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Jeff Gares

My childhood had kind of a difficult start to it. My biological father died when I was fifteen months old, and my mother re-married a year afterwards. For some background information my mother came from an emotionally abusive home, and during my childhood she was unable to provide me or my siblings with the emotional and spiritual formation that we needed due to the fact that she was dealing the pain of abuse in her own past, and the added pain of losing her husband and an infant daughter. My stepfather also had issues of not being able to control his temper, and would rage towards my mother which created an environment that was not conducive to providing the children with the security and love which young ones so desperately need. My earliest memories were memories of being abandoned, and feeling unloved. I had every material need met, and exceeded , but I thought that I was unloved because I was unlovable. So by the time I reached my teenage years I went looking for love in all of the usual places. I started having sex at the age of fifteen, started drinking heavily on the weekends at the age of seventeen, started viewing pornography, and became addicted to it during my teenage years. I do not know how many times I was drunk and underage, and got in a car and drove. I know there were several occasions I woke up the next morning and did not remember my drive home, but found out that I did indeed drive home. Also abound this same time frame; I began to experiment with the Ouija Board. I do not remember any specifics about this experimentation, but I am sure that it had untold spiritual and emotional consequences. Shortly thereafter I began to experience a darkness wit in me, a depression, a very deep depression. I was not possessed by the devil, but I was extremely oppressed by him. I had done all of these things by the time I was seventeen, and I had even had a Catholic Education from 1-8 grade, but God was not real to me. I had to experience great darkness before God would ever become real to me.

When I was 18 years old in the fall of 1994, I got a taste of mortality in experiencing the loss six young people in a manner of one month in two fatal car accidents. One of those young people was one of my best friends, and another, Chuck was a good friend of mine too. Soon after their deaths, my mother gave me a Saint Gertrude card with a prayer that promised to release a certain number of souls from purgatory every time it is said. Well needless to say at 18 years old I really thought that this was a bunch of crap, so I placed the card on my bed stand, and I did not think any more of it. Until one night approximately 3-4 months later, I had laid down and fell asleep. That night in my dream, Chuck appeared to me in my dream and he said only two words to me; “help me.” Well somehow I instinctively knew what he meant by this. Somehow I knew that he was asking for prayers, so every night after that for the next several weeks or months I prayed the Saint Gertrude prayer for the holy souls in purgatory. Then one night Chuck came to me in a dream again, and he spoke only two words; “thank you.” This was one of my first experiences that told me that maybe there was something more to life than the material. I went through 8 years of Catholic School, and several of the sacraments, and to be honest I thought Jesus was something like Santa Claus. I thought that God was a nice story to tell to make sure children stayed on the straight and narrow. This dream awoke something inside of me that maybe there was a spiritual realm, but it would be several more years before I was ready to give up sin, and begin to live my faith.

I would like to tell a story that played a strong role in my conversion back to Christ and His church. Several years ago, around the year 2000, I was living in Kansas City, MO, and from the outside things really looked good. I had just graduated college, I had a decent job, a beautiful girlfriend, and several good, but very crazy friends. However, over the years through my persistence in sin (primarily sexual sin and pride), and from very deep wounds that I had carried since childhood. I was an extremely angry young man. I was mad at my parents and I could not bring myself to forgive. I had developed a huge hole in my heart. My soul was sick, and I was stone cold dead in sin. They say that the definition of hell is separation from God, well I was living hell on earth. I was extremely depressed, angry, fearful, in a state of despair, but I did not know at the time what the problem was. I was scared to live and scared to die. All I know is that I could not see any light, only darkness. During the year 2000 I worked for a wellness and cardiovascular clinic in Overland Park, KS. At that time the clinic was promoting testicular cancer and early detection of it. Well one night I decided to give myself a self examination, and I found a lump on one my testicles. Well this scared me to death, because my father and two uncles had all died of cancer in their teens and twenties, and it had always been one of my biggest fears. In fact I just always assumed that I would be dead before I turned 30. Needless to say the next day at work I had our physician take a look, and he indeed recommended that I have a sonagram. I went home that evening and I was scared to death. I really thought that I was going to die like the rest of my family. I remember lying in bed that night, and suddenly a scripture verse popped into my head. The scripture was what Christ said in the Garden of Olives “Father if it is possible let this cup pass me by, nevertheless, not my will but Thine be done.” I lay in bed and I repeated this scripture verse over and over again. Keep in mind that I had really never prayed, usually when I did it was to get something that I thought I needed at the time (pass a test, get a girl, etc.), and I had also prayed or my friend Chuck during my “semi-awakening.” For several more days I thought about that scripture verse. Then one day something quite extraordinary happened to me. It was a singular event, fleeting but powerful. A day or two before my scheduled sonogram I was set to personal train a particular client (besides working in the clinic, I also personal trained clients at the adjoining fitness center). This lady came in the fitness center, and we went upstairs for our training session. I asked the lady to please take a couple of laps around the gym to get warmed up. She agreed, and she set off on a brisk walk around the track. However, before she set-off on her warm-up laps she turned to me and said “I am going to pray for you as I walk around the track.” My initial reaction was “Okay fruit loop, you pray for me.” So the lady set out walking, and when she came back she asked me, “ Do you know what the Lord told me? I was thinking to myself, “Okay nut bag what did the Lord tell you. Then I said sure, tell me what the Lord told you. She replied, “The Lord said to tell you Peace, everything will be alright.” Well this jarred me. I could not believe what she had just said. Even though it was a pretty general statement the comment certainly got my attention. Looking back on this event now I know that comment meant much more than I would be alright physically, in retrospect I believe that the comment was probably somehow directed at a coming conversion although it would take a couple of more years to get there. To this day I do not know if this lady was crazy, an angel, or if God really did talk to her on that track. What I do know is that God used her to touch this hardened sinner when I was in a state of despair and hopelessness.

