• Get Crisis in your Inbox

    • January 2, 2012

    Laymen: “Resolve” to Discern God’s Will for You

    by Rev. C. J. McCloskey III

    In one of the scriptural passages most often quoted by Blessed Pope John Paul II during the course of his historic pontificate, a “rich young man” asks the Lord what I consider to be the only question really worth asking once one reaches the age of reason and understands the reality of death: “What must I do to gain eternal life?” As we know, the Lord gives two related answers. One is “to keep the commandments.” After the youth asserts that he has done so since he was a child, the Lord challenges him with a more demanding answer: “Sell what you have, give to the poor, and come, follow me.”

    These answers were, without question, the will of God for that young man. After all, God himself was speaking to him. As we remember, he “went away sad for he had great possessions.” We will never know, short of heaven, what great plans the Lord might have had for him if he had said yes. Maybe he would have replaced St. Peter as the Prince of the Apostles. After all, he seemed to have a lot more going for him than the often-simple fisherman, so full of obvious defects alongside his virtues. But the rich young man did not say yes. He was free but clearly attached to the things of this world, and he lacked the generosity needed to follow the Lamb wherever He goes.

    A simpler answer to the rich young man’s question would be: “Do the will of God, whatever it is, no matter the cost.” I have written this article to help you discover the will of God for you and then follow it with God’s grace. Ultimately, nothing else—nothing less—will make you relatively happy in this life and eternally and ecstatically joyful in the next.

    I should point out at the beginning that there are some general ways for learning the will of God for us that apply to everybody. On the other hand, God also has a specific plan for each one of us, and that may require a little bit or a lot more time to discern.

    Let’s start off with a fact without which life is simply a farce: Human beings have free will as a gift from God. We can choose good or evil. We can do right or wrong. We can receive reward or punishment in the afterlife. Yes, there are mitigating circumstances for our actions. All of us are conditioned in hundreds of different ways. We are limited by being created. We are hampered by the effects of original sin. However, none of that negates our ability to accept or reject God’s will for us. He created us free, made in his image and likeness. We are not puppets on a string; rather, we are called to embrace the will of God for us as a liberation that leads to the joy of heaven. And on this journey God promises to give us all the help we need to achieve our final destination.

    The Catechism tells us, “By faith, man completely submits his intellect and his will to God. With his whole being man gives his assent to God, the revealer. Sacred Scripture calls this human response to God, the author of revelation, ‘the obedience of faith.’”

    Given that the virtue of faith is necessary for salvation, what is most important for us as Christians is to imitate Jesus Christ. He is the exemplar of how to follow the will of God the Father perfectly, even under the most extreme pressure known to man, the Passion and Crucifixion. Again, the Catechism tells us that the Son of God, who came down “from heaven, not to do [His] own will, but the will of him who sent [Him],” said, “Lo, I have come to do your will, O God.” From the first moment of His Incarnation, the Son embraces the Father’s plan of divine salvation in His redemptive mission: “My food is to do the will of Him who sent me, and to accomplish His work.”

    So we have a free will and the virtue of faith, and we want to imitate Jesus Christ. Where do we go from here in order to know God’s will? Well, the most obvious answer is to do what the Lord told the rich young man: “Keep the commandments.” They are our road map to heaven. The Catechism tells us that “the Decalogue contains a privileged expression of the natural law. It is made known to us by divine revelation and human reason.” Simply put, through both reason and faithful acceptance of divine revelation, every human person can know the basic principles of behavior as they relate to God and neighbor. We also know that God gives us the grace to live the commandments, which are the truth that makes us free, enabling us to grow in our love of God and neighbor. This is the essence of the two great commandments: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind and you shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

    So we have the basics down. But we need more, and God has provided it through the Catholic Church He founded to sustain us until He comes again. The most important helps of the Church are clearly the sacraments. Each one gives us God’s grace (His help and friendship) as needed in the journey through life with its ups and downs, its tragedies and triumphs.

    However, we want to know the will of God for us. The sacraments strengthen us to follow that will, but the roadmap for living the virtuous life during our journey to the Father is Jesus Christ. We learn about His life in Sacred Scripture, most particularly in the New Testament, which is the authorized biography of the Lord written by the Holy Spirit. Because the will of God for each one of us is the imitation of Christ, we will want to read and meditate on the New Testament daily and examine our conscience according to the standard of Christ’s life. I also recommend guided regular spiritual reading. Use a trusty notebook, journal, or PDA to take notes that you can bring to your prayer time or discuss with your confessor or spiritual advisor when you meet.

