The Gospels tell us that Jesus wept twice. Once, for Lazarus: it was the loss of a loved one; another time over the Holy City: He was losing His own people. The nation for which He had come into the world had rejected Him: “Jerusalem, Jerusalem…” (Lk 13:34).
The tears that streamed down His Holy Face, however, were not in vain. Even before the coming of the day when all Israel is converted and saved (cf. Rom 11:25-26), this manifestation of divine love has already begun to work the conversion of chosen hearts. So it was with Alphonse and Theodore Ratisbonne, Hermann Cohen and many others, one of them very close to us…
Longing for Yahweh
The son of German Jewish refugees, Roy Schoeman was born and raised in the suburbs of New York in the early 1950s, in a religiously observant family that soon became one of the pillars of local Jewish conservatism.
From an early age, he had no lack of awareness and pride in his race and religion. In addition to ordinary basic education, Roy attended the synagogue’s instructional programme twice a week, where he was introduced to his father’s traditions.
His naturally devout character yearned for God. He wanted to please Him. Above all, he felt the pride of belonging to the chosen people, who knew the name of Yahweh. In his words, “It was in Hebrew school and in the activities that revolved around the synagogue that I felt most in my own skin.”1
The divine hand, however, was inwardly inviting this beloved soul to take a step forward.
Religious doubts
Despite his environment, the child was drawn to Christ: “I sensed the love, the joy of Christmas, and the presence of the Baby Jesus at the centre of it”
A singular experience that occurred in his early childhood demonstrates this call. Despite an environment that was hardly oriented towards Christ, the first sentence little Schoeman uttered was: “I want a Christmas tree!” The word Christmas contains the name of the Redeemer. In fact, his innocent, apparently insignificant wish was based on a deep attraction to the Divine Infant: “I sensed the warmth, the love, the joy of Christmas, and the very real presence of the Baby Jesus at the centre of it all.”2
The delights of childhood, however, faded like time. And it was not long before the supernatural feeling that had once comforted him turned into hostility. Schoeman recounts his sentiments this way: “a sort of ‘sour grapes’ reaction to being rejected, excluded, from what (actually Whom) I most deeply yearned for”;3 and “The deeper this contradiction […], the more bitter the antagonism I felt to all things Christian.”4
In search of the meaning of life
After falling into a hedonistic agnosticism, Roy longed for greater meaning in life… Until receiving the greatest grace of his existence
When he joined the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, his misunderstanding of the relationship between religion and morality led him to indulge in the worst passions. “For a while my thirst for God was sated by the false consolations,”5 he admitted. His amorphous belief, weakened by vices, developed into a hedonistic agnosticism.
Although successful, disillusionment began to knock on his door. Looking for something to fill his emptiness, for many months he found excitement in rock-climbing, in taking advanced specialization courses, in a distinguished academic career with an MBA from Harvard and, finally, he spent years skiing. Nothing satisfied him… And he still hoped for some greater meaning in his life.
He found himself in this situation when, contemplating the beauty of the alpine countryside during a sunset, the snow reflected the rays of the king star in its last glows and reminded Roy of the Creator. It was the first time in years that he had recalled the only One who could satisfy him.
“I fell… into Heaven”
Through this open door, God soon entered.
Some time later, he was walking alone through the sandy dunes of Cape Cod when he received the greatest grace of his life: “I, for lack of a better term, ‘fell into Heaven.’”6
From one moment to the next, he found himself in the presence of the Most High. The curtain that separated him from the supernatural was drawn and he saw his whole life before the Most High, as if endowed with a moral dimension. His greatest regret would be not to have considered with how much love the One who is Mercy had loved him.
A plea welled up in his heart: “Let me know Your name, so I can worship and serve You properly. I don’t mind if You’re Buddha, and I have to become Buddhist; I don’t mind if You’re Krishna, and I have to become Hindu; I don’t mind if You’re Apollo, and I have to become a Roman pagan; as long as You’re not Christ, and I have to become Christian!”7
God then respected this prayer… and did not reveal His name. The vision faded, but Schoeman was already changed.
The euphoria from this grace lasted for weeks, and it drove him to search incessantly for the One who had revealed Himself to him in such a mysterious way. What most helped him in this endeavour was meeting a former university colleague, at whose home he came across a book entitled The Hundred Greatest Miracles of Modern Times. He was struck by the portent that marked Our Lady’s last apparition at Fatima, when thousands of people witnessed wonders of biblical grandeur, and he concluded that the omnipotent God had not restricted His miracles to the Old Testament…
After exactly a year spent in this search, during which he immersed himself in all kinds of spiritual readings, grace seized him once again in a second episode of his conversion.
He went to bed Jewish and…
Having gone to bed after praying once more to know the name of the One who had appeared to him, Roy fell asleep. In his dream, a hand led him by the shoulder to the most beautiful lady he had ever seen. Her beauty, her voice and especially the love that radiated from Her made him fall to his knees. Who was She? Schoeman had already realized: “I knew without being told that it was the Blessed Virgin Mary.”8
A year later, his soul was inundated by a new grace that confirmed his conversion: his encounter with the Blessed Virgin Mary
If She was the Blessed Virgin, She was also the most loving Mother, and her beneficiary was soon able to see that. With extreme kindness, She was willing to answer any question.
Roy asked “what her favourite prayer to her was,” to verify the accuracy of his assumption.
“I love all prayers to me,” She declared, without responding directly to the question.
The son of Abraham did not give up:
“But you must love some prayers to you more than others…?”
To the amazement of Schoeman and ours, the Mother of the Messiah recited a prayer in… Portuguese, a language unknown to her interlocutor: “O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to you.”9
Why her favourite prayer is in that language remains a mystery. Perhaps one day She who appeared in Fatima and spoke in Portuguese to the little shepherds will make it clear.
The fact remains, however, that Roy woke up a Christian.
The fullness of the Covenant
Spending hours in Marian shrines after receiving this great favour, he made up his mind to become a Catholic, in an especially clear way when, during a stay in a Carthusian monastery in France, he realized that Christianity was the fullness of Judaism. The way the monks recited the Psalms of the Old Testament, praising Zion and the Hebrew patriarchs, opened his eyes to recognize in Jesus the Messianic Saviour.
Christ, the true star of Jacob, became his true north, and his compass, the love of Our Lady.
When the waters of Baptism washed his soul clean in 1992, his innermost desire, which had so often remained hidden or disguised throughout his life, was finally realized.
From then on, his endeavour would be to spread this witness among the Israelites so that, like him, they could enjoy the sweetness of Christ, the honey that flows from the rock to satisfy those who convert to Him (cf. Ps 80:17).
He also wanted them to see that Yahweh is not asking them to convert, but only to take a step forward: to recognize prophecy fulfilled, the fullness of the Covenant, God with us and the Virgin who conceived Him (cf. Is 7:14). ◊
Notes
1 SCHOEMAN, Roy. Surprised by Grace. In: SCHOEMAN, Roy (Ed.). Honey from the Rock. Sixteen Jews Find the Sweetness of Christ. San Francisco: Ignatius, 2007, p.273.
2 Idem, p.273-274.
3 Idem, p.274.
4 Idem, p.276.
5 Idem, p.277.
6 Idem, p.280.
7 Idem, p.281-282.
8 Idem, p.284.
9 Cf. Idem, p.284-285.
