When Dreams Meet Reality pt. 1

       Sitting here listening to it rain, the sounds remind me of so many things in Spain. I have wanted to sit down and really process everything that happened but it seems like so many things (including my own procrastination) got in the way. I feel like I can finally write about it now and tonight seems like the perfect time for reflection....
       I actually had a chance to go to WYD with my archdiocese group and my priest kept telling me I should go with them to really go deep in community but something kept telling me to go with FOCUS even though I didn't know more than one person going. After the first few days I knew I had made the right choice.
       The time leading up to this trip was crazy.  I spent months talking to mentors and family about raising the money to even go and I remember dealing with the what if's? What if I can't raise this money? What if I raise most of it but I'm short? What if.... just down the line with every excuse and reason trying to drag me down. By the grace of God, it seemed like everyday I was inching towards the goal. This was my first trip out of the country and so I had to deal with getting a passport as well. I remember being scared that I wouldn't be able to get it or if they did let me get one I wouldn't get it in time. It came in the mail in a relatively short time and that was a relief in itself, believe me.
       It seemed like an eternity just waiting for the time to come to leave and then all of a sudden the time had come! I was about to embark on a once in a lifetime trip and those fears started coming back, what if I forget this, or what if I forget that. Then almost last minute literally, my grandpa went into the hosptial just a couple hours before my plane was scheduled to take off. I was having an internal battle on whether or not I needed to stay because what would I do if something happened while I was gone being selfish instead of being with the family and they needed me? I almost canceled and looking back I don't know if it was selfishness or grace that told me to go ahead and go but I had everything packed and I started my long journey to Spain at 3 am that morning. My dad took me to the airport and there I was on my way. I waited in line for almost an hour before someone came to the counter to start check ins and there were about 10 people in front of me. Somehow we got started in conversation and the whole reason all these people were waiting for a flight was because the night before, they had been on a plane and something wasn't working right on the plane and the pilot had to brake hard at the end of the runway. Apparently during the braking, he had made such a hard stop that it melted the brakes and so they had to wait 7 hours before getting off the plane and here they were waiting for another one. Not what you want to hear before you take off, being pressed for time as it is because all the flights were so close together!
       In the end, I made it to Chicago perfectly fine, no problems whatsoever and I was extremely early as it was only 5:45 in the morning. I ended up just walking around by myself for awhile and finally met up with everyone else. I was excited when I met the  missionary waiting for us because I had met her the year before at training so I at least knew two people now! We finally made to it Miami no issues and then I pretty much slept the whole time from Miami to Madrid.
       I woke up about an hour before we landed and when we did, I couldn't believe we were actually there. The terminal we were dropped off at was virtually empty. I couldn't believe there weren't more people and it really threw me off. Then when we got on a bus and went to terminal 1 to wait on the bus it made so much more sense. I hadn't seen that many people in one place in a looooonnng time. I got to meet some of the fellow pilgrims and I had an intense conversation with Angela Kirke that was thought provoking. I discovered that this is how most of our conversations would be but it was awesome to have such a good talk with someone I had just met. We loaded the buses not too long after and started our six hour journey to Samos. We made a stop at this restaurant to get some food and it was quite interesting. The setup was more like a banquet setting. So much so that some actually thought they had a wedding about to happen or just happened! This was my first experience with authentic Spanish food and they didn't disappoint. They had a "salad with meat" that ended up being a small spoonful of something like potato salad surrounded by four or five types of meat. Some of it I wasn't a fan of but some of it was quite good! 
       We finally arrived at  Samos and the monastery was more than breathtaking. You could tell just from the walls that this was a Holy place...and we were going to be staying there!  We had dinner and got settled in for the night. Little did I know that that next day I was about to encounter Christ in a way unlike ever before....
        I woke up earlier than I normally would and was wrestling with going to morning prayer or skipping it. I was still in need of confession because being the procrastinator I am, I had put off going before the trip. Not a wise thing to do when you are spending hours about an ocean I should point out. I told myself that it was time for me to get right because I have a bad habit of waiting months in between before getting the courage to go. I promised God that if there was a chance to go I would go and after this struggle for morning prayer I decided to go. Lo and behold what was going on as soon as I walk in? Confession!! Ok God, I promised I would go and here you are giving me a chance to be a man of my word... So I went.  I don't know if it was the confession, or the morning prayer to be open to whatever God wants to tell us, but something strange happened during that first scheduled talk we had. As a side note, when you pray to be open to WHATEVER God wants to tell you something, and you mean it? Yea He will tell you something. 
       Being raised in a christian home and going to a christian school, I had heard the basic gospel story a thousand times. Usually when I hear it, I have grown complacent to it like " I have heard this a thousand times, lets move on to a hardcore not talked about much teaching or something." This particular morning, I was at peace despite Jeremy starting the trip off with the gospel message. This time I wasn't complacent and unwilling to listen. Maybe its because this time I heard two different distinctive voices talking at the same time. One was Jeremy's voice sharing the gospel at its most basic and simple form, when it's at its most beautiful I might add. The other one was barely audibly above a whisper and it kept repeating, I love you. Over and over I heard this same whispered phrase. After the first talk, I kind of shook it off, like it was nothing but it wouldn't stop. Ever see the movie Good Will Hunting? There is this scene where Robin Williams is talking to Matt Damon about his childhood abuse and he says "It's not your fault". Matt Damon replies that he knows and shrugs it off but Robin Williams continues to say it over and over. Finally it breaks through and after an internal struggle Matt Damon's walls just crumble down and he finally realizes it wasn't his fault. It was such a beautiful scene and in a similar way, I was living it out right here, right now. I kept hearing this whispered "I love you" and at first I kept saying I know, I got it. But it wouldn't stop because I still had walls up that I didn't know about or something because after the second talk I was standing outside overlooking the courtyard, and I heard it in the trees as a gentle breeze blew. I saw this wonderful beautiful work the monks did, I saw the monastery behind that and the mountain behind that with the incredible greenery all whispering the same thing in unison. As I went into the third talk, I remembered the readings from Sunday before we left. It was  1 Kings 19: 11-13 ¹¹ The LORD said, “Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the LORD, for the LORD is about to pass by.”

       Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake. ¹² After the earthquake came a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper. ¹³ When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave."

       Here was this gentle whispering in the old testament and yet I was hearing it this day.  I remember thinking that after all the hours of fundraising, the months of waiting, the miles and miles of travel and all He wanted to say was I love you. I couldn't take it anymore so I went outside to the steps and sat there by myself and started to bawl my eyes out for a good 30-45 minutes straight. I couldn't take it anymore. I was emotionally and spiritually overwhelmed with this direct contact even if it was pure Love.... Just like Matt Damon's character, the truth had finally broken through in such a way thatI had never experience before because I had become complacent to it over the years. 

       If that wasn't enough, the truth is it was really just the beginning. I finally got myself together and went to lunch. Afterwards I wanted to go shopping for a rosary because I had left mine at home. See? I knew I would forget something. God had plans for this though. I went to about 3 or 4 little shops looking for one ( I didn't realize there was a gift shop and it was closed at this time anyways.) and no one had one. I don't know if something got lost in translation or what but it seemed like each shop sent me in different directions. Finally I see Angela Kirke walking from into town, so out of frustration, half joking half because she had just come from town, I asked Donde comprar un rosary?? Where can I buy a rosary?? She starts to get all giddy and excited. It kind of freaked me out at first because I had no idea what the big deal was. I asked her why she was so excited and she proceeded to tell me that after we had talked at the airport the day before, God had told her to give me a rosary that she had but she didn't know how or when to give it to me because she thought it would be weird to randomly walk up and say God told me to give this to you. Yet here I was of all people, asking her of all people about getting a rosary. Every hair on my body stood up and I had immediate goosebumps. We made our way back to the monastery and she went to her room to get this rosary. When she handed it to me, I saw immediately that it wasn't a cheap or plastic run of the mill rosary. This was a legit gunmetal grey Benedictine rosary. By far the best rosary I had ever had. I was speechless as she told me the story of how a priest had given it to her and as soon as he did she knew it wasn't hers and she had held onto it trying to find out who she was supposed to give it to. Sort of as an afterthought, she gives me a prayer card from Medugorje with a medal. She told me she had to leave because she was late meeting up with some people so I thanked her and she left. I was standing there reading this prayer card and just I had no clue about the rosary she wanted to give me, she had no clue about the experience I had had that morning when she gave me this card. I flip it over to see the other side and in bold letters all it says is " If you knew how much I love you you'd cry of Joy".  I was so dumbstruck that I almost couldn't breathe. Here it was again this Divine Presence.  He was reminding me yet again that he loved me. Almost as if He was saying you desired a rosary and I have given you one...

        I am getting goosebumps just thinking about that day as I write this and that was weeks ago. The grace that was given to me that day to hear the Father's voice so clearly takes my breathe away. I honestly couldn't tell you if what I was hearing was physical or spiritually or just in my head but it any case, it was incredibly and undeniably real. And that was just day one...........(to be continued)

       

