Of Men and Mary Read online

  One day, I walked into the cathedral in St. Paul, Minnesota, where I was to be married in a few months. Not a soul was inside. My heart sank, and I wanted to shout out to the multitudes, “There really is a God! He is real! How many people have been baptized here, married here, ordained here? Is there no one to worship God with all their heart in return?” Looking down, I noticed a small piece of paper on the ground and picked it up. It was a pamphlet for a novena called the “never-fail novena”—sounded to me like the best one. The instructions said it was to be prayed for nine days in a church, so not knowing what else to do with myself, I began to pray it.

  On the fifth day of the novena, I couldn’t find an open church and ended up dialing a convent. The nun who answered was nice enough to give me the key to a rundown church next door, whose pastor was overseeing construction of a new one. When I walked in, I couldn’t find the light switch, and the only light available came from the sanctuary lamp next to the Tabernacle. Something whispered into my mind, “Jesus is present,” so I walked toward the flickering candle, making my way over ripped carpet and fallen ceiling tiles. Kneeling before the Tabernacle, I said wistfully. “Lord, I know you’re here. I know that you are listening. But I don’t know how to get to you. Lord, please, I don’t want to be here on Earth.”

  All of a sudden, I wasn’t alone. For the first time since I had been pulled away from the light of God, I felt a tender reassurance that all would be okay. My peace and comfort would not come from standing in front of large crowds, shouting out that I believed, and that they should too. It would come from spending time alone in front of the True Presence of Jesus, night after night, in prayer.

  A few days later, as I was saying my novena prayers, kneeling by the soft flame of the Tabernacle candle, suddenly the lights came on. A group of people had heard about my phone call to the nun, asking to pray in the church, and had seen this as a confirmation from God to gather and pray the Rosary in support of the troops of Desert Storm One. They invited me to join them. I knew of the Rosary but had no relationship with it, except to receive the string of beads as gifts for my Baptism, First Holy Communion, Confirmation, and to notice it dangling from rearview mirrors.

  As I prayed with the group, week after week, I began to see the Rosary differently. It was no longer a string of pretty beads, but a profound meditation on the mysteries of the faith and a means to pray to God constantly. When the Rosary ended, members would sometimes stand in a circle and pray aloud in the Spirit for the needs of the world and those present. One such time, a man and a woman looked my way and said, “You have a special calling to go to Medjugorje.” I had asked them earlier about Medjugorje, and they didn’t seem to know much about it, so I found it a bit unusual that they would make that kind of a statement. “Yeah, right,” I thought. “How would they know I have a ‘calling.’ And what does that mean, anyway? Is this some kind of special lingo, like other businesses have?”

  Sensing my disbelief, they added, “No, really. If you decide to go, Mary will pay for it.”

  “Fanatics,” I concluded. A few days later, I called an old, party-hard friend from high school, named Vicki, who went on to become Miss Minnesota. I had shared the stage with her in school musicals, and she’d collected the money from the 500 partygoers at my graduation party. Her family owned a travel agency, and I was looking to get low-cost tickets to sunny beaches for my honeymoon. When I got her on the phone, I began sharing how I was marrying one of her classmates.

  “I just got married myself!” she said. “Let me tell you about where I went on my honeymoon: Medjugorje, Yugoslavia.”

  “You gotta be kidding me!” Then she began to tell me fantastic stories from her trip, and I knew she had no reason to pull my leg. In the years since I’d seen her, Vicki had become the polar opposite of what she and her husband had been. She had even ended up on the cover of Medjugorje Magazine. I couldn’t believe it; but I did. Here she was confirming to me in her own personal experience the very things I’d read about Medjugorje. I hung up the phone, dumbfounded. I’d been seeking a cheap fare, not confirmation of Medjugorje or any spiritual advice.

  Events conspired in such a way that I ended up postponing the wedding for economic reasons and instead, made plans for myself to see this Medjugorje place. One Friday in the late spring, I called Vicki. “The flights are all booked,” she told me.

  “Are you sure you can’t find an open exit row, or something?”

