Speaking Out About the Transgender ‘Delusion’--Walt Heyer

Speaking Out About the Transgender ‘Delusion’

Walt Heyer lived for eight years as a woman named Laura Jensen.

Having suffered from gender-identity disorder since he was a child, Heyer was a married, successful businessman when he underwent cosmetic surgery to alter his sex  at age 42.

However, Heyer said surgery and hormone treatment failed to address his underlying psychological issues. After undergoing therapy, attaining sobriety and turning his life to Christ, Heyer says he was able to accept his biology and return to living as a man.

Heyer, now 74 and married to his second wife for 18 years, is an author and public speaker who devotes his life to helping others who regret their choice to undergo what is known as “gender-reassignment surgery.”

A nondenominational Christian, Heyer has told his story in the novel Kid Dakota and the Secret at Grandma’s House and in his autobiography, A Transgender’s Faith. He also spreads awareness through his blog, WaltHeyer.com, and website, SexChangeRegret.com.

Heyer discussed his journey in a recent interview with the Register. Heyer also offered his thoughts on whether American society has reached a tipping point on the “transgender issue” in the wake of Bruce Jenner’s April 24 interview with ABC News, during which the Olympic gold-medal athlete and reality-television star described his lifelong struggle with “gender dysphoria.”

Has society reached a tipping point, a so-called transgender moment?

If we just look at the media, which has great influence and power, and look at what they’re putting out there, then one would certainly think that we’re at a tipping point. However, I think if you dig into society, aside from the media, most people would say that the whole gender-change thing is dubious, in terms of really thinking anyone can change genders. I think there’s much more of a media selling point. It’s like great advertising for gender change, but I think, still, the majority of people are skeptical that it’s effective.

What did you think of Bruce Jenner’s interview and his statements on being “transgender,” including his comment that he has a female soul?

Well, keep in mind I was right where he was at one time, so I don’t want to minimize or degrade anything that he’s saying. But people who are in the throes of trying to switch from one [sex] to the other will say anything, absolutely anything, to convince people that what they’re doing is because they have to. Part of what his dialogue was about was much like mine was at the time. We’re trying to convince ourselves that it’s actually necessary.

What I saw was somebody desperately trying to sell the audience with “I’ve been struggling with this all my life. Finally, I’m going to be fine.” But then, if you look at his ambiguity, he was not willing to identify a female name. He said, “Yeah, I’m a man, but I have the soul and brain of a woman.” All those are things that no one can prove.

It’s very hard when you just look at a glass TV screen and listen to what somebody is trying to sell you — that is a gender change. What deeper issues does he have? He hid a lot of these things for years. “What else is he hiding?” is my question. There are too many things to consider: What is motivating him to do this when he’s 65 years old?

What do you say when Jenner and other people who identify as “transgender” say this is something that they’ve felt their entire lives? 

I know a lot of individuals, and I was one of them, who were cross-dressed at a young age. And Jenner cross-dressed himself. One of the things that happens is we start to fantasize about what it’s going to be like. If we obsess about it or ruminate about it for a long period of time, we begin to develop our own gender-identity disorder if we choose to, if it becomes fun and somehow exciting and exhilarating. I can say it was true for me, and it’s fun for others; but down the road, that feeling goes away, and then you’re left with something very different than excitement: You’re left with depression.

What do you say to the American Psychiatric Association’s decision in 2012 to replace “gender-identity disorder” with “gender dysphoria” in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM)? 

It is true that “gender dysphoria,” in of itself, is not a psychiatric disorder. The problem with the statement is that we know for a fact that people who migrate toward a transgender life are people who suffer from comorbid [two or more] disorders, and those are psychiatric issues and psychological issues. Every last one of them needs to be diagnosed and treated, and it doesn’t get diagnosed and treated, because they [APA experts] pulled the top one out, the “gender dysphoria,” and said, “Well, if you’re gender dysphoric, then you’re fine just the way you are.”

The problem is no one is dealing with the dissociative disorder, the bipolar disorders, the schizophrenia, excessive compulsive [issues] and all those other psychological disorders that make up the driving cause for people desiring to change sexes.

The other thing most people are not aware of is the question of why transgender was taken out of the DSM. It was taken out not for any other reason but for the purpose of political activism. The DSM has become the greatest political tool for the advancing of Kinsey and his 1947-48 moves to make every kind of sex available to anybody, because he believed any kind of sex was good sex. … It didn’t matter what it was.

How old were you when you first began experiencing signs of a gender-identity disorder?

My grandmother began cross-dressing me when I was 4 years old, and she did that until I was probably about 6 1/2 years old. She even made me a beautiful, purple chiffon evening dress. She fawned all over me when I was dressed like that. She loved me as a little girl, not so much as a boy. I took the dress home when I was probably 6 1/2. I was not allowed to go back to [see] my grandmother because my dad, who was a part-time police officer, exploded when he found out. My mom was horrified at what her mother was doing. It was a secret all that time. I was supposed to keep the secret.

Once you plant the seed, it grows. You’re fostering gender dysphoria from the first time you put a dress on, not much different than the first time a drug addict takes the drug. He’s hooked. There’s very little difference when someone cross-dresses like [Jenner] did. You get hooked.

