Словачко-американский врач построил каменную часовню на ранчо в Калифорнии

Slovak-American doctor Jan Eperjesi builds a stone chapel on a California ranch By Jan Eperjesi, M.D. In July 2014, I moved to Paso Robles, California from Durham, North Carolina with my wife, Patricia, and two young children. I had just graduated from four years of postgraduate medical training in Obstetrics and Gynecology at Duke University and was about to start my first job as a newly-minted OBGYN physician. But I was grieving deeply. Just one month before my graduation, my beloved father, Stefan, died in Lhasa, Tibet. So far away. So remote. He died peacefully in his sleep as part of a tour group with other Slovak-Canadian emigré friends, but it was completely unexpected and utterly jarring. All of it only compounded my grief. It was in this context that I resolved to take my grief to “the foot of the Cross” and “offer it up” to the Lord. Fortunately, I learned of the St. Joseph Chapel at St. Rose of Lima Parish which had perpetual adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. It was located less than 10 minutes from my house in Paso Robles. I began making a scheduled holy hour there every Saturday morning for over a year. As a son, I prayed earnestly for my father’s soul. I also sat wordless, thoughtless, motionless in the rays of the Sacrament, still. Fiat. Let it be done to me according to Thy Word. I prayed for so many other things too; desiring to be penetrated by His Light; permeated and enveloped by His Love: I am Yours. The Ranch On one occasion as I was leaving the adoration chapel, I bumped into our real estate agent, Teresa, an admirable and resourceful woman of deep Catholic faith and Marian devotion, who had greatly helped us with our move from North Carolina to California. I mentioned that I had an inheritance from my father’s estate and that I would like to put this towards the purchase of a rural ranch property to which my family could retreat on occasion to foster a sacred and protected space “away from the world.” I am convinced that it was through the workings of the Holy Spirit that she and I found such a place — the fruit of adoration and transformation of grief offered to God. From the moment we first visited the property — a ranch near Santa Margarita, a community of 1300 just north of San Luis Obispo — in April 2016, our souls were lifted to God, literally awestruck by its sheer natural beauty. We hastily put together a bid to purchase the property with the resources we could afford — but it was not to be. Another party’s bid was significantly higher than ours. We were disappointed but accepted the news; the asking price was just out of our league. But then a few months later, on Father’s Day, 2016, Teresa called me unexpectedly. The escrow from the other party had fallen through and the property was back on the market. I felt my heart beating inside my chest. This time, with the grace of God, we would make it happen! With Teresa’s help and ingenuity, we were able to obtain a private loan from an elderly parishioner. We met at his home, and we liked and trusted each other from the start. He supported me and the vision for a family property. The deal was sealed with a handshake and signature on a single piece of paper. Thus, on August 19, 2016, my deceased father’s birthday, we became the new owners of our beloved ranch. I could not help but see Providence in all of this: the phone call from Teresa on Father’s Day; the deed transfer on my father’s birthday; and the ranch’s nickname from the previous owners — Rancho de los Vientos (Ranch of the Winds). Hats off to the Holy Spirit (and my dad)! At the California Midstate Fair in Summer 2017, we had a simple but beautiful wooden ranch sign made which memorialized our sentiments: Rancho Eperješi-Martinez — Slava Bohu Na Vysostiach (Eperjesī-Martinez Ranch — Glory to God in the Highest!). We used the Slovak cross (aka Cross of Lorraine) as our emblem, a deeply meaningful symbol of our salvation in God and alignment with the ancestry, faith and agrarian culture of our forefathers. It was an affirming moment indeed when we hung that sign at the front door of our ranch casita. The Chapel In October 2017, my wife Patricia and I went to Italy for our “honeymoon.” We had married in 2008 but due to the rigors of medical school, licensing exams, residency training, board certification and two small children, we had not been able to go on a honeymoon together until this time. We flew to Rome with plans to embark on a small road trip. Patricia wanted to revisit Florence where she had attended culinary school before we married; I wanted to go to Norcia, to make a small pilgrimage to the birthplace of St Benedict and the Benedictine Monastery there. We stayed in the gorgeous commune of Sorano and the breathtaking mountain village of Forsivo, near Norcia. We were awestruck by the beauty of the rock work from medieval times in these places. There were forlorn, abandoned stone chapels there that, in their day, were erected as tangible offerings to God — edifices that would have borne the joys, pains and supplications of the people who worked the land. What times were we in now? I had just finished reading The Benedict Option by Rod Dreher. It was this book that inspired our journey to Norcia as a tangible gesture of aligning myself with a spirituality seemingly at the heart of Dreher’s call for families to purposefully adopt a “Benedict Option” domestic charism. It seemed to be an urgent bid for an intentional approach to faith and spirituality, within the family and amongst families, in solidarity and community with each other, over a declared desire to live out the faith. Modeled after Benedictine religious communities, and innately employed in the “domestic church” of families in Czechoslovakia and other Eastern bloc countries during Soviet communism, the Benedict Option charism not only safeguards and preserves the Faith in our modern post-secular age, but Benedict Option-type communities allow the Faith to animate our lives as we go out in the world. As I closed my eyes on the airplane back to California from Italy, I recalled the beauty of the old rock structures we had seen on our trip. I thought of our ranch and the similarities to the Italian countryside. I began to imagine a beautiful rock chapel and shrine at the ranch built in thanksgiving to God. We had plenty of rock on the property; we had the space; we had the beauty. We could do it! Flying over the Atlantic, I was thinking about the Beloved Program for Married Couples (from Augustinian Press) my wife and I had just completed with two other couples — a video and discussion program about the sacredness of marriage and family. With our approach to the Beloved Program, I realized we were, in fact, already doing the Benedict Option. I began to have clarity about our ranch as a Benedict Option property — a protected and holy place where we could come to live out a domestic charism of the Catholic faith, and invite other families to do so. The chapel would be a tangible manifestation of our commitment to it — a literal “touchstone” of our pilgrimage to Norcia where the commitment was born after reading the book. We would leave the ranch, after our visits as a family, spiritually recharged and ready to go back into the world edified by our faith and the glory of the natural surroundings at the ranch. Thus, the reading of Dreher’s The Benedict Option helped me understand more completely what I already desired for our family and the ranch. Accordingly, I attribute not only the inspiration for what is now the Holy Cross shrine, St. Stefan/Holy Family Chapel and Our Lady of the Lake vineyard, but also the ranch’s underlying raison d’etre, to The Benedict Option, the rich and bountiful workings of the Holy Spirit, and, ultimately, the fruit of prayer and transformed grief shared with God. For the glory of God yesterday, today, and forever!