cover story Mike Eichhorn's mother suffered a mahor stroke at age 45; his beloved wife died at 36. Find out why Mike left the Catholic Church and why he came back home. why I came back By Nancy Schertzing
	my story Fr. Mike Depcik is one of the country's few deaf priests. After leaving the church as a young man, he heard God calling him to come home ­ and to be ordained. hearing God's persistent call By Marybeth Hicks
	profile Paul Thompson felt left out at Mass. Learn about his conversion journey and the joy of receiving Communion with his wife, Jenny. communion couple By Patricia Majher
	culture A tasty tradition ­ Make this special coffee cake for Jesus' birthday happy birthday Jesus By Michelle DiFranco
	exclusive I am standing in the hallway outside my son's bedroom door, listening. OK, I'm eavesdropping ­ but it's the only way I'm going to find out what's really going on in his life in the still of the night By Marybeth Hicks
	exclusive In a radical departure from her vampire chronicles, popular author Anne Rice writes about Jesus Christ as a child. Find out what motivated her to write and why she came back to the church Anne Rice By Elizabeth Solsburg

Why I came back
Mike Eichhorn's journey away from the church
and back home again
By Nancy Schertzing | Photography by Jim Luning

I grew up Catholic and went through all the sacraments. I had a strong foundation in my faith, but in high school I left the church for a while. I spent my early 20s living selfishly as I built my career in television advertising by day and partied freely at night.

When I was 26, my mother suffered a brain stem stroke, which left her completely paralyzed. She was dependent on a tracheotomy and feeding tube at age 45. I remember thinking, “This is my mother! Why is this happening to me, God?”

I listened to the Bible on tape as I drove the 50 miles every morning and night between my work and Mom’s hospital. One day I just realized there was no answer. “This has nothing to do with you,” I told myself. “Stop being so selfish.” It became clear this was about something more than I could understand, and that God didn’t necessarily want me to understand it. My job was to get through this with God’s strength.

After six months of 24-hour attention and coaching from my father, sister and me, my mother was breathing and eating on her own. She went home shortly after, and my father became her full-time caregiver.

In the midst of Mom’s recovery, I had a chance to reevaluate the life I had been living, and I knew it needed to change. I especially regretted the way I had treated some of the women I had known. So I prayed, “God, if you send me a woman to love, I promise I’ll take care of her.”

Soon, I met Theresa. She was 35 and I was 27, but as we got to know each other we fell deeply in love. Theresa had just come out of an abusive marriage and she had lots of reservations about starting a new relationship, especially with someone so young. But I was sure we were meant to be together. Six months after we met, we got married and started our first home.

Four months after our wedding, Theresa got really sick and she went in for some tests. Her doctors diagnosed her with liver cancer – hepatocellular carcinoma. She had to go into the local hospital immediately. The University of Michigan Hospital reviewed her liver biopsy and came back with the same diagnosis. Her only hope for survival was a transplant, but she couldn’t get it through U of M. Theresa’s doctors called the UCLA Medical Center and, even though they would not agree to admit her, I knew we had to go to Los Angeles.

Fourteen days after her diagnosis, Theresa was malnourished and dehydrated from constant vomiting. She was on a morphine drip and had received the sacrament of the anointing of the sick, but we got on the plane and headed west. We got to LA and went straight to the UCLA Medical Center. They immediately started a central line in her neck and began testing to see if the cancer had spread to any other parts of her body. It had not, so they put her on the list for a liver transplant.

I had been coaching my mother for over a year through her stroke, so I knew how important a positive attitude was. From the day Theresa told me she had cancer, I never believed she would die. I told her over and over that we were going to kick this thing and the cancer didn’t stand a chance against us.

My whole focus became getting Theresa the transplant and getting her healthy. I stayed with her from 7 a.m. until 11 p.m., waiting for a liver for my beautiful bride, who was withering away before my eyes.

