It’s easier to link to my Notion pages than to fumble with wordpress being insufficient for my requirements.
https://complete-paneer-038.notion.site/The-Oakland-Pilgrimage-and-the-Epiphany-of-the-Homeless-2e8bb1f1d5434851911ee5d348a174f9
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The clinic will be with limited operating hours and services next week, starting 6/4-6/11 and possibly a couple extra days after as my son and I set off on a father son pilgrimage.I had jokingly commented on it to a patient realizing that this will likely be the most profound pilgrimage of my life up to this point. This was before I knew the name of the destination. Now knowing the destination, which drew me to silence and awestruck wonder, I am quite certain it will be the most profound pilgrimage of my eldest son’s life.
Today, I went to Immaculate Conception Church in Reno to fill a couple holy water bottles and the Catholic stuff store was open. This is somewhat random. I had felt compelled to stop at the Diocese Cathedrals and fill bottles of Holy Water at each of them, for purposes I cannot yet begin to fathom. So I stopped in, asked about them and the ones on display were the simple plastic ones. They’re too big for what I felt was the task. He said he has smaller glass ones. I told him, yes. He went back and grabbed the box. He showed me what they looked like and the icon image of Mary on the bottle. I said, can I buy the box? Sure. I went out to my truck, grabbed my wallet, and came back in. He had a box of entirely different images on them. The images are the Immaculate Conception Mary. I immediately said yes, those. Bought all 12. I also grabbed seven new Saint medals I didn’t have. I knew this pilgrimage was gonna get my type of fun. I had told the patient of the profound pilgrimage on the way to Immaculate Conception.
He thinks we are going to Chicago to look at his housing situation for this fall when he departs for medical school. We are. I knew it would be fantastic time together. I told him before I set out to plan the trip that there were a couple other places I wanted to go and we would go into Jackson afterward as its only another 3 hours each way from Chicago. Washington DC is 8 hours from Jackson. While I’m that close, we might as well travel around and visit a few more Cathedrals. The farther I moved across the country writing down all the possible stops at as many Diocese Cathedrals along I-80 as I could, the more the planning took on a life of its own.
Then God also said to look up the parish of where I was in Nyack New York and even looking at the map and thinking about going back to that battlefield got my heart racing. Saint Francis of Assisi Church in West Nyack and I have a divine appointment. Clearly, this place needs to occur. God also brought to mind Hartford CT Archdiocese and the Parish where I interviewed for residency while watching the narrative of Mrs Davis’ requesting to be married to Jesus as a nun and the story of her being called to Him. It’s the place I was on my knees giving my life to Christ. I can only recall the situation. I don’t even remember the town I was such an emotional mess. I would like to go back to the place while having an emotional reserve and see what God does.
I knew I wanted to go back to this place. I have felt the call to go back to what I had referred to as the National Cathedral in Washington DC. I found myself there once before while in DC “sight-seeing” a few years back. I don’t even know why I would have picked that location, yet there I was. Now I understand. God can write a narrative so much larger than we can even begin to fathom.
I’ll share the narrative of the pilgrimage that right now contains 37 possible Cathedrals and Archdiocese Cathedral/Basilicas while enroute to this destination of a pilgrimage I could never have conceived in my own silly brain. I see no further requirement to bother planning the route home. It’d be getting ahead of myself by adding anything more to what He has already revealed thus far. God be with us.
Stay tuned. I wouldn’t even know what to expect from this.
What’s even more bizarre is that I read the title of my most recent blog post. It took my breath away. Healing from our past often requires a pilgrimage to the places where the wounds were incurred and the battles survived…
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If only the spiritually dangerous were limited to Dragon Boat Festivals…
As we progress through the spring, summer, and fall, numerous events and activities are competing for our attention and patronage. We are bombarded with a lengthy list of events to choose. They all seem innocent enough. What could possibly go wrong by attending the local music festival?
The local art gallery run by local artists are offering classes every evening during the summer for those who would like to learn. They are of course offered for free in the evenings at the art gallery itself. Classes can run anywhere from 3-5 hours. The lady who is the chairman of the board of the local community of like minded artists goes to our church and teaches at the local Christian elementary school. She’s totally safe. Right? What could possibly go wrong?
The annual Dragon Boat Race is coming up? Make sure your team spends lots of time together practicing for their performance in the race. Wouldn’t want to finish last! That would be so disappointing. You could always train harder and grow in strength and come back again next year! Wait. My nephew’s graduation is that weekend and I wanted to travel to see it. Decisions decisions. What could possibly go wrong?
