Fall at Miami University of Ohio is a majestic wonderland. Leaves exploding in colors adorning classical, elegant architecture. It’s a story of transformation. Each distinctive color refracted from the light of holy white. It’s a divine symphony. Reaching deep within and summoning a soul’s breath to extol unseen height. Amidst this wonderland, something powerful happened my senior year, involving three “Legends of the Fall” who forever impacted my life.
The setting. As one of 32 in the full-scholarship “Scholar Leader” program, I delighted in academics, but this was merely the setting for the real thing: being on mission. My parents had forged us with a sense that our lives were not an accident. We were not a random, happenstance conglomeration of atoms. We were made for a purpose. From our earliest years, we were engaged in important political and moral endeavors. We were introduced to the consequential historical events that compelled a response. Slavery. The Holocaust. Abortion. Bonhoeffer’s words rung in my soul: “Silence in the face of evil is itself evil. God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.”
Such forged my own leadership, whether as high school class president, Wisconsin Youth Governor, or lobbying in Washington, D.C. for the pro-life movement. All of which paved the way to founding at Miami University a group passionate about impacting lives for Jesus Christ through the pro-life movement called Ohio College Students United for Life. In two years we reached thousands on 23 member campuses throughout Ohio.
Thus, as a senior, with nostalgia of all that had been, and great anticipation of what was to come, my life was imbued with the colors of so many friendships. Many who shared our deepest convictions; many more who did not. It didn’t matter.
Legend Number 1: Karl Seebacher & Campus Crusade for Christ. During my sophomore year, I was going through an existential crisis. Though blessed with amazing parents, members of my family were making really bad decisions. Resulting in no small amount of suffering. Along with the rest of the culture, so many of my peers on campus, it felt like a tidal wave coming over us. Threatening to consume everything. So many were medicating. Some from the moment they awoke. You could feel the vacuous pining for something more. I couldn’t help but wonder, where is that power of God thing? If He can speak so directly as He did with Saul, why doesn’t He? With a bit of a hero complex, I felt responsible. Therefore, helpless. Perhaps in some sense trying to make things better by achieving.
One night, that illusion evaporated. The floor gave out. Like a tower of babble, all the things I thought that defined me, my worth, came crashing down. I was so aware of the Enemy’s whispering lies: “You don’t matter. You’re worthless. God doesn’t care.” It was a palpable, dark night. I felt beyond the Father’s love. Alone. Into this, Karl Seebacher was the Father’s voice that just kept speaking so directly, boldly, and confidently: “Brother, God loves you. You don’t need to do anything. You can’t earn it. You didn’t deserve it.” Simple words. Powerful words. Filled with conviction and compassion. Personal. Over some consequential days and weeks, his gody friendship had the effect of delivering me from chains. My warped sense of who God is.
Such was so alien to my Catholic experience. Which seemed so formulaic. Distant. Impersonal. Devoid of life. In sum, it was the field of dry bones in Ezekial 37. The Father’s words through Karl spoke directly to my soul. Awakening me to who He is. Even more, Whose I am. A beloved son of our creator God with a profoundly personal, ever-present, loving interest in me. Regardless of anything I could ever say or do.
This was the life-transforming witness of Karl and many others in Campus Crusade.
On a campus evidencing so much poverty and searching, Campus Crusade personalized God's provision. Their orange little booklets communicating the “Four Spiritual Laws” seemed to cut through so much existential fog. In so many words:
(1) We are beloved of God, Who destined us for eternal intimacy with Him;
(2) Through sin, we've severed that relationship;
(3) In Jesus Christ, the Son of God, we find a bridge back to that relationship, but;
(4) We have to personally repent from our sin and choose Him.
So much more than simply handing out the booklets, as with my friend Karl, they were about relationship. Real friendship. Sitting down with you. Getting to know you. Their lives proclaimed: "This is real. This is relevant. This is personal."
As you might imagine, at some point in these relationships the door opened and their sincere questions came at me: What's this with papal authority? Intercession of angels and saints? What’s the Mary thing? Purgatory? Works justification? The nature of our redemption and salvation? Cannibalism? Indulgences? Where’s all that in the Bible? What’s the truth?
Legend Number 2: Dr. Alan Schreck. In need of reconciling my deeply held Catholic beliefs with the biblical knowledge and vitality of these magnificent non-Catholic friends, I turned to a Catholic classmate, Rich Rolwing. He gave me a book that began a process of deeper discovery and anchoring: "Catholic and Christian: An Explanation of Commonly Misunderstood Catholic Beliefs." (Dr. Alan Schreck from The Franciscan University of Steubenville) With undeniable love for Jesus Christ, Schreck clearly describes the biblical and historical foundations of the Catholic faith; even more, he ennobles the authentic vision of Catholicism, Christ's very presence on this earth, as something vibrant, authentic, accessible, and lived.
The book was a salve to my soul. With solid substantiation held universally from the beginning, and generally undisputed before the 16th century, one had to ask key questions: Did God change His mind? Is He schizophrenic? Clearly, if we believe in the authority of the Word, we must believe in the authority of the context that gave us the Word, which is none other than “the church, the pillar and foundation of truth.” (1 Tim. 3:15)
For those sincerely seeking and availed to truth, you will be hard-pressed to find a single person who, based on substantiated truth, converted from Catholicism; on the other hand, there are thousands who, having asked all the hard questions, found them resolved and became Catholic. One of these, St. John Henry Newman, said that there are many misconceptions of the Catholic Church, and were he to believe those to be true, he wouldn’t have become Catholic either. As so many scholarly, formidable converts have expressed: To know history is to cease being Protestant.
