Episode 3 - Surrounded by a cloud of witnesses - Blessed charles de foucauld & susan ruiter

Surrounded by a cloud of witnesses. One witness born into a French society in the 19th century was raised by aristocracy. A gift of comfort and pleasure that led him to military service where he enjoyed the chivalry and the life that he was actually introduced to in the African desert. His heart fell in love with the Sahara but he also was in love with the pleasurable things. His girlfriend and his social life. His drinking and hanging out. His parents died at a young age and he was left with a great fortune and instead of doing that taking that fortune and doing great things he lived for himself. However, living for himself left his heart longing for something else and in a return trip to France to Paris having lacked faith and pretty much stopped his practice of the faith, he yet had questions and so he went to the church of St. Agustine in Paris and asked the Priest Father Huglen some questions. And that day when he went to the church Fr. was in the confessional and he came up to the confessional and said father I had some questions. Fr. said, kneel down and I'll hear your confession. He said well no I don't have faith I just have some questions and he said kneel down and I'll hear your confession and by God's grace he knelt that day and as his heart overwhelmed with the things that he had done, he became untangled from sin and the presence of God entered his heart and mercy helped him rise and begin again and as he did he began a journey that he never could have seen right away but his heart was moved to give his whole life in service to God to pray that others would come to know Him and as he went through a particular journey he went to Nazareth desiring to live the life of Jesus and there he lived with an order of nuns and yet his heart remained restless looking for something more and that something more came when he moved back to Africa and he lived among the Muslims there recognizing that his presence carried the presence of Jesus and so in their midst was Christ. Christ who lives and moves and breathes in him. Eventually, his life was taken there and in this world nothing of what he desired came about but his readings were found after he died and what came about has been the flourishing of many many religious orders and thousands of people who have come to find his way and his way is the way of Jesus. I grew up in the North end was a charter member of the Cathedral. I graduated Cathedral grade school and O'Gorman High School. I spent most of my life teaching special education. Iam now retired and in the process of trying to figure out where God wants me to go with my life and I've had kind of a strange experience happen to me. It was two winters ago. I went to a real really bad depression and I just I didn't know what was wrong and I just simply couldn't find myself I couldn't find peace. I couldn't find relaxation or anything so I sat down in front of the television set and I sat there for eight hours a day watching I can't remember the name of the series about the guy who made the blue *** in his trailer and it went on for four years and I sat there every day watching for years worth of this series and when I got over with I thought to myself what have you done with this time? You've just wasted it watching this terrible awful sinful four years worth of you know killing and crime and drugs and everything else just because it won so many Academy Awards and everybody said it was fantastic and you have to see how it ends and I thought I can't believe I just did this so anyway it happened to be it was about Advent time and I just I just could not find any peace and I happen to pick up this book that I had gotten a Goodwill it was called AConversation with God and I tried to read it about three years previously and just could never get into it. I started reading it first day of Advent and I I thought wow this is really an interesting book. Now why all of a sudden it clicked with me I don't know but I started reading it and things in it just started making me think you know something is wrong with my life you know something is really missing and then it kind of went on to talk about purging yourself of things learning to live a simple life and that made me start thinking and all of a sudden on death thought to myself I think I'm a Shopaholic so I told my brother about it and he said yeah you could be so he sent me different websites to go and visit and some books and I started reading them and like I told father I said I saw myself all eight examples of myself in that book I said I was every kind of shopaholic shopper that there was and I had an excuse for every reason for everything I bought and I just I just sat there I was really just awestruck that I thought my life has been about all this materialism and always fixing things. I mean I love to decorate and do stuff and be creative but I thought what I buy it and I fix it up and it looks good in a year later i'm tired of it so I sell it on a garage sale and I buy some more and this is a vicious cycle that I've lived in all my life and I just thought this just gotta end I mean it's just got to end so then I kept reading my conversations with God and decided I've never read the Bible so on the first of January I thought I'm going to read the Bible this year so I sat down by the time I read for you know whatever I will felt like getting through in the Bible and my conversations with god I then desired to go buy a prayer book which had never had since I was in high school and so I went to Hurley's and I looked for red leather one that was just like the one I had in high school and it doesn't exist but anyway I got that book and I found a lot of prayers and one thing just led to another until finally I just thought you know I have to give this all up completely so I just just made up my mind I thought I'm moving on so I decided to put my house up for sale. I had eight garage sales that summer. I sold everything I could possibly sell. I was even selling patio furniture in the December blizzard before I moved. But it was so unburdening to get rid of that stuff. I mean it was just I was like waving goodbye and see you around because I'm glad you're gone and it just it was just wonderful but once I got moved in I realized hadn't sold quite enough so i'm still purging but it's still a good feeling. I mean I don't have sadness. I'm not upset somebody will say but that was your mother's and I said yeah it was but it's just like my things they're going to end up somewhere someplace I can't take them with me. You can't take anything with you to heaven but your soul and that's what I'm seeking now is that I want eternal salvation with Jesus Christ. No strings attached. I just want to be ready to go when he calls me and I don't want to be tied to anything down here. I'm in the process of a life of unburdening and opening up to Christ. May St. Lambert intercede for us. Our Lady watch over us and our Lord and savior Jesus Christ reveal himself to us and when he does may we change. (MUSIC)