Friday, October 28th – celebrating the 10-year anniversary of my confirmation in the Catholic church!  

Today’s pictures can be viewed here. Today’s prayer intentions: Miriam Krupp, conversion of a friend back to the church. We also prayed for all those who have intentions to see family members come back to the sacramental life of the church.

Today was a cold, wet, rainy overcast day as we walked and celebrated the 10-year anniversary of my conversion into the Catholic Church.  It actually turned out to be a really great day, spiritually, for the fruitful time of prayer offering up the terrain and the weather conditions for the conversion of hearts.

I have been thinking a lot about the last 10 years. I think the Holy Spirit works similar to when you drop a rock into a pond. There’s the initial splash and then there are the concentric ripples outward. That seems to be the journey of many people’s lives, little conversions over time.

For me I consider that my mother baptized me Episcopalian as a baby. I had other conversion experiences in high school where I gave my heart to Jesus. Most of my teenage years and young adult life were spent in a non-denominational church where I was blessed to learn a lot about the scriptures.  Then in our 30s a major shift in our spiritual life as we entered a sacramental view of religious life in the Lutheran community. And then 10 years ago the culmination of this journey into the full sacramental life of the Holy Catholic church.

Today I’ve also been thinking about a certain pattern I’ve noticed in my life. Every 10 years something major happens. I go back to 1982 when I first met Lisa in 7th grade. She was my first love and the first girl I ever kissed. In 1992 we were married! Another amazing change my life! In 2002 we had our first major shift in our spiritual life when we began to search for the direction God wanted us to go from non-denominational to Lutheran.  We also began to plan for our move from NY to Florida which took place just months later. In 2012 I decided to research the Catholic Church and answer a lingering question, “why are you not Catholic?” It only took a couple of months before I became convinced of Christ present in the Holy Eucharist and decided to join the Catholic Church. 

Now 10 years later in 2022 so many changes have occurred! In June I was ordained to the permanent diaconate, in August Lisa and I celebrated 30 years of marriage, and now we are walking the Camino de Santiago for the second time in thanksgiving for all God has done!   I ask myself, what will 10 years from now bring? What adventure lies ahead of us!?

The day ended with us finding our hostel. A wonderful place run by a woman from the Netherlands. All of her menu is vegetarian which made Lisa very happy! The only challenge was our room was on a third floor, accessed by a staircase outside that was sort of like a spiral staircase. One last climb everyday seems to be the Camino tradition.

Even though it rained most of the day it turned out to be a great day overall. We prayed for many people we know who long for their family members to be reunited and active once again in the Catholic church. We prayed most especially for them to have an encounter with Jesus Christ.

As I end today I share the prayer from the liturgy of the hours and honor of saints Simon and Jude (Thaddeus).

Amen. Buen Camino ❤️🙏

Today’s pictures can be viewed here. Today’s prayer intentions: Miriam Krupp, conversion of a friend back to the church. We also prayed for all those who have intentions to see family members come back to the sacramental life of the church.