How and when did you decide to go through “sex reassignment” surgery and live as a woman?

I told my first wife that I was struggling with it, just like [Jenner] said, and we just kind of blew it off and said, “It’ll be fine.” [I thought] “She can fix me,” and [figured] that once I got married and had kids, the feelings would go away.

But you keep it a secret, and it’s the secret that really becomes the issue, because you’re trying to hide it from everybody, all the family and everybody else. Everybody copes in a different way. I coped by using alcohol. But I was very successful. I had a wonderful career in aerospace. I worked on the Apollo space missions. I was an automobile executive with a very large, $300-million corporation at that time. But I was using alcohol to suppress or cope with my feelings about changing gender, but the truth is, it probably did nothing but enhance it. So by the time I had been married 17 years, like Jenner, I had had enough, and I decided to change genders.

How did you realize that living as a woman was not the answer?

I lived eight years as a female. I had a successful career, working-wise, as a female for eight years. But I realized after studying psychology that no one can change genders. That’s the first thing you learn when you break the delusional disorder down. It is a delusion to think you can change genders. You can’t. It’s total nonsense. You can live in a masquerade, and the surgeries make it look like you changed genders, but you actually don’t.

When I came to that realization, then I began considering the Lord. I started studying and working toward that goal of having my identity in Christ instead of in my gender. It took a while. I got treated for my dissociative disorder by a psychotherapist. I was able to come into a relationship with Jesus Christ. My life was restored back to my birth gender, and I’ve lived that way for over 20 years now.

Psychotherapy was the key, along with Jesus Christ, in restoring my life: psychotherapy to get my head screwed back on correctly, and I discovered that when I was studying psychology at university in California. Once you begin to get a clear head, you start to get your sanity back; then you realize God didn’t make a mistake and that you need to turn your life over to Christ. At least that’s what it was for me.

How does your Christian faith influence the way you now approach the “transgender” issue?

I look at it like it’s a community of people who are psychologically disturbed, and they need psychological treatment. But because activists are trying to prevent them from having psychological treatment, they are going to stay unhealthy psychologically.

A fair-minded person would look at the staggering attempted-suicide rate, which is somewhere between 40% and 50% [for gender-confused people]. You’d stop and say psychologically healthy people, under the worst conditions in their lives, don’t attempt suicide. It’s only unhealthy people, psychologically, who are so unprepared for what life throws at them that [makes them] just give up on life. So we’re dealing with a small population of people who are not receiving good psychotherapy. They are people who believe that they can change genders, so they’re delusional from the start, and no one is going to diagnose them with a disorder until after they have surgery, in most cases, because all the psychotherapists are afraid to say anything. They’re handcuffed and fearful of losing their licenses.

How did you attain a different view of your sex?

It took a lot of work. It probably took two years to unravel all the nonsense. I had to go to Alcoholics Anonymous. I had to stop drinking. I had to start going into therapy. I had to start thinking about who really is in charge of my gender, which is the Lord. You begin to start putting all these pieces together. Certainly, sobriety, not drinking, and being in psychotherapy is a good start for anybody to gain some psychological health and begin to get  sanity back.

How did turning to Christ help you deal with your own sexual-identity issues?

I had a vision of Christ. I met with a Christian therapist in his office. He said, “Let’s pray,” so he began to pray. All of a sudden, during that time, the Lord Jesus Christ actually appeared to me. He came to me with his arms stretched out. I saw myself as a baby. I saw the Lord, all dressed in white, his arms outstretched, and he grabbed me as a baby and cradled me in both of his arms and held me to his chest, and said, “You are now safe with me forever.” Then he went out of the room, and he was gone. And from that moment forward, I was redeemed, restored and healed.

That was the redeeming moment. From then on, I’ve been serving him to try to help others not fall into the pit of having their bodies mutilated by surgeons who are doing it for the money. I doubt that any person actually needs surgery. I get letters all the time from so many people who regret it, and many [who identify as] transgenders today send me letters thanking me for what I’m doing.

You remarried after resuming your life as a man. How has that been?

I have a great relationship with my wife. You don’t stay married very long if you don’t have a good relationship. I even have a very good relationship with my first wife, and so does my current wife, who is the editor on everything that I write. She has an MBA from Berkeley, and she’s brilliant. She’s the driving force behind me getting out there [to tell my story].

Brian Fraga writes from Fall River, Massachusetts.
http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/speaking-out-about-the-transgender-delusion1/

Chiara Corbella: A Witness to Joy

In worldly terms, Chiara Corbella’s life was not a success story: two children dying shortly after birth, herself ravaged by an aggressive cancer, which killed her at the young age of 28, leaving a beloved husband and a small son behind. This is not the kind of material dreams are made of. Yet when one listens to the testimonies of her friends, husband, and spiritual director, and hears more about her story and looks at her radiating, beautiful face on photographs and in video clips, one can’t help but feel that hers was an extraordinary life. Each saint has a special charisma, a particular theme, some facet of God, which he reflects, due to his particular character, call and story. Hers, I’d say, is to be a witness to joy in the face of great adversity, the kind which makes the heart overflow despite the sorrow over loss and death.

