Story time

West, Texas is home to a faithful small catholic community where Father Ed had been pastor for over two decades at Church of the Assumption is where at the time our 6 year old grandson, Tristan was growing up surrounded by the love of his maternal Catholic family of aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents, and his mother Janie.  Outside his paternal grandfather “Papa Joe” is running around playing with Tristan while his paternal grandma, “Buela” is inside their home preparing for the evening meal for the family get together.  His maternal grandpa had built him a playhouse ten feet tall and we were up shooting at an imaginary enemy through the window. As I climbed down my foot slipped off the step, falling and landing on my feet sending a sharp pain down my back.  Game over, for Papa Joe it was time to go inside for some pain reliever.  A week later after our visit in West, Texas, my wife Yolanda and I had decided to take our bikes to the bicycle shop for repair due to accumulating dust and grime while in the garage.  The plan was to start exercising.  We had just gone to pick them up and loaded them in the back of my blue Dodge Ram 2000 pick-up.  I jumped off the truck after lowering the bikes and again felt a sharp pain run down my back.  This time I immediately knew something bad had happened from the radiating pain down my leg.  “Game on”, I felt the call to service with a cross had begun and this would be a health defining moment at the age of fifty.

It had only been a few weeks since I was approached by a member of St. Francis Xavier Parish in La Feria, Texas to be the Director of the next men’s ACTS (Adoration, Community, Theology, Service) retreat.  This movement had just begun at St. Francis Xavier Parish.  I had attended their first retreat as a retreatant led by a parish from San Antonio Texas and the priest who helped begin this apostolate.  I was asked to lead the first home parish ACTS retreat which involved organizing the team, selecting the theme, leading the planning sessions, and facilitating the retreat.  Having already experienced this four day retreat, it was clear that there would be a major time demand in its preparation coordinating a group of at least 36 men to be on team and then invite 36 more men to be “retreatants”. For the team the retreat would start with a twelve week preparation.  To be called to be on team was to be called to be a “servant of Christ” to each other and to the men who would experience the retreat for the first time.

In the water of baptism we are washed clean to receive the Holy Spirit and in confirmation we are called to evangelize as witnesses to the faith we proclaim.  In the Eucharist we are strengthened to serve with his Body and Blood.  In marriage we become one in Christ in the Trinity to live out the beauty of the marital covenant as husband, wife, and God.  It is said “God works in mysterious ways” and unknowingly this calling would be the precedent to the diaconate call.  Yolanda reminded me of how many of these church men of St. Francis Xavier parish had been our youth kids in our early years of our youth ministry to both middle school and high school youth.  Now they were young adults calling for me to take the post of servant leader to this new apostolate.  In accepting the call, I could not have anticipated that soon this would become the suffering servant’s call for the redemption of souls over the next several years of lay ministry.

As I experienced greater pain in my back I began to question if I was going to physically be able to fulfill my “yes” to the Lord as director of the retreat.  The first few nights were constant pain requiring me to take days off from work and use a walker to move about the house.  My initial visit to a doctor was a referral to a back surgeon after preliminary tests.  The surgeon stated my “L3” disk was being pinched and he would go in and “carve out” the area to relieve the pressure from the nerve.  The whole idea of creating a “donut hole” around my nerve did not appeal to me as a best practice solution.  In thanking the doctor I let him know I would consider the option and call back if I decided to go through with the surgery.

Yolanda, my wife and I had no sooner left his office when she recommended I go see her doctor for a second opinion.  He was her doctor since childhood with much medical experience.  As I waited in the exam room, it was filled with old equipment and there was no computer for an electronic record, as he walked in with a paper file to write on.  I explained my history of the events and he advised me that sometimes “time can heal” if I was willing to endure some pain.  The doctor asked me what I drove and when I stated it was a truck he stated that would help me keep my back straight.  He also suggested losing weight to relieve some of the burden from my back.   I immediately recognized the opportunity to offer my pain and prayer for healing for the men who would be attending the ACTS retreat.  The battle was on against the evil that would tempt me to surrender to the pain and release the obligation of the retreat.

Twelve weeks of preparation for the retreat began with a walker, anti-inflammatory pills, and the search for a theme for the retreat.  The theme became John 17:21, “So that they may all be one as you Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be one in us, that the world may believe that you sent me”.    After the first few weeks the walker was gone, the ability to sleep all night improved, but the constant chronic pain in every movement remained as a blade in my back that chastised me for any careless act in movement.  The first steps in planning the retreat involved selecting my team of Co-Director, Spiritual Director, and Head Angel and Music Director.  Next in order was the formation of the team and set the calendar of meetings.  The Church on earth is militant to be triumphant over evil, temptation, doubt, and fear.  Be not afraid to be the wounded warrior with a visionary spirit for the greater good and the apostle of common sense to carry the weight of the cross of purification.

As the day of the retreat approached, it was planned to have a commissioning of the team by our pastor.  In reality, my wife and I were members of another parish close by at the time.  Years earlier we had moved from St. Francis Xavier to attend a parish in the school district where most of our son’s friends went to school and church.  Since then we had already endured the cross of having him die in a tragic car accident.  Marcos Orlando Gonzalez left his only his son, Tristan as a living reminder of his life on this earth.

