How
I Met the Home - Andrew Krische
Boulder, Colorado
United States
22 years old
 My path
to the Home began in my senior year of High School, with
the beginning of my conversion. The weight
of my sins and the false way I was living had brought me
into the dumps of depression. I experienced a great
emptiness in my life, a disorder and dullness which many
people experience because of sin and worldliness. I
had conformed myself, in spite of my formation in the faith,
to the way the other kids in my school were living. Along
with their friendships and the new orientation I was giving
my life came sins and vices which ensnared me and set me
on a path of degeneration which became unbearable in my
senior year. It led me even to contemplate suicide,
a plague among the youth of today. The realization
that such a thing would offend God prevented me from ever
following through with the idea. That in itself was
a very great grace.
I began to look for a way out of the misery and unhappiness
I was in and God showed me the way largely in guiding me
to choose Ave Maria University for college. I applied
to many very large schools such as Gonzaga, USC, Loyola Maramount,
and St. Johns/St. Bens, all of which I got into with some
kind of scholarship. I was planning on going to a big
school with lots of options, lots of other students, nice
campus, etc. and I was looking to get a degree in architecture
or something similar so I could get a good job and
make good money. However, my Mom was pushing for me
to look into Ave Maria. She was also praying for me,
along with my aunt (my godmother). She knew to some
degree that I was not happy and that something was wrong
in my life, though I often masked my miseries and
was able to hide a great deal of what was going on.
At first, I blew off the idea of going to a small new Catholic
school in Florida. However, my cousin visited Ave Maria
and brought back pictures from his trip and told me more
about the school, all of which helped me become more interested
and softened me to the idea of going there. I applied
at the last minute to Ave Maria and was accepted, but it
was certainly still the underdog in my final decision. However,
soon before the deadline to decide which school I would actually
attend I received a special grace: I experienced
at a certain time the loving presence of God the Father and
his hand guiding me to choose Ave Maria. I
then made the choice with a great peace and joy, knowing
that going there would be best for me and that it would help
free me from the situation I was in.
After the school year had ended and summer was nearly over, I
reached a point in which I knew for certain I could not break
the chains of my sins by my own power , even though I wanted
to free myself from my habits more and more. I then
prayed one night in my room that God would free me from the
vices which held me imprisoned, and I asked this of God knowing
that He could do it and with a great trust that He would. This
happened just before I left for Ave Maria, and when I did
I was freed from my worst vices in a very sudden and miraculous
way which astonished me and gave me a great joy and
a new zeal for life. God liberated
me from my deepest enslavements and renewed my heart in a
way that was one of the greatest steps in my conversion.
I still spent my freshman year at the University and making
many mistakes, but I was freed from the worst of my sins
and I was being purified. Especially important for
me during that time was discovering St. Augustine and reading
his Confessions, which encouraged me and inflamed
my heart to continue on the path God wished to take me. By
the end of my freshman year I was given the grace to realize
how tattered my soul still was, with so many passions, desires
and attachments pulling me this way and that and preventing
me from acting as I knew I should. I could not give
of myself or act in a virtuous way. I realized this
in many ways, but especially in the short relationships I
had with some girls during that year.
Guided and strengthened by the Holy Spirit, that summer
I set about gathering myself together. I especially
sought the love and help of God the Father. I
did this in particular because I grew up never knowing my
real father. Although my Mom married when I was ten years
old, as a child I had lacked very much the love and instruction
of a father, which I realized was very important for
me in becoming a true man and Christian. During that
summer I was guided by the Holy Spirit to advance slowly
and patiently, yet as quickly as I could without stumbling,
along the way of prayer, virtue, and life in greater conformity
with God. I also made an important commitment
to God going into that summer: to do whatever He asked of
me and to go wherever He directed me after he had helped
me through this stage in my life.