Chiara died on June 13, 2012, and her story spread like wildfire. The church was packed at her funeral, which was led by the Vicar General of Rome, Cardinal Agostino Vallini; social media, news agencies, and journals spread the word and soon she was known all over the globe. People wanted to hear more, and so two friends, Simone Troisi and Cristiana Paccini, who were present at all the important moments of her and her husband’s life, wrote her biography, “Siamo nati e non moriremo mai più” (We are Born and Will Never Die), which was published in June 2013. My copy from January 2014 is already the 8th printing, which shows its great popularity. I just attended a day of prayer on March 23 in Assisi, focusing on her life and spirituality; her spiritual director, Padre Vito d’Amato, a Franciscan, as well as her husband, Enrico, led us through the day. About 1,000 people attended, with many young couples and children, which is striking for Italy, where people tend to marry late and have few children.

Tragedy and Superabundant GraceChiara and Enrico’s story started like many: falling in love, getting married and starting a family. Upon viewing the video clips of their wedding, one is struck by her beauty, by the couple’s piety and by their great love for each other. She was expecting within a month. Other mothers expecting their first child are beaming, but her face remains serious in the pictures from that time. This was the first announcement of what was to come. It was, she said after having entrusted the baby to the blessed Virgin in the Porziuncola, as if she felt from the beginning that this child was not meant for her, that this child was not hers to keep. This turned out to be true. During a sonogram at 14 weeks, the gynecologist noticed that something was seriously wrong. The baby girl, it turned out, was anencephalic and would die shortly after birth. It was hard for Chiara to hear and digest the news on her own, but even worse to have to be the bearer of such bad tidings to her husband. Yet what seemed like an added hardship at the time (her husband was in the hospital for surgery) became a superabundant grace. He responded with great love, confirming her faith in him.

Their daughter was a blessing, and they would love and accompany her during her brief journey on earth. They withstood the pressure of many doctors who encouraged them to abort; they didn’t want to induce artificially the birth either, which would have meant shortening their daughter’s life. Finally, the situation became critical, since Chiara had too much amniotic fluid and her daughter’s condition meant labor might not start on its own. Against their wishes, they finally agreed to set a date for an induction, yet putting everything into God’s hands. On the day of the scheduled induction, Chiara went into labor naturally and little Maria Grazia Letizia was born. She died 40 minutes after being born, having received the sacrament of baptism and the last rites, in the arms of her parents on June 10, 2009. Her life, as her parents said, was perfect: she had been loved and had returned that love; nothing was lacking. Her parents’ hearts were strangely filled with joy; they didn’t experience the devastating sorrow they’d expected, though they mourned her loss. Through her, they truly learnt that loving meant giving, and that its opposite, as St. Francis had taught, was not hatred, but wanting to possess.

Looking back, Enrico and Chiara said that they were capable of this journey because they took one small step at a time; and with each step God gave them sufficient grace to persevere. Chiara felt that she had been prepared for these trials by their difficult courtship. Nothing, she said, neither the death of her children nor her own cancer nor her own death, was as hard for her as this time before their marriage. Chiara and Enrico had met in Medjugorje in 2002; she was only 18 years old, but knew that Enrico was the man she wanted to marry. Yet they had a hard time together, fighting often, breaking up at times, only to get back together again. Finally, after a break-up, Padre Vito, citing from the Apocalypse, told her that if God opened a door, nobody could close it, but if God closed it, then nobody could open it (Apoc. 3:7). Though she felt that her life would only find fulfillment in human terms by being married to Enrico, she put everything into God’s hands. But as Enrico said in Assisi, there was nothing fatalistic about it.

God left them the choice all along, they were free and their lives would not have been meaningless, had they not married each other. They met up briefly after what seemed their final break-up; he was ready to say some critical things, when she, for the first time, simply showed herself to him the way she was, without pretending to be better or trying to make things work out at all cost. She could not stop crying, thereby revealing to him how much she loved him. He had felt more comfortable without her, because she challenged him, asked him to rise to a love to which he wasn’t yet ready to commit. Once he did, things started falling into place and they married in September 2008 in Assisi, which had become a spiritual home for them. Enrico proposed on a walking pilgrimage there, organized by the Franciscans. Their joy was reminiscent of St. Francis, experiencing the superabundant love of God, which no sorrow could dispel.

More Sorrow and More GraceBut God was preparing their hearts for more—more sorrow and more grace. After the death of Maria Grazia Letizia, they prayed and decided there was no reason to wait. Chiara became pregnant again; things seemed fine at first and everybody thought this child would console them of their previous loss. Then it was discovered that their little boy would be severely handicapped, lacking his lower limbs. They were already looking into different kinds of prostheses, when they found out that he too would not live, since he was lacking some essential organs. Little Davide Giovanni was born on June 24, 2010, and lived only 38 minutes; after having been baptized and embraced, he too went to God. His parents left the hospital, their hearts filled with love and divine consolation. The joy they experienced while holding their children in their arms was something they had not imagined, and which would have been denied to them had they aborted. They would not have remembered the day of the abortion with gratitude, but they did commemorate the day their children went to Heaven with thankfulness.

Even fewer people came to this second funeral, as Padre Vito said, and they were not the same as had been at the first. Many of their fair-weather friends had abandoned them. When the cross casts its shadow, it drives away the fainthearted. New friends were present, and their number would grow, who would then accompany them on the final journey to Golgotha.