Little Moments. Big Impact

       It's funny how God works sometimes. Looking back over my whole life, the past couple of years especially, I can see the little moments where God was "tweaking" things that I didn't understand. It is these little tweaks that have gotten me to this place. I feel I need to revisit my past and write about my conversion so here it goes. November 20, 1985, I was born as Justin Eric Tabor. After two years of moving around, in more than one sense of the word, on June 13 1988, I was adopted and my name was changed to Justin Ray Parsley. This was a big moment, but since I was only 2, and was used to living with different people, it was just another little moment. I was raised by my parents from that moment on and it couldn't have changed my life more. My dad was a preacher at a local Church of Christ congregation.  The neighborhood I grew up in was predominately Catholic and our family was one of 3 or 4 families that weren't. I went to a christian school from 5th through 12th grade. Up to this point, I was raised to believe that Catholicism was wrong, and that some of their practices and beliefs were wrong even if it was in the name of Jesus.
        After starting college, I got involved with a christian group called Campus Outreach. This group wasn't Catholic, but they were different than the church I grew up in. At first I was really skeptical about listening to talks and bible studies because I thought they were wrong. Not because I knew better, but because inherently, if what you believe is full truth then anything even slightly different is in danger of being wrong. Religiously, this was one of the first real moments of "tweaking". God kept putting these people in my life and kept showing Himself through them and it opened my eyes that maybe other doctrines weren't automatically wrong. Little did I know it, but this little moment was leading to big changes down the road. I did the typical freshman thing and goofed off in classes and ended up having to sit out a few years because I owed the school money. During my time away, I fell away from the faith. I had gotten involved in a relationship I should have never been in and it sent me on a downward spiral spiritually, and emotionally. God finally got my attention after several attempts, and I moved back in with my dad. I had a lot of anger and resentment towards some situations that were my fault and so I wasn't going to church or anything at this point. When I started school again in the fall of '09, I felt the tug that I needed to get back into bible study again because I knew Christianity was the truth. One day while having this inner battle, a young man named Steve Rogers started playing a game of ping pong with me and after maybe 5 minutes of talking, something made him ask me to come to a bible study he was leading. A couple weeks of fighting with myself, I started going on a regular basis. As time went by I found out Steve was a FOCUS missionary and that he was Catholic, and that the bible study was Catholic and I'm not going to lie I freaked out a bit. I remember going to a thanksgiving dinner and meeting the FOCUS girl missionaries, and I realized everyone knew each other from church and stuff and I remember making excuses to leave early because I was afraid of what would happen being the only non-Catholic there. But again God started pulling strings and making little "tweaks".
       I started going to Mass every Sunday night. I remember one of the most profound experiences I have ever had was when we went to an art exhibit called "Sacred Spain". It was old Spanish art that dealt with religious themes and I remember crying because of how beautiful it was and because I felt like I was close to a fire because my soul started to burn and I didn't know why. Not long after, I was sitting in on a deep discussion on the Eucharist teaching. It was Steve Rogers, sitting across from a protestant who went to the same type of church I went to and they were engaged in whether it was literal or representative. It was in this discussion, as I sat there quietly listening to both sides, that I really read what John 6 was saying. The verse that got me, John 6: 55 " For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed."(KJV). The NIV words it this way, "For my flesh is real food, and my blood is real drink." I got it at that moment.  At least logically, and mentally I understood it. I was still fighting against the teaching because no one else had it.  Everything I thought I knew about Catholics and Catholic teaching was slowly being stripped away because of that moment and seeing the FOCUS missionaries (as well as people at Mass that I knew) truly living out their faith. About a month later, we had a Sunday where our priest invited about 10 or so people to his cabin to go sledding and have Mass. It was here in this incredibly intimate setting  ( we didn't have chairs or pews we had couches and love seats) that for the first time in my life, I saw the Eucharist for what it was. The true presence of Jesus in physical form. From then on, I would sit in the back of Mass, and I would cry because I knew I needed the Eucharist and I couldn't have it. It was too much for me to even go up and receive blessings because I couldn't be that close and not receive.
      I started meeting with our Parish catechesist but it was too late to join the Church at Easter so I would have to wait for another year. I remember being tormented at the thought of having to wait that long and I would pray Divine Mercy Chaplets which was the first rosary prayer I had learned. I prayed them because I knew if I couldn't have what I needed, which was the Eucharist,  I needed the second best thing which was mercy. At one Mass a girl named Yasmin, convinced me to go receive a blessing from the priest and through that urging, I heard Jesus telling me it was ok, that it was only a matter of time and that He would take care of me. I had an inner peace from that moment on. It wasn't even three weeks later, when my parish priest asked me to come see him because he had something we needed to talk about. I was a little nervous and freaked out because why would a priest need to talk to me and I'm not even a full member of the Church yet? I set up a time to meet him and when I walked into his office, Steve was sitting with him and that made me even more nervous. Father Ric asked me to sit down and told me he called me in because he had talked with Steve and Joe ( who was the catechisist). He then told me that he didn't want to make me wait a year if I didn't have to to receive the Eucharist and that he had went and asked the Archbishop for permission to let me. I couldn't believe what I was hearing and my breath caught in my chest as Father said the answer was yes. So that Sunday I went to my first confession and received Jesus for the first time and it was the most beautiful moment I could have ever dreamed of.
       That was June of 2010, and I started RCIA classes that fall and was confirmed into the Church on Pentecost Sunday June 12th, of 2011.  About a full year after receiving and it was like a homecoming. I chose St Thomas More as my Confirmation Saint because he was the patron saint of adoptions which was a reoccurring theme in my life. From the passing around as a baby, to the adoption into my family to being baptized, all the way to confirmation it felt like a finalizing adoption. Everything before confirmation was like living with a trial family, and the legal papers were finally signed. I've come home now in one sense, but in another sense my journey has just begun. I write this testimony, so that maybe it will remind us that its in those little moments,  a conversation here, hanging out there, whatever it is, even if we don't see the reasons behind it, God is in control and knows what he is doing. I pray that we learn to trust him more, because those little moments, have big impacts.