I grew up in a small farm town in the Midwest and attended a Baptist church out in the country. It was very conservative and we didn’t speak in tongues and there no were visons or anything supernatural. I remember reading about all miracles in the Bible and assuming things had changed since the Bible times because the lame were still lame and the blind remained blind, especially my Grandma who had a large print King James Bible and still had to use a magnifying glass to read it.
The only thing supernatural I’d ever seen were reruns of Casper the friendly ghost. When I turned 12 years old things started to change. That’s when I started to realize there was a higher power with plans for me.
My aunt Martha was a Pentecostal and that’s about the polar opposite of a Baptist. Aunt Martha treated me like a son since she didn’t have any kids of her own. My mom said she was “barren” which means she couldn’t have kids. Aunt Martha was ten years younger than my mom and she seemed a lot easier to talk to about kid stuff.
She was even willing to listen to my comic book ideas.
Aunt Martha was married once, but Uncle Joe died of a heart attack. And shortly after that she joined the Pentecostal Church and that’s around the time she started telling me about prophesies she’d heard at the church. These included when the world was going to end all the way to when there was going to be a rapture where all the Christians would float into heaven.
After Uncle Joe died she turned to alcohol. My mom said she was sure that Aunt Martha was going to drink herself to death. And then she found Jesus and started attending the Pentecostal Church and she quit drinking and smoking and started living a clean life. Although she did still cuss from time to time.
My mom let me spend the night and attend one of their church services. I saw multiple people “slain in the spirit” and there were others speaking in tongues. From the perspective of a twelve-year-old kid it was far more entertaining than anything I’d ever seen in our Baptist Church.
Halfway through the service a pair of hands were placed on my shoulders from behind me. And a moment later there was a lady’s cheek pressed against mine. I couldn’t see her but I could feel her breathe against my face and the smell of menthol mixed with onion as she whispered, “You’re the chosen… you’re the chosen.”
She started to weep and with her face pressed tightly against mine her tears were dripping down my chin. That’s the first time I remember being terrified.
I tried to free myself but she tightened her grip and started mumbling in tongues. “Ille electus est!”
“Aunt Martha!” I screamed. At first she didn’t hear me as she was too busy singing along with the choir and lifting her hands in praise. My second scream got her attention and then she went to trying to pry this is old lady off of me.
“He’s the chosen!” The old lady said to my Aunt Martha. “The chosen!”
“Get your hands off of him you old bitch!” my Aunt Martha yelled as she wrestled with the lady.
It was forbidden in my house to swear. The idea of swearing in church was something I never even thought about doing.
That’s when a couple of men in the pew behind me stepped in and separated us. And that’s the first time I got a good look at her. She looked like a female version of the preacher in Poltergeist, she was smiling as she was dragged into the hallway.
“Ille electus est!” the old lady screamed as they disappeared her around a corner.
The look on my Aunt Martha’s face told me this wasn’t typical of a Pentecostal service. The drive home was quiet, my Aunt Martha didn’t say anything until we were almost halfway home.
“I’m sorry for the way I acted in church.” Aunt Martha said. “That’s not like me.”
I wasn’t sure what to say. I thought she did a pretty good job considering the circumstances.
“You know that if you parents hear about what happened they will never let you spend the night again.” Aunt Martha said, stopping at a light and looking straight into my eyes.
In that moment that last thing I wanted to do was spend another night at Aunt Martha’s.
“I’m not sure I want to be a Pentecostal.” I said nervously.
“Don’t worry, we won’t be going to that church again.” She said smiling and ran her fingers through my hair.
It took me a few weeks to recover. And it wasn’t easy not telling my parents. I decided not to tell my parents since that would require me to think about the old lady. I’d had a few bad nightmares with her trying to drag me toward a bright white light.
I’d watched Poltergeist when I was 10 years old and the “white light” was a common theme in my dreams.
Around that time we moved to the big city of Houston, TX and that’s when I met my first Catholics. I had a long walk to school and it just so happened that a group of them would be praying every day on the sidewalk next to a large medical looking building during Lent which is the time of year when all Catholics put charcoal on their foreheads and eat fish every day.
I know this because my friend Pat back in Michigan was a Catholic and he used to have charcoal on his forehead.
Now they weren’t like the Baptists or the Pentecostals. They have lots of equipment that we were missing: crucifixes and rosaries. I would pray with them outside of what they call “altars of human sacrifice”. They also have lots of interesting imagery. The brought a picture of Mary the mother of Jesus all the way from Czechoslovakia.
I would like to know who came up with such a crazy name for a country? I have to look that up in the dictionary to figure out how to spell it. And I can never remember how to spell it no matter how many times I write it out.
One day I was walking by the altar of human sacrifice and they asked me if I would pray with them. I knew that prayer worked from my days praying against the pastor’s desire to save sinners – so I went ahead and did it.
