{"id":4595,"date":"2010-07-01T22:14:16","date_gmt":"2010-07-01T22:14:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/deaconsbench\/2010\/07\/broken-hearts-can-forgive-the-reconciliation-of-fr-rob.html"},"modified":"2010-07-01T22:14:16","modified_gmt":"2010-07-01T22:14:16","slug":"broken-hearts-can-forgive-the-reconciliation-of-fr-rob","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2010\/07\/broken-hearts-can-forgive-the-reconciliation-of-fr-rob.html","title":{"rendered":"“Broken hearts can forgive”: the reconciliation of Fr. Rob"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"4c250454c27fd.image.jpg\"<\/a><\/span> How do you forgive the unforgivable?<\/p>\n

Take a few moments, take a deep breath, and read this astonishing, beautiful, heartbreaking account of one man’s journey to the priesthood:<\/a><\/p>\n

\nNo street lights illuminate this winding, narrow road, but Rob Spaulding can see enough.<\/p>\n

The car is facing the wrong direction, folded and bent at ugly angles where it hit the trees. Matty is lying on the side of the road.<\/p>\n

Rob can’t see what Mark is doing, but he’s outside of the car, walking around.<\/p>\n

Rob doesn’t remember how he got out.<\/p>\n

We need an ambulance, Rob says into his cell phone.<\/p>\n

One needs life support now.<\/p>\n

Jared is still inside, slumped over the back of the driver’s seat. Rob reaches out to him and finds a pulse. He’s breathing, alive.<\/p>\n

He kneels beside Matty and begins CPR.<\/p>\n

Minutes earlier, Rob had been driving his friends around the lake, windows down, enjoying the midnight air. They had been promising young men, studying to become priests, passionate about their faith and the people they felt called to serve.<\/p>\n

One reckless mistake destroyed nearly all of it.<\/p>\n

But those of faith know that out of unthinkable sorrow, unimaginable love can grow.<\/p>\n

Broken hearts can forgive.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Read on<\/a> for the rest.  Have a tissue handy.  I suspect you’ve never read a vocation story quite like it. <\/p>\n

<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How do you forgive the unforgivable? Take a few moments, take a deep breath, and read this astonishing, beautiful, heartbreaking account of one man’s journey to the priesthood: No street lights illuminate this winding, narrow road, but Rob Spaulding can see enough. The car is facing the wrong direction, folded and bent at ugly angles…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4595","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-inspiration","category-vocations"],"yoast_head":"\n"Broken hearts can forgive": the reconciliation of Fr. Rob - The Deacon's Bench<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2010\/07\/broken-hearts-can-forgive-the-reconciliation-of-fr-rob.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\""Broken hearts can forgive": the reconciliation of Fr. Rob - The Deacon's Bench\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"How do you forgive the unforgivable? Take a few moments, take a deep breath, and read this astonishing, beautiful, heartbreaking account of one man’s journey to the priesthood: No street lights illuminate this winding, narrow road, but Rob Spaulding can see enough. The car is facing the wrong direction, folded and bent at ugly angles…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2010\/07\/broken-hearts-can-forgive-the-reconciliation-of-fr-rob.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Deacon's Bench\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-07-01T22:14:16+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/deaconsbench\/files\/import\/assets_c\/2010\/07\/4c250454c27fd.image-thumb-400x272-15992.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"jmcgee\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"\"Broken hearts can forgive\": the reconciliation of Fr. Rob - The Deacon's Bench","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2010\/07\/broken-hearts-can-forgive-the-reconciliation-of-fr-rob.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"\"Broken hearts can forgive\": the reconciliation of Fr. Rob - The Deacon's Bench","og_description":"How do you forgive the unforgivable? Take a few moments, take a deep breath, and read this astonishing, beautiful, heartbreaking account of one man’s journey to the priesthood: No street lights illuminate this winding, narrow road, but Rob Spaulding can see enough. The car is facing the wrong direction, folded and bent at ugly angles…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2010\/07\/broken-hearts-can-forgive-the-reconciliation-of-fr-rob.html","og_site_name":"The Deacon's Bench","article_published_time":"2010-07-01T22:14:16+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/deaconsbench\/files\/import\/assets_c\/2010\/07\/4c250454c27fd.image-thumb-400x272-15992.jpg"}],"author":"jmcgee","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2010\/07\/broken-hearts-can-forgive-the-reconciliation-of-fr-rob.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2010\/07\/broken-hearts-can-forgive-the-reconciliation-of-fr-rob.html","name":"\"Broken hearts can forgive\": the reconciliation of Fr. Rob - The Deacon's Bench","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2010\/07\/broken-hearts-can-forgive-the-reconciliation-of-fr-rob.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2010\/07\/broken-hearts-can-forgive-the-reconciliation-of-fr-rob.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/deaconsbench\/files\/import\/assets_c\/2010\/07\/4c250454c27fd.image-thumb-400x272-15992.jpg","datePublished":"2010-07-01T22:14:16+00:00","dateModified":"2010-07-01T22:14:16+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/#\/schema\/person\/bdb748767d0f27ba523435391c927150"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2010\/07\/broken-hearts-can-forgive-the-reconciliation-of-fr-rob.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2010\/07\/broken-hearts-can-forgive-the-reconciliation-of-fr-rob.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2010\/07\/broken-hearts-can-forgive-the-reconciliation-of-fr-rob.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/deaconsbench\/files\/import\/assets_c\/2010\/07\/4c250454c27fd.image-thumb-400x272-15992.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/deaconsbench\/files\/import\/assets_c\/2010\/07\/4c250454c27fd.image-thumb-400x272-15992.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2010\/07\/broken-hearts-can-forgive-the-reconciliation-of-fr-rob.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"“Broken hearts can forgive”: the reconciliation of Fr. Rob"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/","name":"The Deacon's Bench","description":"Where a Roman Catholic Deacon Ponders the World","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/#\/schema\/person\/bdb748767d0f27ba523435391c927150","name":"jmcgee","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/b07\/b071769d942178df26e06d8859867b37x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/b07\/b071769d942178df26e06d8859867b37x96.jpg","caption":"jmcgee"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/author\/jmcgee"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4595","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4595"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4595\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4595"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}