Alexis Grace 0:00 Hey, everyone. I'm Alexis grace and this is the paper cranes podcast. I believe that we encounter God every day. whether we realize it or not, he can be found in the grandest of adventures in the smallest of moments. Paper Cranes podcast seeks out stories that show us how fast God really is one person at a time. Hi, everyone, this is Alexis grace, and we're on the paper cranes podcast. Today I have a really awesome guest. I met him over the summer when he came visit with his group. And then he helped us out at the telethon. And it was really great and super inspiring. So would you like to introduce yourself? Unknown Speaker 0:44 Sure. Good morning. My name is Deacon Anthony hemmati, transitional Deacon, for the Diocese of St. Augustine, Florida. And I am studying at Pope St. JOHN the 23rd National Seminary in western Massachusetts. So it's very good to be with you here. And thank you, Alexis for the invitation. Alexis Grace 1:02 Great to have you. Thanks so much. Good. So Deacon Anthony, would you like to tell us a story? Unknown Speaker 1:07 Sure, I'll try to keep this less than three hours. I share with you some highlights in my life that I'm hoping will be of some value to others. We all have our journey, of course, and the journey is unique. I like to maybe say that when I was in elementary school, you know that impressionable age around eighth grade when our innocence of life is there. And I think we're so much more attuned to what God wants to say to us because there's less distraction, if you will. I was an altar server, I went to Catholic elementary school and Catholic High School. So I was very blessed. Thank God. And as an altar server, I took it quite seriously and enjoyed it thoroughly. And I remember one day during a break of classes, I was in the church. And I had been talking to a seminary and then and he never said anything to me about Have you thought about a vocation. But I remember kind of looking at him like, wow, you know, this is this is a big deal. And I remember other times just sitting in the church quietly praying, and nobody else is there, just Jesus and myself. And you would hear like the little wood, the creaking of the wood. And it was just something very special about that moment being those times, you know, and I still remember that to this day. And that same seminarian gave me a crucifix, which I still have. And I'm going back, probably I'm gonna date myself here. But it's probably like 1973 74. And I still have that crucifix. So that's, again says something to me, you know? Anyways, I'm one of five children. I'm the last of five children. And my uncle was a physician in Jamaica, West Indies for 30 years. And I've got was very impressed by him. Because he, not only was he very devout in his Catholic faith, but he served his patients with such Catholic love, it was tangible. So that was something that made a great impression on me, because I also went there every summer. And we'd spend this time with him, going to his office and observing him see patients. My mother, wanting me to have a stable and secure life, you know, always advanced, you know that. Why don't you think about being a doctor? Well, you know, that was drilled into my head many times. And she wanted that for my other two brothers, but they chose other pads. And so needless to say, being the pleaser that I was I went down that road. Yeah. But let me say that in eighth grade, I think the sisters that were teaching me saw something different. So one of them chose me to write a vocation story. While I was writing the vocation story and saying how I wanted to be a doctor. And what I really have to convey is that the hand was saying doctor, but the heart was saying priest, and so there was a funny conflict going on there. Anyways, I was in my junior year of medical school, when my mother was diagnosed with cancer, and it was a type that was not responding to treatment. So I've been the last five children and all the other siblings being married, and my father was still working, you know, to support family, I was the one to take care of her at home. And of course, I had that medical knowledge at this point, you know, one year away from graduation from med school. But that was a very spirit and grace filled moment, because Unknown Speaker 5:27 I started going to mass every day. And I would go early, because I had to get back in time before my dad left for work, so I could take care of her. And there was something about the service of taking care of her, you know, which was very special and spiritually edifying, it was a great time of great growth, and knowing how to draw the strength from the Eucharist, which is why I think God led me to go to Mass every day. And that has been my way of life since that time. So not that I was away from the church by any means before. Because even I remember even in that time, it was, you know, close to the Lord, again, by His grace. And I think I attribute that to my upbringing that my parents were regular mass doors, and my mother always prayed that rosary, and of course, the statue of the Blessed