And that happened to be the day they had brought the painting of Mary. And there I was praying right next to it. They were so impressed that some people took pictures of me with the painting.
I didn’t think anything of it. My mother had done some oil paintings and our house was filled with them. She even painted one of our dog, Muffy. I know she wishes I had the gift, but after I tried to do one painting with her she gave up on trying to teach me how to paint.
I went home that night and my parents asked about my day. I told them it was just another boring day at school. My mom had the bad habit of asking me what I learned and then she’d get upset when the answer was always the same, “Nothing.”
We’d argue about how I could spend an entire day in school and not learn a single, solitary thing. I’d tell her it was a mystery to me too.
I didn’t tell them about the prayers. I knew they’d get upset because it was Catholics. My mom loved to talk about how they worshipped Mary. And the idea of me praying next to a painting of Mary would send her through the roof, although she might like the fact that a painting was involved.
I also have twin brothers that are technically part of the story, but they’re only three years old I have trouble understanding them. My parents waited a long time to have more kids and they say it’s a miracle.
They say when I’m more mature and responsible I can babysit them and get paid. I hope that day never comes because I don’t want to change diapers. Hopefully they will have outgrown them by the time I’m mature enough.
I’m pretty sure my parents aren’t going to like the things I plan to teach them. I’m going to teach them all the things I learned to survive.
Anyway, I managed to avoid discussing my prayers earlier in the day. And because my baby brothers require most of my parents attention I was left to entertain myself. There was the usual badgering about whether the teachers assigned any homework. I mostly try to do my homework 5 minutes before classes start. If can’t get it done 5 minutes before classes start then I just write things extra messy in the hopes that the teachers think it’s something really good but too messy to read.
This is a good tip if any of you are still in school.
So I pulled out a few Hulk comic books I’d already read a few times. And I was thinking back to all the prayers. And the people going in and out of the altar of human sacrifice. I started to wonder if God really heard prayers. No offense, but I’d been praying for my parents to win the lottery ever since I heard about Mrs. Thatcher winning $50,000 on a scratch-off ticket.
This next part of the story is a little embarrassing.
I was fast asleep when someone pushed me awake. I figured it was my mom who hated it when I went to bed in my clothes and with the lights on. I told her, “I’m just resting my eyes.”
And then she pushed again. This was unusual for my mom, because she was of the opinion that you only get warned once and then you’re grounded. There were no “three strikes” rules in my home.
I opened my eyes and turned around and it wasn’t my mother.
I know what you’re thinking, “Was the date April 1st?” Nope. It was May 17th. And there was no good explanation.
There was a woman dressed in a black veil sitting next to me with her legs crossed. Her veil obscured her face, but I could feel her eyes on me.
Since I’m not good at keeping track of dates, like you, I thought it might be an Aprils Fools joke my parents were playing on me. It took me a minute to remember that my birthday was coming up next week so it couldn’t be April. That, and the sound of my mom yelling up the stairs to turn off the lights also let me know this wasn’t my mom.
And that’s about the time panic set in. I tried to scream but I couldn’t move or talk. I looked it up at the school library and they call it “sleep paralysis”, except I was wide awake.
And then I heard her thoughts. It was like the voice in my head, except instead of my voice it was her voice. She told me I was going to be a Catholic. A very special Catholic.
And then I thought back to her, “My mother will never allow it.”
And then she explained I had no choice in the matter. I had been chosen by God. It’s like being a superhero without any special powers.
And then she vanished.
I screamed out loud. And then ran down the stairs. My parents asked me what happened and then I told them there was a lady in my bed and they both laughed out loud.
“You had a bad dream.” My mom said and went back to sewing.
My dad was reading the newspaper and didn’t bother to say anything.
“It wasn’t a dream.” I said, still shaking. “I was wide awake. She was there in my bed!”
My parents didn’t seem to think it was out of the ordinary. I wondered how they would react if I had just been shot by an intruder? Would they tell me it’s just my imagination or to get a band aid and stop complaining?
I went to the bathroom and looked at myself in the mirror. I looked exactly as I thought I would look if I ‘d seen a ghost. I thought about throwing up.
My mom knocked on the door, “Jeffrey, are you going to be okay?”
Now this is where I decided to let my parents off the hook, “Yeah. I’m fine. Just a bad dream just like you said.”
I turned on the faucet so that she couldn’t hear me crying. I was tempted to not share the crying part since I’m too old to be crying about a spirit being in my bed.
From that moment on I had to recalibrate my life. Maybe the crazy lady in the Pentecostal church wasn’t so crazy after all? Maybe she something? Maybe she was right?
The next day I went to school as normal. And I sat through another day of learning absolutely nothing. And on my way home I saw the Catholics again and I thought about waving and just going home.
Instead, I stopped and said a few silent prayers.