There are the Simons of Cyrene and the Veronicas whom God sends along the way to help us carry our crosses and console us. But there are also those who turn away, and those whose counsel weigh down our hearts rather than lighten our burdens. Job’s friends are present in all ages; they claim to be speaking for God, but are really the devil’s advocate, making one feel responsible for one’s suffering. It was due to their sins, some implied, to their lack of faith that Chiara and Enrico had sick children and that Chiara now had cancer. Had they shown sufficient faith, then God would have worked miracles, was their opinion. What they failed to see though is that God was working miracles all along in Chiara and Enrico’s hearts, and in those around them. A conversion of the heart is the greatest miracle on earth, compared to which walking on water is easy. God was with them on this journey, guiding their steps, not punishing them for any real or imagined faults.

It was truly supernatural, as Padre Vito emphasized, how God consoled Chiara and Enrico in their trials. To find God in a situation that most people would find unbearable and which would drive them to despair, is a miracle in itself. Chiara and Enrico found that by crying out to God like a child cries out to his father, they were carried along; the cross that would otherwise have crushed them, had become light. The day of her death, Enrico asked Chiara, if she found Christ’s promise had come true, that the cross was easy, even sweet. She smiled and said yes, it was “molto dolce.”

A Child is Born and Suffering is Offered UpAfter the death of Davide, the couple prayed again and decided to have another child. The problems of their children were not due to genetic disease; there was no link between these disparate and rare illnesses, and therefore no reason existed for their next child to be sick as well. Shortly thereafter, Chiara became pregnant again. This time all was right, except that she had a troubling sore on her tongue, which didn’t heal. It turned out to be a malignant tumor. Like St. Gianna Beretta Molla, Chiara decided to put her child first and not receive cancer treatments that could harm her preborn son; this was a heroic choice, since the Church recognizes that it is morally licit to seek lifesaving treatments, even if they can cause indirectly the death of the child. (What is never morally acceptable is the intentional direct killing of an innocent person; abortion is therefore never permitted.)

During the pregnancy, she was operated on the tongue, and suffered greatly because she couldn’t take very strong pain-medication, which would have been potentially dangerous for the child. Nor did she want to induce the birth until Francesco had every chance of a healthy life. Francesco was born by induction two weeks early on May 30, 2011, and two days after his birth, she was operated on again; this time, it was a true Gethsemane. She suffered greatly and went through a dark night of the soul; God felt absent. But this didn’t last, and everybody prayed that radiation therapy would eradicate her cancer.  Generally, only smokers in their seventies get the kind of cancer she had. It was just as strange a sickness as those of her children; all unrelated, yet coming together to shape a story which would lead to great sanctity.

For the time being, Chiara and Enrico were happy to be for once normal parents, having a child to take care of with all the stress and exhaustion this entails. Yet the cancer progressed despite more treatments and tests. On April 4, 2012, they heard the final verdict: Chiara was terminally ill. She didn’t want to know how much time she had left, so that she could live fully in the present. They moved to her parents’ home in the countryside to have some peace and quiet; Enrico stopped working, and it was in a way their happiest time. It was also a period of great grace. They received Pope Benedict’s benediction during a Wednesday audience and briefly told him their story.

We were shown a long clip from a talk she gave, telling her story. She was wearing an eye-patch (her sight in her right eye was affected by the cancer), one could see the trace of the surgery on her neck, her laugh was a bit lop-sided as was her mouth when she spoke. Yet one hardly noticed it; she was radiant, beautiful, smiling. When Enrico spoke to us, with a big photo of her projected on the screen behind him, he said: “Oh, was she beautiful! Her beauty still distracts me now.” While giving her witness to her friends in that clip, she was smiling through her tears at times. She did not put up an act, she was not stoic, not fake; her joy was real. She was present to her friends with her joy and with her pain. One could tell that she wasn’t expecting to be healed. She said she’d given it over to God; she would have liked to live for her husband and son but God knew best and she therefore left it up to Him to decide.

Padre Vito was able to be with them days at a time during this period, saying mass in their house, leading her during this last stretch of her short life. She had three fears: pain (which, she was afraid, would make her doubt God), vomiting (she was nauseous a lot and could hardly eat) and purgatory. Since the death of her two children, she was no longer afraid of it for herself. She was waiting for the bridegroom to come, eager for the nuptials. When telling us this, Padre Vito raised his arm and said, regarding her fear of purgatory, “ma va,” meaning “come on,” for he thought she’d go straight to Heaven. She was given the grace to be up and about until the very end. She had asked to die quickly, if die she must, and her prayer was granted. On June 13, 2012, she breathed her last and entered eternal life.

Padre Vito and Enrico didn’t want this gathering to become a “fan club” meeting. It was a day of prayer, of learning to say “Abba Father,” entering into Christ’s sonship as Chiara had done, trusting God fully in all sufferings. Enrico was concerned about the danger of putting her on a pedestal; she was normal, had her weaknesses, temptations and sufferings like all of us. But she said “yes” to everything God sent her way and thus became a true child of God. Enrico said he believed she was a saint and hoped that one day her picture would hang from the balcony of St. Peter’s. I think so too, but I think there will be two pictures: hers and his.
http://www.crisismagazine.com/2014/chiara-corbella-a-witness-to-joy

Blessed Virgin Mary – Higher Than Any Created Being?