  “No. But if you’d like, you can try it yourself.” So, after I paid my employees, I opened a fresh, cold adult beverage and began to dial. Virtually every airline I called had a seat. “Hey, Mom!” I hollered. “There are even two seats to Zurich!”

  “I’ll go with you!” she chirped. I asked my fiancé if she would go with us on the trip, but she declined. If you’re a builder in an area of cold weather, when the frost leaves the ground in late spring, you begin to work earnestly before the ground freezes again. To go on a vacation during that time is like a farmer leaving during planting season. You just don’t do it. But, knowing that within twenty-four hours, I could get a full refund for the tickets, Mom and I started to have fun with the idea and made ridiculously extravagant plans. We would go for three weeks. “Let’s start off in Rome, go across the Adriatic to this Medjahoochee place, check that out, and hop over to Paris and see Sacré Coeur, Notre Dame, the gardens of Rodin, the Louvre—all sorts of Frenchee stuff.”

  The next morning, when I walked out to the mailbox, I reached in to find an envelope with a check for three-thousand, eight-hundred dollars from a totally unexpected source. Months earlier, I had been in a head-on collision and had to have surgery on both my knees. I noticed a billing for a surgical assistant who wasn’t there and alerted the insurance company. I knew of this because I was awake during the procedure when normally patients are sedated. The insurance company didn’t owe me anything. “Has it ever happened in the history of mankind,” I wondered, “that an insurance company kicked a patient a big check simply for being honest?” The money would cover the entire cost of the trip. Mary had indeed paid for it.

  When we arrived in Rome, we settled ourselves in a pension near the Roma Termini train station. In the morning, I called an old friend of my parents, Fr. Pung, who had met them on their honeymoon through an ordained relative of ours. Fr. Pung was now the superior of the Divine Word Missionaries, stationed at their Rome headquarters. I introduced myself and said, “We’d like to take you out to lunch while we’re here.”

  “Oh no, oh no,” he answered in a melodic Italian accent. “Give the taxi driver this address and come on over. I’m putting you up.” Our cab pulled up to a stunning, wrought-iron gate, which parted majestically for us as we drove forward past saluting guards, palm trees, ornate fountains, and lush gardens. Out came our host and our “servants” to carry our bags and show us the way to our set of apartments. That entire week, drivers escorted us throughout Rome, while nuns did my laundry—nuns from Medjugorje.

  The war in Yugoslavia was building up, so the U.S. state department warned travelers not to go there, and I felt perfectly fine obeying their directive. The next day the only ferry going across the Adriatic Sea would drop people off in Yugoslavia, return to Italy, and close down.

  That evening, we had dinner with Fr. Pung, and he asked my mom, “Is there something I can do for you while you’re still here?”

  My mother answered boldly, “I’d like a relic of the True Cross.”

  “Good grief,” I thought to myself. “Why don’t you ask for clippings from Jesus’ haircuts, too?”

  Fr. Pung shook his head, saying, “Well, that’s really hard to get. I don’t know. . .” The next evening, during a goodbye dinner with him, he presented her with a relic of the True Cross from the Vatican. Mom nearly broke down and cried. We then shared with Fr. Pung that we wouldn’t be going to Medjugorje because of the dangers of traveling to Yugoslavia. “Why let your faith fail you now?” he asked in reply.

  I bit my tongue, thi
nking, “What are you talking about? Faith? This is called prudence. One does not take his sixty-two-year-old mother with a heart condition into a communist country with no way to get back out, especially when he’s carrying all the bags.”

  But the next morning, unable to ignore his challenge, I ventured out and purchased two one-way tickets—the very last ones available for the very last boat to Yugoslavia. That evening, Mom and I found ourselves in the dining area of a car ferry, having a wonderful time partaking of Italian crusty bread, wine, and fried calamari. As we recounted the joys of our red-carpet stay in Rome, a man and two women walked up to us and sat down at our table. They introduced themselves as the DeSantos from San Diego, California. The man was married to one of the women, and the other was the wife’s sister. “How are you getting up into the mountains where Medjugorje is?” they asked.

  “I don’t know . . . planes, trains, and automobiles?” I answered.

  “No, we were called to drive you to Medjugorje.”

  “What!? Who ‘called’ you?”