    Catholics also have the examples of the men and women who have best imitated Christ through the centuries—the saints that are our role models and intercessors. And among the saints almost certainly there are some that “speak” to us in a special way. (Disclosure: After the Blessed Virgin Mary, my Mother, my “favorite” intercessors are Blessed John Henry Newman, Blessed John Paul the Great, St. John Mary Vianney of Ars, and St. Josemaria.)

    Another indispensable means for knowing the will of God is quite simply to talk with Him about it. This we call prayer, without which we cannot be saved. The problem with many of us is that we are great talkers and poor listeners. Jesus Himself in His human nature communicated frequently with His heavenly Father, as we witness in the Gospels. He prepared for His public ministry with a long retreat of prayer and fasting, and during His public life He repeatedly took time, whether alone or with His apostles, for prayer and recollection. All of us can imitate Him in this respect by finding time to speak with the Lord at least 15 minutes daily, ideally before the Blessed Sacrament. There we can open our heart and soul to discern His will for us both in long- and short-term matters. In addition, monthly mini-retreats and yearly silent retreats of several days should be standard. And why not bring several friends along, so you can help them grow in friendship with the Friend who has made all the difference for you in living a joyful life while preparing for the next? Surely that is part of God’s will for you on earth.

    One more crucial aid for finding God’s will is a spiritual director who can serve as your spiritual life coach. I have written at length on this topic elsewhere, so I will not belabor it here. Suffice it to say that we all need expert and loving advice from a devout and experienced man or woman, lay, priest, or religious, who can serve as a guide to God’s will for us in the big decisions we need to make at critical junctures and also in less important matters. Few canonized saints lacked a regular director and/or confessor.

    Rarely, God speaks to people directly in clear, supernatural ways, including locutions, inspirations, apparitions, etc. However, normally we need a human “interpreter” to translate for us.

    And that brings us to the most ordinary and perhaps the most painful and challenging way of discerning God’s will, and that is in our ordinary life as faithful members of His Church! The Catechism of the Catholic Church tells us:

    Hence the laity, dedicated as they are to Christ and anointed by the Holy Spirit, are marvelously called and prepared so that even richer fruits of the Spirit may be produced in them. For all their works, prayers, and apostolic undertakings, family and married life, daily work, relaxation of mind and body, if they are accomplished in the Spirit—indeed even the hardships of life if patiently born—all these become spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. In the celebration of the Eucharist these may most fittingly be offered to the Father along with the body of the Lord. And so, worshipping everywhere by their holy actions, the laity consecrate the world itself to God, everywhere offering worship by the holiness of their lives. (901)

    Could it be clearer? Yes, you with your unique DNA, with that spouse and children, that occupation, that education from that town with those virtues and faults, with that good or bad health, that intelligence or lack thereof, with those likes and dislikes, are called to embrace all this as the will of God for you. He loves you unconditionally as His son or daughter. The only thing He does not like in you is your disobedience. But even then He loves you so much that He will forgive you immediately when you make an act of contrition or a sincere sacramental confession. And it is His will (if you want) for you to spend eternity with Him in inexpressible joy that “neither eye has seen nor ear has heard.” All this should make us the happiest persons on earth, even when He asks us at times to make up in our own suffering what is mysteriously lacking in the suffering of Christ.

    If all this has not helped you enough in coming to know God’s will for you, pray daily the prayer of Bl. John Henry Newman:

    God has created me to do Him some definite service; He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another. I have my mission—I never may know it in this life, but I shall be told it in the next. Somehow I am necessary for His purposes, as necessary in my place as an Archangel in his—if, indeed, I fail, He can raise another, as He could make the stones children of Abraham. Yet I have a part in this great work; I am a link in a chain, a bond of connexion between persons. He has not created me for naught. I shall do good, I shall do His work; I shall be an angel of peace, a preacher of truth in my own place, while not intending it, if I do but keep His commandments and serve Him in my calling.

    Go and spread the Good News!

    Tagged as: heaven, Holy Spirit, Jesus Christ, New Testament, reason

    The views expressed by the authors and editorial staff are not necessarily the views of
    Sophia Institute, Holy Spirit College, or the Thomas More College of Liberal Arts.