Below is the link to the full article. It’s not too long, but it matters. It’s getting dangerous out there.
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I constructed this particular post in Notion. It does not transfer over into WordPress at all, so I will share the link to the Notion page. It’s probably easier this way anyway.
As we move into the summer season of “cultural festivals” that will become hostile to Christians sharing their culture, take a few minutes to read this article linked at the bottom, and evaluate how it may or may not apply to you.
It’s international dragon worship festival season masquerading as innocuous dragon boat rowing. Two months ago, I woke up and did a huge blog post draft to completion and then nothing. I didn’t publish it. Today, as I open the google news to headlines rejoicing in the dragon boat festivals taking place all over our country while we watch the terrible that is the CCP on the global stage, I am reminded of the “Dragon Boats” page. Here it is. It’s long. It matters. Failure to heed the warnings it contains could have terrible consequence.Do your research. The powers and history behind these “cultural” event are open to their true nature as a religious event, but you have to investigate it to learn this. They won’t advertise, “Dragon Boat Religious/Spiritual Experience” and they won’t warn you as you pull into their parking lot to enter the temple and ritual grounds.
Just like weejee boards and tarot cards. We don’t get to make light of them and have our making light diminish their power and intention. This sort of crap is the same tactic as what I posted about earlier on my blog of being Christians being lured into an occult trap masquerading as an “escape room”.
The sad reality is that evening’s events of being lured into the trap of an escape room resulted in us being removed from the group because my wife and I did exactly what was required.
I received a letter that sought to rebuke me and threatening to remove me from the group if I didn’t change my behavior actually and visibly, whatever the hell that means, while not considering my wife in a multitude of ways, attempting to put me under some form of a nonsense behavior plan and then attacking my wife and my Catholic faith under the guise of scripture and the foundation of protestant doctrine. I figure one day I’ll publish a much larger response to the letter than what I wrote back to the author and leader of the group who led us into the trap. It was a very thorough list of demonic guided nonsense.
We were excommunicated for calling out participation in the occult as the sin that it was. We know what it was really about. Interestingly, we have yet to run across anyone who isn’t appalled by what happened to us, in all manners.I don’t really care anymore about people’s hurt feelings when it comes to the tactics of the demonic to destroy us. The people who put themselves into dangerous situations do not get to negotiate about the tactics of the ones sent to their defense and rescue.
People must know, so that they can be given the knowledge from which to make their consent. Let people choose their paths.
The exact same sort of terrible will show up in homes of Christians who participate in the idolatry of dragon worship that is what these events are about. Choose wisely and don’t complain if you choose poorly and don’t like the consequence. God is perfectly willing to give us everything we ask for, especially if we ask gods for stuff
https://complete-paneer-038.notion.site/Dragon-Boats-a6b899d3e28240f5a9f279bb9de3084b
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This article is the introduction and first article in a series built for the purpose of describing Spiritual Strongholds and how to build them, for the defense of God’s people their families, God’s Church, our towns, schools, and any other application I did not realize. It’s also like to result in the publishing of a book with the same name and intention. Delaying the content getting out there while I meander through the publishing process seems wrong. And given the events this article shares, there is clearly a need for the content of the book. We are all in very grave danger. It really is time to place the sentries and start fighting back through prayer. The enemy is clearly operating without remorse. Enjoy. May God bless you and enlighten you through the text below.
Build the defense – Introduction
Ephesians 6:10-18
It’s all fun and games until a door into a room of the occult opens to your side immediately after you completed a puzzle. It all seemed so innocent while extremely complex in design and intention of deception and a healthy dose of creepy while wondering WTH is going on, fun night in an “escape room”. Behind that door is a room filled with the everything occult that one can possibly imagine while inducing vomiting
It had a oijie (I don’t care how it’s spelled) board, tarot cards, books about palm reading, and the requirement that each of these things be utilized to continue to be able to play the game and maybe escape from the escape room. The books even had really pretty invisible text written into them where our “clues” were found only under the creepy black lights of the room.
A group of Christians, out on a “fun night” with their bible study group has just been put on camera, display, and made a mockery by the ones who set the trap. We were made into their freak show.
Thankfully, the Holy Spirit, my wife and our guardian angels were at work knowing what was coming and what would be required to prepare us to come to the defense of our friends in the middle of a storm of intentional spiritual destruction.
Escape rooms have always given me a bad feeling. I have only participated in one prior to last night, and it was a mystery murder story with a huge amount of history of the county where my family originated. It also didn’t have secret doors, with secret codes and a whole host of terrible. There was nothing vile. I had no interest in the game, but took huge interest in the material. The one last night was vile and demonic.
