With his dark shades below a dropped cap with ponytail, J fits the guise of a war veteran. Then, he smiles and takes off his sunglasses showing his smiling eyes and you feel at home.
J has been
involved in a threefold ministry of reaching out to help, bringing God
into everyday conversation, and introducing persons to the gospel
rosary. His real name is James Wallace, but everyone in the streets and
veterans hospital call him J.
Veteran Marcia Nagles- outpatient
at Menlo Park Veterans Hospital- says,” J make you feel like part of the
family.” She was sitting in a hospital corner in 1990 when he said,
“You don’t look like your doing well, do you want to talk?”
Marcia
said, “He shopped, picked things up, walked me home, got me to daily
mass and rosary. He made me a better Catholic and I’m a convert. James
said “I consider Marcia and many like her to be my family, now. “Nagles
connected with him because when she converted to Catholicism in 1964 her
family kicked her out. J says his family, also, booted him out, in
1985, but “because of military Post Traumatic Stress Disorder [PTSD] and
an antsy personality.”
Ironically, J’s lay ministry began- with
family in 1982- when his grandmother lay dying in Alaska. He said “No
other family member was willing to take the dying woman home to Iowa. It
was not easy to go because Grandma didn’t like me because of my Hippie
appearance.”
According to James with a sarcastic tone, she
remarked upon seeing him, “I knew you would be the one to come for me.
But, after that I saw only the love in her eyes for me. She had always
wanted a priest in the family, so I promised her to enter the seminary.”
In
1984, after two years of study at the Mt. St. Claire Seminary and
University in Diwitt, Iowa, J was told he wouldn’t make it. He recalls,
“They told me, I wouldn”t make it because I was too much of an
adventurer. I would go out racing cars and horseback riding. I was just
too antsy.” They suggested he get involved in a rosary ministry.
J
said, “The ministry is waiting for the God given moment when I realize I
have to talk to this person. Starting a conversation about anything for
about half an hour -then bringing in God. Finally, giving them a rosary
with explanation and instructions.”
De Anza College student,
Gordon Straight, said,“ He gave me a rosary, and we chat regularly even
though I’m not a Catholic.“ The chats are largely on gospel matters.
“But,
most of all my heart goes out to the women on buses with children and
their hopeless looks.” James said, “When I politely approach -they are
scared to death -but once I take off the glasses, they look in my eyes
and see hope.”
Many times these women are broke, so J gives them
ten dollars to buy pampers along with the rosary. The most rewarding
part of his work is the bus ministry. Since 1984- starting in Iowa -the
bus ministry has followed him wherever he goes. His bus ministry on the
Santa Clara County Transit takes him all over the California Silicon
Valley usually stopping at his center of gravity the Menlo Park Veterans
Hospital.
From 1990 to 1994 he was an inpatient at the Menlo
Park Veterans Hospital for alcoholism and PTSD. James is still in
Alcoholics Anonymous, the 12 Step Program that he got involved with
through the hospital. He said,” I was seeing three psychiatrists who
helped me put my life together. I owe them my life. They helped me come
to terms with my problems, which were a mix of family experiences,
heredity and military experiences.”
He was a Coast Guard sailor
from 1977 to 1980 stationed in Morro Bay, California on a 95-Foot Coast
Guard Rescue Cutter. From 1980 to 1982 he was at Westport, Washington on
the Search and Rescue Station where he retired. His July 1982, DD 214
discharge papers say he was “ permanently retired by reason of physical
disability.”
James remembered, ”I returned fire with an M-16 at
narcotics boats when under attack. But, my most nervous moment in the
West Coast waters was when I and a petty officer boarded a drug boat.
The petty officer was attacked and mauled by a black Labrador Retriever -
I had to kill the dog.”
During his term of duty, he says “34
lives were saved from ship fires and sinkings.” J said,” Three times I
was thought to be dead, once with a broken back and hip which forced me
to retire. I’m like the trout that’s too small; God keeps throwing me
back. That’s why I have the ponytail so He can pull me back.”
In
1982,the broken back and hip ended his Coast Guard career. James
recalled, ”The transition to civilian life was hard because of Post
Traumatic Stress Disorder and my antsy personality. There were
flashbacks from past rescue and law enforcement episodes. Nor did it
help that I refused to take pain medication for the constant back pain.”
He
says, this led him to difficulties in holding down a job or residence
because of depression. Finally, he ended up at his Mother’s Silicon
Valley house. James said, “It was a dysfunctional family with alcohol
involved and I had a lot of problems myself.”
In 1985, on
Thanksgiving Day J was booted out by his family. J said, “There was the
alcohol and my problems, but I just don’t know the answer to why they
did it. I asked them. They just said they didn’t want to see me
anymore.“ That’s when he started saying the hour and half gospel
meditation rosary, praying especially for his family.
