Roy Schoeman was a good Jew.

In fact, he excelled in his faith. Born outside of New York City to conservative Jewish parents who were Holocaust refuges, he was given every possible opportunity to study and learn his faith.

Yet, when he began studying at MIT he lost that faith and became an atheist. He then moved on to Harvard Business School as a successful graduate and young professor. 

It was at this time that Schoeman says the bottom fell out of his world.

Having left his Jewish belief behind, he wrestled with the lack of purpose and meaning to his life.

“One of the things that bothered me the most was I couldn’t figure out a rational reason to be good,” he told about 100 people at the Seminary of Christ the King Oct. 19.

“I wanted to be good and I always felt guilty when I behaved in a bad way, but I couldn’t rationally justify the determination to be good.”

Schoeman refers to this as his darkest time.

“In that period, I found solace walking alone in beautiful places of nature.”

He said he had been doing that one morning when “the curtain between heaven and earth disappeared and I found myself in the presence of God. Very knowingly in the presence of God. In an intimate state of kind of communion and communication with God.”

During that experience he saw how he would feel about his life after he died. He also saw that everything that had ever happened to him “had been the most perfect thing that could be arranged, coming from the hands of this all-knowing, all-loving God. Not only including those things that had caused the most suffering at the time, that I had thought were the great disasters at the time, but especially those things.”

He said most touching was the knowledge of how much God loved him.

“This God who created existence itself not only knew me by name, not only had been arranging everything that had ever happened to me, but had known how I felt at every moment and cared about how I felt at every moment of my existence as though I were the only creature he had ever created.”

Roy Schoeman at Christ the King Seminary. (Chandra Philip photo)

After the experience, Schoeman returned home feeling the happiest he had ever been in his life. Still unsure which religion he should follow, he prayed every night for a revelation.

A year to the day after his mystical experience, he went to sleep, only to be awakened by what seemed like a gentle hand on his shoulder. He was led to a room and left alone “with the most beautiful young woman I could ever imagine. I knew without being told it was the Blessed Virgin Mary.”

He said being in her presence and feeling the love flowing from her lifted him up “into a state of ecstasy greater than I had ever imagined.”

“As beautiful as she was to look at, even more profoundly affecting was the beauty of her voice. The only way I can describe it is her voice is made up of that which makes music – music. When she spoke, this incredibly beautiful voice flowed over me carrying with it her love.”

“Everything in this world was so tasteless and colourless and drab like cardboard and black and white or grey actually, compared to being in her presence.”

While Schoeman found joy in his growing Catholic faith, his parents did not feel the same.

“They got very angry, particularly my father. The standard Jewish father’s reaction: ‘I have no son. My son is dead. I never want to hear his name again.’ He cut off all contact with me. But he couldn’t sustain that for too long because of his paternal love, and after about six months he got back in touch with me.”

His Catholicism remained a source of tension between his father and him for some time, although their relationship began to improve as his parents grew older.

Some time later his father broke his thigh and ended up in hospital. His convalescene was “a miserable experience,” until one morning Schoeman paid him a visit.

“He was sitting up in bed. His eyes were gleaming. He had this smile. He just says to me ‘You know the funniest thing happened last night after the room was dark and all the commotion was over, and everyone left. Jesus appeared to me. Interesting. Don’t you think?’ That was all he said to me.”

Schoeman baptized his father on Good Friday, but his father had slipped into unconsciousness. 

“Then on Easter Tuesday, he died.”

The experience hardened his mother against the Catholic faith. “She knew about Jesus appearing to my father. So now, not only did her son go over to the enemy, but her husband went over to the enemy.”

When his mother also fell, breaking her hip and ending up in hospice, Schoeman had an opportunity to share his testimony with her. She listened but was not strong enough to respond.

“The next morning when I visited her, she was sitting up in bed. She could talk. She said, ‘I really want to thank you for what you did yesterday.’ All of her childhood faith in God came back.”

She requested prayers and Schoeman baptized her as well. After her death she had a Catholic funeral.

When it comes to speaking with Jewish people about the faith, Schoeman offers some advice. “Let the Jewish person know two things. First of all: the true (Christian) view of Jews and Judaism,” which holds that salvation came from the Jews and they are still God’s chosen people.

“It will help a little because it will make them think that you are not the enemy and you don’t hate them.”

It is also important to talk personally about faith.

“Let them know what your relationship to God is in the Catholic Church. Let them know what receiving the Eucharist means to you. Let them know what your relationship to the Blessed Virgin Mary means to you. Let them know perhaps the comfort you get from saying the Rosary, the joy you get from receiving Communion, the peace you have if you get a piece of bad news, a medical report or something, and you know that God is still in charge, that God still loves you and it is all part of God’s plan,” he said.

It is also important to pray for them, he said.

Schoeman is the author of Salvation is from the Jews: The Role of Judaism in Salvation History, and Honey from the Rock: Sixteen Jews Find the Sweetness of Christ. He has appeared on EWTN and Radio Maria.