Earlier that day, I had come across a miniatures model in a tabletop game store of “Minotaur Labyrinth Protector” and it gathered my attention. I felt an urge to ask God to guide me in the store. What is it that He wanted me to see or do in that store on this day? I picked up a Warhammer 40k set on an impulse buy when my son revealed to me the miniatures included in the box, in addition to flying space marines with rocket launchers for guns, were called “Heavy Intercessors.” Sold. They have huge cannons for armaments.
My son and I returned home, and my wife asks, “What’s that?” I said, “heavy intercessors” with a grin. I had to clarify a bit more. Clearly God was trying to tell us something about the requirement of heavy intercessor prayer warriors. We didn’t realize that he was talking about tonight.
We already had a bad feeling about any sort of escape room, and both my wife and I began strangely filling our pockets with the various tools as we prepared to depart for the evening. We were both of the same mind without really discussing it. She felt compelled to not empty her pockets of anything, but actually to add other various prayer reminder things to her “Catholic Emergency Kit” That was a joyful experience that I now appreciate far more upon reflection.
I grabbed the Holy Water bottles, rosaries, stack of patron Saint cards, Benedictus medal, crucifix that was in my breast pocket behind my Knights of Columbus pins. Consider what the physicality of a soldier preparing to go out on a combat patrol would be doing? I am a veteran, so this interaction of the physical and spiritual is completely natural to me. It’s also how God shows me the angelic/spiritual realm and how my intercessory prayer life appears. This will become relevant later in this text.
While driving into Reno, I had a thought that what if these escape rooms are actually something like a labyrinth of the owner where they keep you inside and try to confuse you about what’s going on and make it difficult to get out? The conversation on the way to the location was very similar to the preparation for our departure where we were both of the same mind again That was a joyful experience that I now appreciate far more the night after and day following.
When we arrived and walked in, we were greeted by one of those 15 foot tall skeletons that look really strange for a Halloween decoration at Lowes. The first time I saw one, it weirded me out. I wasn’t quite sure why I couldn’t take my eyes off it. I would never buy one and often wondered why they were now selling Nephillum skeletons for halloween. It’s May and apparently they forgot to take down the statue. The lobby was decorated with numerous objects and iconography that lead me to jokingly say, “what could possibly go wrong?” One member of our party chuckled somewhat knowingly. It was so bizarre that they had a sit-down old school Pacman game. I also witnessed one of my friends and members of the party clear the Pacman board two times in a row without dying. I have never witnessed such a feat. He ended up being one of the ones who terminated playing the game.
We got the instructions from the creepy young man who called himself our Game Master. We were then lead back into the labyrinth and that’s when red flags started going off in my brain and everyone else’s for that matter. The Holy Water came out, the rosary came out, the Benedictus medal came out, and the prayers for angelic protections started flowing.
It is worth noting that my Benedictus medal is blessed by the Cardinal of the Society of Hospitallers, the Pope and is a 3rd degree relic 21 times over. The rosary carries a blessing of the priest at the Saint Michael the Archangel Church where my really bizarre started in February 2022, and carries a 3rd degree relic status 22 times over. It has come in contact with two relics of the cross upon which Christ was crucified. It is irrelevant if you do not believe in the truth of the relics of Christ, His Church, and His Saints. I had no idea what it is about until after I started to learn about Catholicism. They make 100% sense to me. Make no mistake, the demonic knows the power they carry. If they didn’t, the demonic rebels masquerading under the guise of the protestant revolution would not have bothered destroying as many of them and the churches that housed them as they did. Read about the history of the Basilica of Saint Martin of Tours in France for an example.
Anyway, I’ll save you the full story of the events of the escape room , because it adds nothing. That said, there are a few concepts and learning points to take from our experience. Because of the intentional actions and steady revelation of the requirement to play the game master’s game, we all got really bad feelings about it. None of us paused to listen to what we were all verbalizing. Danger. Go to prayer. The game was called Freak Show. It may seem like the freaks of the show are supposed to be the characters painted around the room, but what really occurred is the party of Christians were put in the game as the freaks of the show.
The deception and redirection of the environment by the game master was one an execution by a master of games who knew exactly what he was doing.
The designer of the game is the far more worthy adversary. The owner of the lands of the game is one of profound spiritual power and should be considered more dangerous than a murderer on the run from the law. This one will hide in plain site while they’re building the right combat environment to set the entire town on fire. What was required of the participants after each code was cracked or lock broken was the steady progression toward the occult and mandatory participation in order to continue playing the game.