As the summer came to a close God began to lead
me more and more clearly along the path to joining the
Home as a brother and priest. During the
end of the summer I was sitting or lying down in my basement,
on my couch, just resting, when I realized that God might
really be calling me to the priesthood. I
reacted by saying first silently and then out loud, "No,
no, I won't do it," or something to that
effect.
I was even tossing and turning on the couch because I felt
the call in a very real and  distinct way and I feared it. However,
soon after that experience when I came more to my senses
I was able to let go of my fear and I gave the possibility
over to God with trust in his goodness. I
then began to experience a very profound peace in being a
priest and I was given interiorly to know that God
would make up for my great deficiencies and weaknesses.
At
the end of the summer I also began to desire more and more
to wear the brownscapular. Yet for somereason
I felt I should wait and be invested in the brownscapular
when I got back to school. When I did return to Ave
Maria, I was invested by Fr. Colum in thebrown scapular,
which I believe was a small but beautiful sign of God guiding
me ultimately to the Home, of which I knew practically nothing
at that point. After I was invested I then received
a tremendous grace of being struck with awe by the promise
of Our Lady through the brown scapular and her great protection
and love. In thanksgiving, to obtain the Sabatine privilege,
and above all in a desire to honor Our Lady I began to pray
the rosary every day, particularly to Our Lady of Mount Carmel. Through
these rosaries which I prayed in the chapel on my knees,
I began to grow very close to Our Lady and they bore great
fruit in my soul.
Around the same time I met a girl who was new at
Ave Maria She was beautiful physically, but far
more importantly she was a virtuous young woman and had
many beautiful qualities. Following my own attraction
and the influence of my friends I began dating her, which
lasted at first only for a month because I began
to experience waves of anxiety and darkness as a result
of this infidelity to God's will in my life. I
have never before or after experienced anything like them. They
became unbearable and I broke up with her to discern
my vocation, although I already knew it wasn't to marriage
but to the priesthood, and most likely the religious life. Around
the same time, I began to attend the retreats put on by
the Home of the Mother at Ave Maria and Fr. Colum became
my spiritual director. However, I did not reveal
to him everything which God had done in my life and some
of the great graces I had been given, largely because I
had turned my back on them. As a result of
this, my own false rationalizations, and a lack of etachment
I ended up getting back together with the girl after three
months. This was a further infidelity which
would later cause me, as well as her a great deal of difficulty
and suffering.
Soon after I began dating her again, a strong desire
to be a religious began to trouble me. She
too was affected by this and sensed it though I did not
tell her about it except for one time. A struggle
ensued that would lead me to a great dullness and confusion
in my prayer and my spiritual life. After over a
year of going out with her withmany ups and downs, I
attended a Holy Week encounter with the Home which would
be very important in helping me find my way again. I
entered the retreat with a strong desire to do just that
and at the end of it I joined the Home as a lay
member because I had learned more about the Home by that
time and I saw it was the perfect fit for me. When
I joined I experienced the presence of God and Our Lady
confirming this step and emboldening me to go further,
that it was not yet enough.
Not too long after this my girlfriend and I broke up because
of difficulties we had been having and because I was recognizing
I was called down a different path. I am deeply grateful
to her for the way she handled the break up with grace, wisdom,
and strength. I know too that the Lord is already rewarding
her for her fidelity and openness to His will. Following
this, during the summer of 2007 as I was preparing to visit
the community in Spain, I began to pray and reflect a great
deal upon God's grace in my life and saw that everything
was pointing me to the Home, that this was my vocation, the
true purpose of my conversion. Everything
was leading me to this. I then joined as a candidate
when I went to Spain for the ordination of Fr. Henry and
Fr. Dominic. I give thanks to God for calling
me to form part of the Home. My vocation is
a tremendous gift of His mercy and my path to true happiness
in this life, but most importantly the next. It
is His work and may His most good and holy will be fulfilled
in me and in us all.
©HM Magazine No. 142 May/June 2008 |