Marcos (Mark) Orlando Gonzalez, Harlingen proud Cardinal class of 1994, looked at the world as an opportunity to make friends and face new challenges.  His desire to stay engaged with life kept him playing many sports including soccer, football, basketball, tennis, cross-country, and track, and going from one practice to another practice yet his energy and smile did not fade.  His first passion for sports began with the Blue Blazers in soccer and his natural speed to run and never seem to tire.  Behind his confidence were also his foundation of Catholic faith in God, his parents, and his joy of life.

While a Valley native he was not afraid to pursue his educational goals where there was an opportunity to continue his soccer passion.  After High School he went to college at Mary Hardin Baylor in Belton Texas, played college soccer and was on the first football team the school started up.  There he met Janie and together celebrated the birth of their son, Tristan Marc Gonzalez and Mark became family to Janie’s family and the community of West, Texas.  This small community of faith whom we remember in prayer marked their one year anniversary in April 2013 from the tragedy of the explosion that rocked this town and made national news but did not break their spirit symbolizes the strength of wounded warriors with great courage.

His life came to a sudden end on a tragic car accident, June 6, 1999 at the age of 23.  While the trauma of this day can never be forgotten for the great loss, it is also remembered for the great love of family, friends, his peers, co-workers, and the many lives he touched with his smile and heart.  Others may see a life that was cut short but he saw his life as complete living each day to the fullest and content.  His gravestone marks this message in the words of scripture, “I have competed well; I have finished the race; I have kept the faith.  From now on the crown of righteousness awaits me, which the Lord, the just judge, will award me on that day” (2 Tim. 4: 7-8)

No greater joy in being content was his love for his son, Tristan Marc, only a year and a half old.  Today Tristan is a handsome young man, talented in his own studies and sports, especially in baseball, already playing in an elite team and traveling around the state for tournament play.  He also enjoys nature in fishing and hunting.  What is most striking is the smile that carries the image of Mark Gonzalez.  Tristan is surrounded by the love of his immediate family, Scott and Janie Beheler and his new little brother Tracen who loves his big brother “Bubba” and all of the West extended “familia”.  They continue living in this northern town, so for his grandparents, “Papa Joe and Buela” the road very well-traveled lead through I-35 to West, Texas.

The day of the commissioning came and joining us for the retreat was going to be Father Clancy, a hospital chaplain who we had worked with in doing our hospital ministry.  Father Clancy and Father Plutarco, the pastor for St. Francis Xavier participated in the team commissioning.  I offered a reflection on the retreat theme for the group as part of the ceremony.  After the ceremony Father Plutarco approached me and asked if I had considered being a Deacon.  I let him know that at a younger age I had considered it but given my age of fifty and the age limit of the new group that was to begin the diaconal process I may be too old.

The diocese had set an age limit of fifty-five to complete the diaconal formation.  It was a Saturday, Father Plutarco stated he wanted me to go home and ask my wife how she felt about being recommended to the diaconate.  The application was due by Wednesday of the coming week and I would need to complete it and get it to him to fax in on time.  I could almost feel my back stiffening with excitement and trembling fear.  The questioning began.  Could I be a deacon?  Could this retreat be the beginning of a greater call to servant leadership?  Could my health endure?  Could all I have done in my past as a son, student, husband, father, nurse, social worker, counselor, administrator, business man, youth minister, catechist, parish council member, hospital minister and friend be by divine providence the path to the diaconate?

I went home and immediately let Yolanda know what had happened.  How could this priest who hardly knows me, when I do not even belong to his parish be guided by the Holy Spirit to approach me for this calling?  He also made it clear that this process could only go forward with my wife’s consent.  It was a calling to service that both of us had to accept, each in our own commitment to God and Church.  I also said we would need to transfer back to St. Francis Xavier parish in La Feria, Texas.  Yolanda in her voice of faith stated God had his plan.  In her voice of loyalty stated that she belonged to Immaculate Heart parish in Harlingen, Texas, so I would have to be the one who changed to St. Francis Xavier now.  Immaculate Heart was Yolanda’s parish of childhood where her family would walk to church services so being her “home” parish was more than switching parishes.  She too was to walk in the journey, make sacrifices, grow spiritually and participate in the formation called from her own baptism to serve.

Servant leadership included an immediate sacrifice of parishes, a letting go and letting God, and taking the short trail down the road instead of going east to Harlingen to Mass, now going west to La Feria to this community that would sponsor my diaconal formation.  The application was signed by both of us, now it was in the hands of God and the Church.  Weeks passed and word got around of others who had submitted their application.  Then some began receiving their letter of acceptance into the Diaconate Formation Program.  I waited and no letter arrived thinking that perhaps it was not my calling.  One afternoon, Yolanda saw this envelope in the ground by the driveway covered with dirt and the wind had blown it aside from the mailbox.  How long had it been there, I do not know but it was from the Diocese of Brownsville, dated September 05, 2006 with the first mandatory meeting set for September 16^th just a few days away.  We were on the journey.

Ten years into the journey the apostolate of Thedeacon.net is one more of the fruits of service for prayer, worship, and love to go forth and proclaim his redemption, his word, and his kingdom.