I have been seeking answers in clear-edged concepts to many of my burning issues. I have been agonizing over my personal experiences of God that run counter against what was “indoctrinated” in school, and in church till the 90s when I was diagnosed with severe clinical depression.

Lately, I reviewed Bro. Ebner’s FSC book written in the 70s and first read when I was pregnant with our one and only daughter. Like Bro Ebner I have been searching for better explanations to questions about life. Like him I feel that : “Until church spokesmen and theological experts offer us more immediate helpful things, I feel that there is a place for me to tell my story.”

Our only daughter who has been living away from us since her college years was home from London lately. In spite of my serious work on expanding my consciousness for the past 3 years I feel humbled by her maturity and her global experience: Singapore, Australia, London, USA, Dubai, Spain, Vienna, Paris, Morocco, Prague etc

Between Bro. Ebner’s book and conversations with our daughter, I feel short-changed. My fearful clinging to traditional Catholic teachings has robbed me of the exuberance which our daughter exudes. She has unwittingly made me realize the truth in what Bro Ebner wrote:
“It arrives as something new in the Catholic church, where “objective faith” has been stressed officially for the past four centuries.”
“Whatever we can say and do about God that will be real for us has to grow out of this person’s experience.”
“We can expect to experience the true God only when we get in touch with ourselves. ”

I am still dealing with what Bro Ebner calls “layman’s frustration and perplexities.” He may be speaking of me as he wrote:
“We may be so conditioned by our past, we may perceive through so many filters, that we may scarcely know what actually we ourselves really think and feel. So that when contemporary writers urge us to explore the religious side of our experience, we may not be reading our depths but mainly remembering words we were told and which we only take as ours. However, to be sensitive to this problem is already to be solving it.”