    Print this   |   Share this

    Rev. C. J. McCloskey III

    By Rev. C. J. McCloskey III

    Fr. C. J. McCloskey III is a Church Historian and a research fellow of the Faith and Reason Institute in Washington, D.C. After and while earning a degree in economics from Columbia University, he worked for two major firms on Wall Street. Visit his website at www.frmcloskey.com.

    More from Crisis

    • Tony Esolen

      Thank you, Father C. J.! A blessed New Year to you and yours.
      By coincidence, visiting at my sister’s house last night, I picked up Dr. Bernard Nathanson’s autobiography, The Hand of God. It was written about 15 years ago, and Dr. Nathanson, who had worked with the pro-life movement for ten years or so, had not yet entered the Catholic Church. But he opens his final chapter by saying that he had been having conversations for five years with a priest of Opus Dei – and that would be the good Father C. J. McCloskey.
      One thing that comes from the book is the wonderful way in which God can fashion good out of our evils. It does not justify those evils. It does not even allow us to assert that we or the world are the better off as a consequence of God’s bringing good out of our evil. We aren’t allowed to dwell in the land of “would have.” But still, to see the transformation of a man like Bernard Nathanson – to my mind, that’s like being at the tomb in Bethany when they unwind the shroud from Lazarus.

    • Richard C

      I recently listened to podcasts of the show you did for EWTN, ‘Newman in the Year 2000′. or somthing to that effect. Greatly enjoyed it. Can’t bring myself to find a spiritual director, though.

    • Sarto

      Pretty good stuff. But it does amuse me to see conservatives in love with Newman. Conservatives despised him in those days and cherry-pick his teaching today. .

    • Tom

      Hi Father

      Thanks, this is interesting. Like you said, God asks us to follow his two commandments. For us lay, I don’t think this is rocket science, or deep theology. As a parent, it means taking care of my children, my family, as well as people around me, to be faithful to my Catholic Faith. Just with that, I can tell you, if I truly do it well, I have my hands 150% full.

      In the three Bible passages, that are nearly identical (Matthew 19:16-24; Mark 10:17-25; Luke 18:18-25), Christ puts the young man to the test to see if he will follow the first commandant, it seems to me. Christ essentially asks the young man to demonstrate unconditional Love of God. Presumably the man was not married (“young” implies not married). For those of us that have, or plan to have families, this means giving it all to the family, neighbors, through living faithfully the sacraments, scripture, and the rosary.

      In the bible, the word “poor” means exclusively material poverty, unless it comes with an adjective, like “poor in spirit”. Christ asks the young man 1)to help the materially poor, by sharing the wealth, 2) more importantly, he asks the young man to become literally materially poor (not in the abstract), as a first step to spiritual growth and freedom to serve God.

      Unfortunately, the word “poor” has been twisted over the last century. Escriva’s says (The Way):

      “632 Rather than in not having, true poverty consists in being detached, in voluntarily renouncing one’s dominion over things. That is why there are poor who are really rich. And vice-versa.”

      It seems that statement is more inspired from Spanish Civil War Orwellian double speak logans, rather than from the Bible.

      That is not the way Christ defines “poor” in the Bible, it seems to me. Christ never asked the young man to be poor “by detachment, in the abstract”, he asked the young man to become literally poor. This is clear. But according to this “new poverty”, ‘I am poor” as long as I am “not attached” to my Lamborghini, that I show my “heroic detachment” by writing a big fat check to OD, and follow my SD’s “path to holiness”.

      Which brings me to a second concern in your piece: “spiritual direction” of lay. I agree that there is a long tradition of spiritual direction in the clergy, in monasteries, with the Saints (in particular those that past mustard with the Office of Promoter of Faith, that was unfortunately abolished in 1982, in time for Escriva’s beatification).

      Over the last ½ century, New Catholic movements, like yours, have used a recently introduced expanded concept of “spiritual direction” for lay. However there are some real concerns. For example, just a few weeks ago, a member of OD wrote a letter to Mark Shae (why is he no longer with Crisis magazine?). This member expressed concerns regarding Bishop Finn to his spiritual director. He was concerned that internal OD directives ordered members to only say good things about the Bishop. Soon other people knew what the member had said. The only way this could have happened is if the spiritual director broke confidentiality.