  “We’ve been over there six times,” said the couple. Our daughter works for the airlines, so our airfare is free. A couple days ago, when we were home in San Diego, God told us to drive a man to Medjugorje and that we would know him when we saw him. You are that man. So we flew over here from the United States, and here we are. We are going to leave with you on this very ferry and then drive you there.”

  My heart almost stopped all over again. The three of them had travelled all the way from the West Coast of the United States to find me on a ferry on the East Coast of Italy, so they could drive me to Medjugorje; then they would leave Medjugorje the next day for a twenty-seven-hour journey back to San Diego.

  “You’ve got to be kidding.”

  They weren’t. The next morning at 6 a.m., when we arrived in Split, they rented a big car, and the five of us rode off. Driving up steep roads with no guard rails, along sheer cliffs, we proceeded on the three-hour journey to Medjugorje. Sitting uneasily in the back seat, I thought, “Six times? They’ve been there six times! Who goes any place on vacation six times? The town only has one paved road.” When we finally saw signage for Medjugorje, my nerves erupted into a full-blown panic attack, the first and only one I’ve ever had. If my mother and my baggage hadn’t been in the car, I would have jumped out the door and run away. The attack, I believe, was the last chance the devil had to prevent me from entering Medjugorje.

  Maintaining my composure through the panic as best I could, we arrived safely in Medjugorje at noontime. We stopped at a home, about a quarter mile away from St. James Church. “Wait a minute,” I said, as I looked across the town at the top of the church. “I thought the action was near St. James. Why don’t we stay in a place down there?”

  My mom tapped my forearm and put me gently in my place, as only a mother could do: “If you want to change dwellings tomorrow, we’ll move, but I suggest you let Jesus have his way with you today.” The DeSantoses had a half-day to spend there and suggested we climb Mt. Krizevac (Cross Mountain), which received its name in 1933. Medjugorje was experiencing terrible crop failure that year, so the parish priest encouraged the village do penance, erect a cement cross at the top of the mountain, and pray. They did just that, and the crops were miraculously restored.

  We drove to the base of Mt. Krisevac and began to climb the rocky path up Cross Mountain, pausing at sculptured Stations of the Cross along the way. Out of breath, my mother stopped, unable to continue beyond the third or fourth station. “I just can’t go any farther, but you go on, son, and I’ll wait for you here.” She was insistent, so I continued to climb.

  When I arrived at the top of the mountain, the Lord began speaking to my heart about his original design for humanity. He had a simple plan for us to love him and love each other: he would make us in his very image, give us free will, love us as his very own, and provide all that we needed and more. In return, all he desired was that we love him back. But instead of returning the love that he continued to lavish upon the world, we gave back to him cold indifference. We profoundly altered and complicated his plan to the point that we found life a burden instead of a blessing.

  Remembering my mom, I started to climb back down the mountain. Mom wasn’t at the fourth station . . . the second . . . the first. When I arrived at the bottom, I found her in a small convenience store, drinking a Budvar (a Czechoslovakian Budweiser). She turned to me and asked, “How did you get down? Did you take the path or the stairs?”

  “Ma, I came down the same way I went up, along the path.”

  “You know, son, I didn’t want you to know how bad I felt and deter you from going up the mountain. I waited for you, but you were gone a long time. I didn’t feel that I was steady enough to make it down the rocky path by myself, so I prayed and asked God to help me, and he showed me where the stairs were.” There are no stairs on Cross Mountain. My mother was a brilliant, stable-minded woman. The reality is that such miraculous things seem like they’re normal in Medjugorje.

  That evening, we arrived at St. James Church an hour before Mass as the Rosary was being said. The church was jam-packed, not just standing-room-only, but like a rock concert with bodies compressed and spilling out the doors. Even with the sharpness of an Italian nun’s elbow, I wouldn’t have been able to burrow my way inside. (People in the know understand what I’m talking about.) So, I sat on an outdoor bench on the sunny side of the church to listen to the lilting sounds of the Rosary, coming through the loudspeaker in Croatian, followed by dozens of different languages harmonized into one voice: “Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen.” In the middle of the Rosary, at 6:40 p.m., small church bells played “Ave Maria,” announcing the arrival of the Mother of God, whom the locals affectionately call “Gospa.” “So, Mary is appearing now on earth to one of the visionaries,” I thought to myself. Then all went quiet, extremely quiet, and the atmosphere grew still.