He knew he
needed help, but had never known where to turn. After, he started the
gospel rosary everything fell into place. He found the Bay Area veterans
hospitals, which-from 1986 to 1994 - helped him overcome PTSD and a
drinking problem. He says, in this times of despair the rosary helped
show him Gods love.
James mused, “There is a prayer to St.
Michael the Archangel that says no matter how bad we feel; all of us are
precious in Gods eyes and heart. I know he will always love me and for
that I am thankful.”
He says we should never lose hope because
suicide is losing trust in God. Twice after spending days with
despairing persons- he had met thru his ministry- they committed
suicide. He believes if parents taught their children the rosary there
would be less despair.
James as a 6th grader-visiting
Grandma-remembers waking up at 3:30AM to go to 5AM Mass in Waterloo,
Iowa. “The Church was so old you could smell God. It was there that he
was taught the rosary. It has never left my lips and heart ever since.”
He
prays two complete rosaries everyday, twenty to thirty minutes on waking
plus an hour and half one later in the day. In the morning, he focus is
on the gospel words of the Our Father and Hail Mary in the manner of
the Jesus prayer.For the second rosary, he uses an old method - the
scriptural and gospel meditation rosary book. Sometimes staying as long
as five minutes- in meditation-on one bead. He, also, prays for specific
persons on the beads. There are 20 to 30 persons who receive prayer
everyday starting with his family. About 20 people are continuously
included while he adds and drops others every nine days.
Stop for a moment of silence, ask Jesus Christ what He want you to do now and next. In this silence remember God, Father, Son and Holy Ghost - Three Divine Persons yet One God, has an ordered universe where you can know truth and falsehood as well as never forget that He wants you to have eternal happiness with Him as his son or daughter by grace. Make this a practice. By doing this you are doing more good than reading anything here or anywhere else on the Internet.
Francis Notes:
- Doctor
of the Church St. Francis de Sales totally confirmed beyond any doubt
the possibility of a heretical pope and what must be done by the Church
in such a situation:
"[T]he Pope... WHEN he is EXPLICITLY a heretic, he falls ipso facto from his dignity and out of the Church, and the Church MUST either deprive him, or, as some say, declare him deprived, of his Apostolic See."
(The Catholic Controversy, by St. Francis de Sales, Pages 305-306)
Saint Robert Bellarmine, also, said "the Pope heretic is not deposed ipso facto, but must be declared deposed by the Church."
[https://archive.org/stream/SilveiraImplicationsOfNewMissaeAndHereticPopes/Silveira%20Implications%20of%20New%20Missae%20and%20Heretic%20Popes_djvu.txt]
- "If Francis is a Heretic, What should Canonically happen to him?": http://www.thecatholicmonitor.com/2020/12/if-francis-is-heretic-what-should.html
- "Could Francis be a Antipope even though the Majority of Cardinals claim he is Pope?": http://www.thecatholicmonitor.com/2019/03/could-francis-be-antipope-even-though.html
- LifeSiteNews, "Confusion explodes as Pope Francis throws magisterial
weight behind communion for adulterers," December 4, 2017:
The AAS guidelines explicitly allows "sexually active adulterous couples
facing 'complex circumstances' to 'access the sacraments of
Reconciliation and the Eucharist.'"
- On February 2018, in Rorate Caeli, Catholic theologian Dr. John Lamont:
"The AAS statement... establishes that Pope Francis in Amoris Laetitia
has affirmed propositions that are heretical in the strict sense."
- On December 2, 2017, Bishop Rene Gracida:
"Francis' heterodoxy is now official. He has published his letter to the
Argentina bishops in Acta Apostlica Series making those letters
magisterial documents."
Pray an Our Father now for the restoration of the Church by the bishops by the grace of God.
Election Notes:
- Intel Cryptanalyst-Mathematician on Biden Steal: "212Million Registered Voters & 66.2% Voting,140.344 M Voted...Trump got 74 M, that leaves only 66.344 M for Biden" [http://catholicmonitor.blogspot.com/2020/12/intel-cryptanalyst-mathematician-on.html?m=1]
- Will US be Venezuela?: Ex-CIA Official told Epoch Times "Chávez started to Focus on [Smartmatic] Voting Machines to Ensure Victory as early as 2003": http://catholicmonitor.blogspot.com/2020/12/will-us-be-venezuela-ex-cia-official.html
http://www.thecatholicmonitor.com/2021/01/a-hour-which-will-live-in-infamy-1001pm.html?m=1
http://catholicmonitor.blogspot.com/2021/01/epoch-times-show-crossroads-on-capital.html?m=1]