Blessed Virgin Mary – Higher Than Any Created Being?

A more genderless, hopeless, meaningless society

May 7, 2015 (TheRadianceFoundation.org) -- We’re peculiar creatures. We want meaning but leave meaning wanting. We exist by design but deny design exists. We demand love but demand that Love stay silent.

Contradiction courses through our veins. We bleed inconsistency, yet even with multiple wounds we simply slap on band-aids to cover our soul’s lacerations.

And we wonder why healing is elusive. So instead, from this condition of brokenness, we create more brokenness. Language becomes our victim. We change it to bandage our fractured state. Love becomes “tolerance.” Discernment becomes “judgment.” And conviction becomes “hate.”

Our culture is obsessed with a savior—self—that cannot save. As more and more bow at the altar of Narcissism, our meaning, our design, and our understanding of Love go up in flames.

Meaning is powerful. And where we derive that meaning is crucial. The recent Baltimore riots exemplify how finding meaning in pigmentation only divides us. Martin Luther King Jr. knew that the civil rights battle was first fought on our knees in relentless prayer. He understood that the Gospel gave our lives meaning and a righteous cause to fight for true equality and freedom.

It wasn’t mainstream media that led the charge for civil rights. That institution had to be led by those who understood the unwavering power of Faith, the transformational power of Hope, and the unstoppable ability of Love to break down any division. Just as during the abolition of slavery in this country, men and women of God refused to allow the dehumanization of God’s creation and the oppressive dictates and deception of the State to go unchallenged.

Our right to Life does not belong to Caesar. Love does not belong to Caesar. Marriage does not belong to Caesar. Our sexuality does not belong to Caesar. Our hope does not belong to Caesar.

Mainstream media, in its typical dereliction of journalistic duty, has been celebrating the “heroic transition” of Olympian Bruce Jenner from a man to a man deeply confused. Never mind the incredible irony of LGBTQ advocates rejecting the biological reality of binary gender yet affirming it when one wants to “transition” from a man to a woman or vice versa. Even conservative Rick Santorum has capitulated to the cult of transgenderism, saying of Jenner: “If he says he’s a woman, then he’s a woman.” I can say I’m Asian, and even believe it with all my heart; it doesn’t make me Asian.

Bruce Jenner will never biologically be a woman, yet too many are fine with treating our genitalia like accessories that need to be swapped out to match a different outfit. Santorum apparently doesn’t agree with the former chief psychiatrist-in-chief at Johns Hopkins Hospital, Dr. Paul R. McHugh, who says transgenderism is a “mental disorder” and that “sex-change” is biologically impossible. McHugh also indicates that the suicide rate of “transgendered” people, who’ve gone through the drastic “reassignment surgery” is 20 times higher than non-transgendered people. Where’s the compassion in any of this?

What exactly are we affirming Mr. Santorum, mainstream media, and churches across America? More importantly than ignoring McHugh’s documented medical evidence is ignoring the essence of salvation—becoming a new creation. When we discard the possibility of God transforming any life or any situation, we’ve given the Gospel reassignment surgery.

Last week, as The Radiance Foundation  joined Alliance Defending Freedom, Family Research Council, Heritage Foundation and others at the Supreme Court to rally defenders of natural marriage, there was one person among the crowd who stood out most powerfully to me. It was a young woman holding a bright yellow sign that read: “I was Queer. Then I found Jesus.” I thanked her for her vulnerability and the message that put the whole day into context: no amount of rallying can mask the brokenness many feel in the rejection of our design. People like her (and there are many) are immediately silenced by the monolithic LGBTQ activist movement who cry “hate” to silence debate.

As Christians, we are called to love God with all of our hearts, all of our souls, and all of our minds. When we do this, we dare to let our soul orientation overcome any other identity that denies who and what we were created to be—new creations that glorify God. When we follow this command of Christ’s, loving our neighbors as ourselves is the natural outflow.

Our culture is hurtling into a genderless, hopeless, and meaningless society, but we can stop this self-inflicted destruction. We could reclaim what it means to love and show how that love can restore brokenness. We live in a world in desperate need of redemption. The question is: When will the people of God feel the desperate need to reveal and reflect the Source of that redemption?

https://www.lifesitenews.com/blogs/a-more-genderless-hopeless-meaningless-society

Purgatory -

There is a "chasm," Scripture tells us, in that account of the 

rich man and the beggar Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31), 

a separation between Heaven and hell. But what about other levels?

That question takes us to an experience reported by RaNelle Wallace, 

a television reporter who had a near-death journey after a horrid plane 

crash in central Utah that scorched most of her body. During her 

encounter with the other side, RaNelle claims, she ran into her dearly 

loved grandmother, who was in a heavenly state, but also was able to see 

and communicate with a friend named Jim who had been killed in a car 

crash a few months before.

Jim was not in a Heavenly state. Yet, because he was purifying, he was 

happy."What about Jim?" RaNelle said she'd asked her grandmother, 
during a little tour of the other side.

Immediately, RaNelle says she saw him in the distance, walking toward 

them. (In the afterlife, questions are answered instantly.)

