Damian Chechlacz
If you would have told me 9 years ago that I’d be writing up a little story about my journey to Christ on a social media feed called “YES CATHOLIC”, I’d go tell you to take a hike and not forget to take the crazy with you. I never imagined that I’d be who I am today. I used to think that being Catholic was only meant for old, Polish grandmas. I didn’t really know if I believed in God – frankly, I didn’t care too much about the question. If He did exist, to me He was nothing but an oversized parental figure wagging His finger down at me, barring me from doing all the things that I perceived to be the “most fun”. Church was a place that I was forced to attend. Prayer was a race to see who can recite the words the fastest without embarrassingly forgetting them altogether.
In my early teenage years, popularity was the name of the game and social status was the aim. I was obsessed with what people thought of me, bending the person I was to others so as to gain their approval, admiration, affection and attention. See - I was a lovable, chubby, polite, overgrown little kid during my childhood. The only exercise I did was climbing up onto countertops to get the cookies that my mom would hide from me on the highest shelves. I mean, okay fine, I guess I played a lot of sports, but I was pretty much just the try-hard who held the fort down on defense. I wasn’t the most athletic, I wasn’t the class clown, and I definitely didn’t feel like the bloke that got all the girls. I was desperately in search of an identity. In search of being known, being recognized, appreciated... loved... validated. Every young boy wants to know if he is a man. Every young boy wants to know if he has what it takes. These were the questions on my heart.
And so I sought out on my quest to “become a man”, adopting the worldly vision of what manhood meant; to have an abundance of pleasure always available to you, to have power and dominance over others, to garner the jealousy and respect of others, receive recognition for one’s achievements, and have unabated freedom to exert one’s own will. That was the foundation of what I was building my life on at a young age. That was how I mapped out the path to retrieve the answer to the fundamental question on my heart: who are you and what are you here for?
Now, as you might imagine, charming 15 year-old Damian was a real self-absorbed, kind of rude, slimy type. I was directionless, choosing to live for only the present moment... I had no real friendships, choosing instead my friendships based on social status... I resented my parents and I confused lust as one of the Seven Virtues and saw chastity as one of the Seven Deadly Sins. You know, I really thought that my rapping career on Soundcloud would set off and eventually garner me the attention, recognition, and sense of identity that I so desperately desired. And if not that, then surely my YouTube street dancing endeavour would, right? Alas, the Lord had different plans and thank God that He did! So often we as practicing Catholics make the mistake in thinking that we, in our lofty capacities, have chosen God. Yet, as was preached at this past Sunday’s homily, it is really God who chooses us. He calls each one of us through our baptism to be His disciples and to be the “salt of the earth” and “light of the world”. Here is the story of how Christ pierced through my deafness and helped me respond to the call He wrote on the tabletstone of my heart since I was born.
Okay, it’s really not that crazy of a story. I was forced by my parents to go on a @ytolcanada March Break high school retreat. I didn’t want anything to do with it. But, you know, parents have their way. It was in the middle of nowhere, it was cold, all the other kids were forced to be there, I had to sing all these religious songs, attend daily mass, prayers, small group discussions.. I was miserable that first day. But God really worked on my heart during the first few days of that retreat. He really opened me up to the needs of others around me. I started to enter into the silence I was so scared of and for the first time, I started considering if this whole Jesus thing could be real. I truly prayed for the first time in my life, saying, “Lord, if you are really there. If you really did die for all my sins and if you really do love me... Show yourself to me. I am open.”
On Wednesday, March 16, 2011, during Eucharistic Adoration, God responded. That was the first time I really met Jesus...and what a meeting that was. He just came and swooped right in, crumbling my fortress of pride and self-dependence that I had built for so many years. That night, I went to confession for the first time in years. I felt real sorrow for my sins and started to notice how selfishly I was living... how I was treating my parents and those around me, how I was spitting in the face of God every day, not caring about Him and only living for myself. There must have been a whole lot of onion in that room because, for some reason, my eyes were having this weird, foreign reaction that I rarely experienced.
I remember that moment... the moment that I encountered Jesus for the first time. It was magnificent. Best moment in my life, hands down. I felt whole. Full. Like someone had coloured in my heart. I found the love and fulfilment that I had been seeking in all these other faulty places. And I found it in the last place I’d expect no less. I just remember thinking, “Woah, is this what Catholics feel all the time!?” (UPDATE: I WISH! ABSOLUTELY NOT!). And so I left that retreat a changed man. Not just a changed man on his own, but a man with a whole community... a whole band of brothers and sisters to walk this new journey with, many of whom I still walk that treacherous, exciting, dangerous, riveting journey with to this very day.
