Of Men and Mary Read online

  I was turning a new corner in my journey toward the light, but rather than a steady climb, it became a rollercoaster ride. From the illusory heights of my junk food spirituality and its grim consequences, I sidetracked into hedonistic excesses. Everything became a blur of drunkenness, partying, and finally drugs and adultery. My recovery from suicidal thinking was signaled by a switch in career, from retail advertising to the world of commercial radio. In my new work place, I loved rubbing shoulders with television and broadcasting personalities. I attained a degree of celebrity myself in terms of creativity, winning awards for my commercial writing and production, and thereafter being pursued by other radio networks. From a fairly sincere, introspective, and idealistic twenty-five-year-old, I degenerated into this abominable, egocentric guy, hell-bent upon social indulgence and physical gratification.

  At a private bar reserved for our Friday night let-your-hair-down antics, I drank myself senseless one night and got entangled with a sports announcer who had a reputation for “liking the boys.” Although I allowed him to seduce me later at his home, not much really happened, except that this incident unlatched the basement door to my long-denied homosexual inclinations. This tentative encounter gave me a rush of adrenalin, an incredible euphoric sense of release and freedom, as if my true self had awakened at last. This initial homosexual contact led to two further relationships, which became unhealthy attachments. The chemistry was so electric that every living moment of the day was torn apart by an ache to see each of the men involved, to the point where I was virtually stalking the two of them. It became a craving that consumed me and brought utter misery.

  Fortunately, I was saved from my obsessions. My path crossed with a young man from a Catholic background, once again, and a firm bond of true friendship developed. I had noticed this gravitation of mine toward Catholic people—they seemed to have some indefinable “X” factor. Patrick brought with him a real respect for what was left of my integrity. His attentiveness and belief in me somehow curbed any further downward slide on the muddy slope of infidelity with other men. As a radio DJ, he had a wonderful ability to connect with people, and he is the only heterosexual man I’ve ever known who could clasp my hand and tell me he loved me. He was warm, intelligent with aesthetic tastes that paralleled my own—a man after my own heart with a tremendous sense of humor.

  We became a creative team: I wrote the movie spoofs and the mock soap-opera serial scripts, and Patrick could skillfully bring them to life with great comic timing, impersonating everyone from Jimmy Durante to Snagglepuss. Although we did, stupidly, venture into an LSD trip together one weekend, his was a strong and healthy form of mateship. I began to shake off the magnetic pull to the then-illegal homosexual underworld to which I had been introduced, and to reform my behavior.

  Meanwhile, my much-neglected wife at home with our two baby boys, announced that a third child was on the way. This coincided with my successful application for a transfer within the radio network to our northernmost city of Auckland. Anna, very reluctantly, agreed to uproot everything and join me.

  Within months, our family had expanded with another child, a beautiful daughter whose birth brought tears to my eyes. I made an inner vow never to get caught up in the same social web of irresponsibility that had ruined things in Christchurch. No drinking! No lingering outside strict working hours! No time-consuming friendships outside my marriage!

  My firm stand of reform endured for a season or two, and then gradually, without realizing it, my boundaries began to blur again. New friends in Auckland were drawing me, not against my will, I must add, back into smoking marijuana during my lunch break, and ultimately to a weekend away at a music festival, which brought disaster. During a police raid, I was arrested for drug possession. After a warning from my boss, I resigned, and in angry defiance, joined the rival “pirate” radio station, where drug-taking was a way of life.

  This period was typified by a return to my contemptuous dismissal of anything Christian. In our home, Anna had hung lovely Byzantine-style icons of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary, and I hated them. I ripped them from their antique frames and used the pictures as backing for surrealistic Dali prints. There was only one thing I hated more: Anna said she put God first in her life, and I insisted that surely I should be her number one!