Eighteen days into our wait, I got a call at 4 a.m. that there was a donor. I dressed quickly and went to my wife. When I walked into her room, Theresa was smiling from ear to ear. “I’m going to live, Mike!” she said. It was wonderful to see the hope in her face.

It was the hardest moment in my life when I had to say goodbye to Theresa at the operating room door. She started to cry, and through my own tears I told her I loved her and I’d see her in a little bit. After they rolled her in, I stood in the hallway staring at the doors. I turned and went to the chapel to pray.

It was a long wait, but the doctors came up when they were finished. Everything went great! I went to see her in intensive care and Theresa looked like an angel. She had tubes everywhere and many monitors, but she slept peacefully. I went back to take a nap and slept better than I had in a month.

In less than 48 hours, Theresa had recovered enough to move back to a regular room on the surgical floor. Shortly after moving her out of intensive care, Theresa’s doctor came in with amazement in his eyes. She had fooled everyone, he told us. After they removed it, the doctors tested her whole liver and found Theresa did not have hepatocellular cancer as they thought. Instead they found cholangiocarcinoma – a very rare and deadly cancer. If the doctors had originally diagnosed it correctly, the hospital would never have put her on the transplant list because this kind of cancer usually came back and infected the new organ. They would have sent her home to die.

When the doctor said Theresa fooled them, he wasn’t quite accurate. God fooled them. Theresa liked to say God wasn’t ready for her to come home yet. Within a month, we were back in our own house, ready to resume married life.

Every day was a gift. We went to Mass together, and Theresa got her first marriage annulled so we could get married in the Catholic Church. We built a new house together in Flint when I became general manager of a television station there. Theresa became pregnant twice, but she lost both babies early in her pregnancies. Despite our sorrow over the miscarriages, life was sweet because we had each other.

Then one day Theresa’s vomiting began again and we knew the cancer had returned. God had given us three wonderful years together, but this time there would be no miracle cure. I became Theresa’s Hospice nurse. We read the Bible together, planned her funeral and talked about eternal life.

One evening in July, Theresa got up from her bed to turn on the porch light. She told me her brother Gary was coming – though he had died six months earlier. She went back to bed and then suddenly she was at my side murmuring something over me. When I asked Theresa what she was doing she said, “Blessing you.” Then she went back to bed and fell into a coma.

Four days later, as she was dying, she came out of her coma, opened her eyes and looked at me and her parents standing at her bedside. I can’t explain how this happened, but she started talking to me without using words or moving her mouth at all. She told me what to tell her family and she told me goodbye. Then she died.

We were still gathered around her bed, unable or unwilling to move, when after about three minutes, Theresa opened her eyes again. In her wordless way, she told me she had seen heaven and it was beautiful. I told her in reply, “Eternity is a long time, Honey. I’ll see you soon.” Then she was gone for the last time.

I had lost my purpose. After Theresa’s funeral, I stopped going to Mass. I attended religious services at different churches – Methodist, Presbyterian – even a Jewish synagogue – but nothing really clicked. My faith was strong, but I didn’t feel like I had a home.

After a while, my buddy suggested we take a trip together. He suggested Hawaii, so we booked flights and headed to Oahu. One evening, a waiter told us about the lunar eclipse that night. We were in the only place in the world the eclipse could be seen. So we found a bench that gave us an open view of the ocean and sky and waited.

As we watched Earth’s shadow passing across the moon, I felt Theresa there with me as if I could have touched her. We watched the eclipse together, then suddenly she was gone. Her journey home to heaven was finally complete. I knew it was time for me to continue on my own path.

I returned to work with the feeling that my new path included a friend and coworker named Angela. Theresa had taken her under her wing before the cancer returned and we had all become friends. I told Angela I would like to date her, but since I was general manager, if she wanted to date me she would have to quit her job. She resigned.