      The new guide for confession and spiritual direction issued by the Vatican is particularly unclear when it comes to spiritual direction for lay. Contrary to the part for priests, I could not find instructions about the need for confidentiality. This guide also downgrades the very necessary need for formal prayer for lay, by quoting Escriva’s often contradictory instructions on prayer. In this quote he says that “everything can be prayer”. No, “everything” is not prayer. Christ (God himself) did not retreat to the desert to pray for nothing.

      The concern is that 20th modernistic movements like OD, LC/RC and others use this new ill defined form of “spiritual direction for the lay”, not so much for the benefit of the lay, but more to the benefit of the movement. “Spiritual directors” are often under pressure themselves to “hit targets” in recruitment, fund raising, retention, dismissal etc.. “Lay director” (or other euphemisms used like “counselors”) often receive no training. Plus lay members are often pressured to join various forms of “spiritual commitments” or “contracts” to live in what is de facto a monastic life, but without the benefit of 2000 years of precedence and canon law protection. Again, this goes against what Christ says. He instructs not to make “vows” or ”oaths” willy nilly. In these settings “spiritual direction” often can lead to spiritual abuse, based on numerous personal witnesses, both in OD and LC/RC. In LC, strict spiritual director driven “obedience” to numerous rules under strict “vows” was one way Maciel used to hide his perversions. I am no fan of SSPX, but I agree 100% with their criticism of Catholic movements like yours.

      What is sad, is that even with the Legionnaire spectacular debacle (Maciel copied Escriva’s methods), there seems little effort for true reform, to prevent these new forms of abuse: spiritual abuse in lay movements, often by “spiritual direction” (in the name of “God’s will”). Such psychologically coercive “one size fists all” approaches can leave scars for years, if not decades. But no one seems to care in the Church, as long as fresh recruits and $$$ come in, under the guise of this false, abstract “poverty”. This is compounded when there is an underlying component of mental health problems in some recruits, as is bound to happen (10% of the population is affected). Such people (the truly “poor in spirit”) are rejected by movements, because they are of no use, because they become a burden. Their true families are left to pick up pieces for year. JP2 apparently said that the opposite of Love is not hate, it is use.

      I am not saying all is bad, spiritual direction can be great (I do it with a priest in a traditional order) but I think it is better to leave families alone. If lay want to be more engaged, mechanisms that respect individual’s conscience could be established, based on lessons learned from mistakes, without psychologically coercive methods, a la scientology. But this has yet to happen. Unfortunately for now, the lure of easy $$$ from “Movements” is just too great.

      I hope and pray that you will become be an instrument of Love, and reform your movement. Please pray for my family.

      Happy New Year.

      PS: please don’t reply “OD is great, what you are saying just comes from the 80% disgruntled few, read John Allen’s book”

    • Sarto

      Just looked at the two “resolve to…” articles. Handsome bearded men in each picture. Is that one of the requirements?

    • Tom

      Addendum

      Pardon, should read:
      “It seems that Escriva statement is more inspired from early 20th century Spanish Civil War Orwellian double speak slogans, rather than from the Bible.”

      In fact, Escriva’s redefinition of “poor” is the exact opposite of what Christ says to the rich young man, because, according to Escriva’s new “radical” religion:

      1) There now is no need for the young man to share wealth with the materially poor, since they no longer exist. The only “real poor”, are those that are “detached”.
      2) The young man does not need to let go of any physical possessions, as long as he “thinks” that he is “detached” from them.

      So according to these falangist/Vichy/Ayn Ran “Catholics”, one is on a SD directed “path of holiness”, as long as one is “detached” from one’s mansion, servants, Lamborghinis, and as long as one keeps these big checks coming to the Movement….and as long as one send one’s kids to become “consecrated lay” members in one of their money farms.

      This is why I think readers should stay clear of “spiritual direction” offered by 20th guru inspired movements. Those are parallel churches that take faithful astray from 2000 years of scriptural based tradition (Opus Dei was defined by St Benedict as meaning formal prayer, plain and simple, why change this?).

      What Escriva and his followers are doing is just as bad as the worse of Liberation Theology, who also tried to redefine poverty, in that case to serve a world view of “sociological justice”.

