dangerous road with that blinky text. I'm afraid of where you might end up.

;'}

[Petronski]

Marquee is disabled, so I do what I can.

[Judith Anne]

Dude ... please be careful ... you're starting down a dangerous road with that blinky text.

Yeah, it makes me want to ping myself again......

[Petronski]

“The Catholic Undertow” ???

Yeah, that’s going to be a fair site.

[Mad Dawg]

Yeah, it makes me want to ping myself again......

We'll pray for you.