Within two years, Angela and I married and established a home together. Our daughter Kaylynn was born, and though I still wasn’t attending Mass, I felt strongly that I wanted her baptized in the Catholic Church. Kaylynn’s baptism was the first time I had gone to Mass since Theresa’s funeral. Standing in the church, I felt I was home.

Life was great with my beautiful wife and baby. As general manager of the TV station, I was making lots of money and enjoying perks from limos to travel. My only regret was that I had too little time at home with my family. The hours and responsibilities piled up so much I hardly had any time to enjoy my baby girl.

On Kaylynn’s first birthday, I just realized I needed to quit. The next day, I gave the TV station my resignation. I told Angela when I got home, and I started planning my own firm using my TV and business experience. I partnered with two close friends, and Crossroads Consulting was born in the basement of my house. We signed our first client right away and began building from there.

The Diocese of Lansing became one of our clients when I helped it negotiate its contract for televising Masses and increased its media value. One day, I was assisting with media for a new diocesan program called Welcome Home Sunday. The bishop came in to our meeting and started talking about people who had left the church and needed an invitation to come back. He said Welcome Home Sunday would give them that invitation and that reason to return. I suddenly realized he was talking about me! This was my invitation home.

Angela had grown up in the Baptist tradition. Since Kaylynn’s baptism, I had been hoping she would want to join me in the Catholic faith, but I didn’t want to pressure her in any way. It had to be her choice or I knew it wouldn’t be right.

After I started working on Welcome Home Sunday, I introduced Angela to the RCIA director at our local parish so she could learn more about Catholicism. I was so excited when she decided to enter into the RCIA process. This Easter, we made the circle complete when she and our new son Michael were baptized together at the Vigil Mass.

All these things have happened in my life for some reason. Just as when my mother first had her stroke, I don’t know what that reason is yet. But I’m open to whatever God puts in front of me. My mom, Theresa, Angela and now our kids – this is about something more than I can understand.

In every way, I’m trying to make a difference. With God’s strength, I have. When my mother had her stroke, I asked “Why is this happening to me, God?” Now I ask, “How can I help, God? How can I help?” I’ve lived a very blessed life that has taken a lot of paths. This one has led me home.

hearing God’s persistent call
the conversion of Fr. Michael Depcik
By Marybeth Hicks | Photography by Tom Gennara

After five years as chaplain for the deaf ministry of the Diocese of Lansing, Fr. Michael Depcik, OSFS, left in July for graduate studies at Gallaudet University. One of only five deaf priests in America, Fr. “MD” quickly became a beloved member of the deaf community in Michigan, helping the ministry grow church attendance and enthusiasm. While working on his master’s degree, he will continue to offer retreats for deaf Catholics through the National Catholic Office for the Deaf. Before he left, FAITH Magazine sat down with Fr. MD for a conversation about his personal conversion. Fr. Ken McKenna, OSFS, interpreted.

This issue of FAITH focuses on conversion. You were raised in a Catholic family, and yet you have a conversion story. In what way were you converted?
I grew up in a large Catholic family – in fact, everyone I knew was Catholic – all my aunts and uncles and cousins as well as my parents. We went to church every Sunday. However, everyone seemed to be private about their faith. We said grace before meals and went to church, but when we prayed it was just words.

Would you say you were a “cultural Catholic?”
Yes. My parents and my four siblings all are deaf, as well. My parents sent us to St. Rita’s School for the Deaf in Cincinnati. It was a good school – I got a good education there – but when it came to my Catholic faith, I felt like I knew about God, but I didn’t really know God.

Then, when I was 17, I was an exchange student. I went to Australia, where I lived with two different families. The first was an Anglican family – very similar to mine. Their faith life wasn’t alive or vibrant. After I was there for a few months, the father took a job transfer out of the country so I went to live with another family.

The second family I lived with in Australia was a deaf family, so I felt more comfortable with them. But they were also fundamentalist Christians. They talked easily about Jesus and about their faith. Every night they studied the Bible and when they prayed, they seemed to pray from the heart.

