I MET GOD FACE TO FACE FOR REAL IN THIS SEMINARY CHAPEL IN 1969 Signed, Edmund A Buley

Once, when I was a young seminarian, I knelt in a vacant, candlelit church and made a bargain with God by vowing to give my life to him in return for an absolute assurance of his existence. I was trying to clear my mind of all thought and half-way expecting for God to pop-out from behind one of the altar draperies when I began to feel something happening inside of me. The “curious feeling” filled my body and then proceeded to fill the entire church to such an extent that the force was thickening and pushing back upon my body, even as it was continuing to flow from out of me. The mysterious force was almost thickening to a point of coalescing when the entire experience started to overwhelm me. I actually became frightened and that is when it stopped. Now, I am left to wonder what would have happened if I didn’t get so scared back there. Hell, I probably could have really met God that night but missed the chance because after all, I was only bargaining for some proof!

Hello, my name is Edmund Anthony Buley (my last name is pronounced Beauley not Bully). Most people call me Ed. I did attend a Catholic Seminary (1969-1972) and I am the person that had the experience that is described in the preceding paragraph. I can’t say that I haven’t tried to rationalize what happened in the church that night but what do I do with the fact that I had made a bargain with God, actually it was worse than that... I had challenged God, to prove himself to me and then... something undeniably wonderful did happen immediately afterward? So, be careful what you wish for. I challenged God to prove himself to me and as a result, now I am the one that is being challenged to keep-up my end of the bargain and prove myself to God. One might think that I should have gone on to sainthood after having such an experience but to be perfectly honest with you, I didn’t even make it into the priesthood. Seeing a miracle doesn’t turn you into one.  As it turned out, decades passed before I began to understand what really happened back there in the darkness of that church and I can sum it all up for you right now by saying, “man, am I glad that God decided to pop-out from inside of me, that night, instead of popping-out from behind one of those altar curtains”!  

 So, imagine if God really did come, in the flesh. Where on Earth should such a venue be held and where in the line of billions of people, waiting to see God would you and I be... and what if we were last or even worse, among the first and were trampled at the gate? Spirituality would be compromised if it were able to be materialized. God and spirituality are invisible and for good reasons. For example; what would the “secret of life” be worth when compared to the price of gold and how much of it could you or I afford to buy, right now, if it was... a commodity? Fortunately for us, spirituality doesn’t work like that. We don’t need money or gold, or have to travel far away or even have to wait to “meet God” because the venue, quite cleverly, happens right inside of each and every one of us.