All Posts

╔════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╗║ ║║ THE HUMILITY OF THE THRESHOLD ║║ ║╚════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╝ When I left the body and stood upon that threshold, I found myself within a reality far beyond earthly language. I was no longer confined beneath the ordinary limitations of the body. Consciousness itself had become unburdened. What I perceived was not darkness, not emptiness, but living immensity. Before me — and

Some twenty years ago, while my wife and I were parishioners at Our Lady of Grace, we received a new priest fresh from the Philippines. From the very beginning, something within me recognized him. A spiritual connection was forming and eventual friendship. I felt a deep spiritual connection to him almost immediately. Over the next twenty years, he became one of the most important people in my life. Our friendship grew even more after my ordination. In time, I was serving both

After surgery, my body went into shock, and I did not do very well. I struggled hard for a while. There came a point where my body simply could not sustain me any longer. It was as though it finally said goodbye and released me. People have asked me over the years, “What was it like?” The best way I know how to answer is through the language of Scripture itself. In the wisdom literature of the Old Testament — the Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes — the soul and human life are de

The Future Arrived Quietly By Deacon Rudy Calsoncin When I was a child, the future lived in cartoons and science fiction. On Saturday mornings, we watched The Jetsons glide through the sky in flying cars while machines answered questions, screens carried conversations across distance, and tiny communicators connected people instantly. Then came Star Trek, where voices traveled through space from devices small enough to fit in the palm of a hand. It all seemed impossibly dista

August 2018. My body was exhausted-completely spent. After several days in the hospital, the diagnosis finally came: cholangiocarcinoma, bile duct cancer. Terminal in nature. But even before those words were spoken, something else had already begun. Priest friends-unsolicited, unplanned-came to me and anointed me with the Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick. I was aware of everything. On one side, there was the weight of reality pressing in. On the other, there was somethi

I was ordained for service in the Catholic Church in 2012, and officially retired in good standing. But much of what I now share was not formed in a classroom-it was formed in deep suffering. In 2018, I was diagnosed with a life-threatening cancer, terminal in nature. I underwent a Whipple surgery for bile-duct cancer, after eight hours and almost Immediately following, I experienced a level of pain that overwhelmed my senses and led me to leave my body and enter into a profo