Yes, COVID shut down everything. I lost my company, everything closed, so they put me on unemployment and paid my mortgage and paid my utilities.
And so my dad left Florida, and I helped clean out his house. And the last day, his wife says, you know, all that's left here is your mom's, and it's gonna get picked up by salvation army tomorrow.
I called my buddy from college, and we got there with two trucks, and I brought home all my mom's history, into my house, here in St. Pete. And I found out my mom was Catholic.
So I went next door to the Catholic Church, 'cause I live next to St. Paul's, and the Lent was starting. And so I picked up a lent guide, and I was reading it in the Narthex.
I never knew what Catholic was. And that first day, walking over and picking up the Lent guide, Bonnie Condon saw me, and offered to help.
Oh, you know, Father Curtis just started over at Saint Raphael's, and he's starting classes. And I was like, classes?
That's what I need. I don't know how to pray. I need to learn what Lent is.
And she's like, yeah they have Mass again at 8am. So I got on my bike, and I went over there, and I went to mass, and then I walked out, and talked to Father Curtis: "I understand you're doing classes."
And he goes, Oh, here's a book.
It starts tomorrow.
And it was the ladies, like after their CCW meeting, where they started "The Nine Grades of Prayer" by Teresa of Avila. So that was the first class that I got into with the ladies.
And Mary was the one who... said something when we got to the ninth grade, and she said, “This happened to me,” and she described how she had that spiritual experience in her family.
And it reminded me, and just like now, you got me started on a story, and I get lost in my story. And that was why I needed to turn this on because Father Curtis doesn't like me getting lost in my stories.
So I got to be careful when I get into my stories. See, I've been talking only two minutes, so I'm doing good. And it's really important that I answer your question, right?
So that's how I became Catholic.
That's how I started in this church. And it was Father Kevin, during the second week in Lent that changed everything for me. I went to Mass at St. Paul's at 7, and I read my Lent Guide, and then I get to St. Raphael, at 8am. Yes, like I said everything was closed with Covid so it was okay for me to figure out what Catholic was. And everything was paid for, so all I had to do was ride my bike around.
I didn't have anything else to do. Company closed, COVID, everything was closed. And I started going to the churches, and doing the Lent, and the church, and the Lent, and the church, and the Lent.
Now I'm sitting in mass with Father Kevin, and he says what I highlighted on the page in my Lent Guide. So here, in front of me, was the page where I highlighted something about my mom in the Lent Guide, and there it was right in front of me, and Father Kevin said the same thing. And I looked at it, and I read it over again, and I said, Oh, wow, this is really neat.
So that's when I toke off my shoes. Because it's about my mom as I marked in my Lent Guide ... Each one, Teach one was what he said in his homily.
The Native Indigenous practice of "Each person teaching a person." So it's each one, teach one. And it was his homily, and what's really funny, is now I got pictures of the Lent Guide in my current Catholic lessons now.
You have heard of this guy. Have you done this yet ... done Saint Ignatius of Loyola.
Right, yeah, you know, this is the class I'm doing now. So it's really cool, it's funny because it's all connected.
It's all about Jesus coming through to us. Everywhere, and he's really getting excited, because we're starting to get our stuff together, and it's really wonderful, because we are ready to Live in the Kingdom of God.
So each one, teach one, and I wrote in a corner of my Lent Guide, that it was about sharing my mom's sermon. So... so she died of cancer, and I found out about all the... corruption, and that's what my first Welcome Testimony was all about. So the first one was about cancer, and how it's all made up by industry. It all about money.
So, back to the shoes, Father Kevin said each one teach one, and my mom's cancer experience that I went through with her. Oh, my God.
Showed me about the... grounding, this Native, traditional ways of healing. And that's what it was.
So I'm standing there in Mass, and each one teach one, when I'm in there, and I write on the margin of my prayer guide, All right, my mom's sermon. And I had to go tell him. So I took off my shoes, right there, in the church.
And I walked up to him, and I said, You know, thank you so much, because I gotta do my mom's sermon. And he says, What did your mom tell teach you?
And I said, Well, my mom taught me how to connect to our own deeper knowing, and it was so funny because he looks down at my feet, and he's like, Oh, you don't have your shoes on.
And I said, Yeah, and we're standing on this marble, and the energy just vibrates out in front of us. And he's, like, looking at it with me, and we both look up at each other, and everybody in the room is staring at us. And we're both, like...
It was just, like, Twilight Zone. And I'm like... Oh, my God.
And he's like, yeah, you gotta do your mom's sermon. And I was like, oh, shit. And so, the only time I preach is when somebody asks me why I'm barefoot.
So I got the whole story out for you now and recorded it. . . .
