I walked the hallway between the Montana Governor's Office and the Capitol Rotunda with the slow steps of someone who had been successful, but not successful enough. We'd just completed a bill signing for legislation that would help Montana's criminal justice system more effectively care and adjudicate offenders who live with serious mental illness.
It was a good win with results will help a lot of people; but I'd just spent the last hour with Michael Hendrix, one of the people whose story helped inspire the bill, and was reminded of how much more work there is to do. During the past few months, I'd attempted and failed at convincing the Montana Board of Pardons and Parole to grant him a pardon for the felony arson conviction he'd received after lighting himself on fire while under the grips of bipolar-induced hallucinations. While we'd been able to help others have a shot at achieving justice, I'd been unable to get Michael the justice he deserved.
I bumped into John Bohlinger, Montana's last Lieutenant Governor, in the hallway. We were catching up when another man came up to tell him hello.The guy looked familiar and he told me the same thing.
We searched through our collective memory banks and then hit me.
"You're Father Gregory. The priest who flunked me in Confirmation class back in high school."
"Flunked you?"
I smiled and said, "It wasn't your fault. I missed a couple of mandatory classes for court and community services. The second year was more than deserved, but I think I may be the only parishioner in the history of the Cathedral to fail Confirmation."
Gregory had left the priesthood and was now working as a mental health counselor with an AIDS Outreach program in Bozeman. We talked for a while and I promised to stop and see him the next time I was in Bozeman.
That night my wife and I took a class at the St. Helena Cathedral's education center to prepare for our son's baptism. I hadn't been in the education center more than a handful of times since taking Confirmation Class back in high school. The memories were still crisp as they played through my mind.
The second year of Confirmation Class, jokingly my red shirt year, was where my faith began to make the transition from the faith of a child to that of an adult. That spiritual development depended upon Father Greg's intelligent lectures that were never short on wit and sarcasm. He engaged everyone who listened and didn't hesitate from answering the hardest questions.
The following year, I would be halfway across the country at West Point - relying on that faith like never before. It's been almost two decades and, more often than I'd like to admit, I still feel like that teenage kid trying to grasp the basics of what this life is all about and what we are supposed to do in it.
Neither Greg or I ended up being quite the people we'd envisioned. The act of living, loving, and following our individual spiritual paths led to a reality both more complex and simple than what we could have imagined in the early 1990's. The winding path continues to wind. As the Catholic mystic Thomas Merton said, "Any vocation is a mystery, and juggling with words does not make it clearer. It is a contradiction and must remain a contradiction."
The mystery of our vocations may be unavoidable, but the clear burden remains to use that vocation and all of our time on earth to fulfill the test of righteousness that Jesus said must be fulfilled to enter Heaven in Matthew 25: 34-40.
"'Come you who are blessed by my Father. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you at the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me'
Then the righteous will answer him and say, 'Lord when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? When did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? When did we see you ill or in prison, and visit you?'"
Jesus will respond. "'Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for these least brothers of mine, you did for me.'"
NOTE: Please take a moment and send a message to Governor Steve Bullock asking him to pardon Michael Hendrix. Michael was convicted of felony arson for lighting himself on fire while he was in the grip of mental illness-induced hallucinations of worms coming out of his skin. He's since recovered from his mental illness and is working as a peer specialist helping other. Unfortunately, he still bears the burden of the felony on his record.
It was a good win with results will help a lot of people; but I'd just spent the last hour with Michael Hendrix, one of the people whose story helped inspire the bill, and was reminded of how much more work there is to do. During the past few months, I'd attempted and failed at convincing the Montana Board of Pardons and Parole to grant him a pardon for the felony arson conviction he'd received after lighting himself on fire while under the grips of bipolar-induced hallucinations. While we'd been able to help others have a shot at achieving justice, I'd been unable to get Michael the justice he deserved.
I bumped into John Bohlinger, Montana's last Lieutenant Governor, in the hallway. We were catching up when another man came up to tell him hello.The guy looked familiar and he told me the same thing.
We searched through our collective memory banks and then hit me.
"You're Father Gregory. The priest who flunked me in Confirmation class back in high school."
"Flunked you?"
I smiled and said, "It wasn't your fault. I missed a couple of mandatory classes for court and community services. The second year was more than deserved, but I think I may be the only parishioner in the history of the Cathedral to fail Confirmation."
Gregory had left the priesthood and was now working as a mental health counselor with an AIDS Outreach program in Bozeman. We talked for a while and I promised to stop and see him the next time I was in Bozeman.
That night my wife and I took a class at the St. Helena Cathedral's education center to prepare for our son's baptism. I hadn't been in the education center more than a handful of times since taking Confirmation Class back in high school. The memories were still crisp as they played through my mind.
The second year of Confirmation Class, jokingly my red shirt year, was where my faith began to make the transition from the faith of a child to that of an adult. That spiritual development depended upon Father Greg's intelligent lectures that were never short on wit and sarcasm. He engaged everyone who listened and didn't hesitate from answering the hardest questions.
The following year, I would be halfway across the country at West Point - relying on that faith like never before. It's been almost two decades and, more often than I'd like to admit, I still feel like that teenage kid trying to grasp the basics of what this life is all about and what we are supposed to do in it.
Neither Greg or I ended up being quite the people we'd envisioned. The act of living, loving, and following our individual spiritual paths led to a reality both more complex and simple than what we could have imagined in the early 1990's. The winding path continues to wind. As the Catholic mystic Thomas Merton said, "Any vocation is a mystery, and juggling with words does not make it clearer. It is a contradiction and must remain a contradiction."
The mystery of our vocations may be unavoidable, but the clear burden remains to use that vocation and all of our time on earth to fulfill the test of righteousness that Jesus said must be fulfilled to enter Heaven in Matthew 25: 34-40.
"'Come you who are blessed by my Father. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you at the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me'
Then the righteous will answer him and say, 'Lord when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? When did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? When did we see you ill or in prison, and visit you?'"
Jesus will respond. "'Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for these least brothers of mine, you did for me.'"
NOTE: Please take a moment and send a message to Governor Steve Bullock asking him to pardon Michael Hendrix. Michael was convicted of felony arson for lighting himself on fire while he was in the grip of mental illness-induced hallucinations of worms coming out of his skin. He's since recovered from his mental illness and is working as a peer specialist helping other. Unfortunately, he still bears the burden of the felony on his record.
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