My Life with St. Joan and St. Thérèse - Chapter 7 (Third Edition)
My Life with St. Joan and St. Thérèse - Chapter 7 (Third Edition)
I was miserable. I said the prayer again.
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Thirteen hours. That’s how long it would take me to reach the retreat site nestled in the Poconos, from my home in Gurnee, Illinois. It was July 16, 2006—a date that marked exactly twenty years since my consecration to the Virgin Mary in Guymon. The days of secretly leaving roses at the feet of Our Lady’s statue in the chapel of St. Peter’s were long behind me. Now, I was behind the wheel of my trusty 2003 Toyota Camry, cruising eastbound on Interstate 80 toward Pennsylvania. For the first time in years, I felt a strange but welcome calm—a determined calm, the kind you get when you know you’re finally taking the steps to freedom from the hell that’s been your life for two decades.
I said the prayer.
As dusk turned to night, I found myself outside Cleveland, navigating the intricate splits on the interstate. I was five, maybe six hours away from my destination, still needing to traverse the long, winding roads of Ohio and Pennsylvania. The Poconos, tucked away in eastern Pennsylvania, felt like they were a world away. But I was determined to drive straight through the night; I had no time for overnight stops at hotels. The retreat would start that evening, and the first session was early Monday morning. I had left home around three or four in the afternoon, waving goodbye to Josey, with no intention of stopping except for necessary pit stops and coffee refills. The momentum was there. I just had to keep going. Besides, I had always enjoyed long, solitary drives through the night. They reminded me of the early days of my marriage, when Josey and I would drive through the vast expanses of the Texas Panhandle.
Josey had just completed this very retreat the week before in Chicago. This was a six-day silent retreat led by a Vincentian priest, where no one spoke outside of morning Mass and the thrice-daily conferences. Participants would eat in silence, pray in silence before the Blessed Sacrament, and if anyone dared to whisper in the evenings, it was only to share a quick word before drifting off to sleep. Josey had called me mid-week to share her experiences, and I smiled at the thought. There was no way I would ever go on a retreat like that. But my amusement turned to dread when, at the end of the call, she expressed her desire for me to attend the same retreat the following week in the Poconos. She had even spoken to the priest, and he wanted me there, too. Panic set in. How would I get out of this?
That Saturday, I attended the closing Mass of Josey’s retreat with our ten-year-old son, Emery, and prepared to bring Josey home. I mentally cycled through every excuse I could think of: I couldn’t get off work (a lie), people don’t just up and leave for a retreat in another state (another lie), and we couldn’t afford it (yet another lie). But none of them felt like they would be enough. This was going to be tough.
I brought it to the Lord.
“Lord, if you want me to go, give me a sign. Not just any sign—make it big, something I can’t possibly miss. No subtle hints, please. I need to know.”
During Mass, as the priest began his homily, he raised a crucifix, and in that moment, my heart responded with a clarity I hadn’t felt in years. The thought struck me like lightning: I must go to this retreat. The Lord had answered my prayer—no subtleties, no ambiguity. I made up my mind, and twenty-four hours later, I was halfway between Cleveland and the Pennsylvania border.
With coffee in hand, I drove on; the night getting darker, and with it, my sense of desperation grew. How many times had I tried to escape my personal hell? How many spiritual and medical solutions had I sought, only to come up empty-handed? Would this retreat be just another failed attempt? If so, would I reach the point of no return, ready to surrender to despair? The challenge I faced was beyond human understanding. I had tried everything, including hospitalization, yet nothing had helped.
There I was, cruising at seventy-five miles per hour, alone on the highway, with a hopeful wife back home, heading into the darkness to reach an old, abandoned seminary just outside Philadelphia. My goal? To sit silently for a week with strangers, hoping, like Josey, for a breakthrough.
I said the prayer again.
The road ahead was barely visible now, the pavement swallowed by the night. I traced my path by following the red taillights ahead of me and the glaring headlights of oncoming traffic. I overtook a slower car, signaled to return to the right lane, checked my blind spot, and my thoughts drifted back to the last twenty years.
