CATCH UP

Thursday, June 23, 2011

 

Tori will be leaving tomorrow for her mission trip to Ecuador.  She will be gone from June 24 to July 3rd.  Be safe Tori and be fruitful with sharing Christ. 

 

MEMORIES

(How Jesus came into my life)

 

First of all I want to thank Erica for her astute reading of Grandma's emails.  There was an inadvertently error on the year Grandpa and I got engaged.  We were engaged May 18, 1958 and Married on October 25, 1958. 

 

I would like to recap what I have written thus far and add some important information in my teen years.  I believe it's of value for you to know what my jobs were, some religious events that I questioned and maybe some definitions that might be helpful.

 

I believe I was twelve years old when I fulfilled the Sacrament of Confirmation at Holy Family Church in Cleveland, Ohio.  The definition of a sacrament in Catholicism is: a sacrament is an outward and visible sign, ordained by Christ, setting forth and pledging an inward and spiritual blessing;  I've also heard in a simple form that it's the presence of Christ within you.  What I remember of mine was it was the Bishop that conducted the religious ceremony and I had to have a sponsor who would be responsible for me to fulfill my obligation.  I chose my cousin, Rosemarie, to be my sponsor and I also was to choose a new biblical name which for me was Mary.  My name then was Patricia Arlene Mary Janka.  My obligation was to the Catholic Church and I was to be a soldier of Christ.

 

Now I'm going to jump ahead to another event in my life and that is when I was 15 I was asked by my then girlfriend, Norma McCoy, to be her maid of honor at her marriage to Joe Layer.  I knew at that time it was not acceptable for me to partake in a Methodist wedding ceremony.  Deep in my heart I could not understand why because I thought God was in their church as was in mine.  I went ahead and was her maid of honor. (Now I'm so glad I was).  A couple of weeks later the priest called me on the phone and asked "What the BLEEP were you doing in a BLEEP Protestant wedding?  I lied on the phone and told him I didn't know it was wrong.  I then had to go to Confession, which was also called a sacrament, and confess my sin.  I was given a penance of saying so many Our Fathers and Hail Mary's.

 

At the end of my Junior year of school I knew we would be getting married in the Fall so I didn't think I could start my Senior year and then quite.  At that time you were not allowed to be married and go to school.  I went to the principal's office and asked if he would recommend me for a job at the local grocery store called Chet's Golden Dawn.  The principal was very nice and said he would and congratulated me on my upcoming wedding.  God knew what he was doing by having me work in a grocery store because I didn't know the difference between a head of lettuce and a head of cabbage.  Now you know what poor Grandpa had to go through with my inexperienced cooking.

 

I think this is enough for tonight and I thank you for your patience in reading this.

 

To be continued,

Love, grandma