I had been saying through most of the game that what was occurring was not ok and that it was dangerous and wrong. I finally threw down the tools of his game after realizing the tools of his game lead to a Ouije board. I said I would rather lose than play. My wife refused to play, and continued to pray in the room that was opened with the others. I walked out and went to prayer. I sprayed more Holy Water over their grounds openly saying that if you’re going to use us in their ritual, I would do the same.
The second thing to take from this was just how intentional the ones who built it are with their construction. It was complex. It was everything one would visualize as a spiritual trap for a human being. It was nothing like amateurish. Anyone who were to fall into this trap and not have the protections of Christ would be in SERIOUS danger spiritually.
I am 100% certain that the only reason our party did not become full participants and beneficiaries of the gamemasters’ Freak Show was because of my wife and my prayers and actions together. The use of the tools of the Catholic heavy intercessors for our friends and ourselves in the midst of being ensnared in a trap of the demonic with our prayers of protection holding the line in obstinate defiance of the sorcerer’s games while refusing to participate any further once the danger of the game was fully revealed is what prevent a much larger catastrophe for them. I have never felt the call to go to confession since my Baptism a month ago, but it was clear in my head that night. I was going to confession tomorrow for the sin of presumption of protection. We failed to follow the guidance of Ephesians 6:10-18 and it left us vulnerable as a individuals, and as a group. Interestingly, the game master constantly sought to find ways to divide our group.
He offered to show us the rest of the game after we had failed to escape his game. My wife bolted out the door, I got up and quite clearly said how interested I was in not seeing anything more. It was a manner that would usually offend someone. This young sorceror’s apprentice did not even flinch. He knew exactly what he was doing. I left the building after spraying Holy Water in the lobby. Then the group allowed him to take their pictures in the lobby.
Dinner was mediocre Mexican food and left me belching sulfurous terrible for the next 12 hours. I have never experienced this sort of sulfurous belching before last night. It seems to have finally resolved 24 hours later, after a 16 hour fast, confession with a priest, eucharistic communion, and daily mass,
Did I mention it was also a full moon last night? Nothing to see here though. Who actually believes in that stuff? What we choose to believe does not change what is truth.
There were 97 reviews online all of 5 stars while rejoicing in the fun and having played all of their games. It is heart breaking for the families of the victims of this spiritual assault and abuse of innocent people. I dropped a 1 star and warned those who might be lured into the trap without fully knowing what they were consenting to.
What I also realized today is the truth of what this place is and the activities the masters of games are engaging are a sort of seed planting for the future that Christians should recognize as a tactic. Few will recognize the tactics of the enemy and how they will mirror the tactics of God’s grace. Seeds of evil have been planted in the lives of many people in this place. Our entire group will now have to reconcile after the organizer walked us by our trusting hands into the temple of the demonic. He said he didn’t know, but he also did little more than watch from the back. I suppose he felt bad and he shared it with my wife, but there was never an apology or acknowledgement of remorse or confession and repentance for leading Christians into such a den of dangerous sin. Someone started the oiga board. Another finished it. All but three were having a great time and solving all their puzzles while desiring to escape the room not realizing the only escape from the room came when the game master opened the door. What the game lead to was the opening of a door that leads into another room. It was labeled The Ring Leader. Freemasonry does exactly this. It isn’t until the 33rd degree that they reveal the great architect is actually lucifer. By that time, the rites and rituals of freemasonry has caused the immediate excommunication of themselves from the Church for engaging in sorcery. Immediately. Protestant churches don’t have a mechanism to deal with what occurred last night. A sincerely repenting heart is critically important in any act of reconciliation with Christ, but we knowingly went in and ignored warnings, we didn’t pray, we only went in under our own strength ignorantly under the presumption of protection cuz Jesus. Presumption is sin.
Being Catholic has given me a deep appreciation for what Christ did for us, does for us, and will do for us. He bled for all of us last night while we recklessly ignored His saving grace that awaited us after we were done with our fun night. Today was my first confession since Baptism. It was also my first confession ever since first Baptism washes away all the sins of our past. It only took me 26 days to find my way into a place and situation of my own somewhat choosing by choosing not to leave immediately to absolutely know the place I need to be at the very first opportunity was a confessional. What I did find amazing was how freeing it really was confessing it in that manner and then having the priest pray the prayer of absolution over me and then give me a penance that was almost unjustly small. The amazing part of God’s grace is, why would we expect anything less than that response from a loving father when we have the intention of confession of our own sins and to own them rather than lie to ourselves about them and run from them. It’s probably the most important that we know we must go to confession for what just occurred that is when the penance actually begins in the spiritual realm.