I asked about the painting. And they said the group had moved to another city. And then I told them I had a strange dream where a woman dressed in all black claiming to be the mother of Jesus appeared. They were quite surprised by this dream, and I had wonder how they would feel if I told them it wasn’t dream but a true story.
They said it sounded like “Mary of Sours”. It turned out that I misunderstood them and they were actually saying “Mary of Sorrows”. I spent a few days trying to connect those dots.
She had appeared many times and often to children. She was mourning the death of her son Jesus and she was an advocate for innocent children.
I got a pit in my stomach as soon as I heard this because this meant I might actually be chosen by God to be a Catholic. I could already see the look on my mother’s face as soon as she learned I was called by God. I’d be grounded at a minimum.
A cold chill ran up my spine as I thought back to that old lady in Aunt Martha’s church.
“Do you think God makes mistakes?” I asked the man, well, his names is James but I don’t know his last name. Later I learned he was a famous screenwriter that worked with Oliver Stone, but he never mentioned any of that to me on the sidewalk. I thought it was a lie until he confirmed it was true a few years later.
I asked him why he would keep that a secret and he said it was because he was ashamed of what he’d done in Hollywood. That made me wonder if he was doing some kind of penance and then I started to wonder about all the other people.
And then I started to get a headache worrying about it. Anyway, I’m getting off track, like I said, I asked James if God makes mistakes.
“God never makes mistakes.” James said then he told me about the stories of David, Moses, and Gideon. They were all reluctant heroes.
Except they all sounded competent. Yes, David made some mistakes, but it was pretty easy to see why God would have chosen them. It’s like choosing a young Dan Marino to be the quarterback of your football team. It’s easy to see he has talent, even if he never won a Superbowl.
But why would God choose me? The only A I’d ever gotten was in phys ed and most of my prayers were selfish.
And then James reminded me that I was praying outside of this altar of human sacrifice when almost nobody else would do it. And those prayers were not selfish.
I told him anyone walking by could do that.
James looked around and said, “It’s just the two of us, even though anyone could it.”
I then began to wonder if it was mistake to do all of this praying. I wasn’t prepared to be chosen by God nor was I willing to do it. I even told James that, “I can’t do it.”
And then he told me the story of Jonah. I already knew the story, but back then I was just a regular guy who didn’t have much in common with Jonah.
That was a bitter pill to swallow. I guess it came down to whether I was willing to be swallowed by a whale? And worse, where I lived in Houston wasn’t that far from the coast.
James laughed when I asked if I was going to be swallowed by a whale.
“You don’t have to decide right away, Jeff.” James said. “If God has chosen you then that path will become clear to you later.”
I was pretty sure I was a lot like Jonah. Except without a Ninevah. Or really any mission. This made me wonder if it wasn’t just a dream. Everyone else chosen by God had a clear mission.
Maybe it was just a big mix up?
I know you’re probably wondering why someone would complain about being chosen by God. It’s like being chosen to play for the Dallas Cowboys, except when you play the Cowboys you have to be good at football. They don’t just choose random kids with not athletic ability.
A few weeks went by and I had convinced myself that it was all just a bad dream and things went mostly back to normal. I even scolded myself for having such an active imagination and embarrassing myself in front of my parents and crying like a baby in the bathroom.
My dad never cries. Even when his own father died, he didn’t shed a tear. I even saw him hit his thumb with a hammer when we were roofing the house. The nail eventually had to come off and he was dry eyed through the whole affair.
Just when I was 100% sure I was done crying for the rest of my life, Mary of Sorrows spoke to me again and she told me my mission. This time she didn’t appear, but she was talking to me in my head. I’m not going to lie, I was right back to crying like a baby. I told her it wasn’t possible and that there was a case of mistaken identity.
I even told her that once I was mistaken for Reggie Ferris who lives across town. He has a round face like mine and he’d stolen a bunch of candy for Rexall Drugs. I felt a twinge of guilt bringing Reggie into it, but it was possible he was actually the chosen.
She told me that God knew my heart. And that God would be with me. And then she said, “You are called to be a priest according to the order of Melchizedek.”
A priest? I wasn’t even a Catholic. And that’s a necessary step to becoming a priest. I didn’t know who Melchizedek was even though I’d read the Bible. It’s a tough name to remember just like Czechoslovakia. It turns out he’s the Priest-King of Salem and the priesthood of Jesus Christ is from that same order.
If I’m called by God that must mean that almost every else turned down the job. Which doesn’t make any sense since I’ve tried to turn down the job myself unsuccessfully.
It reminds me of story my dad told me of how he became a barber in the Army. They asked if anyone was a barber and he raised his hand. He’d never cut any hair in his life. They said there would be a test the next day. And of all the people who raised their hands my dad was the only one who showed up for the test the next day and they told him there would be no test since he was the only one who showed up.
I guess the hard part of being called by God is just showing up?
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-Spiritus Dei, aspiring priest