At first it was very awkward to be with this family. I had never been around people who were so free and easy talking about God and his place in their lives. After a couple of months living with them, I decided I should start joining in with their family for various activities, including Bible study.

This was when I began to understand what it meant to have a personal relationship with Jesus. The members of that family were my first Christian role models and they could see that I experienced God through them.

They didn’t understand the Catholic Church, though. They questioned the church and were opposed to the pope as its leader. At this time, when I caught fire for God, I decided I wasn’t really a Catholic anymore.

Inside my heart, I privately quit the church. When my time in Australia was over, I went back to St. Rita’s and even though I still went to Mass, I didn’t go to Communion anymore. I didn’t feel the Catholic Church was
for me.

Did you officially leave the church after you graduated from St. Rita’s?
I tried to! That year in August, I went to Washington, D.C. to attend Gallaudet University. At the orientation, there was a fair for campus organizations and I was looking for a deaf church. But a priest caught my attention and asked me if I was Catholic. I tried to look away but I had to say, “Yes, I’m Catholic.” He told me about deaf Masses.

I went to the Masses on campus for a few weeks. The homilies were good, but I started to find flaws. I was looking for reasons to leave. After a few weeks, I stopped going to Mass. I had heard the Baptist church had a van that would pick you up for services. That sounded good, but I was too nervous to do that.

Then I met a man from Uganda who said he had seen me at the Catholic Church. “Where have you been?” he asked me. I said, “The Masses are only OK and I’m not sure I liked the people there.” He said,“You go to Mass for God, not for the priest or the people.”

So I went back to church. In fact, I found the priest to be a great homilist – he’s still one of the best homilists I know.

It sounds like you wanted to quit the Catholic Church but the church wouldn’t quit you.
Exactly!

How did you go from being a reluctant Catholic to becoming a priest? That’s a huge leap.
At the age of 21, I read a book on Our Lady of Medjugorje, where Mary [allegedly] asked the faithful to pray the rosary. I had to teach myself how to say the rosary, because even though I had been raised Catholic, I didn’t know how.

The more I learned about Mary’s [possible] revelations at Medjugorje, it suddenly sounded all new to me. That summer, when I was 21, it was like the church was all new to me. For the first time, I felt it was possible I was called to be a priest, and I believe Our Lady of Medjugorje called me. In fact, the first apparition of Our Lady of Medjugorje [is said to have] occurred on June 24, 1981. I was ordained on June 24, 2000.

Throughout your conversion story, you have hardly mentioned that you’re deaf and have been deaf since birth. Yet it seems God is using your deafness to his advantage.

How important is it to you that you’re deaf?
It’s very important. Being deaf can be very isolating. People don’t understand that it’s like a separate culture – like an ethnic culture – that has its own language and traditions. Being deaf can make it more difficult to learn about God, because we don’t always have a community of people around us to share our faith or to learn from. That’s why the deaf ministry in the Diocese of Lansing is so important. Thankfully, Bishop Mengeling is committed to keeping the ministry vibrant and growing.

You spend much of your time dealing with the effects of being deaf, both for yourself and others. But those of us who have our hearing often struggle to listen to God. Do you think it’s ironic that hearing is not really the avenue to listening to God’s call?
God’s first language is silence. Whether we have our hearing or are deaf, we all need to quiet the noise in our heads and listen silently to God’s voice.

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For more information on ministry to Catholics who are deaf or hard of hearing, contact Rose Smith at rsmith@dioceseoflansing.org or call her at 517.342.2532

Communion couple
at last Paul Thompson can share
the Eucharistic experience with his wife, Jenny
By Elizabeth Solsburg | Photography By Christine Jones

I was always the person sitting out.” That’s how Paul Thompson – originally baptized into the Lutheran faith – felt when he attended Mass with his Catholic wife, Jenny, at St. Francis of Assisi in Ann Arbor. “We were both members of the parish,” he explains. “But I was never able to participate in the Eucharist the way she did.”

