From Fear and Humility to Hope and Love

Canadian Catholic writer Michael Brandon reviews Beyond These Stone Walls. This blog from a wrongly imprisoned priest is a guiding light for many around the globe.

Written on the Feast of the Guardian Angels by Michael Brandon, Ontario, Canada

Once again, a blockbuster article appeared over at Beyond These Stone Walls, this one titled “Travesty of Justice: The Ordeal of Father Gordon MacRae.”  Every week I await the Wednesday morning posting on Beyond These Stone Walls, with some of the anticipation of a young child for Christmas, and every week I am not disappointed.  The gift given is always just what I needed, never too much and never too little. And it is probably so for many of the other readers of BTSW postings, and so it is a unique gift for each of us.

And isn’t anticipation of Christmas a good thing?  At that first Christmas we received the greatest gift mankind every received, the birth of Our Saviour; God became man for us.  And that gift too is unique for each and every one of us.  The same Jesus, the same manger, the same outward appearance, but he comes to each and every one of us where we are geographically and in our state in life.

The giving of gifts at Christmas was always meant to symbolize that greatest of all gifts, but has come more to mean conspicuous consumption.  But, the underlying meaning of Christmas is still there, even if hidden from the eyes of most. So, when we receive our weekly gift from Father Gordon at Beyond These Stone Walls, we are there too receiving the original intent of Christmas, the gift of Christ. In this particular case we receive the gift of Christ from an Alter Christus, a man ordained to bring Christ to us.

Yesterday our gift though was a little different.  It was a recounting of the case, life and trials of Father MacRae, by a very respected leader of the laity in America, Dr. William Donohue.  If you have been on the BTSW site, or have come across articles or books by Ryan A. MacDonald or Dorothy Rabinowitz to name two of many, you have had access to the story of cruelty and manipulation that resulted in the false imprisonment of Father MacRae.

The available information on his case is voluminous, and with the different perspectives of the various writers focusing on particular aspects of the injustice of it all, and official documents, it is a challenge to put into a single perspective.  However, Dr. Donohue does just that and for that BTSW readers should be grateful.

Dr. Donohue highlights the confluence of evil that was required for our friend and priest Father Gordon to end up behind bars in such an incongruous set of lies, deceptions, hatred, greed, and malevolence.  The devil is in the details, and in this case we can see the devil in the details.

For further reflection we have the words of Saint Bernard an abbot and the author of the Memorare prayer.  Saint Bernard, like Father Gordon was a lover of Our Holy Mother.  In the Office of the Readings for September 10, we find that he wrote:

“The whole of the spiritual life consists of these two elements.  When we think of ourselves, we are perturbed and filled with a salutary sadness.  And when we think of Our Lord, we are revived to find consolation in the joy of the Holy Spirit.  From the first we derive fear and humility, from the second hope and love.”

Father Gordon did not commit the crimes for which he was placed in prison, in no large part because they never happened.  But, he is a sinner like you and me.  Our Lord knew who he was, and also how he, like you and like me, is the very apple of His eye.  He has allowed all that has happened to Father Gordon to occur for His Glory, in ways we cannot understand, in ways that are way above our pay grade.

I do not know anything about the depth of Father Gordon’s spiritual life before going to prison, but I read and see it becoming as deep as the ocean now.  He has been taken to the places of fear and humility; it is evident in his writings.

Father Gordon’s gift of himself to us each week comes from the same place as the gift Jesus gave to us in His Birth, but also in His Death and Resurrection.  That gift and every good gift emanates from the heart of the Father, and as God is love, so too these gifts are gifts of love.

Cherish the gift that is Jesus, and cherish the gift from his Alter Christus, Father Gordon as if it comes from the depths of the heart of Jesus, for it does.  The gift we receive weekly from Father Gordon MacRae is a sign of God’s love for us.

Transfiguration Behind These Stone Walls

By Michael Brandon | Freedom Through Truth

August 6, 2014

Today is the Feast of the Transfiguration.  It commemorates the day that Jesus took three of His disciples up on the mountain, believed to be Mount Tabor, and there, in an instant, was revealed in all His Glory before them, or at least as much as they could stand to see and live.

This happened just days after He had said to His disciples that: “There are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God.”

Transfiguration means a change in form or appearance, or a metamorphosis.  Metamorphosis means a major change in the appearance or character of someone or something.

In fact, we are all called to change our form or appearance, to be conformed to Christ in us.  Where Christ in His Transfiguration was actually changed and it was visibly obvious to the three disciples present, our transfiguration is more like a very slow metamorphosis and as that, might not be as obvious to those around us, as that of Christ was.

But, if we look with the eyes of faith, we can see the transfiguration or metamorphosis of people of faith all around us, as they seek to conform or accept being conformed into the image and likeness of Jesus Christ.

We are created in the Image of God, and so except for the presence of sin in our lives we should be able to see the Kingdom of God present in each other, because we are told and we believe that the Kingdom of God is at hand.

So, it seems appropriate to me at least, that on the Feast of the Transfiguration, we are reminded of how a couple of men have been transfigured, though that transfiguration is not complete yet, maybe not as dramatically as Jesus was on the mountain, but changed from the inside out none the less.

Around this time five years ago, Father Gordon MacRae, a priest, wrongly imprisoned in New Hampshire for sexual abuse that was contrived by a supposed victim to separate the Catholic Church from some of its money began writing the blog that is known as “Beyond These Stone Walls.”

I did not see the beginning of this blog, but came across it about a year later.  So, though I missed the beginning, I have not missed the point, I hope.  In the years that I have followed Beyond These Stone Walls, I have seen the transfiguration of Father Gordon MacRae, and his trusty sidekick Pornchai Moontri, as they have chosen to grow closer to Jesus Christ.

