Having found his way, he calls others home

Mark Prather sees his life as a series of miracles — leading first to his return to the Catholic Church and then to his efforts to draw Catholics back to a stronger commitment to their faith.
 
Although baptized Catholic, he grew up in an agnostic household not practicing the faith, but has since gone through a conversion. He became a devout believer and evangelist after experiencing what he believes are a series of miracles in his life.
 
Today, the member of Legatus’ Orange County Chapter in California is committed to sharing his faith using the talents he has acquired after a lifetime in the real estate industry. He has teamed with fellow chapter member Ralph Linzmeier to produce Finding Your Way, a Catholic radio/podcast program in which people tell the stories of God acting in their lives.

Big questions

When he was 18, despite growing up without religion, Prather began his adult life by asking himself two big questions. Does God exist? And what possibilities do I have for my life? He sought to answer the second question by immersing himself in the real estate industry and founded a mortgage company at the young age of 22. He worked long hours and was driven to succeed, but miraculous events in his life kept him returning to ponder the existence of God.
 
As his My Testimony of Miracles YouTube video relates, a series of miracles helped convince him there is a God.

Once, when he was 28, he dozed off while watching his young children. He was awakened by the sound of running water — miraculous, he believes, as no water fixtures were turned on — only to discover that two of his small children had gotten into the pool area and were at risk of drowning.

‘Fill my church’

Another incidence occurred at age 49, when he experienced a major heart attack. He was always pushing himself “to the limit” to succeed at his business, he explained, and stress took a toll on his health. One morning, as he was getting dressed after working out, he felt a minor burn in his chest that became increasingly intense. His wife called 911, and paramedics confirmed he was having a heart attack.
 
As the paramedics wheeled him away on a gurney, Mark uttered one quick prayer before passing out: “Not yet.” While in recovery, he was a candidate for a heart transplant. Four months later, his doctor revealed that his heart had returned to normal, and there was no medical explanation. “It was a miracle,” Prather opined. “My heart healed itself.”

But he said the most amazing thing occurred later when he was in church and heard the voice of a man say in his ear, “Fill my church.” He looked around, but there was no man nearby. Prather believes he had heard the voice of Jesus Christ speaking to him. “When I tell that story, both believers and unbelievers alike look at me funny,” he admitted.

Since that moment, Prather has eagerly sought opportunities to share his faith. It was while presenting his story to one local group that he met Linzmeier, a longtime Legatus member of the Orange County Chapter. He invited Prather first to speak to the chapter on “What Is Possible for Your Life?” and later invited him to join Legatus. Today, Linzmeier is retired from a career in the financial services industry and is membership chairman of the chapter while Prather serves as its program vice-chair.

The call home

Another Orange County Chapter member, Deacon Steve Greco, founder of Spirit Filled Hearts Ministry, launched a radio/podcast outreach featuring free Catholic programming and asked Linzmeier and Prather to host a regular show. Finding Your Way aptly describes their guests’ accounts of following God’s lead through life’s challenging times — and it fits Prather’s own journey as well.
 
Prather said the guests’ stories of faith have been interesting and some have even “gone viral.” One of these was an interview with Doreen Campbell, who spoke of how her faith helped her cope after her young adult daughter Katie died in a traffic accident.
 
Linzmeier, who had worked as a DJ in high school, relishes co-hosting the program as a “chance to work in front of an audience again.”

For Prather, the radio show and his speaking engagements are perhaps an answer to the voice he heard urging him to “fill my church.” Mindful of the conversion back to the practice of his Catholic faith that he experienced in his own life, he noted with alarm how Catholic attendance at Mass has declined dramatically in recent generations.

“Evangelization is desperately needed,” he said, “and Finding Your Way is one small opportunity to do our part.”

Repentance as ‘second conversion’

Christ’s call to conversion continues to resound in the lives of Christians. This second conversion is an uninterrupted task for the whole Church who, “clasping sinners to her bosom, [is] at once holy and always in need of purification, [and] follows constantly the path of penance and renewal.” This endeavor of conversion is not just a human work. It is the movement of a “contrite heart,” drawn and moved by grace to respond to the merciful love of God who loved us first. (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1428)

Interior repentance is a radical reorientation of our whole life, a return, a conversion to God with all our heart, an end of sin, a turning away from evil, with repugnance toward the evil actions we have committed. At the same time it entails the desire and resolution to change one’s life, with hope in God’s mercy and trust in the help of his grace. This conversion of heart is accompanied by a salutary pain and sadness which the Fathers called animi cruciatus (affliction of spirit) and compunctio cordis (repentance of heart). (CCC, 1431)