Lorenza to His Brothers and Sisters of Little Faith

By Lawrence Brooks

Lorenza shows how God can use a child of little faith to show His strength. Lorenza's book asks, What will you do? Will you repent of your sins and turn or return to God? Or will you remain in your sin and serve Satan?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Covenant Books, Inc.
• Release date: Jul 16, 2019
• ISBN: 9781645592181

Book preview

A Child’s Catholic Church Memories

My older brother was fathered by a Catholic priest in Bedford, Massachusetts. Due to this, my mother was disowned by her family. After she married my father, an atheist, she was excommunicated by this same Catholic Church for marrying an atheist, even though he gave that child his last name.

Forgive the Catholic Church,

for they know what they do.

They misplaced their anger

on this undeserving family.

Forgive the Bedford sinner

for allowing his desire

to lead him into temptation.

His sin affected many people.

Her four offspring never got

the pleasure of knowing

their grandparents,

aunts, uncles, or cousins.

It was forbidden by Mother

to even ask questions

about them, even their names

or about her as a child.

She had disowned them too. It was probably painful to talk about them. We’ll never know. Every month, she would receive a check from the Albany, New York, diocese: a payment to help raise my brother. She would send me or my younger siblings down to the mailbox to get it.

We were poor, so we looked forward to that money. It bought us kids candy and other goodies. It paid for us to go to the Saturday matinee. She would buy us all new outfits for Easter. She would take us to the Easter parade to show us off to all those Catholic well-offs.

That money helped pay for our Sunday family adventure trips.

Massachusetts

Plymouth Village

Treasure Island

Stoneham Zoo

The Amusement Park

Salisbury beach

New Hampshire

Six Gun City

Story Land

Santa’s Village

Maine

Pleasure Island

We went any place Father could drive to and back in a day; plus, we spent a lot of Sundays at Salem Willows beach and arcade and at Wingaersheek Beach. Anytime a carnival or circus came to town, we were there.

My mother, the ex-Catholic, was more a saint than a sinner. I hope my father will be given credit for some of the things he did. He never said a bad word to us about her faith. He didn’t complain about the kids being brought up Catholic.

I remember, once a month, he would drive her to Boston. He would wait patiently for about an hour and drive her back home. I remember a giant cross on top of a hill. It was the first thing one saw from Route 1A.

We would go to the top of the hill to a neighborhood of houses. Near the cross and near a large building was a large statue of a woman holding a baby. My mother would disappear behind a door at the base of the statue.

My father explained to us what little he knew. The neighborhood was close to an airport. Priests from other countries that use the airport stay at that big building. They have masses and confession in the church below the statue. She goes there to tell the priest her sins and to get a wafer dipped in wine. I guess even the church’s excommunication order couldn’t keep her from her Lord’s command, Do this in memory of me.

I know now it was Orient Heights, an Italian neighborhood in East Boston.

The building was the Don Orione Home.

And the statue was the Madonna Queen shrine.

My mother had all of us baptized at St. Ann’s Church. Our godparents had to be stand-in parents too.

My older brother made his first communion and confirmation. Now it was my turn to complete these initiation sacraments. In fact, I was past due my turn. I had held out for two years, refusing to go. I had this funny feeling I wasn’t going to be welcomed at this church, like my brother was. He was fathered by one of them, no matter how wrong it was. I was fathered by an atheist. I was the firstborn bastard son.

Anyway, I couldn’t hold out any longer. My younger siblings would make their first communion next year together. I didn’t want to be embarrassed being in the same class as them. This year’s Sunday school for first communion had already started. It was now or never. My mother was so happy I stopped fighting her and decided to go.

I went to Mass with my older brother. After the collection was made, he stood for the rest of the Mass. He had completed all three of the sacraments, so he no longer had to go to Sunday school.

I hadn’t, so I was led out of Mass by a nun along with the other children. Because of my age, she was confused of what class I was in. By the time she got me to the correct class, it had already started.

Oh God, though I enter this class not only late today but late to class.

Have mercy on me, God.

I am a day late and a dollar short: a saying of my father.

I may be the oldest tool, but I’m not the sharpest in the shed.

I hope you get my meaning.

All eyes were on me; I was scared. She had me sit in the back of the classroom at an empty desk.

They were discussing the Last Supper. The nun was explaining to us how the priest transforms the wafer into the body of Jesus and the wine into His blood. It reminded me of what my father said about my mother: She’s in there getting a wafer dipped in wine.