Noting their Consecration to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, I have followed their lead, not because I am a sheep, particularly, but because I believe in it, and needed only a little prodding from brothers I have never met to take the step myself.

The Father Gordon MacRae who began this literary part of his own journey of faith is not the Father Gordon MacRae you read today, nor is Pornchai the same.  Both have been transfigured, and readers are the better for it, since we have before us a priest being a priest of God under very difficult circumstances, and a young man as his compatriot, who has fallen in love with our Lord and Saviour.

Father Gordon should never have been in jail, since he did nothing wrong, at least not in a legal sense.  But, I think that he, knowing that he is a sinner in need of the grace of God, knows like all of us, if we would be honest with ourselves and with our God, that our sin is so grave that we, in fact, deserve whatever befalls us, and that life is not fair, because the author of life has a plan bigger than our own personal comfort.

Pornchai, on the other hand might in some sense deserve to be in prison for crimes he committed, but there again, there is more to it than that.  Having read his story, I know that in the circumstances that I have read he was in, bearing in mind that whatever has been written is merely the tip of the iceberg, I might have done exactly what he did.  As well, I would likely have had the same feelings of abandonment, anger and hatred towards those who betrayed me.

But God conspired to use the evil around them to bring them together for His greater Glory, and so with their cooperation he is transfiguring them into His own Image and likeness.

Christ was and is perfect, so His Transfiguration could happen in a fraction of a second.  We, unlike him carry the stain of original sin, and of our own sin, and so ultimately transfiguration for us is a lifelong journey. But transfiguration happens in us more rapidly when we are committed to God’s plan for our lives, and when we do not let the stone walls in our lives keep us from the love of God for us, and which we are to share with our brothers and sisters.

Father Gordon and Pornchai have committed to do God’s will in a most unlikely venue, and that both blesses all who read Beyond These Stone Walls, and also encourages us, who most often are in better circumstances to amend our lives and conform ourselves to God’s plan for each of us.

If Father Gordon and Pornchai can tear down the figurative stone walls that surround them, even in the midst of literal stone walls, can we not do the same?  The stone walls in our individual lives, disease, unemployment, poverty, woundedness in our relationships are very real, but must they possess us, or can we take the example of Father Gordon and Pornchai to heart, and accept these trials as part of God’s plan for our own transfiguration?

Pray for Father Gordon and for Pornchai that they will be faithful to the calling that God has put on their lives, but pray also that they will be an example to us of what faithfulness to God looks like, that we might follow their example.

The Parable of the Prisoner

By Michael Brandon | Freedom Through Truth

September 14, 2014

There once was a little boy, born in a far off land. While he was still very young, his mother left him and moved to a distant country, and he was placed into the prison of abandonment. And the Father wept for His little beloved.

The little boy was taken in by family, but was put to work at a very early age, and so received no formal education. He was placed in a prison of ignorance. And the Father wept for His little beloved.

After many years, his mother returned with her husband from a distant country and took the little boy away with her to the distant country where he did not know the language, the customs or any of its people. He was placed in a prison of fear and confusion. And the Father wept for His little beloved.

His step father was an evil man and sexually abused him. Though he tried to run away he was brought back to the home of his step father, where he was continually abused. He was placed in a prison of revulsion and anger.

Finally, he escaped and lived on the streets until one night he was involved in the death of another man. He was convicted of murder and sentenced to prison. He was first in a prison of remorse, sadness, and hatred, and then was placed in a prison of the body. And the Father wept for His little beloved.

He was moved from prison to prison from cell to cell. So, added to the prisons of his life thus far, his circumstances had placed him into a prison of loneliness. And the Father wept for His little beloved.

But, unbeknownst to him, another man had been sentenced, for crimes that never happened, to the prison where he was finally settled. This man was a Catholic priest, and even though he himself knew the prison of abandonment, he did not allow it to define his life and so he befriended the young man from the far off land, and led him to relationship with Jesus Christ. And the Father leaped for joy to see His little beloved on the path to freedom, the path for which He had sent His Son to bleed and die, and then to rise again.

As time passed, the young man and his priest friend consecrated themselves to the Sacred Heart of Jesus through the Immaculate Heart of Mary. They also discovered two very dear friends among the saints, Saint Maximilian Kolbe and Saint Padre Pio.

Under the protection of Our Holy Mother, the Blood of Jesus Christ and with the intercession of their dear friends the saints, the prison walls of both of their lives have been disintegrating, because they cannot stand against the virtues of Faith, Hope and Love.

This parable, like all parables is meant for each of us to ponder for we too have been placed in the prisons of our emotions by our circumstances, whether we were misled by others, or consciously took paths that led to these prisons. How we came to be in the prisons of our lives is far less important than how we can leave them behind.

You see, some of these prisons, the prisons of our minds are prisons that we have willingly entered in the hope of escaping the other prisons of our lives. But, exchanging one prison for another or adding another prison to our already tortured lives is not the answer.

Whatever the question, the answer is Jesus Christ. He was and is the perfect gift from the Father to you and to me, because He took on all our prisons and allowed them to be nailed to the Cross with Him. He returned them to their rightful place, Hell, and then He rose again from the dead.

Unlike most parables, this one is based on the true story of Pornchai Maximilian Moontri, and his mentor and best friend Father Gordon MacRae.

So, unlike most parables this one is before us every day for us to ponder, pray on, and then to accept the love of Christ, and the love of His Blessed Mother that has been bringing salvation to both Pornchai and to Father Gordon.

Let the Father leap for joy at your acceptance of His Son as your Saviour. Let the Father leap for joy as you give your heart to Jesus to repair and heal, and to Mary to love you as only a perfect mother can.

And turn to Beyond These Stone Walls and read as the parable continues to unfold.

First published by Michael Brandon at Freedom Through Truth, September 14, 2014.