One Sunday morning, in the summer of 1966, I found my way to a little white Catholic chapel on a corner in Saticoy. Only a year before, my family had moved to Ventura from Eau Claire, Wis. I wasn’t familiar with the Saticoy area, but something drew me to the chapel that morning.
I was in tremendous emotional pain and having a crisis of faith. As I knelt in the back of the humble church, tears began streaming down my face. I was beginning to doubt the existence of God. If there was a God, why was I going through so much turmoil?
Silently I cried out to God in prayer: "Dear God, Father in Heaven, if there is a God, if there is a heaven, help me! I am so close to rejecting you. Please O Lord, let me know that you are real."
Precisely at that moment and directly behind me, a man with a powerful voice and a wonderful Austrian accent began singing out, "Our Father, who art in heaven. Hallowed be thy name." The fire of God’s love flooded my heart and my life was changed forever.
As I came back from Communion, I looked to see who that man was. No one was there.
Moments later, as I left the pew, I was swallowed up in a big black hug. There was the most handsome-looking priest I had ever seen. It was 45-year-old Father Arnold Biedermann.
In my darkest moment, God worked through this man to answer my prayer. Since Father Arnold Biedermann’s meager beginnings at the little white Sacred Heart Chapel, God has used him to be a source of love and affection for thousands of people throughout Ventura County. [Source]
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After Adam and Eve were expelled from paradise, they were miserable. But that was the only way they realized the goodness of God which they did not realizew in Paradise. They saw that their expulsion was a greater act of love than if they remained in Eden (St. John Chrysostom).
I really enjoyed this one!