Mother was in the house. So there were many, many blessings along the way. Anyways, she had passed away in January, it was like, four or five months after her diagnosis. And I did graduate medical school, my dad was there to witness it. And, you know, I was thankful for that. I know, she saw from God Willing her heavenly, or heavenly seat. Yeah. Anyways, when I started to practice medicine, I decided on the field of Pediatrics, and I did that for about 20 years or so. And throughout that entire time, I always seem to spiritualize my work. My practice of medicine, I would say, yet had the science background, but it was more done. Tried to live it and practice it with the heart of Christ, you know, seeing people that needed help. And the Lord used it many times he there was situations where people came in, yeah, they brought their child in for some physical ailment. But many, many times I was either speaking with adolescent say, or the parent, about some spiritual matter how it got there, I don't know. But it always goes there. It always went there. Yeah. And it was a great grace. So that was quite a blessing. And then the Lord started to send a lot of signals, that was one of them. But I got invited to sit on the board of a pro Life Center, which I did for about five years. And I was very active in that pro life movement. And there were times in my practice, when I remember encountering a young lady came in with her mother. And of course, the symptoms were suggestive of pregnancy. And we confirm that in the office and the immediate desire of the mother, not the mother of the child to the potential grandmother was to abort the child. And so I asked the grandmother to be to step outside and talk to me. And I had a very heart to heart talk with her. And I basically said, you know, that life comes from God. And that's not for us to interfere with, right? And long story short, my patient had her baby, who then became my patient. So, and the grandmother was very happy. Yeah, that she didn't make that other decision. So, again, another grace. I don't say that to credit myself. I think it was a moment where God was using me to promote the truth. That he is. Another situation which I want to share was grandfather of this. Two patients of mine brought the child in. And the father was kind of a friend of mine, although I had not met his dad, the grandfather before. And he comes in and we were talking, I saw the kids, you know, gave them whatever medication was necessary. Unknown Speaker 10:01 And then we got talking about faith. And this man's devoutly Catholic. And he stepped into my office. And he's looking around because in my office, you know, my friends tease me they call it Vatican, Vatican West, which is kind of funny. But I have, you know, our Blessed Mother, I have the pope chart, I have statue of Sacred Heart. Yeah. I mean, there's no doubt that this guy is Catholic. So he's looking around very quietly, and then Okay, so that visit ends. And probably, I don't know, maybe a month or so later, I get this letter in the mail. And I don't know if you're familiar with the Order of Malta. It's the oldest lay Association in the Catholic Church, okay. Okay. And their mission is to serve the sick and the poor. That was what they were originally created for. And they are still in existence today. And they still do that today. And they're always available and make themselves present in times of disaster wherever there's a need. So I received that invitation to join. And I wasn't sure at first because you know, I, honestly was shying away from that type of visibility. And having spoken with a couple people, when I found out more about what the organization was about, and what they did, I said, Okay, this is good. You know, God has given me this gift of knowing how to heal people. And now he's maybe showing me a way he wants me to use it. So I ended up joining that sociation. And so since then, again, shortly after that, and this is one of the times where I have to say our Blessed Mother, who has always been instrumental in my journey, was no doubt had her hand in this one. So I get a phone call from this woman named hope. And hope calls me and says Dr. hamady. We need your help. The nurse that was supposed to go on this youth pilgrimage to Lourdes cannot go and we need to have a medical person will you go? Everything's paid. like, Okay, I get it. I know, I'm talking to God, I get it. Okay, so I go on this thing. And I'm working like they're working. You know, we're working in the bads helping people get in and out of the beds, helping people off the trains and buses that are coming to Lourdes and mass every day, really a wonderful time. Anyways, I was working in the beds one day, and there was an elderly gentleman, he had come out of the bath and he was, you know, getting himself dressed and trying to put his socks on, he couldn't get his socks on. So I knelt down to help him get his sock on. And it was like time just froze. And our Lord transported me if you will, mentally and spiritually to his washing the apostles feet. It hit me in that moment, in that