It was a Wednesday afternoon…I pushed open the door…
This moment was worth more than all the sales I made the past few months.
It was worth more than my weight in gold.
To see my child work through (via play) a parable during CGS and have him gain an understanding of the main message is incredible.
Josiah’s Journey
An older picture showing Josiah and his sister acting out Good Friday. ✝️ 🙏
He was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder when he was 18 months (thankfully we had the benefit of going through the diagnosis process with his older brother a couple years earlier).
Communication was tough for him. His brain worked differently. He couldn’t tell my wife and I about his basic needs and this led to many meltdowns a day and even banging his head on the ground in frustration.
Reflecting on this journey I am brought to tears with how amazing God is and the awesome gifts he blessings he gave my son and family via therapy, social support, and comfort through the saints.
For a while, I was thinking my son wouldn’t be able to ever verbalize his love for my wife and I. My heart goes out to any parent and children struggling with not being able to communicate verbally.
An Experience More Precious Than Gold
When I opened the door to his Wednesday Atrium session and saw my son acting out the parable of the Good Samaritan it was a moment etched into my heart forever.
This is one (of many) reason why I continued to help him grow in learning how to communicate daily.
🗨️ Weekly speech and occupational therapy sessions.
📈 Meetings to go over his IEP goals
🙏 Daily (sometimes 2-3 times) conversations between my wife and I about his progress, backsliding, and new process
Always trying new things.
Finding different sensory tools and educational resources to help him grown and to speak.
I’m currently in the middle of another growing season (trying to launch a neighborhood Catholic magazine in my city). I’ve planted lots of seeds.
But it’s dark and silent. Lots of rejections. I felt like giving up (similar to how I felt years ago when I didn’t see growth in my son’s verbal communication).
Feelings aren’t full reality.
Sure emotions are part of what makes us human.
The Enemy wants us to be discouraged in the silence and in the midst of “NOs”.
God always cares for you
Sometimes the best growth occurs in the silence and darkness.
Jesus said, “Amen, Amen, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat; but if it dies it produces much fruit” (John 12:24).
Death and growth are the same (and different depending on your vantage point). You cannot bear fruit unless you die to your own control and desires. Total surrender to God must happen.
Today, I renew my pledge to trust confidently in God during this Dark Night.
P.S. This post didn’t employ the use of AI. 🤖
It was written entirely by a human named Matthew in the presence of Jesus Christ in Eucharistic Adoration on Thursday January 18, 2024. 🍞🍷☀️
One could say I sought out the assistance of a Divine Intelligence. 🙂
Editor’s Note: This post was originally published on May 26, 2017.
One of my favorite things to watch is to watch NFL football games. I even own a cheese head to don during Green Bay Packer games. Nothing in sports is more exciting than when a football game goes into overtime and for the first time in NFL history the 2017 Super Bowl went to overtime.
Extra regulation is needed in instances where teams end the fourth quarter in a tie. Neither team played well enough to earn the victory or bad enough to lose the game. I used to have a similar mindset when it came to the doctrine of Purgatory. Let me give 3 reasons for why I had this limited view when it came to arguably one of the more intriguing teachings of the Catholic Church.
Legalistic Outlook of Right versus Wrong
I thought for the longest time that if you followed the law [i.e. the Commandments] and your good actions outweighed your bad actions than you were on your way to Heaven after death. I viewed God as a divine accountant who tallied up all the good and bad that we committed in this live and granted us purgatory as an extra period for instances of ties.
Limited view of suffering
Until recently, I do not truly suffer much. I always thought that purgatory was a period of “time” after death whereby people got extra suffering to make up for the comforts they received in this earthly life. My view on this has since changed immensely. I came to learn that suffering has not only a redemptive, but a purgative quality to it.
On a quite practical level, my marriage and family life has schooled my in this topic. For example, my lack of patience especially during our children’s bedtime routine, causes me much suffering. Through prayer and spiritual guidance I learned that God is using my children to help me grow in the virtue of patience- and sometimes growing is painful!
Learned More about the Saints
Until a few years ago, I did not know that St. Therese of Lisieux suffering from tuberculosis and that St. John Paul II’s mother died a mere month per his 9th birthday and his father passed away about 10 years later. And yet, there was something different about these two individuals and really all saints in general—their faith grew in spite of the suffering and loss experienced.
Looking at the lives of the canonized saints I became aware that purgatory is not something that needs to begin after our earthly death. Rather, for them it begins in time and space. Because of this purgatory does not need to be limited to an “extra period” given since we failed to achieve sanctity in this life. We can start the process to being SAINTS today!
Conclusion
I will continue to write how my journey toward a more Catholic understanding of purgatory has changed my life for the better in future posts. St. Maria Faustina saliently wrote, “Jesus says; ‘My daughter, I want to instruct you on how you are to rescue souls through sacrifice and prayer. You will save more souls through prayer and suffering than will a missionary through his teachings and sermons alone.”
