WELCOME

"Surviving The Stormy Night" is for you, "people of faith", famly and community. It is about surviving "cultural" storms; about increasing the "light" and faith- empowerment with antidotes to counter the darkness and storm in the cutlure."

Coming Soon

From the Chapter "The Mercy of God"

But in his death experience where he had a dramatic encounter with Christ – he met a Saviour far stronger and more manly than depicted by modern artwork. So how did he see Christ?

"I wasn't sure when the light in the room began to change," wrote Ritchie in his extraordinary book. "Suddenly I was aware that it was brighter, a lot brighter, than it had been. I whirled to look at the nightlight on the bedside table. Surely a single 15-watt bulb couldn't turn out so much light?

I stared in astonishment as the brightness increased, coming from nowhere, seeming to shine everywhere at once. All the light bulbs in the ward couldn't give off that much light. It was impossibly bright: it was like a million welders' lamps all blazing at once."

Ritchie realized he wasn’t viewing the room with his physical eyes; the exceedingly bright light would have destroyed his retinas. With his spiritual "eyes," however, he had no problem looking. "No, I corrected myself, not the light,"

"He. He would be too bright to look at. For now I saw that it was not light but a Man Who had entered the room, or rather, a Man made out of light." Instantly, recounts Ritchie, a command came to Ritchie's mind. Stand up! The words came from deep inside, along with certainty he was "in the presence of the Son of God," Whom he describes as "the most totally male Being I had ever met."

from "Why I Wrote The Book!"

There were the stories of people being deeply impacted in our time period.

In one instance it was an extended family gathering after a funeral when a cousin asked me what I thought went wrong as to his family’s faith!

“What happened” this cousin asked—as he told the story, now quite common of the fact his children had dropped the Catholic faith as if it was a bad virus.

Then another story.

I would learn that one of my classmates from high school.. died of AIDS. Among Catholics no one had any inkling of what was coming just up the road as regards Catholic priests and sex abuse. Like my cousin and myself the average Catholic was completely unaware of what was happening behind closed doors in rectories and seminaries in Catholicism though even then there were rumors.

Back then the 'culture war' was unheard of. It would be several decades before such a phrase would show up.

The watershed conferences included “incredible” and “stunning” prophetic word first heard in Rome on Pentecost Monday in May 1975, then in South Bend, Indiana in 1976 and finally in Kansas City the following year in 1977.

Two other prophetic word would come from Fr Mike Scanlon and Fr Bob Bedard.

What none then knew was that word would start to be fulfilled some 40 years later. How the fulfillment is happening is the essence of this book.

About The Book

Appearances

This is about the road we choose and the choices we face

About The Author

A former features writer for Canadian community newspapers and niche publications in his active, professional days when he was a freelancer to the CBC, David Stapleton has written for magazines like Faith Today, Columbia Magazine and Today's Seniors along with Christian Week and Camada's Catholic Register.

In the last few years he founded Lighthouse community theatre and is the creator of the podcast, Venusville.

He may be reached at davidstapleton50@hotmail.com