      There are plenty of ways to serve the Church. God’s will for us lay is very simple, and spelled out quite clearly in the Gospels: is to follow His 2 short commandments: To Love Him and Neighbors. That is all. To do this well will keep us lay plenty busy all our lives. There is 2000 years of Saints to read from. No need to read Catholic Movement Guru little Red Books, under the watchful eye of a movement appointed SD, that assures us that we are following “God’s Will” especially after writing big checks. The Church had this problem before the reformation, with the Jesuits during Louis XIV (e.g: Tartuffe). Now we have OD, LC/RC, Neocat etc..trying to commoditize “Holiness”, so they can garner more $$$ and “influence” for themselves. No thanks.

    • wayne

      Hello all and happy new year. When you use the word church, you mean it to say the catholic church, as if it was gods body. The church, is gods body, the body of the saved, the born again. Its a mistake to think god only works thru some organization, and organization with men in costumes who go to man of god schools to become men of god. The will of god is in the scriptures.

    • Sam Schmitt

      @Tom
      “That is not the way Christ defines “poor” in the Bible, it seems to me.”

      Well, I guess St. Thomas More couldn’t really have been a saint since he didn’t give away his manor house and his fine clothing. And how about St. Gianna Molla – she lived a comfortable middle-class lifestyle as a doctor. How about Bl. Karl of Austria – a multi-millionaire. Or maybe your interpretation of the Bible on this point isn’t quite on the money?

    • Tony Esolen

      We dealt with this one back in the Middle Ages. The followers of Peter Waldo, hence known as Waldensians, abjured private ownership of property. When the Church leaders condemned that doctrine, the Waldensians went further and dissociated themselves from the Church. Shortly thereafter, Francis founded his order; and it’s notable that Francis, who was wedded to Lady Poverty, nowhere demands that laymen follow him into material poverty. That isn’t a requirement of the Church, as Francis saw, and it isn’t a requirement of Christ. Saint Paul nowhere says that followers of Christ must give up all of their material wealth… I don’t intend to give an apology for material wealth, but in a strange sense it is precisely those who demand material poverty who are basing their justification upon material works rather than grace. The same may be said of the carnal imaginations of those who insist upon universal celibacy.

    • http://www.patrickomalley.com Patrick OMalley

      Explain the “elephant in the room” that Catholic can’t see.

      If Pope John Paul II believed that the Lord challenges with: “Sell what you have, give to the poor, and come, follow me”, then why was he buried in a pair of $5,000 shoes. Those shoes could have prevented 25 children from starving to death that year.

      Why does the pope live in a $1.2 billion complex and wear $100,000 hats?

      Why does the church refuse therapy to the victims of child rape in the church so that it can save money despite the fact that it is the richest private institution on the planet?

      Why is the real truth so unimportant to the congregation?

      • John Zmirak

        “Surely, Lord, this oil could have been sold and given to the poor.” Thus spake Judas. Thus speak the Judases of every age.

    • Tom

      Listen folks, I am not a trained theologian, I just read what is in the Gospels. The story of the rich young man continues with Christ expressing his love for the young man. So even if the young man backs away from Christ, Christ will not abandon the young man. Indeed, Christ shows us in that He can come back later in life, in the example of Zacchaeus, where something similar happens, but this time the rich man is older, and a habitual sinner to boot. This time, it is the rich man that shows his willingness to follow Christ, by saying that he will give ½ of what he has to the poor. Christ does not say “no, this is not enough”. Those are parables, the point is that in both cases, we are asked for significant commitments. We are not asked to become men in barrels with britches.

      But we are not called to do Yoga either, that all will be ok…..and that we will be “holy”… if only we just “detache ourselves” from the “world”… but like just ”in the abstract” while we actually keep all we have exactly the way it is… hum…or as long as we do x, y, z and write a big fat check to the movement (“Will of God”)……under SD. This is modernistic 20th century autistic spirituality, imho.

      The point of both Gospel stories, to me, is that Christ calls us, through out our lives, to see suffering around us, to show some level of companionate, as part of our expression of Love of God. Also by sharing other’s burden, this helps us better understand who we are and our relationship with God. This does not need to be money. For many of us this would be just too easy, whip out the credit card, call the number on the screen. This can also mean time.

      Instead, we now have movement directed “self mortification” or “minutia rule following” (like cutting bananas with forks in LC), as an only means of “true suffering”, “charity” and “obedience” (again under “SD”). This is a convenient, autistic way out, because this (falsly) absolves us from the need to see and share suffering of others around us, and actually can detract us from following God’s two commandments. Also, it conveniently numbs our feeling of guilt, as clearly demonstrated in this great study from Australia.[1] But hey, all this is good as long as recruits and $$$ flow in.

