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."
Jesus was fully human as well as fully divine. By virtue of His human nature, the literalist reading of “all” in Romans 3 should apply to Him.
Further, the extremely harsh language of Romans, which I cited, makes it difficult to say that it also applied, for example, to a number of Old Testament righteous, such as Noah.
On the other hand, to issue a sweeping condemnation of a race and pepper it with lawyerly exceptions “excepting Jesus, Mary, St. John the Baptist, Noah, Elijah, the Holy Innocents and all children before the age of reason” would be simply ineloquent. St. Paul implied the exceptions.
This is your conclusion.
Old Testament righteous, such as Noah
No one is righteous, nor can any one become righteous without the righteousness of Christ, that is what Paul is teaching in Romans.
St. Paul implied the exceptions.
This is your implication.
No, that is your conclusion. You say that “all” means literal “all”. I simply demonstrate its absurdity.
There is no debate that Christ is the source of all righteousness, of Mary, or anyone else, in whatever degree they have it.
Why was Jesus born of the Holy Spirit without sin? Why was it necessary for Him to be unique?
That is not unreasonable. So you admit of one exception but not of any other. How about the Holy Innocents, do you think that their "mouth is full of cursing and bitterness: Their feet swift to shed blood"?
“It is like saying “Shakespeare’s understanding of ‘To be or not to be’ is consistent with Shakespear’s interpretation of Hamlet”. Gee, thanks.”
How about,
“What you thought you heard me say is not what I thought I said. I know you think you understand what you thought you heard me say but did you know that what you heard is not what I really meant because if you heard me say what I really thought, you wouldn’t have thought you’d heard me say that”
I don't see Jesus Christ as an exception, but rather He is in a different category. A category of One.
Who are the "Holy Innocents?"
You said that Catholic interpretation of the scripture is consistent with the Catholic mariology and hagiology, yes or no?
My only further comment was that there is no such thing as Catholic “interpretation” of the scripture anymore than there is such a thing as Shakespeare’s interpretation of the Hamlet. However, I agree with the general sense of you admission and appreciate it.
If “all” in Romans 3 is “all without exception” then Jesus is in it.
The Holy Innocents are children within 2 years of Christ’s birth that Herod slaughtered in Bethlehem (Matthew 2:16).
Re: the Holy Innocents. What is your POV on how the doctrine of original sin applies to these children?
“My only further comment was that there is no such thing as Catholic “interpretation” of the scripture anymore than there is such a thing as Shakespeare’s interpretation of the Hamlet”
Shakespeare wrote Hamlet, the Roman Catholic Church did not write the scriptures; they interpret them just as do others according to its hermeneutic and system of theology.
What is your POV on how the doctrine of original sin applies to these children?
Before we discuss that (the original sin is discussed in Romans 5. not in Romans 3) I would like to know if in your estimation, the Holy Innocents are described by Paul in Romans 3 as "their mouth is full of cursing and bitterness: Their feet swift to shed blood"?
I wouldn’t argue about words, although as a Catholic Christian when I give the Catholic view on the scripture I explain it rather than merely interpret it. I leave interpreting to individuals. There are times when I might wish to interpret the scripture as an individual, but I usually resist the temptation.
It is true that the holy Apostles and their assigns wrote the New Testament scripture and offered the explanation of the Old Testament. They are themselves, and in persons, Catholic clergy. Further, the Catholic Church sorted out their writings and decided on the canonicity thereof. There is an intimate relationship that the Catholic and Orthodox Church of the first seven councils enjoys with regard to the holy scripture. To call this relationship “interpretation” is to intentionally slander it, and put it on the level of men such as Luther or Calvin.
And none of that makes her sinless or better than any other Christian who also did God's will.
I am struck that you think that's the only time the Lord "corrects" someone any woman in the Gospels. I'd say that he "corrects" his parents in the temple and he sho' 'nuff brings the Syro-Phonecian woman up short.
I am struck by your dancing around the issues.
I never brought up the issue of the Lord correcting anyone.
I brought up the issue that the Lord stated very clearly that His relationships with all Christians was equal to that of even his own immediate family.
WE Catholics think Jesus is THE Word of God. It is not IMHO "throwing up smoke" to have a huge chunk of one's thinking determined by the first verses of John. Are you suggesting that when Jesus Himself spoke to MAry she should have said, "Not now, dear, I'm reading my Bible." Do you think she was not attentive to the Word of God when she hovered over Him as mothers do and looked to His needs?
And what does that have to do with what the Bible actually says regarding Christ's own view on His new relationship with His family?
The fact that Mary gave birth to Christ doesn't make her equal to Him or sinless.
He died for her sins as well.
Well, that is a nice little theory, but it doesn't line up with what the passages actually say.Becuase you say so? (That was an argument you used when I referred to the text. I was wondering if it would persuade you? I bet not.)
Because you still haven't said anything relating to actual scripture which you simply ignore.
Deal with what the scripture says, not with what you wish it said.
[ Christ makes it very clear that the issue in the Christian life is following His words... ]
Well anybody who wants to be Jesus's Mom, who makes that the aim of his spiritual life (except in a certain sense as articulated earlier in this thread) is wasting his time. I think you are almost agreeing with what I said was the meaning of the Blessed is the womb exchange. The job of Mom is filled and we are not in any way let off the hook because we can't be His Mom.
And as far as Christ was concerned being His earthly mother was irrelevant as far as spiritual relationships were concerned.
Thank you for your tendentious and irrelevant aside about the Mass which shows nothing but that you have missed my point.Some are so sure I'm wrong that they don't want to understand what I think, because it ges int he way of their prejudices.
