“Licensed and Ordained”

from the June 2023 Catholic Connection

“I Am What I am By His Grace” 1 Cor 15:10

I am the son of a “Licensed and Ordained” Baptist Preacher from Mississippi and a good Catholic girl from the hills of Natchitoches Parish. He was the manager of the Paramount Strand Theater and she was the popcorn girl. I came along two years later. My baptism at two weeks old was my entire formal Catholic formation as a child.

Raised Baptist in Alexandria, Louisiana, I came to Monroe to attend Northeast Louisiana University. I met my wife, Janet. She grew up playing the organ for mass at St Joseph’s Parish, Monroe. When I proposed, my future mother-in-law stipulated a Church marriage. It was during marriage prep, Fr. Warren Larroque, told me I was Catholic.

I had always felt a call to ministry and considered several protestant denominations. Being Catholic put a hitch in those plans. I had never heard of Permanent Deacons.

As I discovered my new, yet lifelong Catholic faith, the Church was always there. Before he died, my father was in the hospital for almost a year, I remember the Catholic Priest who visited. When my wife became suddenly ill, it was the Sisters at Shumpert and Fr. Nguyen at Christ the King in Bossier who were there with me. Influenced by an awesome priest and community of loving believers, I made my first communion and confirmation in 1996.

However, instead of putting God first, I put myself and career first. I took a job away hoping my family would soon join me. Nothing followed my plan. Miserable and alone, I asked God if He had forgotten me. I pleaded with God to let me return to my family, “I will go wherever you want and do whatever you ask.”

God spoke clearly, “I am always with you.”

It was so clear I got up and walked around to see if anyone was with me. Within a week, a company I did not know called, interviewed, and offered me a job. Sadly, I soon began to give a worldly explanation to that conversation with God. I reasoned how my new employer found my name. That voice I heard was probably just my unconscious mind hearing what I needed to hear.

In2007, before emergency surgery on collapsed lungs, God sent a Catholic doctor to pray with me and over me as they prepared me for surgery. As I lay prostrate on my back in ICU with a ventilator for company, I heard the same voice. God asked, “Are you doing my will?” I had no idea of His will for me.

Soon after the Diocese announced a diaconate program was to begin in 2010. God called me to do His will in an expected way. God spoke to those around me. It was not priest or religious that God spoke. God spoke to the people around me. Several began asking if I had thought about being a deacon. One dear friend wrote Bishop Duca that I needed to be a deacon. To my surprise, the Diocese accepted me into the diaconate program.

I am not a genius. Study time would be hard to find. Money was tight for tuition. After every evaluation came the expectations of dismissal. It never happened. Money showed up to pay tuition as did the time to pray and study. Even my boss answered God’s call to the diaconate for the Diocese of Atlanta. Put your faith in God and God will provide.

St. Paul writes, "I am what I am by his grace. "I am likewise. On June28,2014,the son of a Baptist Preacher and a good Catholic girl lay prostrate before the altar at the Cathedral of St. John Berchmans in answer God’s call. Deacon Bill Goss, Our Lady of Fatima Parish, St. Lawrence Catholic Church, and Christ the King Chapel, ULM Catholic Campus Ministries in Monroe.