  People from around the globe, from Asia, Africa, Europe, and America—wearing cameras, robes, loafers, and tennis shoes, respectively—started to look up and point toward the sky. Joining them, I stood transfixed as I watched the sun shimmer and throb and shoot off beams of light. At intervals, its center turned opaque, with the outside spinning in one direction, then the other, displaying changing and swirling colors. After a few minutes, I diverted my eyes, realizing I wasn’t supposed to be able to stare at the sun without going blind. I even looked for a bright spot in my vision, which naturally comes from optic fatigue. It wasn’t there. Turning to the woman next to me, I asked, “Do you see that?”

  “Yes, the sun is spinning!” she exclaimed, and then I learned that women describe colors differently than men. Purple, as far as I knew, could be “light purple” or “dark purple.” “It’s lavender!” she began. “No wait, it’s turning violet, now mauve . . . actually, more like mulberry or magenta. . .” As she continued to name all the colors on a paint wheel, I thought of how I wanted to share the experience with my mom but didn’t know where she was, so I began walking toward the back of the church along a pea-gravel path in search of her. At the point when I stood directly outside of where the Tabernacle resided inside the church, I was suddenly taken away . . . and shown my life.

  I saw all the sinful events of my life up through the present moment. It was an illumination of conscience, an experience more intimate and vivid than a movie, more realistic than a 3-D image; and I had the sense that God was there, somewhere behind me, watching everything. I was aghast to learn the implications of my sin, how my actions or inactions were so much bigger than one single event and had a ripple effect on others across time and eternity. I didn’t know that human beings were related in this way. Bawling uncontrollably, all I could say over and over again was, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.” But what was clear was that in every situation, I had a choice, and I chose poorly.

  The first scene God showed me was of myself as a five-year-old boy, reac
hing up to steal a Matchbox car, which hung from a store rack, and I felt how it broke God’s heart. He loved me beyond all telling and would have given me anything. Simultaneously, God communicated the intricacies of deliberation that went into my choice. At that tender young age, I knew that taking the car was wrong. I knew my parents or my grandmother would have happily paid for it. I had no reason to steal it. God revealed to me all those things we never think of. (“It’s just a toy car. What could it hurt anybody?”) But my small action hurt relationships of trust. Insurance had to pay. The owner of the store had to pay. His and others’ trust in their fellow human beings was further eroded, which changed their behavior—and so on, and so on. There were losses within me, as well. There was the loss of innocence. Once I performed that deed, I could never take it back. It could be confessed and forgiven, restitution might be made, but a reality would still hold that would remain part of my experience. And that could never be changed. Yet after I stole it, I didn’t repent, therefore every subsequent theft became that much easier.

  Then I saw, in mind-boggling detail, scenes of my moral descent into all that the world and the devil had to offer me. At first, my conscience knew that there was an undeniable selfishness attached to my transgressions because I was created and taught to know better. But as my sins grew progressively worse, my conscience became ever more muted, until in time, the voice of truth in my life was either actively ignored or shut out completely. Materialism, power, and pleasures became my gods. I saw my attachment to the forty-foot motor yacht, the big house on the river, the cool cars, the clothes, the sex, the drugs. Not once did I think of consequences because consequences didn’t come to me. Without experiencing the negativity of my actions and rationalizing away any that came, I made my pursuits acceptable in my own mind. Embracing the mentality of the world today, I believed, “If they don’t catch me, if they don’t charge me, if they don’t bring me before the magistrate, then what I’m doing is okay.” God was giving me immediate and intimate knowledge of this human folly. He was exposing my cherished lies and those I embraced from society. If abortion was legal, if contraception was prescribed, didn’t that make them okay? No. If state legislators legalized marijuana for everyone and called it medicinal, wasn’t it always so? No, they were liars. What mattered was what God thought, what God said. But I had preferred to be ignorant of God.