When I was little my mom told me Jesus is God. She pointed to the priest who was saying Mass and said this is about to be a miracle... it is when the bread turns into ... REALLY turns into JESUS.

I stood on my tiptoes and watched. The priest prayed. He lifted up the piece of round bread and said the prayer. The altar boy rang the bells. "It doesn't look like a miracle," I thought.

But, I loved my mom so i believed her.

And i believed God probably loves me. So i prayed a lot. I liked to pray. I loved God. I believed in miracles. When i was skiing down the trail away from the main slopes at age 8 or 9, i prayed i wouldn't go off the trail into the trees.

When i broke my leg at age 11 or 12 on the main slopes i still believed God. It was the break that gave me a winter of just practising the piano. My biggest break in music.

When i was 22, just out of college and a job opened for me in a Benedictine Abbey, i took it as a short interim while God brought me to the parting of the Red Sea that would open the door to the promised land of the career i REALLY wanted.

However, when i took the job in the Benedictine Abbey, i realized it could be a trap set by the LORD! I took the job carefully, watching for God to look for an opportunity to trick me into being a monk, into wearing a black robe the rest of my life to chant prayers night and day.

The short interim summer job at age 22, didn't open into summer training camp in the NFL. This wasn't the Red Sea. TOO LATE! the stick was kicked out and the trap was falling right on me!! The school year was beginning and the monks asked me to drive a school bus, teach in the high school and I coached football. But my soul was wretching for answers. Do i have to be a monk? The monks were nice guys. But i was never a joiner. I was a soloist. I didn't want some kind answers from theological people about God. I had to have an audience with the Almighty. They were comfy. I was tormented. Here's my one puny life, and i wanted to do something colorful and eventful, and enterprising, and idealistic and i wanted TO BE IN LOVE. What was the matter with GOD??? Didn't He hear me all those high school years and college years? I read the Bible to Him all those times. I thought HE was listening and now I realized HE was DEAF!!!! I was in a RAGE inside. My body was RAGING, and HE wanted me to start living my life on earth as a ghost?

As the summer turned to September, October, November... my days began to become routine. Up in time for 6:30 mass with the monks. even Chanting the psalms with them. I even had my own stall in the chapel sort of. Of course they hoped I might grow into the life and join them. They seemed to like me. They knew i was struggling with a calling. I had the morning free after mass. I went to the noon prayers too. And the eveneing prayers. Anytime i was free i went to the prayers. When i went back to my room i prayed. Actually i had a nice suite in the old part of the Abbey. It was about a hundred years old. It was scheduled sometime in the future to be torn down. It had 10 foot ceilings, a huge living room, office, bathroom, and a bedroom. Out in the hall it was cold, and across the hall it was piled high with old desks; the kind of school desk that was a chair with a writing arm on the left side. The whole floor on this wing of the building was like that and the floor above and the floor below. The windows clunked in their loosely fitting 100 year old frames when the wind blew. The steam radiators hissed when it was cold. Nighttime was huge with mysterious things.

If i went across the hall i could see the city of Cleveland Ohio all lit up at night. The Abbey was on high ground on the East side of the City. It was beautiful and you could just imagine the things going on in the city. But here we were in this small few acres of mystical forest wonderland, with the regular sound of firecrackers or gunshots cracking through the city night night just outside the fence.

My original job was locking up the place at night. I was supposed to lock the School, the gate at the entrance to the campus and any doors i found open. I would wander in the dark halls of the school and sing. There was a Blessed Sacrament Chapel in the school. Sometimes i would stop in there and pray at night.

In the some of the confusion of the first summer out of college, my mind began to consider some questions that I never thought of before. If Jesus is God, why there are so many Buddhists. Hey! Eastern Orthodox Catholics are Kosher with Rome and they can marry. Why do I have to be in this part of Christianity where you can't have a family life and fulfill some kind of calling to the priesthood? Why is the world such a hodge podge of religions. Let's try this... I'm going out the door this morning and see what its like to be an atheist. There is no God. This earth is all there is and there is no reason to think beyond that.

I"M SORRY LORD. I didn't mean it. I was just trying to see what they think like. I won't do it again. I , didn't even try to do any sins...

OK. I can't be an atheist.

I tried it.

Sort of.

For one day.

Or part of a day.

Anyway... it says in my Bible. "Who loves me, will be loved by My Father. I too will love him and reveal Myself to him."

There were more passages just like it too. OK. I'll go with this Word of the Lord, but i'm not in just for tradition and hearsay about God because somebody that used to know, handed it down and they handed it down and.. .. NO! .....NO WAY! You can do that. Not me. Good luck. God bless you. God bless me too. I just want some answers. If God is in heaven looking at me right now, I MUST press for an answer. What if i drop everything and convince God I want to do whatever He wants in order to work out a little more clear communication. "O ...we don't do things that way any more! This isn't the 1200's!"

Well that wasn't the reply I got directly from the Lord. It was somebody who wanted to give me a little spiritual directon. It wasn't one of the monks either.

The monks might have thought something was wrong with me because i was getting skinny. They didn't know everything I was doing. I would eat on Sunday. Maybe a little on Monday, a hard boiled egg on Tuesday. Nothing on Wednesday. a little on Thursday nothing on Friday. I would eat o.k. on Saturday. Other penance... i tried to be nice to rotten people, beat myself with a knotted rope, take cold showers. Pray all the time, try to get God's attention. Trash any connection whatsoever that I had to anyone on earth, so I could convince God I really wanted to get His attention and find His will for my life.

and after months of this..... I finally heard from the Lord ....:

He said..."ALWAYS....." uh wait ....

no He said.."NEVER....... uh. let's see... no he said something really mysterious and i still haven't figured out what it means. He said..."YURINIDYOT." i haven't even found a word in the Bible that rhymes with that, in case i just didn't understand. Ohhh ! you know what? when you're trying to listen to the Spirit of God... sometimes you get something from the evil one. You have to be careful. Maybe 'yurinidiyot' is one of those things to avoid.

OK this is supposed to be serious.. but nobody reads it anyway.

VISIONS AND REVELATIONS AND MIRACLES? I would write about some very clear ones, but i must say first of all... i have heard more from other people than i have witnessed personally..

I wrote some things down very clearly. I made ten copies. Then sent them to people and shared them with spiritual directors.. I lost the pages, but not what God showed me.

I will have to try to remember exactly what i wrote and re-write it, because i wrote them out very well. Now i'm tired.

To sum them up. God is honest. He was true to His word. Go to Holy Communion. Get your sins off of your soul and go to Holy Communion. Just do it. Don't go to Holy communion with sins on your soul. Don't do it. It can feel much the same to a person who goes to Holy communion full of grace or who goes ignorantly in sin. If you go to Holy Communion with serious sin on your soul it is a sacrelige. Probably sexual sins are the most. Kind of epidemic in the media that mortal sin is made funny.

God gets emotional about a soul full of Grace that loves Him. He is the Almighty and He is the Judge. The passover angel saw the blood on the doorpost and he didn't stop to see if they people inside were naughty or nice. Blood on the door....passover. No Blood on the door....down goes the firstborn.

Blood of Christ on your soul... you get Mercy. Don't want to talk about what else happens. Don't look to the left. Don't look to the right. Believe God yourself and look in His eyes. If you get approval, who can challenge your life? If you have challenges, consider that the Holy Spirit might be bringing it to you. MAYBE. maybe not.

I have seen the Holy Spirit's action where people are ignorant of Jesus. God is awesome. Don't try to understand it all.

Some Visions. God can do it. Who tries to question Him or Stop Him. He did however give authority on earth. He can accomplish things in many ways.

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