The disgusting reality of the consequence of this deception is that those victims will not be able to connect the dots of their lives coming unraveled a few years later with the time they had a fun night where they actually made a pact with an evil spirit while participating in the ouija board ritual, and they hadn’t realized it.
I would not be surprised if the freak shows are made available on internet sites for people to watch in something like a demonic porn thing. The demonic loves to make us live in shame of our sins to separate us from God and his grace.
The tale written above is also a superb example of how enemy spies operate to infiltrate a country, corporation, government etc. Their soul task is subterfuge without their target’s sovereign having any idea they are at work while ruining the target from the inside. They will only destroy when they absolutely have to, because if they destroy their targets and informants, they have to start over. No one likes starting work over. They will inadvertently destroy what it looks like for those who live within the target realm. The spies will also seek to prepare it the target to be conquered with much less physical resources in the future. Things like sabotage, propaganda, etc are the tools of this particular form of espionage.
This place and those who are party to it are engaging in a much more dangerous form of espionage. It is the spiritual sort of infiltration and preparation of what’s to come in the spiritual and physical for the what happens in the physical has already been decided in the spiritual.
In case one has never read or never really understood the importance of Ephesians 6:10-18, read it again.
10 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. 11 Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. 12 For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. 13 Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm. 14 Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and shaving put on the breastplate of righteousness, 15 and, as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace. 16 In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the enemy; 17 and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, 18 praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end, keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints,
Every day, we are living out the reality of this Bible passage in all places, in all activity, and in all choices. Think about the narrative above and see if you’re able to apply it to other situations where after prayerful reflection, one may realize they have been victimized in other ways. Then, read the rest of the material presented. After reading the material, come back and read the passage again. See how differently you see it with newly opened eyes.
Doing the research late last night, I am quite certain was a physical labyrinth with a spirit of a minotaur labyrinth protector. It was a bit odd that my attention was alerted to the minotaur lore at my friendly neighborhood game store. God meets us where we are, and He is everywhere we invite him, and everywhere we don’t while waiting for us to ask him to help us.
Still think all that mythology stuff is mumbo jumbo?
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Globally, total spending on the Military Industrial Complex reached the highest point in history at 2.34 trillion dollars. I am not one to say money spent on war fighting equipment goes to waste, well except the portion spent on ammunition that blows up. That money factually went to something that stops existing the moment it is used. The results of that waste in human life and infrastructure are without measure.
We have always been told by the companies that make the arms, through the governments that buy the arms for use, that we must spend this money, always increasing for our defense. Well, yes. Sort of. History taught the United States what happens when there is a meager defense reserve after Pearl Harbor. Yes, the funds spent on military technology and research multiply and drive innovation in other sectors.
What if we invested even half the the volume of money spent on destroying each other into all things space exploration and colonization efforts? What if the engineers working to develop the technologies for weapons were engaged in developing the technologies to survive and industrialize outer space? There is so much complaining about mining on earth. What if all the mining took place on asteroids? What if we started thinking big about shifting our knowledge infrastructure toward exploration and infrastructure to support it instead of toward ways to destroy infrastructure we use to survive?
When did humanity stop dreaming about exploration and start focusing on arguing?
The James Webb Space Telescope is leaving people who have spent their entire careers looking at the heavens totally speechless and silenced. Voyager 1 and 2 are literally floating out in space beyond the reaches of our solar system and there’s little interest in that reality. James Webb was something like 10 billion dollars over 20 years. What if we spent 20 billion dollars in 1 year and built a new James Webb Telescope each year? What if we deployed Tesla’s Starlink over Mars only added the imaging lenses necessary for mapping the surface of mars as well? Why would we do such a thing? Why shouldn’t we is my response. The requirement in research and development for that task and the resultant break throughs in all sectors that would surely come from it are reason enough. The fun part is that no one dies from this task. Designing better and better rocket artillery systems are designed with the intention to destroy everything humanity with each rocket. That alone should make us pause and deeply reflect on what the sum total of our individual lives will be if we succeed at building more technology for war fighting.