Well over the next year, not much changed in my life (besides knowing that I did not have cancer). I knew that I did want God back in my life, but I wanted him there on my terms. I wanted God to be there for me when I needed Him , and on my conditions. At that time I did not understand that God cannot help you if you are unwilling to stop sinning. So from 2000-2001 I persisted in my pre-marital sex, pornography, artificial contraception, drunkenness, and whatever other socially acceptable sin there was. At that time in my life I had one foot in hell, and one foot on a banana peel. So I continued to wallow in my misery. I was still stone-cold dead in sin, but I had become very comfortable living this way, and I was also scared to give up sin. Every time I felt a hint of guilt for my many sins, I would quickly suppress it and continue on. My conscience was not completely dead, but a few more years of living in sin may have killed it. My conscience was not formed to the authentic teachings of the church so most of the time I was able to continue in my sinful lifestyle without much resistance. However, the deeper I fell into sin the more desolation and despair I felt. I was choosing hell on earth, and if I did not change my ways I was going to end up choosing hell for all eternity. During this time, Satan was constantly telling me that my sins were not really sins. He was telling me that it was okay to watch pornography, it was okay to engage in pre-marital sex, that it was okay to live with my fiancée before marriage. I had no problem buying into these lies because I had no idea what the truth was. I was a very, very ill formed Catholic. My conscience was formed to whatever secular society deemed was okay, and that is a very dangerous thing.

Fast forward to September 11, 2001, a date that will live in people’s minds forever. The events of September 11 disturbed me obviously, but more than that I began to question just exactly what was going on. I began to question what the meaning of life was, and what would happen to me if I were to die in a sudden tragedy. What would be my eternal fate? During this time I was still very much living in mortal sin, and I really did not know where to turn. One afternoon as I was driving home from work, I heard or felt the word Medjugorje in my heart. (Medjugorje is a place where the blessed virgin Mary has been reportedly appearing since 1981). Any way at that exact time I happened to be driving by a Barnes and Nobles book store, and something or someone prompted me to go in and look for a book on Medjugorje. I went into the bookstore, and I purchased the one and only book on Medjugorje. It was titled Medjugore: The Message, and it was written by Wayne Weible. This book saved my life. I went home and I began reading it right away. As soon I read the first few pages, somehow I knew that it was the truth. I did not just read this book, but I consumed it like it was life. The messages that she was giving there rang true to the very depths of my soul, and I almost instantly knew that I had to try to give up sin. The messages of Medjugorje are 1) Pray from the heart, the rosary. 2) Confession once per month. 3) Mass, as often as possible. 4) Scripture. 5) Fasting/and or penance. These were the keys to gain salvation. These were the keys to conquer personal sin and sin on a global level. So for the next several months, I began to pray the rosary every day. Also during this time period I had gotten married to my wonderful wife Emily, and I was struggling enormously with a couple of different issues. First issue was that I was addicted to pornography, and it had a very serious hold on me. It seemed no matter how much I prayed I could not break the addiction. The second issue was that I was trying to justify using artificial contraception in my marriage, even after I had learned that using the pill can cause very early abortions to occur. For the first couple of months of my marriage Emily and I used the pill and other forms of contraception, and I continued to fight a losing battle with pornography. Finally, I began to pray my rosaries each day with the intention of knowing the Truth. A couple of weeks after I began to pray for this intention, I knew that I could no longer continue to use contraception. I told my wife that I could not do this anymore, and that I would like to try the NFP. My wife agreed even though she had just become Catholic, and she had a very liberal catechesis course. And do you know that as soon as we stopped practicing artificial contraception and began using NFP, I believe God’s grace filled me and I was able to leave my pornography addiction without any help or counseling. God’s grace penetrated my soul because of the virtues that NFP enabled me to practice such as; chastity, patience, obedience, and charity. I have also heard it said that you can either, pray the rosary, and give up sin, or you can stop praying the rosary and continue to sin, but it is impossible to do both. I believe that Our Lady obtained God’s grace for me through the rosary to accept the church’s teachings in full, and this was my first step to growing spiritually. I came to know that without obedience I could not grow spiritually and I could not move closer to God. Our world tries to distort the truth of obedience. The world tells us that obedience is a weakness. However, when I looked at the life of Christ, I saw that he was obedient to people as well God. His entire life was centered on obedience. He was obedient even till death. Once again, God infused me with the knowledge that spiritual growth depends on obedience, and as Catholics we are called to be obedient to Christ and his church. I came to understand that there is no need for discussion on certain topics for Christ gave us the Pope to be our visible head. For Christ said to Peter, the first Pope, “Peter you are the rock, and upon this rock I will build by church, and the gates of the nether world will not prevail against it. Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. I came to understand that the Truth has been given in fullness to the Catholic Church, and it is an Objective Truth, not subjective. The truth is not something; it is somebody, Jesus Christ. I came to understand that in order to be a faithful Catholic I had to learn to accept the church’s teachings without compromise.