  By the summer of ‘79, I had graduated back to “acid,” a brand of LSD, called California Sunshine. Strangely enough, I emerged from a “trip,” the last one I would ever take, with my mind open to the first glimmering of faith. Something began to dawn on me: if God was truly God who had created the entire universe, then surely, I reasoned, he would have no trouble entering into his own creation, taking on human reality and becoming one of us. I remember delving into the Twenty-third Psalm, and it spoke personally to me—the first instance of Scripture ever taking on any relevance. But the after-effects of LSD also had me bordering on madness, scrambling to reassemble the scattered shards of my psyche. My home life was playing second fiddle, once more. At work, I was under relentless pressure for creativity, and on the home front, under pressure as well. Our fourth child was on the way, which caused panic and desperation for me. I pushed and persuaded Anna to have an abortion, totally unaware of the gravity of such a decision. Anna’s Catholic convictions and natural obstinacy combined to help her withstand my bullying tactics.

  Something had to give. This was to be the turning point. One night, I returned home after a long day of writing and producing in the recording studio, followed by an evening of unwinding, getting high on marijuana and alcohol. Under the influence of this lethal mix, I tried to convince Anna that God was a seven-headed dragon, just like the emblem I bore on my wallet. When she vehemently resisted my bizarre notions, I interpreted this as rejection. I wanted to shake her out of her narrow-minded complacency and open her to the infinite possibilities of my cosmically enlightened supremacy. So maddened, so frustrated was I by her refusal to “believe in me” that my protest escalated in ferocity, and before I knew what I was doing, I was physically shaking her, pushing her against the kitchen wall, my hands around her throat.

  There was rage deep inside of me, quite unknown to me—thirty years of stored-up fury at my mother’s rejection, and all of it was transferred in that maelstrom moment upon Anna. At the height of the outburst, I experienced what psychologists call “disassociation”: I saw myself briefly from outside of myself, like an overview, and was shocked to the core that I was in the throes of assaulting the one person I loved the most.

  Anna was traumatized, terrified. I could only focus on my own inner turmoil, as I recoiled in horror from what I had done. Collapsing on the couch in the lounge, overcome with disbelief, I sobbed inconsolably, hot tears of remorse. I never thought I was capable of such actions, having always seen myself as a peaceable, nonviolent person. What was happening to me?

  That was when I knew beyond a doubt that I needed help—real help! Any remaining shred of self-reliance had run aground. I mean, how many times had I promised to reform myself and failed miserably? Who to turn to? Not psychologists. My problems were of spiritual origins, I was convinced. Something told me that an intense battle was going on for my soul. And I recognized that it would take more than human resources to rectify matters. One thing was for certain: I would never touch drugs again—never, ever.

  Later that night, the lid came off my secrets. I admitted to Anna all my indiscretions. She was shocked. I was ashamed. The next day when I returned home from work, the house was empty. A goodbye note from Anna said she was leaving me. I was shattered. After visiting her and the children in a Women’s Refuge Camp, I learnt that they were flying back to Christchurch to Anna’s family. I was on my own. My world was caving in. “I am thirty years old and so screwed up,” I mumbled, “an absolute mess!” Somehow, I thought, I must hand my life over to God. Into my mind came the picture of a sweet old Croatian priest, Fr. George Marinovich, who had visited us when we first arrived in the neighborhood, two or
three years before. Despite my strong anti-Christian feelings, I had warmed to him when he’d prayed a special blessing on Anna and me. I knew where he lived, only two blocks away in the parish presbytery, so I decided to look him up. Here I was, turning for help from what I had once cynically called, “the grey institution.”

  Enter Mary, the Blessed Mother. On Saturday, December 8, the feast of her Immaculate Conception (as I would come to note several years later), Fr. George arranged for me to meet a man who had a reputation as a “charismatic healer.” On that day, I biked for ten kilometers through hilly suburbs to Auckland’s Franciscan friary to seek out a monk named Brother Raymond.

  I was expecting to meet a Padre Pio type of character in brown habit with supernatural powers, but instead I shook the hand of an ordinary, unassuming chap in a mountain shirt and overalls—very disappointing. Perhaps I’d been given the gardener by mistake? We settled down side by side on a park bench in the picturesque friary grounds, and I spilled out my tangled life story to him. He was about fifty, I guessed, and had a gentle non-invasive manner. On his lap was a well-weathered Bible, and he drew my attention to a few passages, mostly about “believing” as the key to salvation.