Perhaps we need to do a collective pause and deeply reflect on what the sum total of our actions, choices, words, and treatment of others of the entirety of our individual life will be. We are all going to die. When that moment comes, what will be the narrative that is left behind for our descendants to learn about their ancestors? Will we be standing before God with a lengthy list terrible that makes us sad and ashamed as we reflect on how we got there? I figure at that moment, we will be grateful for God’s grace shown through purgatory. Do we honestly believe that we can live a shitty life of hurting people in all that we have done and everything will be just fine because Jesus and we will suddenly walk right through the gates and into heaven without any consequence? Three 18 year old kids threw rocks out of the back of their truck and killed a woman a couple days ago. The mess they made is going to require a clean-up job. The victim of their terrible was a 20 year old daughter of someone. Do we honestly believe that if they find Jesus in a jail cell in a couple days there won’t be any consequence in the heavens as the live out a life sentence on Earth? Yes, recieving the grace of God through Christ gets them off the list of the manifest for a long float on the River Styx, but when those who killed a 20 year old woman driving her car for their own entertainment are standing before God, do we honestly believe they get a pass without some time to clean themselves up prior to entering into Heaven? There’s a reason Martin Luther didn’t like purgatory. He knew the explaining he was going to have to do, so it was easier to throw a temper tantrum and run away from the destruction he wrought on earth.
What does the list we take to God that Christ will have to bare on our behalf look like? What does the list of mankind look like if our kings and priests shift our course away from mutual destruction to mutual growth and exploration? We all bare the cost of the actions and choices of our kings and priests, just as they bare the collective costs of the people under their responsibility.
When do we stop hurting each other?
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I have met people with a few bizarre experiences like I have been blessed to witness or experience, but I have never come across another who has the volume and magnitude of the mysterious that I have. I can often tell when God has put people in my path who are also having increasing encounters with the Divine. People were pretty shy last year. People aren’t shy this year. Many are deeply shaken by the world around them
I don’t know why He chose me. While the secular explanation exists through my ancestral lines, the more I proceed toward the completion of the Rites of Catholic Initiation for Adults on the Easter Vigil mass in Apr 2023, the more God reveals just how much of an ongoing mess I am. While I can say that I have had plenty of evidence provided by God about what that calling is and how that looks, I for my life cannot figure out how He did not move onto someone else.
One of the most terrifying experiences that God has blessed me with was when an angel let me in the side door of a Catholic Church.
I heard the prompting while on the phone at lunch with a friend, Go to Church. I’m not ready to share the parish yet. I hung up and went to the Church. The parking lot was empty, the front door was locked. The office was locked as well. I began to walk around the building. The last time I heard to go to a Catholic Church a week or two prior while driving home, the front door was wide open.
I met a woman, having no idea why I was told to go there, It was 4:55. She asked if I was Catholic, I replied not really, my parents were, but Vietnam. This was also after I had learned of my Catholic ancestry. She responded, ahh, well they’re doing adoration in the chapel. I asked her “What’s adoration?” She replied, “Quiet time with Christ.” Oh. I can do that!
As I was walked out of the narthex (lobby) and headed around to the chapel, I was prompted to text my wife, “I think we are supposed to join the Catholic Church.” I cringed, braced for impact and hit “Send.”
She responded, “I’d be ok with that”… I had no words… WTH just happened in my life is a common theme. I shrugged, walked around to the chapel, walked in, and before I had time to even look around, I looked up at Christ on the Cross and heard, the clearest words in my head of my life, up to that point, “Come home.” Then purse silence. There were a couple people in the chapel praying. I knew I had received the message intended for me.
Back to the locked church, I walked down the pathway, hung a left around the side of the Church, and out of nowhere asked God if he wanted to send His angels behind me to guide me here, that would be great, because I don’t know why you’d send me to a church that was locked.”
I progressed around the side past the dumpster area, and found a side door. I fully expected it to be opened, and I figured it was the chapel or something I didn’t even know what a Chapel was up to that point.
I reached for the door and it was locked. I was really perplexed now, turned to my right and a guy gets out of a truck in blue digital camo pants and a boonie cap with his keys already in his hands while asking me, if I was ready to worship””
The only response I found was a fumbling “sure…” I didn’t even know Catholics used that word. He opens the door for me, doesn’t even pause, and let me in. I opened the second door of the small vestibule, and walked through into the naive/sanctuary. I rendered me dead silent in the quietest places I had ever entered. I took it in for a moment, turned around to see if the man was following me, and he was gone. Gone. His truck was there, but he vanished. And then the sense of Godly terrified set in while in a state of peace I could not begin to describe.
I took a breath in, and took in what God had just sent an angel to show me. I texted my office staff and wife and they chuckled a bit on text, one asked, what’s the catch. I said no catch, factually this just happened. She responded, whoa. It gave my wife pause as well.
I’ve seen and been a part of some indescribable spiritual encounters with Christ and His angels over the previous year and going back nearly a decade. I seen things that leave people speechless, and I’m not boasting. They way more often than not have left me weaping during and through them while on my face in prayer and singing His praises.
