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

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.'

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.

"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."

Do you have any actual sources, like with URLs, which you can adduce to support the allegation that the Catholic Church teaches that Mary collaborated with God before the foundation of the world?

lol. Just one?

We've been told over and over by the RCC that Mary was saved before she was born, therefore her birth was "immaculate," thereby supposedly permitting her to "die sinless."

Since God elects from the foundation of the world, Mary's salvation was likewise determined by God from the foundation of the world by the "the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world."

However, the RCC incorrectly extrapolates this gift of grace given to all believing Christians and works up a fierce paganism to adorn it (as if salvation itself weren't enough) by its putrid insistence that Mary was born without sin, lived without sin and was bodily assumed into heaven.

MARY, MEDIATRIX OF ALL GRACES

"But the Immaculate Virgin participates in the Mediation of Christ in a unique and singular manner. That is why she is called the Mediatrix of All Grace. Our Lady cooperated profoundly as did no one else with the salvific work of the Savior; this association is the principle underlying her universal mediation. First, Mary is Mediatrix because by her humble and obedient fiat at the Annunciation, she became the Mother of Jesus Christ Who is the source of all grace. Secondly, the Blessed Virgin Mary associated herself in an intimate way with Christ's act of redemption, especially as she stood beneath the Cross on Golgotha. And thirdly, the Blessed Mother's great holiness makes her a powerful intercessor in obtaining graces for mankind.
Many theologians assert that Mary's mediation also means that from the time of her Assumption she has personally cooperated with her Divine Son in communicating all of the graces that He has and continues to bestow upon mankind. As St. Bernard of Clairvaux said in a famous formulation: "God has willed that we should have nothing that did not pass through the hands of Mary."

As pointed out earlier, the faith of Abraham did not pass through Mary's hands. Christ Himself saved Abraham, as He alone saves all those who are His.

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.

I am not 'presuming' anything, I am basing my view on the fact that you simply ignore what Christ actually said and go by traditions that have no basis in 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?

I can read your posts.

If you are choosing to believe that Mary is someone who ought to be regarded as 'special' than you are rejecting clear scripture that states otherwise.

That is not 'mind' reading that is a simple deduction.

It is either tradition or scripture in this case.

Interesting that Roman Catholics place tradition equal to scripture but when they are shown to be choosing tradition over scripture, you get defensive.

Is there any clear scripture that states that Mary has any special relationship with God today?

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.

No, it is a matter of reading what scripture clearly says, and since you cannot refute what the scripture says regarding Mary you choose to simply ignore it and fall back on subjective relativism as a defense.

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.

I didn't think it would change your mind, since your mind is not responding to the truth of scripture, but the false traditions of men, it is just that simple, no 'mind reading' is necessary, since you didn't provide a single clear scripture to show otherwise.

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.

We are going by what the scriptures say.

Christ made it very clear that His relationship with His family had changed when He stated that all of those who follow Him were equal to a relationship to His own family, including His own mother. (Mk.3:34-35)

[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.

A symbolism in scripture is defined clearly in scripture and doesn't contradict other scripture.

Nothing at the Cross changes the relationship that Christ stated existed with His family, when He began His ministry.

To equate John with being a type of the 'church' and to reach the conclusion that since Mary was now his 'mother', Mary is the 'mother of the church' is simply nonsense.

[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?

What part of that scripture (Mk.3:34-35) does your brain find hard to grasp?

Christ was very clear that He had made everyone who followed Him equal to His own immediate family, including His own mother.

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

You mean a conversation on what scripture clearly says?

Yes, I would understand why a Roman Catholic would want to opt out of such a discussion.

Those of us who have brains and use them (Am I getting the protestant snarky thing down correctly?) note that there is a difference between "equal" and "same".

Further, we look at quotes in context and when we read Scripture we think not only about the one line but about the situation in which it is given.

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.

But, despite the tendentious leaning on the word usually translated as "rather" I do not think this text itself will unequivocally support the notion that all of us are currently equally OR identically blessed. What it will support is that we are all offered blessedness in Christ AND all challenged to avoid distancing ourselves from that call by adopting a kind of "poor little old me attitude, I'd be so much better off if only I were blood kin to Jesus" attitude.