Well, you haven't said a single thing in this post that made any sense.
The only thing my posts dealt with were the scriptures which you avoid dealing with and replace with meaningless and empty rhetoric.
[ But when you want to avoid what scripture actually says, any reasoning will do. ]
Yeah. I can see that. And when one is so sure that one knows exactly what a Greek particle means and can conclude from that a highly specific meaning of a text then one thinks that everyone with another opinion doesn't want to see the truth. People are funny that way.
There is nothing about the Greek particle that changes anything in any verse, so stop making up stuff as you go along.
Christ made it very clear that during His ministry His relationship with His mother was equal to that of all believers who do His will.
But maybe it would be better to avoid personal remarks.
Well, you certainly wasted my time with this post!
If you have nothing to say, don't waste my time with posts that reflect that fact.
I keep forgetting your theory of how sin is transmitted. Sorry. I really had never heard it before, so it's taking a while to sink in.
Well, it is clear you haven't been reading your Aquinas!
I posted what he said on this subject sometime back, so you can look it up.
The sin is transmitted by the male, hence the need of a virgin birth, without the seed of a human male.
The immaculate conception is a greater miracle than that of the virgin birth since Mary would have to been conceived without sin even though she was conceived of the seed of Adam (her human father).
Why do you think a virgin birth was important?
It was to make sure that Christ wasn't tainted by original sin that comes from the male.
A little study would clear up the confusion, but since the Roman Catholic Church has declared that Mary was born with an immaculate conception, why would you actually study the issue.
Just believe any fable that your church feeds you.
I answer that, According to the Catholic Faith we must firmly believe that, Christ alone excepted, all men descended from Adam contract original sin from him; else all would not need redemption [Cf. Translator’s note inserted before TP, 27] which is through Christ; and this is erroneous. The reason for this may be gathered from what has been stated (1), viz. that original sin, in virtue of the sin of our first parent, is transmitted to his posterity, just as, from the soul’s will, actual sin is transmitted to the members of the body, through their being moved by the will. Now it is evident that actual sin can be transmitted to all such members as have an inborn aptitude to be moved by the will. Therefore original sin is transmitted to all those who are moved by Adam by the movement of generation.
http://www.newadvent.org/summa/2081.htm
Is this the point that you are talking about?
Jesus was fully human as well as fully divine. By virtue of His human nature, the literalist reading of “all” in Romans 3 should apply to Him.
Your point is not valid because even when the passage is read literally it cannot apply to Jesus because although He possesses two natures, He is uniquely one person.
Council of Chalcedon (451 A.D)
Therefore, following the holy fathers, we all with one accord teach men to acknowledge one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, at once complete in Godhead and complete in manhood, truly God and truly man, consisting also of a reasonable soul and body; of one substance with the Father as regards his Godhead, and at the same time of one substance with us as regards his manhood; like us in all respects, apart from sin; as regards his Godhead, begotten of the Father before the ages, but yet as regards his manhood begotten, for us men and for our salvation, of Mary the Virgin, the God-bearer; one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, Only-begotten, recognized in two natures, without confusion, without change, without division, without separation; the distinction of natures being in no way annulled by the union, but rather the characteristics of each nature being preserved and coming together to form one person and subsistence, not as parted or separated into two persons, but one and the same Son and Only-begotten God the Word, Lord Jesus Christ; even as the prophets from earliest times spoke of him, and our Lord Jesus Christ himself taught us, and the creed of the fathers has handed down to us.
Well, it does because you want to ignore what the scriptures actually say.
Why does it NOT show ZIP - — because you say it doesn't? (Do we have enough negatives going here?) I think that the very few accounts of Jesus talking to Mary, we do not have enough data to form a conclusion about how He generally addressed her.
We have enough accounts to know that He regarded all believers equal to her.
He stated that very bluntly and even your own NAB footnotes that fact.
The Bible itself suggests that it does not have everything in it. John says what is in his gospel (Oh, please, it's a document; let's not tangle about how many gospels there are) is written so that you may believe, not so that you may have a compendium of all data necessary to determine every aspect of your theological or devotional thought and practices.
Well, now we move into the area outside of what scripture actually says and into the realm where the RCC can make up anything it wants to fit its own theology.
[ You make two statements: (A)And you can 'argue' anything you want, the fact is that nowhere in scripture does Christ make Mary anyone special. and (B) That is a Roman Catholic myth built on the traditions of men, not the words of God.]
The second does not follow from the first. Even if the first were true, it would not show the second. Other assumptions have to be made, other facts adduced.
Actually, by conceding the point that you are not dealing with what the Bible actually says, but what it doesn't say, you have proven both my points quite conclusively.
Point one, you ignore what the scripture actually says and just state that not all of what Christ said is in it so you are free to ignore what He did say.
Two, your traditions are built on what you think He said, and thus the Roman Catholic's view on Mary has nothing to do with actual scripture, but has to do with man made traditions-myths.
Still, you are making an implied exception for Jesus in that “all”. I agree with your reasons, but they do not remove the fact that St. Paul did not write “all but Jesus have sinned”; he let us deduce that. Elsewhere St. Paul did write that Jesus “knew no sin”, so sin is not something that automatically does not apply to Jesus because He has two natures.
So, how about the Holy Innocents, does “all” in Romans 3 apply to them?
First, it wasn't an argument that I was making.
Second, What is interesting is what you left out of the post to me, which showed by its context that 'silver' was making an issue out of Christ being our intercessor with God and not Mary.
A simple post to silver would have cleared up the confusion, but it is always easier battling strawmen.
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