moment, and I realized what our lady was doing. She had taken me there to give me that message. Yeah. So very powerful. Another time I ended up going to a holy land pilgrimage. And I remember we were going across the Sea of Galilee, and I was sitting near the edge of the boat and just kind of looking out and then I looked down and at the water splashing up against the side of the boat. And just taken overtaken by the sound, you know, and it was like, This is what Peter experienced. You know, and again, that was like another sign you know, just saying, I'm calling you right to do this. You know. So again many times for which I am so grateful and thankful because no doubt those are grace filled moments and little gifts from God. You know, spiritual adoration was a time that is very precious to me and Eucharistic Adoration. And I remember before going to seminary I spent a lot of time Unknown Speaker 14:41 looking for direction you know for you know, Lord when you get in send me that big sign. You know, I've had already had a few signs already, you know, but I was waiting for the you know, the letter in the mail, which was never gonna come of course. But you know, when you sit in adoration, you quote unquote hear things not with your physical ears, but with your heart. And he made it very clear that this was the direction he wanted me to take. And so again, but in those moments of solace, and solitude, and silence, they are very rich moments, if you want to hear and be really be able to listen, I should say, we have to take ourselves into those moments of quiet. And also for Saint Faustina, Divine Mercy. Again, another time I was struggling with a question looking for an answer. And I happened to be visiting my sister in Atlanta, with my other sister, to my sister, so I happen to wake up early that morning, and I had to Divine Mercy diary on my scene, frostiness diary of my nightstand, I picked it up, I started to read it. And in those words, the words were almost starting to lead me towards an answer to what I was searching, and we went to ATM mass. So that's like, maybe at four hours later, I'm sitting there in the Pew and I have the sister one of my sisters on either side of me. And the priest giving giving his homily. And out of his mouth comes the words that are the answer to my question. I got an elbow into my rib eye from either side of my eye, there is your answer, you know. And so again, I mean, the the times of grace, we just ask and keep searching and keep listening, and persevere, patiently persevere. And he will give us what we need, you know, give us our answers. So I didn't mean to talk your ear off. Unknown Speaker 16:55 No, not at all. But Unknown Speaker 16:59 I hope that's a few things. Just I wanted to share. Alexis Grace 17:01 Yeah. Thank you so much. That's awesome. So a couple of things stood out to me. Um, the first is you talking about like sitting in the chapel, when you're in school and just like listening to the Waikiki I just have to say, that was one of my favorite things to do when I was at St. Anselm college was I loved the chapel there, I would try to go there pretty much every night. And I was usually the only one there. And just the sound of the church, like, I loved that. And I loved there's something really special about that time, because you could feel the Holy Spirit at rest, but he's never really at rest. He's all over the place. And I really, really like I took a lot of comfort in that throughout my years and college. So I know exactly what you're talking about. I'm also your experience and Lords like yeah, that's, I've always Well, I know my pastor back home when he does the washing of the fee every but just coming up every Thursday. I'm like, you can tell how much it affects him. And he's so he's so humble about it. Like, you know, he does not feel like he is worthy to be doing the same action, like Christ was doing. Um, but that's probably my favorite part of the whole Lenten process is watching him do that because it's just such a like, poof moment. Unknown Speaker 18:37 It is powerfully humbling, you know, because it's a gift and you when you when you become aware of the gift is when it's so hard to talk about. Sometimes I have to be careful because I can get emotional. Because it's out of gratitude. Alexis Grace 18:54 Yeah. Yeah. Um, last point, I'm trying not I'm like halfway forgetting it and so good. Um, Unknown Speaker 19:06 we had Lord's we had the, the Holy Land experience. We had adoration. We had Alexis Grace 19:13 all right, yeah. Um, so just the fact that you and your fellow seminarians are like the late vocations. I, I, like really, really loved that just because it's given me such hope. Obviously, I'm like, I'm only 22. But I have no clue what direction I'm going in with my life. Like, I love my job here. I'm very blessed have gotten it like right out of graduation. But when I think for like, five years, or more, like, I have no clue where I'm going to end up. Um, but I just know that like, wherever I go, I really, really want like, service to be at the heart of it like service the gods