“[As a non-Catholic,] I was left sitting in the pew every Sunday watching her and others go up to the altar.”

A desire to fully understand and experience holy Communion motivated Paul to consider converting to Catholicism. But he also heeded the counsel of his Catholic nephew Justin, then just 12 years old. Paul says, “Justin’s a sharp kid, but the things he shared with me about how it felt to be saved and loved by Christ sounded like they were inspired by the Holy Spirit.”

With the encouragement of family and friends, Paul entered the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (RCIA) program at St. Francis in the fall of 2002. His small class of 10 candidates quickly became close-knit. “Our conversations ran the gamut of personal and theological topics,” he notes. And they were always encouraged in their discussions by the non-judgmental approach of their catechist – “Pattie [Scherer] was tirelessly patient and kind.”

In addition to Pattie’s talks, Paul’s understanding of the church’s teachings was deepened by discussions with guest speakers like Father James Conlon. “He explained the sacraments in great detail to us,” says Paul, “and was always open to our questions.”

It was a taped presentation on transubstantiation, however, that really resonated with Paul. “It was awe-inspiring – describing the Eucharist in a way that was well beyond symbol or concept, beyond what the intellect could reason.”

What Paul experienced at that moment was a revelation of faith – that wheat and wine could indeed be transformed into the body and blood of Christ and that the act of transformation could be witnessed by a whole community of believers every time a Mass was celebrated. “Finally, I understood the true meaning of the word ‘communion,’” he says.

This revelatory feeling stayed with Paul through the Rites of Acceptance and Election to the celebration of the sacraments of initiation. “I don’t know what the other candidates were feeling, but I felt prepared not just to be a Catholic, but to be a disciple of Christ.”

Acting on that idea, Paul asked the St. Francis staff about training for spiritual direction. “I explained to them that I didn’t want to be a spiritual director per se,” Paul related. “But I did want to see if the training for that profession could help me in my own.”

With the staff’s help, Paul – a practicing psychologist – entered an internship program in Ignatian spirituality offered through the Manresa Jesuit Retreat House in Bloomfield Hills. “I prayed that the training would enable me to better understand the spiritual dilemmas my clients sometimes face.”

Now halfway through the program, he feels strongly that his calling as a psychological healer has been immeasurably enhanced.

Paul’s new-found faith has informed not only his professional life, but his personal life as well. “Becoming a Catholic deepened my relationship with my wife, without a doubt,” he notes. “Our love is stronger and our communication more complete with Christ in both of our lives.”

Paul also reports that his connection to his nephew has strengthened now that they share the same faith.

Given what he’s experienced, would Paul recommend RCIA to others? The answer to that question is definitely positive. “I think even ‘cradle Catholics’ would benefit from going through it as a refresher course of sorts.”

It’s been two years since he was fully initiated into the church, and Paul still lights up when he talks about it. “I am so happy to be a part of the body of Christ, to be a participant instead of a spectator.” And his commitment to the Eucharist has not wavered at all. “If anything, I feel more deeply about it now than when I first finished the program. Every time I go up for Communion, it’s new and wonderful, and I feel awed and inspired by it all.”

“It’s amazing to realize that Christ is literally there in the bread and wine, if we just have the heart to see him.”

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Neophytes may choose to participate in a program such as the Cursillo Movement. Cursillo, which means “little course,” emphasizes evangelization as an outgrowth of the Christian faith. This evangelization takes its form as the act of being Christlike within daily life. The goal of the movement is to provide the tools, mentality, strength and support to make this possible. Cursillo begins with a three-day weekend, followed by a lifelong participation in Ultreya, meaning “onward,” the larger Cursillo community. Those who have gone through Cursillo often say it has changed their lives dramatically, recommitting them to go forth as apostles, proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the world.