One of the things I LIKE about hosepipe's disparaging of "denominations", though I think his contention is wrong in the final analysis, is that I think a temptation common to all Xtians is to keep putting something between us and an encounter with Christ, so that a Catholic might be distressed to learn that there was no Mass in heaven (since it is ALL Mass all the time) or Protestant might be upset to find no Bible (since the Word Himself constantly and intimately gives himself to all the blessed).

The woman calls out her cry, and Jesus says to her, "You too, Lady. Get a grip. Come to me and I'll SHOW you 'blessed'!"

AS has been said more than once in this protracted conflict as and has been ignored without remission, Mary has nothing in the blessedness department that is not offered to all the blessed. Maybe different degree, maybe different sort of manifestations, but holiness and blessedness nonethe less.

(Completely irrelevant note: I just tried spell checking this tirade and, whoa! Sumpin's up with the spell checker! weird!)

I will respond to your post sometime today after I get home from Mass and have taken care of my family responsibilities. Meanwhile—hoping I am not breaking any FR forum rules—I refer you to a recent “vanity” thread offered by Judith Anne entitled “I’m Taking a Break....”

I think that thread speaks volumes for Judith and to those who responded to it.

Hopefully, you’ll take a look, if you haven’t already done so.

Meanwhile, I am at peace and I trust that you are as well.

[ 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. ]

Many RCC's seem to be focusing on Jesus' flesh with their own flesh in a fleshly way(Mass, Mary, Saints), and many prostestants seem to focus on Jesus' Spirit with their spirit in a spiritual way(Bible, Body of Christ, Bride of Christ).. And thats the divide I think..

I, of course, see them both as denominations as well as Mormons and even JW's.. and tolerate them both.. Jeese, really what do you want from a sheep.. LOGIC?.. Heck you hold out a stick and allow a few sheep to jump it then remove the stick,,, the other sheep will continue jumping the imaginary stick.. Sheep are not supposed to be SMART...

I say again: Whatever YOU think or have been told about Buddhism, it is sufficiently diverse that SOME Mahayana Buddhists do indeed call Buddha a Savior and do not think that man can save himself. (I wonder if these variaants arose from any "cultural exchange" with Xty. But there are hints that they pre-date the spread of Xty.

But the reason I mentioned the variant of Chines Buddhism that I encountered off Riverside Drive is that you seemed to argue that because a Pagan alleged goddess was called "Queen of Heaven" we ought to worry that maybe Paganism influenced Catholicism with respect to Marian titles.

So I offered an example where there is a theological parallel between Buddhism and Xty. Of course I think they're wrong, Just as we both think the Hera worshippers are wrong. All I'm saying is that if the title given by the misled to Hera is enough to impeach Catholicism, then the titles given to Zeus, some Caesars, and the Buddha should impeach Christianity.

In other words, they're both utterly irrelevant to determining the truth of either Marian devotion or of basic Christian Theology.

All pagan beliefs at the heart, is man finding God and saving himself.

That, to my then surprise, was exactly what that osho DENIED -- and there are other strains of Buddhism which are equally revelatory and tariki (= "other power" as opposed to joriki = "self-power" or maybe "own power") oriented.

Theravedan Buddhism is NOT representative of Buddhism as a whole. Neither are the Rinzai and Soto sects of Zen Buddhism. Attempting to generalize from them to some kind of overall Buddhist common system will lead you far far astray.

Allow me to caution you, since you are gracious enough to advise me about Xtianity, that many many so-called apologetic works present an oversimplified caricature of the religions against whom they pretend to be equipping one, and then make one a laughing stock (as opposed to "stock of a tree" though maybe there's a shared "blockhead" aspect) when one approaches dherents of the religion in question thinking things about them that just aren't true.

On the other hand, maybe my caution is unwanted. So many Protestants keep telling me that I believe what I do not in fact believe despite tons of evidence to the contrary, that I suppose it doesn't matter to them when they make fools of themselves telling Buddhists they believe what they don't believe.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.