      For me, there is nothing “ordinary” in our daily interaction with those around us. There is nothing “ordinary” about raising a family. Love is never “little” nor is Love ever just a “thing”. “Chocolate making” is not a means by it self, if it is not to help one send one’s children to school, or make a convalescent relative of a customer happy. There is nothing “ordinary” with spending a family night together, playing risk or monopoly, instead of going on a week night to listen to the latest power point presentation on Garza inc. (sorry, LC/RC) plan for world domination. Or assiduously study the multivolume ‘60s style Kiko “secret” catechism. All this under “SD”, of course.

      Nor is there nothing “ordinary” with helping a parish set up aid for pregnant teens, so they don’t abort. Nor is taking time to kneel and pray to ask God for strength and Grace, just merely like “everything” else in life. Yes, this can be at times painful and difficult, but it will certainly make us stronger and closer to God. At least that is the way it looks to me. Peace!

      1. Brock Bastian, Jolanda Jetten and Fabio Fasoli. Cleansing the Soul by Hurting the Flesh: The Guilt-Reducing Effect of Pain. Psychological Science 2011
      http://www2.psy.uq.edu.au/~uqbbast1/Bastian%20et%20al%20Psych%20Science%202011.pdf

    • Alecto

      I wish I could be so confident as to believe that God has that special plan for each of us, but I don’t. It seems to me the plan is the same for everyone: salvation. If He’s that busy, or cryptic, or distracted, no amount of prayer, fasting, listening and reflection is going to reveal it. Plus, He must know how impatient I am! I cannot believe that God is that cruel. I cannot accept a God who would tell us, “Guess what I want you to do for me. Oh, and by the way, if you guess wrong, or are not paying attention, it’s hellfire and damnation for eternity!” Falls a little flat?

      It’s difficult enough to keep the commandments let alone try to figure out the mind of God. At least He must have a laugh or two watching us stumble around in the dark.

    • Tony Esolen

      Some very strange comments here … Alecto, nobody, nobody says that a failure to discern God’s will for us is mortally sinful. We try, we fail, sometimes we succeed; and no matter what we do, our free choices are comprehended in the Providence of God. There isn’t any such thing as “busy-ness” with God, or distraction. That’s to conceive of God as a Big Creature, which He is not. He is, as Saint Augustine well puts it, closer to us than we are to ourselves.

      The charge that the Pope lives in luxury is grossly unfair. First, the Vatican doesn’t belong to Joseph Ratzinger. It belongs to the Church, in the first instance, and then also to the world. If the Vatican sold away the great paintings in the Vatican Museum, to appease for a time the boundless hunger of lawyers, what good would that do, for mankind generally? Then all that heritage of art would pass into private hands, scattered here and there across the world, to be shown, if at all, at hefty prices in fancy museums. How would that be a good thing? Right now, anybody can visit — and if I’m not mistaken, there are times when admission is free (admission is generally very low).

      Second, it’s one thing to be surrounded with great art, and it’s another thing to live like a sybarite, which Joseph Ratzinger does not. I’ll use a baseball analogy here. In the 1970′s, Steve Carlton was in better physical shape than anyone in the game. He used to jog — sunk to the waist in a vat of dry rice. Players would say that nobody went along with Carlton’s regimen, because nobody else could take it. I’d like Pope Benedict’s detractors to try that man’s regimen of prayer, fasting, and self-giving (in audiences, in visitations, in sheer work) for one or two weeks, and then tell me that the man has it easy.

    • Hugmimmer

      AMEN, a hundred times over.
      Eugene Smith

    • Hugmimmer

      AMEN, a hundred times over.
      Eugene Smith

    • Robert E.Crowe,Jr.

      God bless Fr.John!

    • Robert E.Crowe,Jr.

      God bless Fr.John!

    • pamelanak

      Good to know there are some sane people left in the auld country. Unfortunately they arent in charge of anything but themselves.  Still it’s a small comfort nevertheless.

    • pamelanak

      Good to know there are some sane people left in the auld country. Unfortunately they arent in charge of anything but themselves.  Still it’s a small comfort nevertheless.

    © Copyright 1982-2012 Crisis Magazine. All rights reserved.
    Website design by Perceptions Studio.