For more information about Cursillo in the Diocese of Lansing, contact Jackie Rowe 734.429.5675, Maria Jaimez 517.265.2720, Gene Myers 810.234.3693, Mary Kay Howard 517.784.1353 or Msgr. Sylvester Fedewa 989.587.4379.

Happy Birthday Jesus
coffeecake
By Michelle DiFranco | Photography by Phillip Shippert

Shortly after my parents got engaged, my father was sent to Vietnam. During his absence, my mother began another relationship. With Jesus. She had begun to attend classes about the Catholic faith, to read Scripture and attend Mass. She longed for the day she could receive the Eucharist. One month before my father returned, she did.

My mother’s personal conversion affected our entire family. As part of celebrating our family’s faith, my parents began a few unique traditions when my sisters and I were really young. They were designed to make sure we were infused with the faith she had come to love so much.

One in particular was a birthday party for Jesus every Christmas morning. Not one with party hats, balloons and the ubiquitous cake with too much frosting. Rather, we would celebrate with a special coffeecake and an heirloom, porcelain baby Jesus. It was my folks’ way of diverting our attention from materialism to what Christmas is really about – Jesus. Mom would swipe a taper candle from the Advent wreath and place it into the center of a coffeecake baked by my grandmother. My sisters and I lined up: one of us holding the cake, another holding the porcelain baby Jesus, and the third, the crèche. We then paraded toward the dining room singing Happy Birthday and placed the baby in the center of the Advent wreath on the dining room table. (I must admit that part was a little awkward and silly during my teen years.) While devouring our once-a-year coffeecake, we would each share what Jesus means to us. It has been interesting how our discussions have evolved over the years!

We’re grown now, and this simple, yet meaningful tradition lives on and is shared with the new additions to our family. For my father, sisters and I, it would not be Christmas without it. For my mother, it has also been a way for her to remember and reflect on her joyful conversion. I invite you to try – not just my grandmother’s absolutely incredible coffeecake – but also the entire tradition.

• 1 packet of instant yeast
• 1⁄2 cup granulated sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 4 cups sifted flour
• 1⁄2 cup of warm mashed potatoes (prepared instant will do)
• 1⁄2 cup warm water
• 1⁄2 cup butter (1 stick)
• 2 eggs (beaten)

Brown sugar and cinnamon mixture
• 1⁄4 cup melted butter
• 3⁄4 cup brown sugar
• 1 1⁄2 teaspoons cinnamon
• 1⁄2 cup raisins
• 1⁄2 cup chopped walnuts

Icing
• 2 cups confectioners’ sugar
• 1 1⁄2 tablespoons softened butter
• 1⁄2 teaspoon vanilla
• 3 to 4 tablespoons milk
• pinch of salt

Reserve 1 cup of flour from total amount and combine remaining flour with yeast, granulated sugar, salt and baking powder. Set aside. Combine and heat the mashed potatoes, water, and butter to 120 - 130 degrees (too hot will kill the yeast). Stir into the dry flour mixture. Add eggs and continue to stir. Add some of the reserve flour and knead dough until it’s no longer sticky. Roll into a ball, cover with a damp cloth and let rest for 10 minutes. In a separate bowl, combine brown sugar, cinnamon, raisins and walnuts. Set aside and spray a pie pan with cooking spray. On a large, floured surface, roll out dough (1⁄4 inch thick). Spread melted butter all over and sprinkle with brown sugar and cinnamon mixture. Roll the dough into a snake-like shape and pinch all open ends so mixture will not fall out. Lift the roll and gently stretch so it’s long enough to fit into pan. Place the roll into pan so it forms a circle. Cover with foil and let the prepared dough rise for about 45 minutes in a warm place. Unseal the foil, but keep coffeecake covered and bake at 325 degrees for 50 minutes to 1 hour depending on oven. Remove from oven and set aside. Mix ingredients for icing and spread all over top and sides while cake is still warm. For extra color, add sliced maraschino cherries on top. Enjoy!