"I wanted to run and embrace him, but my grandmother put out her arm 

and said, 'No, you cannot.' I was startled. There was a power in her words, 

and I knew I couldn't oppose them. 'Why not?' I asked.

"'Because of the way he lived his life,' she said."

Jim, as it turns out, had used and sold drugs, damaging himself and 

others. Yet, knowing that one day he would be whole, he was content. 

"He smiled and I could feel his happiness," says RaNelle in a written 

account. "Although he didn't possess the same kind of light or power 

that my grandmother did, he seemed content. He gave me a message to 

give to his mother, asking that I tell her to stop grieving over his death, to 

let her know that he was happy and progressing. He explained that he 

had made certain decisions in life that had hindered his growth on earth. 

He had made the decisions knowing they were wrong, and now he was 

willing to accept their consequences."

All for our pondering only. It does sound like a purgatorial state. But 

in Unpublished Manuscript on Purgatory, a Church-approved revelation 

from a deceased nun, we get this: "It is beautiful in Heaven. There is a 

great distance between purgatory and Heaven. We are privileged at 

times to catch a glimpse of the joys of the blessed in paradise, but it is 

almost a punishment. It makes us yearn to see God. In Heaven, it is 

pure delight; in purgatory, profound darkness."

"I looked at my grandmother and asked why she had prevented me 

from embracing him," wrote RaNelle of her presumed encounter with Jim. 

"She explained that it was a part of his 'damnation.'"

In accounts of purgatory, souls suffer but are described as happy 

knowing that one day they will be in Heaven.

Most important were the lessons RaNelle learned about life on earth 

from -- allegedly -- her grandmother, who said, "We grow by the force 

of our desires to learn, to love, to accept things by faith that we cannot 

prove. Our ability to accept truth, to live by it, governs our progress 

in the spirit, and it determines the degree of light we possess. Nobody 

forces light and truth upon us, and nobody takes it away unless we let 

them. Jim chose darkness over light often enough that he would not 

choose light again. And, now, to the degree that he became spiritually 

dark, he is consigned to a similar degree of darkness -- or lack of light -- 

in the spirit. The Lord never gives more challenges in life than can be 

handled. Rather than jeopardize someone's spiritual progression or 

cause more suffering than can be endured, He will bring that spirit home, 

where he or she can continue progressing." For our discernment. 

"No one can imagine what purgatory is like," said the nun. 

"Be kind and take pity on the poor souls." 

As for RaNelle, she says she saw how in her own life she had sinned 

when she ignored responsibilities such as visiting lonely people. 

"I had founded my charity on conditions of repayment," she wrote. 

"I had served people when it served me to do so. I had founded my 

charity on conditions of repayment, even if the repayment was merely 

to stroke my ego. Some people had been helped, however, by the 

small acts of kindness, a smile, a kind word, little things I had long 

forgotten. I saw that people were happier because of my actions 

and in turn were kinder to others." Our acts of kindness, even small 

ones, can be our salvation.

The Rosary

The Rosary: Where it Came From and Why We Need it Now More than Ever - Aleteia

Our Lady of Schoenstatt, Germany

One of the great works of art is Michelangelo’s Last Judgment on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.  His uplifting mural combines the horror of damnation with the joy of eternal salvation in a vivid scene that should inspire any right-minded person to holiness.

Amid the panorama of the saved and the damned is an easily overlooked figure of an angel who is pulling up two saved souls, using a beaded rope as their lifeline to salvation.

A prayer for all seasons The Rosary has been an important sacramental that has enriched the faith of Catholics for centuries.

It is a timeless aid to contemplation that marks the special rhythm of human life on a beaded rope that can serve as a lifeline to individual salvation.

But what makes the Rosary an aid to salvation is the fact of its deep and powerful connection to the Bible and the Divine mysteries that are tied to Jesus’ redemptive stay on earth.

As author Father Oscar Lukefahr has written, "the mysteries of the rosary translate the Bible into prayer." The Rosary then binds Catholics to the historical life of Christ and foreshadows their eternal destiny and union with Christ in heaven.

Catholics must not forget that while a devotion to the Blessed Mother is a vital part of the Rosary’s historical and spiritual importance, it is primarily a Christ-centered prayer in which Catholics pray to the Son through His Mother.  In the words of the Hail Mary, it is Christ, as Luke reported, who is the ultimate object both of the announcement and of the greeting of the Mother of John the Baptist: Blessed is the fruit of your womb.

The Rosary blends easily with the Christian way of life.

In her essay, "The Rosary: A Prayer for All Seasons" Gloria Hutchinson compares the Rosary to "an Olympic champion emerging from early retirement." She writes that the Rosary has regained its lofty position as "an ever-reliable prayer for all seasons" since Pope John Paul II proclaimed 2002 the Year of the Rosary.  Hutchinson reminds Catholics that the Rosary has always been a peoples’ prayer. 

Poets have delighted in its mystical powers for centuries. Robert Cameron Rogers called it a string of pearls" while Joyce Kilmer saw it as "a harp that any hand can play."