I don’t think I have ever had one that freaked me out. They’re exhausting, and mysterious, and witnessed and confirmed by others. but they don’t do much in the make me want to turn around and run away. The door was closed anyway, so I couldn’t, and the angel had vanished.
Besides, He revealed the fullness that I could handle at that time with a glimpse of his beauty and glory. He showed me the naive and sanctuary of the Church to the left. When I meandered the top of the pews and came up to the view here, the mountain seen made me weap for a dozen reasons. It was also part of how I knew that what had just occured was from the divine hand of God and his heavenly angels. I slowly walked down the river path there and took a seat in the divine quiet of the moment,
I sat down and then Christ spoke to me in the clearest words I have ever heard in my life, “Welcome Home.” I exhaled and responded with the most sincere, “I know” I have ever felt. I definitely wept a bit. I know of no other response. I didn’t have time to plan it either, the tears just flowed.
“Thank you for showing me.” I cannot express the peace of that time at the foot of the Cross.
I stood up to leave, came to the door behind that pick and it was locked. Umm, really God, you’re going to make me ask for angels to let me out of the Church? I know the 26 Saints in the windows of this sanctuary were giggling with me. I moved to the left and the door was open. After I left the naive, I found the office door open and came across the angel in the blue digital camo pants and the boonie cap. This Church has such a loving heart and a beautiful sense of humor. The Patroness is appropriate.
The guy’s name is Ed, he Ed holds the keys to the Church. He’s the custodian, head of maintenance, and keeper of keys.
I don’t have the anything to boast in my roll in any of the divine experiences God bestows around me. I can only pray I didn’t screw it up too much. I say that to help you understand me when I say, this one freaked me out.
The rest of the story is coming. This was January 2022. It’s been 15 months since that beautiful day.
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This post became six for a single day. I managed to separate them out, but the six posts of this day are all to be considered as originating from the same stream of thought. The order in which they are read is unlikely to matter.
As I process through it, my wife was not really raised in a church, but was more raised in various Christian schools where she was made to study by herself and go up for the various tests that were required for her to pass her required material and move onto the next level or course of material. Even now, this explains a mind-blowing number of obstacles she faces in her daily walk. The timing of this epiphany with the material above about the foreclosures and the shift that occurred during that one flesh brain moment is so God awesome. And God Q’s up my victory song, “The Goodness of God” also played at the stations last night that brought me to tears.
I put the ear bud in and push the button and find Matt Maher’s Come Holy Spirit turn on in the middle, right where I left it. I switched it to the song on the playlist that is before the Goodness of God. It’s In the Room by Matt Maher, and it is so beautiful and powerful. I don’t care what it takes or rquires, the only place I want to be is in the room where He moves, and I’m not leaving. I have sang his praises through this song more times that I care to remember. I love Matt Maher. My wife is blown away that I can have the computer on, Star Trek Picard Season 2 on the screen, and my ear bud in. I told her I was in a different place right now. Before that she talks about not liking dystopian timeline shifts… really? You don’t like timeline shifts..? It’s ok, we totally didn’t just “Go back to where it all started…” So much love for God’s faithfulness and His goodness I cannot even describe. He constantly puts on a show for His children for those who will sit down and let their Father tell them a beautiful story, the story of their father and his father. “It’s all connected”
My wife was never baptized as a child and her supposed baptism at 19 is questionable at best and at worst was a baptism of cold in Lake Tahoe at a retreat of some sort. The only thing she remembers is freezing in the water. Her shared memories of this baptism raised all sorts of red flags for me, and were of such a questionable status for her that we both will go through baptism and confirmation at the Easter vigil when we become full members of the Catholic Church. Neither of us can produce a required record of our baptisms. Mine happened in an outside pool of a Marriot Springhill Suites, a couple blocks East of the Southern corner of McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas where we were staying for reasons I will not discuss right now, but I heard the words of a trinitarian baptism so clearly in my head while under the water and when I came up out of the water, I knew I was changed. I KNOW that was my baptism by the Holy Spirit. I was alone in the pool, but I was compelled to go swimming in the pool in the usual manner for me. If it raises anyone’s eyebrows, that is why I also heard clearly when the question of our Baptisms came up in RCIA that I absolutely will be baptized the way it is supposed to be done, not in a manner consistent with “figuring it out on my own as an orphan trying to get home ten years prior”
While watching Star Trek Picard, one of the characters is walking through a homeless camp. The timing of this matters for posts at a different time. Of course they’re walking through a homeless camp while the main characters are visibly uncomfortable while walking through it, oblivious to the truth that both of those characters were looking in mirrors of themselves. This is related to the timing of the Epiphany of the Homeless, posted elsewhere at a point in the future.
