Coming Back Home

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Thank you Shalom World for publishing my reversion story back to the Catholic Church, “Coming Back Home” in your latest issue of Shalom Tidings Magazine, February/March 2017.

COMING BACK HOME

By Billy Gillespie

Life was good. Or so I thought. I was living in New York City on the upper Westside with my new bride, and working as an actor. Maybe you have seen one of my award winning performances: Dunking my face into a bowl of baked beans, singing into a chunk of Velveeta cheese, talking with a mouth full of cookies, or maybe as the bright neon orange and green live version the very popular toy at the time, “Big Frank.” As well as in film, TV shows, theatre, and something very dear to me, Third Rail Comedy, the sketch comedy group I was a founding member of. One of our reviews at the time said we were “rude, crude and lewd.” We considered that a badge of honor. I was auditioning or filming during the day and performing sketch comedy in clubs at night. Yes, life was good. But let me back up a bit.

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Search for Redemption – A Glimpse of Hell

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After everyone slowly made their way out, in silence, I sat alone in the reconciliation chapel of the Cathedral unable to move. Sitting in that uncomfortable wooden chair, the back of my head leaning against the thick cement wall, I felt isolated and removed from all existence.

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Search For Redemption – Rejected By God

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Our Cathedral offers weekday confession one hour before Mass, which I take advantage of from time to time. Outside the confessional, there are twelve rather uncomfortable wooden chairs on which to wait. Like some sort of pre-penance I suppose. On this particular day, all chairs were occupied with a few people standing, forming a line at the end. As I took up my position at the end of the line,

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Goofball Welcomes Bishop Barron

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A few years ago I had the opportunity to attend my first Los Angeles Archdiocese Religious Education Congress in Anaheim, California. My friend Richard and I drove from Los Angeles, Saturday morning, arriving about 15 minutes before the Keynote speaker of that day which happened to be, Chicago priest, Father Robert Barron. I can’t remember how I originally learned about Father Barron, but I’ve watched many of his youtube videos, listen to his weekly homilies on his website wordonfire.org, I bought, watched and re-watched several times his beautiful DVD series, Catholicism. So naturally, I was looking forward to seeing him live.

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Upcoming Speaking Engagement

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Legion of Mary Patrician Meeting with Catholic Speaker Billy Gillespie

Tuesday, October 25, 2016, 7 – 9 PM

St. Francis de Sales Church

13360 Valleyheart Drive, Sherman Oaks, CA. 91423

Wish you had a closer relationship with God? Questioning your Faith, the Catholic Church? Have doubts? Yea, Billy Gillespie had doubts too. That is,

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Why I Must Follow Christ

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Christ Crucified

If you’ve read my reversion story you know I was searching everywhere for meaning in my life. Searching for myself. I finally succumbed to the longing in my heart and made a concerted effort to attend Mass on a regular basis and would ask myself the same question over and over. “There has got to be something more to this (Mass) than just this (what I am seeing).”

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Unconditional Love

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Unconditional Love

Attending this past Sunday Anticipated Mass, I noticed a mother with her daughter, about 5 years of age, sitting a few pews ahead of me. Before Mass began, the mother and daughter drew close to one another, exchanged whispers and each time the mother would end her whisper with a gentle kiss on her daughters forehead. What a lovely gesture I thought as

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