Besides obedience, another key to spiritual growth is perseverance. Soon after Emily and I were married, things began to turn around for me. I was praying daily, trying to attend daily Mass, going to confession once per month, etc. I was feeling pretty good about myself, I think I began to think of myself as a saint already because I was doing these new found religious things with such great zeal. Spiritual Pride started to build. I remember being able to pray what seemed like for hours all while receiving great consolations in the form of warm fuzzy feelings. I really thought that, “Wow” this praying stuff is great, I feel great. Then one day, something happened, and it came on all of a sudden. I had to undergo an almost unbearable crisis of scruples, (scruples is thinking that there is sin where there is no sin, constantly worried about receiving communion worthily, worried confessing everything in confession, worried about eating too close to communion, etc.) Out of the blue I was thrown into such mental and spiritual anguish that words cannot even explain. I continued to pray every day, and tried to get to Mass, and confession but these only added to my anguish because I would constantly obsess over minute details of communion and confession.

This trial lasted almost three years. I remember one night, a particularly excruciating night, I was in such great turmoil that I remember wanting to just give up this spiritual journey and return to my old ways. That night when I fell asleep, I had a dream. I was taken to Calvary, and I was before Jesus on the cross, and Jesus was bleeding profusely from his wounds. Jesus did not speak in the dream, but it is as if he was saying to me, “I died for you, you must trust me, I love you, and I will not let you perish.” I also understood when I awoke the next day, that I could offer this terrible interior suffering to Jesus, and unite it with his suffering on the cross. So from that day on I offered all of my interior sufferings to Jesus in reparation for sins, and for the conversion of sinners. This trial lasted several more months before God finally removed it from me after I made my pilgrimage to Medjugorje. This trial was probably the most difficult thing that I have ever endured, but I emerged from it much more humble, and I experienced great growth in this trial as I abandoned all to God’s will and learned first-hand about redemptive suffering. Throughout all this I persevered in prayer, and God brought me through the Storm. I learned that we must persevere in prayer and suffering if we are to grow spiritually.

God did relieve me of my crisis with scruples upon making a pilgrimage to Medjugorje. Once I returned from that holy place, I no longer suffered from scruples.

Today I take an active part in the Christ Renews His Parish retreats. My message that I try to convey is that men must be the spiritual leaders of the family. Satan wants our children’s souls, and without a strong male influence in the family, he has an easy time with our children. Men must fulfill their spiritual duties, and duty starts with being obedient to the Church. We cannot give what we do not have. We must also pray every day with our wives and with our children. The most important thing that a man can witness to his children is being on his knees and praying. This makes a statement to them, and it provides them with security. If we do not take an active role in our children’s spiritual formation , then the world will form them, and destroy them. A great many father’s have dropped the ball in-regards to this issue, and I believe that the fruits are evident everywhere.