  

An unlikely battleground

The recent history of the Rosary has been anything but rosy. This simple devotion has become an unlikely setting in the battle for the spiritual direction of the modern Church. Since Vatican II the Rosary has suffered a precipitous decline in popularity among post-conciliar Catholics. Some fault the Rosary for being too mechanical, repetitive and boring.

Others contend that the Rosary is an exercise in false piety and even a superstition. Many of the Church’s so-called reformers have chided the Rosary for being "theologically retrograde," a veritable relic of the preconciliar church, destined to the ash heap of outmoded devotions.

At the heart of some of these attacks is the Rosary’s inadvertent guilt by association with the sale of indulgences that rocked the pillars of the Church in the 15th and 16th centuries. At that time indulgences or papal dispensations of purgatory sentences were often attached to the recitation of the Rosary. Some prelates were abusing this privilege by selling the indulgences to the highest bidder. When Martin Luther broke with the universal church in the early 16th century, the Rosary was tarred with the stain of this corrupt practice.

While traditionalists have always come to the prompt aid of the Rosary, one of its best defenses has come from Garry Wills’ 2005 book, The Rosary: Prayer Comes Round. Wills, who is known for his heterodox views on Catholic morality and papal history, has written a splendid apologia for the time-honored religious tradition that surprises because of its truly traditional point of view and the author’s deep-felt devotion. The Rosary is a marvelously written exercise in love and respect for one of the Church’s oldest traditions. Wills clearly demonstrates that the Rosary is deeply grounded in Scripture and serves as an excellent way for Catholics to participate in the life of Christ.

As many post-conciliar Catholics have ignored the Rosary’s saving powers, countless have sought inner fulfillment in the Eastern methods of meditation, such as transcendental meditation, yoga and mysticism. The bookstore shelves bristle and groan with a plethora of titles that promise inner peace through meditation.

The Rosary is relevant for these times, a way for Catholics to satisfy their need to meditate, contemplate, and find the inner calm (with Christ) that the Eastern methods only promise.
  

A conflicted history

The true history of the Rosary is not without its own controversy. Its roots lie in the efforts of lay people in the Middle Ages to have their own extended prayer, not unlike the Divine Office that was reserved for the religious, friars and monks.

A new prayer for the layman began with the recitation of the 150 entries in the Book of Psalms in the Old Testament. When this practice proved cumbersome, they divided the 150 Psalms into three parts. Soon even the shortened use of the Psalms proved too unwieldy to become widely accepted. Others suggested that they say the Pater Noster (Our Father)150 times, 100 times or even 50 times. This new form of prayer became known as the Pater Noster Psalter, later changed to the Pater Noster Rosary.

Some histories attribute the Rosary’s origins to Saint Dominic (1170-1221). Legend has it that the Virgin Mary appeared to him in 1208 in a French church in Prouille and gave him the Rosary to help combat the Albigensian heresy of that time.

Another Dominic, a Carthusian monk from Prussia, (1382-1460) is regarded as the first to connect the Rosary to different episodes in the life of Christ. In keeping with the psalm-based numerology, this Dominic proposed 50 events in Christ’s life to serve as meditations for the Rosary.

The history of the Rosary is further conflicted by the fact that the word Rosary comes from rosarium, or rose garden. Rosarium was used as a secular symbol for romantic love in classical times.

This prompted the 15th-century Dominican monk, Alanus de Rupe, to reject its use for the Virgin. He favored the old designation, the Psalter of the Virgin. However, Christian usage increasingly connected the word with a rose garland or chaplet of the Virgin to suggest a circulet of beads, so even the word has a life of its own.

History does prove that whatever its true origins, the Dominican Order has been the principal promoter and defender of the Rosary throughout history.

Papal devotions

The Rosary has always enjoyed a long and intimate relationship with the papacy. Popes have used the Rosary to fight battles, defeat diseases, overcome natural disasters and reinvigorate the faith.
 

In 1571 Pope Pius V instituted Our Lady of Victory as an annual feast to commemorate the victory of Lepanto.

As a Rosary procession was offered in St. Peter’s Square in Rome for the success of the mission of the Holy League, just before Lepanto, this seminal Christian naval victory over the invading Muslim forces was attributed to Our Lady’s intercession.

Since then most of the modern popes have enjoyed a special devotion to the Rosary.

In the 1880s Pope Leo XIII highlighted devotion to the Rosary with several encyclicals to Catholics urging the faithful to a devout recitation of Mary’s Rosary, especially during October. He saw the Rosary as an "effective spiritual weapon against the evils afflicting society."

Pope John XXIII also had a special devotion to the Rosary. In his 1959 letter, Grata Recordatio, Prayer For the Church, Missions, International and Social Problems, the Pope stressed a special call to the rosary.

Pope Paul VI said that "by its very nature the recitation of the rosary calls for a quiet rhythm and lingering pace." He is also reported to have held up his Rosary and proclaimed "this is the Bible for those who can neither read nor write."
  

No pontiff had a greater devotion to the Rosary and Our Lady then Pope John Paul II. When he nearly was assassinated in St. Peter’s Square on May 13, 1981, he credited his survival to the protection of Mary and expressed his gratitude by way of the Rosary. He knew only too well that May 13th was the anniversary of the first appearance of Our Lady to the children at Fatima in 1917.

