Category Archives: Catholic

What Type Of Soil Are You?

 

Years before my spiritual world was rocked and I had my life changing experience that led me back to the fullness and beauty of the Catholic Church, I realized that I didn’t know or like who I was. So I began the journey inward to discover who I was and find reconciliation. What I didn’t realize was, that I was preparing my soil.

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Pope Francis Gives My Blog Post Thumbs Up?

Pope Francis gives redemptionstreet.net thumbs up

 

At the beginning of the year, I wrote two blog posts about an experience seeking reconciliation at the cathedral in my archdiocese. A few months later, I read an article where Pope Francis seemed to specifically address my post on confession head-on.

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Truth

Christ is risen!

Yea, I know the Catholic Church teaches that, but how can that be? It’s all stories right. Go ahead, list your reasons why you don’t believe, why you’re not sure, why it doesn’t matter to you, why you don’t feel like thinking about it. Add in your ill feelings toward the Catholic Church and what they teach, how they are out of step with the world and how they have to catch up with reality. Yes. I completely understand. Because that’s what I thought. Continue reading Truth

In Your Eyes

Music is subjective. A song that hits you at the core of your being could just be fingernails on a chalkboard to another. Disco was fingernails on the chalkboard for me. I couldn’t change the station on the radio quick enough. When punk music hit the scene I was hoping it would be the death of disco. I didn’t care for the antics that went along with punk music but I loved the raw energy it delivered.

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Coming Back Home

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

 

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

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

billy-gillespie-bishop-barron-richard

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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