My hand immediately shot up. I needed to know why my mother and older brother wanted to do this. I needed to know why I would want to do this. I asked, Why would anyone want to eat the body and drink the blood of God?

All this red-faced penguin

coming down the isle

with a ruler in hand

was to say what you said

at the Last Supper.

Our Lord and Savior said:

Do this in memory of me.

Instead, she had me put out my left hand, the one I had raised, on my desk. She came down on my knuckles three times with the ruler.

Being the wise guy that I have always been, and frankly, I wanted to see if her face could get any redder, I said, All righty then. Why would anyone ever, etc. The class laughed, and her face did get redder. I thought she was going to explode.

Put both of your hands on the desk, you spawn of Satan!

She came down extra hard. Three times each on the knuckles of both my hands.

Leave my classroom, and don’t come back until you ask for forgiveness.

I knew it. They weren’t going to welcome me. I didn’t know what a spawn was or that the devil was called Satan, but I figured it wasn’t a compliment. Like, You’re so cute, you spawn of Satan.

Anyway, I quit going to Sunday school. I would fake putting the quarter in the collection basket. I leave with the nun and the other children for my brother’s benefit.

Once outside, I take off, go to the corner store, and use that quarter my mother gave to me to buy penny candy. Then I go to the playground, swing, and eat my candy until I got sick to my stomach. Then I go back to the school and wait until my brother came to take me home.

That worked for a couple weeks until my mother figured it out. I had to tell her why I stopped going. She grabbed my brother and left. According to him, they went to the church, and she let that nun have it. I guess she had it with them.

As far as I know, she stopped going to Orient Heights. My brother stopped going to church. My younger brother and sister made their first communion the next year. And at age fifteen, she talked me into being confirmed.

My mother had taken care of this deacon/usher’s (whatever the Catholic Church labels them) family while his wife was dying of cancer. She asked him to talk to the priest.

I was given a Catholic catechism to study and was tested on it. After passing the test, I was given first communion and was confirmed in the same day. The deacon stood in place of my mother.

I was already drinking alcohol and smoking cigarettes at age thirteen and smoking pot at age fifteen, and shortly after my confirmation, I got hooked on crystal meth (speed).

I had nothing to do with the Catholic church after my confirmation. When I was seventeen years old, I started hanging with a Jesus freak/preacher, but it was for his pot, not his God. My gods were drugs and getting high.

Chapter 2

An Adult’s Catholic Church Memories

I got drafted into the US Army in ’71 at nineteen years old. I was forced detox from the alcohol and speed while at the Fort Dix Reception Center. This was the place you start at before boot camp.

I was sent to TASCOM Headquarters in Worms Germany to finish my time in the service in ’72. When I got out of the army in ’73, I was a hash head and an alcoholic. I never went to church after I was confirmed or while I was in the army or after I got out.

I met this guy who had an endless supply of black beauties (speed). It didn’t take long to become addicted to speed again. He had a record collection (one thousand) that put mine (three hundred) to shame. I started hanging out there, listening to music, and getting high.

Eventually, he started playing a music series he was creating on reel-to-reel tape called Ancient Heads. To make a long story short, it was the way he was worshipping his lord, Satan.

When I found out what it was, I became sick to my stomach. I was so ashamed of myself that I had contributed to this abomination. That nun was right. I was a spawn of Satan.

I ran out of there, went home, got the family Bible from my mother, told her I didn’t want to be disturbed, went up to my bedroom, and prayed.

God, please forgive me for my sins against You and please help me to understand the words written here in this Bible.

I kept saying this prayer over and over. I think—I thought—because he wasn’t accustomed to hearing me pray that maybe I should keep on saying it.

Was that a prayer from Lorenza?

No, it’s gone.

Wait, I think I hear it.

Nope, gone again.

Wait there it is.

Nope, gone again.

Eventually, I read that Bible from cover to cover and every word in there. I read every begat this person and begat that one in all the Old Testament. I read all 150 psalms and 31 proverbs. I read every footnote to help me understand. I read the minidictionary in the back of the book and even studied the maps.