In his Apostolic Letter, Rosarium Virginis Mariae (The Rosary of the Virgin Mary) Pope John Paul II proclaimed 2002 as the Year of the Rosary and expressed his hope that families would once again embrace the Holy Rosary.

The pontiff emphasized that "the West is now experiencing a renewed demand for meditation, which at times leads to a keen interest in aspects of their religions..." He added that "the Rosary is situated within the broad gamut of religious phenomena and transports the person into the heart and soul of so many of the pivotal events in Jesus’ life."

The sweet chain of prayer

The form of the Rosary remained essentially unchanged until 2002 when John Paul II instituted five new mysteries.

He called them the Luminous Mysteries because they portray Jesus’ public ministry, including His baptism, Cana, the Sermon on the Mount, the Transfiguration and the Last Supper in a new light. Since His public ministry is an important link between His early years and His passion and death on the Cross, these new mysteries reveal the true meaning of His earthly presence, while filling in the public gap between his joyful youth and the sadness and pain associated with Calvary. The Pope also added the Luminous Mysteries to enkindle a renewed interest in the Rosary as a true gateway into the Incarnation.

With the addition of the Luminous Mysteries the Rosary’s intimate connection with the Gospels is even more apparent.

It completed what Blessed Bartolo Longo (1841-1926) called "the sweet chain linking us to God." It is Christ’s years of his public ministry that most demonstrate the Incarnation as a "mystery of light." As John’s Gospel says "while I am in the world, I am the light of the world."

The mystery of light that best illustrates the importance of the Luminous Mysteries is the Transfiguration.

The glory of the Godhead shines forth from the face of Christ as the Father commands the astonished apostles to listen to him and to prepare to experience with Him the agonies of Good Friday, so that they may be able to enjoy their own Easter with Him in heaven.
  

Mary and the Rosary

Even Mary’s relationship to the Rosary has not been without conflict. Since the Hail Mary is the dominant prayer of the Rosary, her critics contend that Mary and her Rosary are a distraction from Jesus Christ, the true focal point of Christianity. Religious scholars have long noted that this is a canard that has no bearing on the Rosary’s true history.

The Council of Ephesus in 431 settled her title in the Hail Mary, the "Mother of God" in light of the Arian heresy that denied Christ’s divinity. Arians called Mary only the Mother of Christ because they believed Jesus to be just a man and so His mother could not be the Mother of God.

On another note, to correct what some theologians thought was an unbalanced devotion to Mary, the post-Vatican II Church has toned down its devotional practices honoring Mary in order to refocus on her Son.

Mary’s Fatima apparitions are the event that has most dramatized the power and majesty of the Rosary.

On October 13, 1917, Our Lady of Fatima told three Portuguese shepherd children, "I am the Lady of the Rosary.

I have come to warn the faithful to amend their lives and to ask pardon for their sins…. People must say the Rosary." Mary impressed upon the children how important it was to pray the Rosary daily for world peace.She warned them that Russia would spread its errors throughout the world.

During a 1957 interview, the sole surviving witness, Sister Lucy, urged her interviewer: "Tell them…that many times the Most Holy Virgin told my cousins Francisco and Jacinta, as well as myself, that many nations will disappear from the face of the earth."  She also said that Russia would be the instrument of chastisement chosen by Heaven to punish the world if we do not beforehand obtain the conversion of that poor nation.

A secret weapon

In fact the Rosary has been a constant source of devotion throughout the history of the Church. Garry Wills’ book, The Rosary highlights that for countless Catholics who matured before the Second Vatican Council the Rosary was a daily habit. He cites the story of the late William F. Buckley who developed the habit of saying the rosary as a small boy.

In his published diary, Overdrive, Buckley revealed that he had learned to count on his fingers the decades of the Rosary when one wasn’t available. It was to him "a lifelong habit acquired in childhood."

  

It is a fact that innumerable preconciliar Catholics fervently prayed the Rosary in their homes or parishes.

To them saying the Rosary has always brought back fond memories of their grandparents and parents who used the Rosary to further their devotion to Christ and His Church.

The Rosary can help Catholics transform their communities into genuine schools of prayer.

The late Joseph Cardinal Mindszenty, who knew more about Communism than his contemporaries, strongly believed that the Rosary was "a secret military weapon of the Catholic Church." In his last sermon before his Communist imprisonment he said, "Give me a million families with Rosaries in their hands, uplifted to Mary, they will be a military power, not against other people but for all mankind…for their welfare, for their healing…"

The Cardinal echoed the fact that since the Albigensian heresy in the 12th century through modernism with its socialist, fascist and communist derivatives, the Rosary has stood up to the evils that have plagued mankind.

But the message of its power as a lifeline for salvation needs to be revitalized for a new generation of families who have been battered in a sea of moral relativity, secularism and apostasy.

All this underscores the fact that the Rosary can be an effective antidote for the tremors of the times and an important way of fostering among Catholics a deeper commitment to the contemplation of the Christian mystery and as a genuine training in holiness. And more importantly the regular devout use of the Rosary can serve as a Michelangeloean Lifeline to Heaven.

William Borst holds a PhD in American History from St. Louis University. 

 He is the editor of the Mindszenty Review and has published commentaries in many local and national publications. This article was originally published by CatholicJournal.