service to people. Unknown Speaker 19:58 You'll never go wrong, Alexis Grace 19:59 and I Just I don't know, I'm just hoping, like, as I go along, things will come to me because right now I'm like God, what do you want me to do? Unknown Speaker 20:08 I will think I would say to you, you know, talking about vocations at Pope, St. JOHN, the 23rd. All those men, through their experiences in life, God has been molding them. both the good and the bad experience. And I will say that, you know, not that I'm looking for bad experiences, or challenging experiences. But those experiences are the exact ones that bring you closer to Christ. Because we are so dependent on him during those times. And it becomes a matter of faith and trust, which is grace in itself. Yeah. You see, so, to answer your question, or to address what you're what you're referring to, I would say, you know, continue prayerful. You know, and trust our blessing mother. Yeah. The rosary has been a very prominent part of my life. I will tell you one more story, if I may. Yeah, go 2010. So it's 10 years ago, now. I invited a buddy to come over to pray the rosary. So he came over, we prayed the rosary, we talked about our faith, etc. And I said to him, you know, next time, bring another, bring a friend bring another, you know, so eventually the group started to grow. And then it became like, 12 men. And it was like, 12 men for about three years, and we were intentionally fasting on bread and water, because that's what our lady said to do. Fast on bread and water. And we were doing that every Wednesday. And we'd be texting each other throughout the day, like saying, just is really joyful. You know, even though we were starving, it was joyful. There was something about it, that was, you know, exhilarating. And it was, it was just, I can't put words to it, that's the best that you can do with it. And then we get together that evening, and pray the rosary, and sit down and have bread and water again, and just talk about our faith. Yeah. And our lady led us to, to us, you know, you need to take this outside now. So then we started meeting at like a Starbucks or you know, and then we moved from Starbucks because, you know, we want to, we want to support the Catholic values. Yeah. And but we were literally praying the rosary outside of these places, whether we just walking a parking lot at 6am. praying the rosary, this is Saturday mornings, we do this, and eventually moved to Panera. And it got a little bit cold in Florida, if you can imagine that. So we moved inside Panera. So now we had like 30 guys, on a Saturday morning at six or 6:30am praying the rosary inside Panera singing Ave Maria out loud. Nobody ever troubled us. Nobody got offended. So I even asked the manager one day went to the manager said, Excuse me, I feel badly we're taking up a whole section. And just to show you how our lady had her hand in that to the manager responded, do you want me to rope it off for you? So I was like, wow, I said, No, you don't have to do that. You know, but that's incredible. And then eventually, one of the guys owns a fish restaurant, seafood restaurant. And he said, I want you to come pray at my restaurant. So he puts out the coffee every Saturday morning. Now we go there. And you know, mass has been celebrated inside his restaurant. You know, the funniest thing one time I invited a priest to hear the confessions of the men. Yeah. And there was really nowhere to hear confessions in private. I mean, you have the freezer but you can't go in there. And so the funniest thing is we put the priests in the bathroom. And I said, I bet just the first time you ever hearing a confession in the bathroom, but that's what we ended up doing. You know, so it was funny. In the end, his wife said to us, the wife of the owner said, You know, I got to tell you a story. It was a Saturday night. Very busy. They were hopping. And one of it one of the patrons called her over her name's Linda said Linda, can I speak to you for a minute? So this woman says to Linda, Linda, I have to tell you, there's something very peaceful about this room. So Linda said to her, oh, they pray the rosary here every Saturday morning. So it's just funny how someone who has no clue. Yeah, was able to pick up on something like that. Amazing. You know that we'll talk about the presence of the Holy Spirit? I know, you know. Yeah. So it's a lot of lot of beautiful things. Alexis Grace 25:08 Yeah, for sure. Thank you so much for being here and for sharing all this with us. It's Unknown Speaker 25:13 been a great pleasure, Alexis, and thank you and rest assured you'll be in my prayers. Thank you and data time, everything in God's time and I just want to leave you one last thing. I shudder at the term late vocation. You know why? Because that implies that God messed up on his timing. So I always joke I said, No, we're not late. We're seasoned men. Alexis Grace 25:45 Thank you for supporting the paper cranes podcast. To listen to more like it, visit grexly.com and support our Patreon, visit www.patreon.com Ford slash Grexly. Transcribed by https://otter.ai