PHASE 1: CONVERSION COMPLETED! BEGIN PHASE 1.5: REALIZING THAT CONVERSION IS A DAILY PROCESS. The ensuing year brought a lot of challenges as eventually, after a few months, I had to come down from my “Jesus high” mountain and head into the valleys, living out my faith on a daily and consistent basis. Not as easy when the feelings and the fire aren’t there, for sure. There was a game of tug-of-war being played in my heart, the old me was fighting with the new me in Christ and it started to look like I was living a double life. A little bit of night-time prayer sprinkled in with some listening to at least the homily here, and a lot of justified sin mixed in with totally neglecting church teachings there. I was scared to grow in my faith and take it seriously. I wasn’t as scared of what others would think of me anymore so much so as I was scared of what this new commitment to my faith would mean for my life. How much of a radical change would I have to make? You mean I have to trust God and lay at His feet all my dreams, desires, and hopes for the future!? What if He screws up and I don’t get what I want from life? What if He is wrong in what makes me happiest? Ah, okay this faith thing is cool and all but becoming a saint sounds like a lot of work and I don’t know if that’s what I want from my life! I was pretty fed up wrestling with these questions for the whole year and knew I needed to make a change in my life and commit to either a life with Christ or a life without Christ. I needed to make a decision on how I wanted to move forward.
And so it was a year later, at that very same retreat and now returning as a leader, that I gave my life to Christ, saying those faithful worlds to Him upon receiving Him in the Eucharist during the last mass of the retreat. My conversion moment may have been the most blissful moment, but that was certainly the most freeing and peaceful moment I’ve ever had in my life. From that moment on, my faith became a commitment, through thick and thin. It was no longer a Sunday thing.. a once in a while thing.. or a “when my feelings get high enough” thing, it became an everyday thing.
That was 8 years ago. I’ve been in PHASE 2 ever since. I like to call PHASE 2: THE PAINFUL PROCESS OF SANCTIFICATION, it’s that point you get to where you realize that the faith life, and the adventure of life altogether, is never the linear graph that you envisioned and hoped it would be. Sometimes, it looks like scribbles on a paper. There’s peaks and valleys, deep recesses, periods of consistent inclines. There are times where you are on fire for God, and times where you fall deep into sin. Times where you rejoice with the Lord, and times where you cry with Him. There are times where He surprises you with blessings that you could not have even imagined, and there are times where He permits sufferings in your life that you could never have foreseen. The one constant through it all is Him, and His promise to always be there. That is a promise I will gladly take. That is a promise that I will bank my life on. Though I have failed Him too many times to count, He hasn’t failed me yet.
Just because I am a changed man, doesn’t mean I’m not still a broken man. But now I know that I am a broken man in the hands of a great God... and that makes all of the difference. I am His wavy-haired, silly-looking unfinished work of art and every day He is sculpting me... somedays He gently pats the clay down and other days He has to take out His chisel to crack through my ego. He won’t stop until I finally become what I was always meant to be, the purpose behind my existence. As St. John Paul the Great says, “We are not the sum of our weaknesses and failures; we are the sum of the Father’s love for us and our real capacity to become the image of His Son.” In the words of that great Polish man, “Life with Christ is truly a wonderful adventure” and I can’t wait to see where He will lead me next.
“TRUST IN THE LORD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND DO NOT RELY ON YOUR OWN INSIGHT. IN ALL YOUR WAYS ACKNOWLEDGE HIM, AND HE WILL MAKE STRAIGHT YOUR PATHS.”
“IT IS JESUS YOU SEEK WHEN YOU DREAM OF HAPPINESS; HE IS WAITING FOR YOU WHEN NOTHING ELSE YOU FIND SATISFIES YOU; HE IS THE BEAUTY TO WHICH YOU ARE SO ATTRACTED. IT IS HE WHO PROVOKES YOU WITH THAT THIRST FOR FULLNESS THAT WILL NOT LET YOU SETTLE FOR COMPROMISE; IT IS HE WHO URGES YOU TO SHED THE MASKS OF A FALSE LIFE. ”