Felt Banners Aren’t Enough
by Greg Willits
Founder and President – Rosary Army
Two weeks ago I wrote to you from a hotel room in Columbus, Ohio. My wife, Jennifer, and I were there to film an episode of The Journey Home for EWTN.
We talked about it on this week’s episode of Adventures in Imperfect Living if you’re interested in more about what happened.
It was an enlightening experience for both of us in more ways than one.
As a bonus, we also had the opportunity to hang out with some old friends again.
The first was Matt Swaim, who invited us onto the show in the first place.
Matt’s the host of the SonRise Morning Show on EWTN Radio and the Director of Outreach for The Coming Home Network (the producers of The Journey Home). Because of our mutual adventures in Catholic radio, we’ve known Matt for many years and share a love for Catholicism, Star Wars, and ridiculous pop culture trivia.
I’m never surprised to get a call from Matt during the first week of May with an invitation to be on his show on May 4th (Star Wars Day) to discuss random intersections and Catholic themes found in that series of movies set in a galaxy far, far away.
Jennifer and I also got to visit with a childhood friend who lived directly behind me when I lived in Columbus from 1979 to 1984. I was in second grade when I first met Aaron, who hadn’t even started kindergarten yet. His younger brother, also a dear friend, was still wearing diapers at the time.
I’ve said many times that the best friends in life are the ones you can go years without seeing, but you can pick up the conversation right where you left off as soon as they enter the room.
I hadn’t seen Aaron since 2010, and yet as soon as he walked through the sliding doors into the hotel lobby, we slipped right back into the ease of our friendship of more than forty years.
A Little Mission in the Fields of Ohio
The next day, Matt drove us through the slushy streets and eventual cornfields east of Columbus into what many would call the middle of nowhere.
I was looking forward to seeing JonMarc Grodi, the host of The Journey Home, as I’d gotten to know him a bit over the years, as well. We had the blessing and opportunity of having a very bizarre karaoke experience with JonMarc and Seth (another Coming Home staff member) back in 2015. Our friends Mac, Katherine, and Billy were all there, as well.
As you can see from this photo I took that night, we were all feeling a bit out of place that evening.
Jennifer and I have both shared bits and pieces of our stories of more fully embracing our Catholicism over the years when giving talks and retreats, in our books, and most especially on our podcasts where we tend to be the most real and our discussions the most candid.
But last week as we prepared to share on national television our shared journey into a deeper walk of faith within the Catholic Church, we were surprised how the Holy Spirit brought particular moments that we’d long forgotten back to the surface again.
Felt Banners Aren’t Enough
Even though I’m a cradle Catholic, in many ways I feel like I’m a convert to the faith.
Growing up in the 70’s and 80’s, I attended Catholic school through sixth grade, always attended Sunday Mass, and occasionally participated in youth groups (though those groups were mainly excuses to take advantage of discount prices at local amusement parks).
But I often lament that I was almost twenty-nine years old before I was ever introduced to Eucharistic adoration. Instead, church always seemed to be more about felt banners and folk music than it was about Jesus in the Eucharist.
“How was that possible?” I regularly ask myself. “What the heck was going on in the Church of my youth that Jesus Christ in the Eucharist was minimized to such a great extent that I could go twenty-nine years without a proper explanation of the Real Presence?”
So while I never left the Church, exactly, there were periods of my life where I was certainly not reaping the benefits of the Church’s glorious teachings in so many areas.
For Jennifer, the journey was even more complex and I think even she was surprised to hear her story coming out of her own mouth.
We look forward to sharing that episode when it launches on EWTN. It’s currently scheduled for April 15 if you want to put it on your calendar.
In the meantime, here are a couple of behind-the-scenes photos from the filming:
A Sweet Surprise
As I mentioned, I lived in Columbus for a few years as a kid. We lived on a small street with just seven homes and when we moved in we had no idea that we were going to live next door to Willy Wonka.