I read most of the OT while I was detoxing from alcohol and speed. What I thought about this God of the Israelites was, I feared him. I was looking for a God that loved people. Instead, I found a God that gave His people strict code of laws; and when the people fell short, He destroyed them or punished them. I hoped the New Testament would show me a kinder, loving god. It did in Jesus Christ, but His Father, which He was one with, was the God of the OT. I didn’t or couldn’t understand how Jesus Christ could judge the unbelievers into an eternity of hell when His Father blinded them so they couldn’t understand His message. When I read Revelation, I became totally confused.

In the Gospel of John, he talks about Jesus Christ being the Word that was in the beginning, one with God the Father, and was the Word that the Father created everything by.

After reading Revelation, I wondered if Jesus Christ hated his creation (heaven and earth) so much that He destroyed it, or was it necessary so that a new heaven and earth could come into being?

Anyway, I put the family Bible back in its honored spot in the bookcase. I ate until I couldn’t eat anymore and then went to see a priest at my old church. I told him I had a lot to confess, and I began to read from a list of my sins. I didn’t know what one did in confession, only that my mother participated in them to confess her sins, so I began.

I took the Lord’s name in vain hundreds of times. I can’t even count the number of times I’ve lied, stole or cheated.

But I’m sure it’s in the thousands.

My son, stop right there.

Instead of reading from your shopping list of sins;

Why don’t you tell me what brought you to the gates of hell

And what you want our forgiving Lord to do.

So I told him about the alcohol, drugs, and Ancient Heads. I told him about reading the Bible cover to cover and my thoughts about the God portrayed in it. And I told him about the empty feeling I had inside. I felt I wasn’t worthy to be loved by God, if he was a loving god. The bottom line was, I just wanted to be loved.

I wanted to know what it felt like to love.

My family didn’t express love to one another. There were no hugs, no I love you, not any type of affection. I just didn’t know if I could receive love or give it. My only attempt of falling in love was with a girl in my teens. That ended in disaster.

He told me about a couple who were members of a Catholic program called Marriage Encounter and was involved in the Charismatic Movement. He made a telephone call to them to set a time and place to meet them. He made the sign of the cross toward me and told me that God forgives me. He told me when and where to meet them.

They took me to a prayer meeting held at a nun’s house at another local Catholic church. One of the nuns wore a modern-day uniform, but the other two had on the traditional black-and-white ones. I had chills going through my whole body when I saw them. They weren’t anything like the one from my childhood. They were loving and kind and welcomed me with open arms. I went to the prayer meeting two more times; then the couple introduced me to a man from out of town.

He took me to a lake where a priest/minister was doing full-immersion baptism in the lake. He asked me if I believe Jesus Christ was the Lord and that was I turning my life over to him? I said yes. He said, I baptized you in the name of Jesus. And then he dunked me in the water.

The following night, my new found friend took me to a prayer meeting. After the meeting and coffee, etc., most of the people left. The remaining people, including me, joined together to perform an exorcism on this individual.

We exorcised the spirit of drugs out of him in the name of Jesus Christ. There was a strange smell in the room; my friend said it was the spirit leaving him. We all praised the Lord.

They then asked me about any addictions I was having. I answered alcohol and drugs. They asked me, did I want to be free of them? I answered yes. They exorcised the spirit of drugs and alcohol out of me. There was a smell of booze in the room when it left me.

That weekend, he took me to a large gathering to see a female healer. There were thousands of people attending, including people walking around with canes and crutches and people in wheelchairs. There were people with cancer and other diseases.

There was a lot of singing, people testifying, and a lot praising God. During all of this, she did a lot of healing people in the name of Jesus. To the right of the stage, there was a mountain of wheelchairs, crutches, and canes piled up.

I saw the love people had for God and for one another at the nun’s prayer meeting, which I kept going to. My friend showed me the power of Jesus Christ, but I still felt like I was not worthy of God’s love. I still didn’t know how to love God or anyone else.

My friends took me to a larger prayer meeting held at a Catholic church in Andover. There were people around me praying in different languages. A nun, up in front of the church, I was told, was healing minor ailments. Then they all joined together to ask Jesus Christ to baptize His new believers with the Holy Spirit.

I was one of those new believers.

I felt a warm feeling come over me.

For the first time I not only felt love, but I knew I was loved by God.

I heard strange words coming from my mouth. A divinity student next to me told me I was praising God in Latin.

I moved in with the couple who lived in Amesbury. I got a job in the next town over in Salisbury. I continued to go to the meeting in Andover every week.

I became friends with a Franciscan monk, and he helped me to grow