  At the heart of all my problems, Brother Raymond told me, was the chronic pain of my mother’s abandonment. This rejection was a wound that needed the healing touch of the Risen Lord, and it took no persuasion on his part for me to agree to the solution. He and a fellow “charismatic” would pray over me and invite the Spirit of Christ to enter into my past, starting from the womb right through to the present day. All I wanted to know was, when? And how soon? There seemed an urgency, as if the devil himself was at my heels stirring up apprehension and fear.

  I only had to wait four days. It was December 12, the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, and on this second occasion, Brother Raymond was decked out in full regalia, his brown Franciscan robe falling ankle-length to his sandaled feet, wooden rosary beads swinging at his side, Holy Bible in hand. The sight scared the living hell out of me. When he and his friend locked the door of the room as they entered, I wanted to flee, untold fear clutching my insides. They both gave me the option of leaving, but I was torn between these strong anti-feelings and the equally strong desire to be healed, which won out. For hours, it seemed, these two men prayed over me, concentrating especially on painful and crucial moments from my past, as I was cleansed by a continual stream of my own tears. During this whole process, the very air in the room seemed electrically charged with another unseen presence. I had no doubt whatsoever that Jesus Christ existed, was resurrected from the dead, and was tangibly there with us!

  When I finally curled up in a bed in one of the guest rooms at the friary, weak and exhausted, emotionally spent, I was conscious that something inside me had changed. Several years further on, I learnt the significance of this special date, December 12—how Mary’s appearance in the New World of the Americas in 1531 inspired eight million pagan natives to flock to baptism in the name of Jesus Christ and convert from a serpent-god who demanded infant sacrifice—and the parallel was not lost on me!

  I slept a heaven-sent sleep that night, and the following day, when I returned to work, the receptionist, an ex-nun who knew nothing of what I had experienced, said to me, “You look like a great burden has been lifted off your shoulders!”

  It took another three years before I fully and resolutely converted to the faith. Not long after that monumental night of healing, on the advice of Fr. George, I moved out of the lonely family home until I could get myself in order. Perhaps felicitously, I rented an apartment in St. Mary’s Bay, and nearby, there was a steep, almost vertical stairway called “Jacob’s Ladder,” which descended into the central city. I liked all the symbolism.

  For nine months, Anna and I were apart, and during that time, my youngest son was born. I began attending Mass each morning at a chapel in St. Mary’s Bay until the priest was advised that I was unlawfully receiving Holy Communion. Irate and rebellious, I thought, “So the Catholic Church doesn’t want me. All right! I don’t want it!” The Holy Bible and all my Christian books by the bedside became buried under such volumes as God is Gay, which infuriated my wife’s Catholic sensibilities.

  Two steps forward, one step back, on my winding track out of the woods toward the narrow path of faith: I gave full expression to my “natural” inclinations and “came out,” living the homosexual lifestyle. Making up for lost time, I allowed myself to be used and abused. I had to learn, as always, by burning my fingers. Eventually, I came to my senses, like the prodigal son, disillusioned with the whole supposedly “gay” subculture and its superficiality, mindless promiscuity, back-biting bitchiness, and dalliances. I was looking for true love, and it wasn’t to be found there. All at once, I longed to return to normality, to reclaim the married life I had abandoned and the children I had been missing. I was haunted by a promise I had made to myself, around the age of twelve or thirteen, that if I ever had children of my own that they would have a mother and father and both under the same roof!

  Anna gave me sanctuary. As much as she was hesitant about our reunion, she also recognized my need at the time. Only weeks after our marriage resumed, I was provided with a steady job, which led back to radio advertising. In the year that followed, our home was visited by a pilgrim Virgin of Fatima, and I sneaked out of bed in the middle of the night, knelt beneath Mary’s statue, and begged for financial assistance for our growing family. The very next day, incredibly, I was given a substantial raise, along with back-pay dated back several months. I was dumbfounded.

