Dennis Koller

THE GOOD NEWS: “GOD IS BOTH MERCIFUL AND FORGIVING.”
 
I was asked to share with you my personal Faith Journey. Like I’m sure happened to so many of you over the years, the final leg of my journey started with finally understanding the meaning of the Good News above.
 
I remember reading a book in high school titled Brideshead Revisited by English novelist and Catholic, Evelyn Waugh. The story is about a man who drifted (fell) away from the Church. But the Lord, both in the story (and for many of us in real life), never let him go completely. As Waugh says in the novel, God had him connected to an unseen hook and an invisible line which was long enough to let him wander to the ends of the earth, but still bring him back with a simple twitch on the line.
 
I am the second of nine children born into a family where Catholicism was taken very seriously. We said the rosary every night as well as a plethora of other prayers. I went all through Catholic education, from St. Anne’s Grammar School, to St. Ignatius High School, to St. Mary’s College. Even with that background, somewhere in my twenties, I started to wander. While I didn’t wander to “the ends of the earth,” I did wander pretty far.
 
While still keeping up the trappings of living a Catholic life, my personal life was anything but sanctified. Then, one day, like the man in Brideshead Revisited, God “twitched” the line – the one connected to me – and reeled me back.
 
It happened like this:
 
One day, out of the blue, I received a phone call from someone I’d met only once – in a business meeting that had occurred a few months prior. I had to search my memory to even remember the guy. He told me he was responsible for sponsoring a Cursillo in his Marin County parish. (I lived in the East Bay). He said he had a full group but someone had just backed out because of illness and my name popped into his head as someone who might benefit from making a Cursillo. Would I like to come? To tell you the truth, I really didn’t want to go. I was very comfortable wasting my life in pursuit of earthly temptations. Then, he said the slogan of that particular Cursillo was “God is Calling. Will you Answer?” It was then I felt God’s unseen hook dig into my flesh.
 
I ended up going on that Cursillo, and it changed my life. I came back to the Church. I reformed my life. Am I perfect? Heck, no. But I know now that …
 
GOD IS BOTH MERCIFUL AND FORGIVING. And that, my friends, is GOOD NEWS, INDEED!!!