|
By Suzanne Haugh, Staff Writer
SNELLVILLE—Music has a special place in the life of Beth
Mappes, 30, a wife and a happily busy mother of three children, 4 and under.
She has played the piano since the age of 5 and is classically trained on the
instrument. She can also lend her voice to the melody played by her hands.
“God speaks clearly through (music),” she said.
“... So many are affected by it.”
Like a friend’s unexpected phone call timed perfectly to
counter a bad day, music found its way back into Mappes’ life and took
hold of it as she was finding again her spiritual footing within the Catholic
Church.
Her decision to return to her Catholic faith was one that opposed
the tug of her mother and two younger sisters who are members of the Church of
Scientology.
Mappes is very familiar with Catholic education. She attended Sts.
Peter and Paul in Decatur and St. Pius X High School in Atlanta.
“(Catholicism) was always around me,” she said.
“I was hugely involved with the church” in her teen
years helping with SEARCH retreats and singing in the music ministry group at
St. Pius.
Even after her parents divorced when she was 12, Mappes resisted
becoming involved in the Church of Scientology when her mother remarried three
years later and joined.
“I struggled against it,” she said. “I was left to
go to church on my own.”
After graduating from St. Pius in 1987, Mappes attended Georgia
State University and lived at home most of that time. Like a large number of
Catholics in the college years and shortly thereafter, Mappes fell away from
regularly going to Mass. She dated and was briefly engaged to a man, also a
Catholic who no longer regularly fed his faith, before ending that
relationship. She eventually took a job as a third-grade teacher at St. John
Neumann Regional School in Lilburn.
At this juncture in her life, Mappes began to search for a
spiritual home. She attended Corpus Christi Church in Stone Mountain.
“I tried to go to church and get involved, but there was no
outreach for people my age.”
Mappes then accepted an invitation from her mother and sisters,
who also graduated from St. Pius, and became involved in Scientology.
“I felt an outreach from them (Scientology) ... I finally had
found someone to accept me and I was involved with Scientology for a couple of
months ... I went full force (into Scientology), going three or four times a
week in addition to holding a full-time job at St. John Neumann.”
She kept her involvement with Scientology to herself, but she
didn’t find what she needed there. She took a sabbatical from Scientology,
putting off further study which she was scheduled to start.
“I always sensed that something was missing. I knew I needed
to go back to church, back to Corpus Christi.”
Mappes returned to Corpus Christi for a Sunday evening Mass at
which a five-member folk group sang.
The next day Elyse O’Kane, one of the group’s members,
brought the lunch her son had left at home to Mappes’ class. Mappes knew
O’Kane only as the parent of one of her students, yet when she
complimented O’Kane on her singing, O’Kane asked if Mappes would want
to join the group.
“She had no clue (I could sing). She doesn’t even know
why she asked me that. I told her I was not very good and she said, ‘Well,
neither are we.’”
O’Kane’s humble admission was by no means the opinion of
those in the church community who saw the group as being very talented, Mappes
said.
“(God) works through people,” she said. “God was
speaking through Elyse.”
Not long after joining the singing group, Mappes met her future
husband, Scott, a transplant from Indianapolis who had left the church and then
made a conscious lifestyle change to strengthen his faith.
“He helped me really find Jesus in my life ... I came back
with such voraciousness and he was right there with me through our courtship
and we were developing a relationship together ... He’s a huge support
person.”
Many who return to their faith do so with the same excitement of
having found something precious believed to have been lost forever.
“That’s so true in my life. It is almost out of control
... Once I came back I made a conscious decision not to go to Scientology. I
had found my niche. I had people praying for me. Scott and I prayed
together-praying with a boyfriend was the weirdest thing. But I felt at
home.”
Yet Mappes’ return to the Catholic Church cut off, in a
significant way, the spiritual link with her mother and sisters.
“I started my relationship with Jesus again. That’s what
was missing ... But I had to break apart, go against my family. That was a
major part of my conversion.”
Mappes also had to inform a representative from the Church of
Scientology that she would not be returning.
“I had the strength to stand up and break away from the
(Scientology) group.”
All of this took place while living under the same roof as her
family. Mappes found herself wanting to then “immerse myself” in the
church and so bought religious items and posters for her room.
“I kind of wanted to have a sanctuary (at home) to get away
from Scientology.”
Within a month of joining the singing group, Mappes read about and
began attending a Life in the Spirit seminar. The seven sessions were another
way for Mappes to spend time developing her faith and to realize the strength
of prayer.
At the first session she was slightly taken aback by how some
people were raising their hands and singing.
“But I’m a very demonstrative person and felt
comfortable there,” she said.
The seminar brought a greater appreciation for the Holy Spirit at
work in people’s lives. On May 4 of that year, as her group leader and
another person prayed over her, she was baptized in the Spirit and received her
wish: to speak in tongues, which she had prayed for “like nobody’s
business.”
“It was such an opening,” she said. “... Of course
we have the Holy Spirit through baptism and confirmation but full release is
when everything is given to you (by the Holy Spirit).”
Mappes’ experience of receiving the Holy Spirit and finding a
way to share her musical talents through ministries like Magnificat, which
spiritually nourish women with song, a meal and personal testimonies of faith,
reinforced for her the correctness of her journey back to the church.
“It’s just a confirmation of what I’ve
done—leaving Scientology. I’ve never felt so right. The Holy Spirit
helped me know that.”
Mappes values and enjoys her relationship with her mother and
sisters. As she has become aware of the beauty of her faith, she cannot help
but want to share it with those close to her.
“I’m hoping that I do plant the seed (with her family)
... It’s very critical because it could really divide me from my family.
It’s more important to keep the door open than to shut it.”
She continues to believe in the power of prayer to evangelize.
“Don’t just ask God for the little things. Ask God for the big
things. There’s no doubt in my mind (he will respond.)”
Mappes left St. John Neumann School before the birth of her first
son and served as youth minister at St. Oliver Plunkett Church, Snellville, for
one year. Now she devotes most of her time to her family—evangelizing her
children, Michael, 4, Jake, 2, and Andrew, 5 months old.
“I’m amazed at the trust God puts in us to raise
(children) in the faith. There is nothing more important than to teach children
who God is, what faith is and what it means to be Catholic.”
And music remains not too far from reach for Mappes, a parishioner
at St. Oliver Plunkett. She still helps with the music ministry of Magnificat
and has told the music director at her parish, “As soon as the baby takes
the bottle, I’ll fill in.”
|