  A definite milestone on my journey back to God was the day I met English pop-star, Cliff Richard. I had always been a great admirer of him, and attending his press conference in 1982, sitting right beside him, I was in awe as he revealed what the Christian faith meant to him. “I wish I could believe as implicitly as he does and be so confident in witnessing to such faith,” I yearned.

  Within six months, this prayer of my heart began to be answered. At the Catholic school where my children were pupils, there was a fascinating film evening which featured the alleged apparitions of the Virgin Mary at a tiny hamlet called Garabandal in Spain. Unlike Lourdes and Fatima, these particular mystical events had occurred between 1961 and 1965, in my own lifetime, and actual film footage added to the evidence. I was gripped by the whole story, even buying a book on the subject, called O Children, Listen to Me.

  Everything I was to read in that book had a huge impact on me. On the front cover were the reported words of the Virgin Mary: “What God loves above all is humility. What displeases him above all is pride.” Those words touched a raw nerve. I felt convicted. I knew I was guilty of pride. Little did I know that I was soon to be humbled; my change of stance, now admitting that the Catholic Church may be right, was a step in that direction, and wasn’t that humiliating enough? Worse still, my deadliest secret: I was reading Catholic literature, and—heaven forbid!—poring over the Bible in stolen moments. Wasn’t this the same man who had once taunted his wife when he found her constantly studying her Bible at bedtime, “Fair go! You’re not reading that damn book again are you? It’s time you broadened your mind a little!”

  The one thing that truly affected me about Garabandal was the way the Blessed Virgin purportedly reinforced all the basic teachings of the Catholic Church by practical demonstrations to the four young visionaries. Apart from the fundamental virtues, like modesty and purity, she upheld the essential beliefs in original sin, heaven, hell, purgatory, and the sacraments, giving extra-special emphasis to the Holy Eucharist.

  All these teachings began to make more and more sense to my skeptical mind. I was receiving graces, unbeknown to me. I was intrigued to learn that the Catholic Church did not originate with the Emperor Constantine, as mistakenly held by some Christians who think he was the first Pope. Instead, the Church could be traced right back through an unbroken line of popes to the apostle Peter himself. Even the Encyclopedia Britannica conceded this fact by list
ing every name in the papal succession. Furthermore, I began to realize there was a consistent message from the Virgin Mary, “Pray the Rosary.” The places where she appeared already maintained a great devotion to this age-old prayer—always Catholic places, I noted.

  A few days after my thirty-third birthday in 1982, I approached Fr. George about becoming a Catholic. It was all very undercover, a real embarrassment. Anna told me, years later, that this move of mine coincided with her ultimatum to God, “If you don’t do something about Chris, I’m leaving him. I give up on him. He’s all yours. Only you can save him!” She was flabbergasted when I told her the next day that I was about to receive instruction to become a Catholic. Nevertheless, she was reserving her judgment. Over the last few years, she had heard a good number of broken promises from my lips.

  My prayer life grew daily. I became the teary-eyed recipient of many answered requests. The Holy Spirit took me on a guided tour of everything Catholic, revealing so many truths through Scripture and through the concerted efforts of Fr. George and Brother Raymond at the friary.

  Both these men had a special love for “Our Dear Mother,” as Fr. George called her. Knowing the maternal absence in my life, he wasted no time in quickening my spirit to a consciousness of her. “She’s Mum,” he once chuckled, hugging a life-size statue of her. Before long, I was consecrated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary and wearing the Brown Scapular. Early one morning in August, I clumsily attempted to pray the Blessed Virgin’s Holy Rosary and, after I finished, was astounded to find on Anna’s Church calendar that it was the feast day of St. Dominic to whom Mary had appeared and given the Rosary in the thirteenth century. This soon became a daily habit of mine, the prayerful circuit of the rosary beads. Since then, many milestones in my onward pilgrimage have occurred on Marian feasts and anniversaries—just to remind me, I’m sure, that my Mother cares.