When our first Halloween approached that year (I was now in third grade), the other kids on the street all told me that the first home we had to go to on Halloween was the first house on our street, right next door to ours.
The family that lived there apparently owned a candy company and gave out full-size chocolate bars on Halloween.
Then, at Christmas time, those same neighbors rang on our doorbell and gifted us with five huge boxes of assorted chocolates!
Approaching our first Easter, we were invited to go on a tour of their candy factory near downtown Columbus.
Over the years, it wasn’t unusual to find my parents visiting with Mr. and Mrs. Zanetos (the owners of the candy company) on summer evenings after dinner.
Mr. Zanetos’ first name was Thomas. His dad was Anthony. When Thomas returned from World War II, he and his dad started the company together and called it Anthony-Thomas Candy Company.
They had several stores within biking distance of our house, and I always assumed it was just a small family business.
A couple of weeks ago after we filmed our segment for The Journey Home, Matt dropped us off at the airport a couple of hours before our flight was scheduled to take off. As soon as we arrived, our plans were delayed several hours.
“I’m going to go into the souvenir shop,” I told Jennifer, though I had no intentions of buying anything.
I walked through the store looking at the Ohio State University sweatshirts and hats, the magazine rack and books, and was ready to walk out when I jumped backward.
There in the middle of the airport gift shop was an enormous display of…
you know where I’m going with this…
Anthony-Thomas candies!
A flood of childhood memories came flooding in at the sight of those boxes.
I grabbed a small box for our daughter back home.
And some sweet comments
I’ve also been surprised and encouraged by so many kind words about Rosary Army over the last few weeks. Here are a few that I thought you’d appreciate:
Jennie wrote:
As always, your reflections are so touching and amazing. They aren’t blog posts or email blasts or articles. They are notes from a dear, dear friend. (Your superpower must be being able to connect to so many different people no matter where they are in life or where you are in life.)
Thanks, Jennie! As always, we appreciate your constant support of this apostolate!
Pat shared this:
Wow, Greg, just wow!! Thanks so much for sharing all this. I always keep your emails so I can reread them in the future. They contain such gems of truth and beauty!
And Angie backed up what Pat wrote:
Wow! The past several emails have been ones that compel me to read them instead of all the typical newsletters that are just hawking a new item or seeking donations.
The “dash” on your future headstone as the saying goes is truly where life happens and as your reflection and the messages you receive from listeners show you do make an impact with the honest sharing of your true testimony of how God is actively drawing you to Him and making you, and Jennifer as well, an instrument to help others draw closer to God. Your continual fiat, like Mary’s.
Thanks for all you are doing and how you continue to share the difficulties you encounter and continue to endeavor to turn to God in the midst.
I appreciate that, Angie. This apostolate is really about encouraging everyone to make that continual fiat, to continually turn to Jesus and say, “Here I am, Lord. I come to do Your will.”
It makes it easier to do so when you know you’re not alone.
And here’s another note that was great to receive from Daniel:
I wanted to reach out to you to let you and your Adventures listeners know that when you sign off your podcast episodes with remember to pray your daily rosary, your words encouraged me since mid-December 2023 through today to begin praying a daily rosary.
I’ve always thought it was a difficult task or I’d be too tired it busy. I put those excuses aside and began a daily rosary.
Even the first weekend of January 2024, my mom and I took a weekend trip to Savannah, GA and we prayed a daily rosary every night of our vacation.
Thank you for your ministry and encouraging me to pray a daily rosary. Finding peace from the prayers and thus meditation is so comforting in my daily walk. And for the past 15 years I’ve always carried a rosary in my pocket.
Well done, Daniel! Keep it up!
That’s all for this week.
Again, if you’d like to hear more about our adventures in Columbus filming that episode for EWTN, be sure to check out this week’s Adventures in Imperfect Living episode right here.
And if you would, leave a comment and subscribe to our YouTube Channel so more people discover our work!
Be sure to pray your Rosary every day and do whatever it takes to be holy!