Category Archives: Return

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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Why I Must Follow Christ

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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What Is Truth?

 

While reading a few articles reaction to “Amoris Laetita,” “The Joy Of Love” by Pope Francis, I was struck by one mention, “individual conscience educated in church teaching must guide their decisions.” Which took me to my life before my reversion back to the church.

My individual conscience was definitely not rooted in church teaching but squarely in the world. My moral compass was out of whack. Continue reading What Is Truth?