How hard those years had been. The extent to which my wife had been good to me is remarkable. How lucky I was to have a wonderful son. Yet, despite the joys, the Beast haunted me. The Beast ruled my life, ruining everything in its path. I wanted to kill the Beast, but every attempt over the last twenty years had failed. Instead, the Beast was killing me. Or was I the Beast? Was I destroying myself? Did it even matter? Either way, it needed to stop.
I said the prayer again.
I clicked the right flasher and took the exit to find food and fuel. It was around 2:00 am, and I was deep in Pennsylvania, determined to reach my destination. I needed to stay awake, and I needed more fuel.
Back on the turnpike, the world felt different in those early morning hours. It was now about 3:30 am, and I was nearing the end of my journey, sipping on what I hoped would be my last cup of coffee for the night.
I said the prayer again.
What had brought me to this point? How had I endured such relentless physical and mental pain over the years? Why did Josey and Emery have to suffer because of my suffering? What was wrong with me? No one knew. I had seen priests, psychologists, psychiatrists—anyone who might help. I had even spent thirty days in a hospital. The years dragged on, each one more painful than the last.
A quick glance in the rearview mirror was enough to bring a flood of memories. I had been a successful executive, with a promising career that led us from Guymon to Yale, then to New York, Connecticut, Texas, and Chicago. But as I pursued the high life—big paychecks, international travel, prestigious cocktail parties—Carmel, the spiritual home Josey and I had cherished, slipped away. We never made our final promise at the Carmel in Piedmont, Oklahoma. My devotional life disappeared, and there were Sundays when I couldn’t even muster the strength to take my family to Mass, too overwhelmed by anxiety and depression.
I was miserable. Though the Lord had always been faithful, I had been unfaithful. I had chased after false gods, and now I found myself in exile—in my personal hell.
I wanted out. I wanted out of hell.
I said the prayer again.
Even in my darkest hours, I wasn’t alone. Mary, Thérèse, and Joan were my constant companions, always by my side. I remember one night on a business trip, writhing in pain in a hotel room, both physically and mentally. Through the pain, I murmured, “I offer all my sufferings for offenses committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary.” Later, I wondered where that came from. How had I managed to say it? They were always near, interceding for me, helping me, and…
…cultivating.
Our Lady needed new, fertile soil for the spiritual rose she had given me in Guymon to take full bloom. We must break up the arid soil, turn it over, and beat it down with plowshares. The result is a new field, ready for planting, growing, and harvesting.
In Mary’s care, alongside St. Thérèse and St. Joan, my twenty-year life was being transformed. But it wasn’t easy. The work was painful—every cut, every dig, every pull hurt. But the more bountiful the harvest, the more painful the work must be. They were preparing me for a harvest beyond anything I could have imagined. But first, I had to endure the pain.
I said the prayer again.
“Holy Mother, please give me the Holy Spirit! You must give me the Holy Spirit!”
This was the prayer I repeated as I crossed the country. Our Lady had prepared the field; she planted the seed. My prayer was a desperate plea for something to burst forth, to grow, to relieve me of my agony.
I hit the brakes as I approached the exit at the end of the turnpike. After passing through the IPass lane, where a green light signaled that my Illinois electronic toll device worked even in eastern Pennsylvania, I found myself on a state road. Thirty minutes later, I turned onto a narrow county road. Two miles down, an old stone building came into view on a spacious property. I pulled into the long driveway and parked among a dozen cars. I was exhausted, having driven all night.
The front door was open, but the place was silent. I did not know where to go. Four different hallways led in different directions. I didn’t want to wake anyone, not that I even knew where anyone was. Across the room, I noticed a couch against one wall and immediately sank into its cushions. I had made it. This was the old, abandoned seminary that would host the six-day silent retreat.
It was 5:30 am on July 17, 2006—the day, the “one day” that had been twenty years in the making.
I rolled onto my side and fell fast asleep.
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