The Pearl
of Great Price
Born-Again testimony of LeRoy J. Gardenier
From the time I was five years-old; from the time of my First Holy Communion, I felt the call of God on my life. I grew up in a devout Roman Catholic family and during my grade school years I developed more interest in the sacramental and devotional life of the Church. My father was "sold" on Catholic education, so when it came time for high school, I left the public schools of my home town and traveled daily to the nearest Catholic school in a neighboring city. During these high school years I got involved in public speaking and, as I studied and examined modern trends, comparing them with the institutions that historically affect our lives, my love and respect for and confidence in the Church increased. My father seldom quoted the Bible, but indelibly impressed on my memory is his loving, personal recitation to me of that passage from Matthew 6:25 which culminates in our Lord's injunction of verse 33: "Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness: and all these things shall be added unto you."
Of all the things I learned to value, there was no question that "my faith" (meaning to me, at that time, The Roman Catholic religion) was my most valuable possession and the most important of all God's cherished gifts. In the early 1950's, having looked upon the horrors of war and wondering about the future of the new postwar world, my big question was that of the Psalmist: "Wherewith shall a young man cleanse his way?" (Ps. 119:9) By my own choice, I determined to go to a Catholic college in order to preserve my precious gift of faith and to place myself in an environment that would not only protect it but would nourish and develop it.
The early call of God upon my life became louder and more insistent as I came to the close of my first year of college. I had once read a tract about selling or giving up everything to purchase the "one pearl of great price" (Matt. 13:45): and now, I felt that God was asking me to leave everything home and family, friends, worldly ambitions and possessions to serve Him. I wanted, above all else, to submit myself to God, our loving Father, in the manner of His only Son, Jesus. I desired to be God's man wholly and completely. I aspired "to dwell in the house of the Lord and inquire in His Temple". (Ps. 27:4)
I had been taught from my earliest years that there was a safe and sure way to accomplish this. I felt that there was really only one secure way to fully dedicate my life to God, and that was by submitting myself to those in authority in the Roman Church. Accordingly in September of 1951 I was received into an ancient and venerable religious order of the Roman Catholic Church whose history was marked by dutiful and filial submission to the Pope, and whose contributions to the intellectual, cultural and religious life of both Europe and the Americas was not insignificant. I pursued my college career under the direction of my religious superiors, completely confident that through acceptance of their guidance, and by my publicly professed vows of poverty, chastity and especially, obedience. I was unquestionably right in the very core and center of God's plan for my life and that I was well within the bounds of God's perfect will for me. Submission, practical and specifically personal, was presented to me as the key that would open the door into the Holy of Holies. Submission to this designated person and to this particular superior of spiritual director was explained to me as a safeguard for personal sanctification and as a model of access into the very presence of God. Consequently, all during my religious life, which lasted more than twenty years, I was very careful to submit my human will to the laws of the Church, to the constitution of the Order, to the regulations of the diocese where I was ministering, to the rules of the Particular house where I was living. More importantly, I submitted to the commands, directives, counsels and, most of the time, even to the suggestions of the human authorities placed over me. I acquiesced to their recommendations in both great matters and small.
During my college years, throughout the years in Rome where I studied theology, during my tenure as teacher in a large Catholic high school, all through my time as associate pastor of a two thousand family New England parish, I opened my heart to the one appointed over me as a superior of spiritual director seeking his counsel and asking his permission in order that I might know the perfect will of God. I submitted my will and judgment to the decisions of another and sought another's permission in order that I might not miss God's will for me. Throughout all these long years, I steadfastly sought the will of God, His good pleasure, through human agencies. I was extremely suspicious of what some termed a direct revelation from God. I believed that Jesus had sent the Holy Spirit at Pentecost to guide and direct the Church and to lead her into all truth, but I also held that the touchstone for determining the true operations of God's Holy Spirit was submission to the shepherds, to the duly established church hierarchy.
In December of 1972 this same Holy Spirit, whose workings I had limited for so many years, introduced me to Jesus as my personal Savior and Lord. I wanted all that God had to give me, so I was baptized in the Holy Spirit, immersed in Divine Love, and began a personal walk with our dear Lord that has led me out of the darkness of bondage and confusion into the marvelous light and the liberty that is the heritage of those who are born again. I cherish, now more than ever before, the faith that God has given me. For years I tried to get rid of everything in order to acquire that "one pearl of great price", but I had gotten hopelessly confused and utterly lost in examining, describing, defining, and defending the mere ring of setting that surrounded the gem. My order of things was backwards, one does not get rid of things in order to receive that "pearl", we must first receive the "pearl" then the Lord Himself will help us to be free of a wrong or harmful setting. Then, one evening, I simply relaxed opened my clenched fists and spread out my hands to receive from my loving Father what I had searched for and sought for and worked for and studied for and strove for - for so long! I want to thank, and praise the Blessed Trinity, the one God: Father, Son and Holy Ghost for so simply, yet so profoundly sharing the inexpressible gift of eternal life with me! At last!
I felt prompted to share these words of testimony with you, hoping that through them God might encourage someone who is still searching, and to reassure another who has recently had a personal experience with the Lord. Finally, I would like to add a loving but firm word of caution and warning. In Matthew 13:45-46, Jesus states: "Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a merchant man seeking goodly pearls: Who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had, and bought it." Our Lord wants us to keep clearly in view exactly what He has for us. IN the Gospel parable, the merchant man is seeking "goodly pearls" and he finds "ONE" pearl of great price. During my years as a dedicated priest and religious in the Roman Church, I missed acquiring the "PEARL" altogether and ended up getting involved with nothing more substantial than a very fascinating, elaborate, but frustratingly empty container or setting in place of the precious gem that God wanted me to have all along.
I know that God wants me to caution you about this matter of submission to human authority, especially in these last days when so many things will try to enter in, in order to deceive and distract us and to rob us of our prize. If God loves you enough to entrust you with the "one pearl of great price", He is also big enough and generous and loving enough to provide a container or setting for that gem if such is called for. But Jesus wants you to keep your eyes on the "PEARL", that is, on Him, on eternal life, on your personal relationship with Him. Satan, our common enemy, would have you seek security in some cleverly devised formula or special system of submission to human authority that has no more than an apparent Biblical foundation. But, please, don't let any church group, or society, or series of teachings or man-made system sidetrack you in any way. If the enemy of our souls is determined to block our acceptance of Jesus as our personal Savior, how much more is he set on trying to distract and sidetrack us after we have submitted our life to Jesus as Lord of our lives.
A spirit of rebellion has no place in our walk with the Lord. God certainly does use other human beings to help, guide, edify and encourage us along the way. Having been a pastor, I know what it means to be responsible for "tending the flock"! I firmly believe that the unconditional submission of our lives can be made only to God. To submit ourselves improperly to man not only places an impossible burden on the one to whom we are submitted and false expectations on those who are submitted to us, but misdirected submission can so easily start us on a search for a genuinely precious gem, yet, end up having us buy a very spurious counterfeit.