Breakfast with Fr. Gary

a Cozy place for a meeting with a priest

 Now my wife becoming Catholic will not be a quick affair.  OCAI (Order of Christian Initiation for Adults) will be a year-long process. OCAI will probably start sometimes in the fall. (Despite the publication date of this post, in "real time" when I am writing this, it is actually a week before Christmas.) That means she won't be Catholic until Easter of 2027 so she sees no reason to rush to speak our Pastor. 

I, however, wanted to not wait that long.  You see, attending Mass with my wife helped me put my protestant parish is sharp contrast to Liturgical Worship.  As much as I love the people in my protestant parish, I do not find it easy to participate in the worship service.  The songs are too emotional and, sorry to say, vapid (at least to me, anyway) - my boredom in the service is what prompted me to get involved in the "production" end of the service. That is, I operate the Video camera for the Livestream.  I fear that years of doing this has made me quite complacent in my spiritual life.  But attending Mass with my wife has reawakened my yearning for Eucharistic centered Worship and I want to become a member of the Orthodox Church sooner rather than later.

That means a sit down with my Pastor to explain what is going on. I offered to talk to Pastor Del on my own and speak for the both of us but Karen rightly said that Pastor Del has been our Pastor for over 30 years and deserves a face-to-face conversation.  So we decided we will make an appointment with him after Christmas. 

In the meantime, I wanted to speak with Father Gary to let him know what is going on. I knew that Father Gary was on Vacation, so I thought I ought to reach out to him to request an appointment for when he came back.  All this happened right before Thanksgiving, in the midst of the Nativity Fast so I wrote the following in an email to him:  

Father Gary responded quickly with this witty reply:

Hardy, Har, Har! I love a priest with a good sense of humor.  (And, no, I had real turkey on Thanksgiving:) ) To show what good shepherd Father Gary is, basically, as soon as he returned from Vacation, he didn't wait for me to contact him but rather shot me an email asking when we could meet. I recommended IHOP but he thought a place recommended by one of his parishoners was a better place to go. Sandy's Cafe turned out to be a cozier place.  

I like the small town vibe of this place

We sat down and Fr. Gary ordered a plain everything Bagel, toasted and dry and a black coffee. Even though I wasn't keeping the fast, I ordered a tea with honey and an English muffin with jelly.  I told Fr. Gary the reason I suggested IHOP was because that is where we first met to discuss my longing to enter into the Church.  (See Orthodoxy or Bust!: Breakfast in the morning ~ 35th visit in the evening! to read about that meeting) I told him about my wife's journey and her pull to Catholicism.  I then mentioned that she had said if I wasn't going to convert to Catholicism then I needed to become Orthodox because, how could I live without the Eucharist? This, of course, was a drastic change from my last meeting where I honestly had to say my wife was not on board with me becoming Orthodox.  Fr. Gary went on to say he wasn't surprised how the Holy Spirit worked in the lives of people since he's seen it all the time. He went on to say that my period as being a catechumen wouldn't have to be a long time, especially since I have been attending the parish, off and on since Pentecost Vespers in 2010. I told him I knew a lot of the doctrine of the Church but needed to learn how to live the day-to-day life of an Orthodox Christian.  He said it would be good for me to go through Great Lent before I was received into the Church.  

So all that remains is for my wife and I to sit down with our Pastor and explain to him how we have to leave the church.  I know it will not be an easy meeting. He has been our Pastor for 31 years and he has always been a faithful witness to the Love of Christ, exemplifying God's love in his words and actions.  But I am not sure he'll understand and know he will be very upset.  Lord, have mercy!

Of your charity, keep us in your prayers.