So for me, encountering this substantiated truth through Shreck was as if I had been holding my breath underwater and someone reached down, firmly took hold of me, and pulled me to the surface. There, taking deep gasps of air, my lungs found spiritual oxygen. In overwhelming abundance. I began to experience life flooding my heart, mind, and soul like never before.
Frank Sheed said that to see things sanely is to see them God-bathed. If we want to stand in His Light, to see things illuminated by His Light, we risk seeing things as they are. We risk seeing what is true and false. What is good and bad. Not simply with the institutional Church, but in our own souls. Accordingly, ironically, given greater illumination by His Church, I was seeing in the institutional Church a culture of entrenched complacency comprised of religious calisthenics. Looking at so many Catholic programs and buildings and people through His Light, with the little old lady in the Wendy’s commercial, I was asking, “Where’s the beef?” Where was the evidence of a living Body of Christ building the Kingdom? Going after people with the enthusiasm of Campus Crusade?
I was overcome by no little amount of sadness. Such a profound chasm between the truth we professed, and evidence of it being lived. Absence of an institutional Church Herself bathed in the Ultimate White. One in which we recognize God is real. Recognize He made us to encounter Him in the very Presence of Jesus Christ. That God has dignified us with His nature. That He fills us with the Holy Spirit, breathing life into the sails of our deepest desires and intentions, to live and claim this world for His Kingdom. In every aspect of our lives. Indeed, to partake of His very Body and Blood.
Needless to say, I now had some deeper questions. Huge questions. Why would God make His Salvation substantially contingent upon our very imperfect humanity? That is you and me. That is His Church. (Acts. 9:4) In short, like the devout scholar formerly known as Saul, I needed more than a great book that explained solid, life-saving truths. I needed some formidable personalization of the Catholic Church.
Legend Number 3: Dr. Dick Rolwing. My friend Rich introduced me to his father, Dr. Dick Rolwing, a professor at Xavier University. Here's what's most remarkable. For a man consumed by so many demands, Dr. Rolwing took the time to respond to my questions with more than a few long letters. He provided definition. Clarity. With conviction. You might say, he prophesied to whatever dry bones that were in me. Mostly, significant resentment from my looking at this instrument of Salvation, God’s provision for every poverty, and thinking, candidly, “What the hell?”
For those earnest and humble enough to avail to the truth, Dr. Rolwing’s personalized attention and conviction punctuated: Jesus Christ through the Catholic Church. Catholicism is the answer. And this means so much more than mere admiration. It is revealed in emulation. Thus it was I was convicted with a loving, uncompromising passion to reach non-believers and evangelical friends with the fullness of our Catholic faith. And just as much, to convict Catholics of the tremendous gift and call to live what we profess.
Thus, our ultimate mission: When evangelicals discover their Catholic roots, and Catholics rediscover their Evangelical wings, we will truly be one Church lifting this planet to heaven. (see my article: There Will Be Revival | We Will Be One)
Fast forward. Now in his 90s, Dr. Rolwing’s landing gear is down. To him, the extensive time he spent engaging this solitary, inconsequential soul offered him nothing of worldly value. He gave because he knew it was gold he'd been given. For the purpose of giving. Without reserve. With the potency of eternity. Whatever other incredible things may be said of him (and I know there are many), he has given me a treasure beyond compare. Conviction in a lived, Catholic faith. One that calibrated the compass that has guided me through so many stormy seas. Giving clarity. Pointing to eternity.
Recently, reaching out to my friend, Rich, I reminded him how consequential his father has been in my life and to please pass that along to him. His response:
"My dad is 94 and doesn’t have long (although he has had 9 lives), and I must tell you he wept when I told him of your kind words about his role in your formation and the extraordinary work and calling and family you have created. He has dementia, so when I retell him your words, he will hear them again for the first time."
Epilogue: Legend Number You. Here’s the question we all must answer: When all is said and done, what will be said of us? Back to our friend, Ezekial. It’s the story of our day. It’s the story of this moment. Having shown Ezekial the field of dry bones, the Catholic Church, note that God didn’t order him to walk away. He didn’t order him to go start his own thing. No. God ordered Ezekial to prophesy to the dry bones. Ezekiel responds faithfully. And those bones take on flesh. They become a mighty army taking territory. That’s you and me. Today. This is our story. This is the prophetic mission we all share.
This culminated in a crescendo during my final week at Miami. Every night after supper, a hundred or more of us, Catholic and non, circled up at the Sundial at the center of campus. In the context of prayer and praise, it was such an amazing occasion to celebrate tremendous friendships united in mission. On the final evening, two Pentecostal friends. Rich and Asa, prayed over me. The Holy Spirit communicated amazing things through them to me. Things they could not have known. Come to discover, my name “Gregory” means “watchman." In scripture, a watchman keeps guard, alerting the people of danger. Directing them to safety.
The ember given at Baptism and Confirmation was fanned into flame, profoundly enhancing all that I'd come to know and profess. Wings took flight. What’s described in Acts ceased to be merely a historical depiction and became a present description: “And they went out and preached everywhere, and the Lord worked through them, confirming His word by the signs that accompanied it.” (Acts. 16:20)
On this day, may our eyes be opened wide to see that the raging of nations finds its origin in the pining of individual souls. Souls made in the likeness and image of God. Souls made for His indwelling Spirit. Souls that will languish without. All of which, by God's design, is forged in the sacred place of marriage and family. The home. The domestic church. Born and nurtured by His Body, the Holy Catholic Church. So much more than scaffolding. So much more than dry bones. A capacity to be the very body of Jesus Christ. Transformation. Healing. Restoration. Building the Kingdom, on earth as it is in heaven. Prophesying revival. Let it be so!
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