The actor and the film share a similar place for me as Maverick and Tom Cruise and a select group of others. It really is hard to articulate the pure awesome that is that movie. How or why do movies like this call to a particular group of people with a manner of intensity that is commonly shared? Robin Hood – Prince of Thieves does the same thing. It’s mysterious.
Have a blessed day. Thank you for your perseverance.
Logging out,
Poor Fellow Soldier of Christ
Numbers 6:24-26 – The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you; the Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace
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This post became six for a single day. I managed to separate them out, but the six posts of this day are all to be considered as originating from the same stream of thought. The order in which they are read is unlikely to matter.
Funny story about my wife and I and our journey Home. The first mass after RCIA started in September, we were asked to carry the gifts to the alter during mass. The invite came out of nowhere really. She asked if we were even allowed. The usher shared that they’re not sacred, so absolutely. I had no idea what was happening. We received our instructions and got up and went to the back to gather them at the appropriate time. She started on my right, stopped at the wine, I then was to take the unconsecrated Eucharistic hosts in the silver and gold lined bowl down. We picked them up, the bowl was way heavier than it should have been.
And the Goodness of God ends and The Blessing comes on next…
Anyway, we turn around, which puts her on my left, she was terrified that she’d slip. We walk down and present the gifts to the priest, these work of human hands for him, acting in Persona Christi, to consecrate as an offering to the Lord our God. This occurs during the collection, which is also consecrated at the same time. These works of human hands. That is how the priests make Holy our sinful selves and works. We sit down, and it dawned on me… I ask her.. did we just present ourselves, these works of human hands so that the priest and the Church can consecrate us and our marriage? She nods. What. The… Umm… I have no words to describe the sense and magnitude of what just occurred, FOR us, not because us, but the Church, through her Ushers, invited us to the alter, in front of the body of the Church. It. Was. Indescribable It also is nothing like something I could ever have fathomed to even exist.
Have a blessed day. Thank you for your perseverance.
Logging out,
Poor Fellow Soldier of Christ
Numbers 6:24-26 – The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you; the Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace
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This post became six for a single day. I managed to separate them out, but the six posts of this day are all to be considered as originating from the same stream of thought. The order in which they are read is unlikely to matter.
Take the below with a grain of salt. I’m not sure how to process it, but it occurred in the context the writing of the other articles posted today. For your consideration of an additional perspective of Moses as another type of founder, leader, prophet, and protector of his people. The first Grand Master of the Knights Templar.
What’s so amazing about Moses is that he ended up in the wilderness because he put himself between a Jew and took the life of the one who was beating him in defense of his people, the Jews and then ends up out in the desert for 40 years.
My wife turned on a Netflix series Knightfall a few days after I had a vision/dream with Sir Walter D’Autun, the first of the Dalton family in Ireland in 1170. The details of that one are for a different post. Anyway, the first two episodes of that show revealed three things to me that I had already known in my heart to be true. The first is not relevant to this narrative.
The second is that the Knights of the Temple of Solomon, also known as the Knights Templar, were the personal elite force of the Pope. Their grandmaster was Knighted by the Pope in identical fashion to apostolic succession of the Catholic Church with Peter as the first Pope, chosen and anointed by Christ himself by the laying on of hands. The lies that have distorted the reality of this organization only made sense to me in the time before God removed the obstacle of the anti-Catholic demon in my life late one night. Again, another time. My apologies.
The moment that occurred identically to the complete removal of every lie of anti-Catholic I had ever held in my mind or heart, the truth in my heart of the Knights Templar and what they’re about was revealed.
The third is that the first and foremost duty of the Knights Templar is the defense of the Jews, God’s chosen people on Earth, to the death if required. Moses was basically the first Knight of the Temple of Solomon. There really is not any other story in the Old Testament where a narrative so specifically states one man’s defense of the descendants of Abraham to include the death of the assailant. I may be wrong about that. If so, please correct me.
But the thing is, the entirety of the above content of the narrative as described above just happened in the middle of writing what would become six separate blog posts. This one is what I just typed about Moses as the first Knight of the Temple of Solomon. I’m sure this will come back up repeatedly now. The content of this article also provides the transition in the paragraphs to a topic I had not understood how to articulate.
Have a blessed day. Thank you for your perseverance.
Logging out,
Poor Fellow Soldier of Christ
Numbers 6:24-26 – The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you; the Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace
Poor Fellow Soldier 