BRUCE Downes breeds finches. One-hundred-and-thirty of them await his flight home to Perth from Brisbane.
It’s likely few people know that about The Catholic Guy.
What tens of thousands of people have heard, thanks to a phenomenal following on television, in print and in person, is an awakening from working in the business world led him to outreach in the Church.
“The seventies were about finding out who Jesus was,” he told The Leader in-between The Catholic Guy sessions.
“(And) I became convicted and called to live that relationship with God.
“The eighties were about getting married and having kids and the nineties were about youth ministry and finding out how to do that.”
Fast-forward to a visit to the Vatican, in 2006, and a turning-point that a countless number of people would have heard Bruce talk about.
It’s to do with journaling in a local café while his wife of 30 years, Rosemary, was shopping – “the most expensive prayer day” of his life.
“I got out my journal in the Vatican and said to God, ‘What are you asking me?'” Bruce said to a group gathered recently for a parish mission visit in Banyo, on Brisbane’s northside.
Back in 2006, Bruce, who admitted he “doesn’t have a face for television”, was in the Sistene chapel where “the leaders of the church are”, wondering why he, a lay person, was led there.
“By four o’clock in afternoon I walked into the basilica where exposition was taking place,” he said.
“I sat there and this thought about a Catholic television program popped into my mind.”
The fun-loving Catholic spoke openly about how that thought wasn’t a possibility until “other things were done – simple things like lose weight, (change) in my relationship with Rosemary … (change in) my work were necessary”.
“It wasn’t rocket science … sometimes the next step is the fact that we aren’t doing what we were meant to do,” he said.
Accomplishing those necessary goals, again God prompted.
It was August 26, 2006, and Bruce vividly and animatedly relived it like it truly was “yesterday”.
“I didn’t hear anything but it was a sense,” he said.
That pre-empted a series of God-given meetings, to make The Catholic Guy television series a reality.
After a few years Bruce was asked by local church hierarchy to take The Catholic Guy message into parishes.
“But no one will come,” he remembered responding.
Asked to “go anyway … all of a sudden, people started coming”.
With an average of 15 parish mission events per year, Bruce said they “exist to help people love God, love their parish and love their priest”.
“(In preparing to visit parishes) we wrestle with the question of how can we create community and depth people spiritually within the Church – a Church with its human frailty,” he said.
Bruce said there was “beauty” in the many expressions of personal and communal prayer.
The Catholic Guy sessions are a mixture of prayer through worship, silence, reflection and scriptural presentations.
The final session of four also includes Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament.
But the likeable Catholic “doesn’t do the heavy lifting” and nor is he “the best teacher around”.
“We’ve got the easy bit,” he said, knowing that after the team visits it was up to the parish community to continue the momentum.
“Being the happy uncle is easy. Being the parents is the hard work.”
The team said they met “many phenomenal priests” as they travelled Australia and abroad with their gentle, yet honest, presentation of modern-day Catholicism.
After their mission event in Banyo-Nundah parish, they moved on to Dorrington parish and will lead a Lenten retreat at the Lavalla Centre, Paddington, on March 31.
To engage The Catholic Guy outreach, its office, based in Perth, arranges for Bruce to talk with the parish priest.
“When priests express an interest I normally have a conversation to make it clear that I am a lay person,” he said.
“I have to be confident the priest is peaceful about a parish mission being led by me.”
The Catholic Guy staff co-ordinate the visit with a parish team and ship all the necessary equipment and materials.
There’s no fee associated with their visit to a parish although they ask for donations to cover some of their expenses.
Parishioners accommodate the team locally and provide for their needs, Bruce saying he had “put on six kilos” during a recent stay.
He also spoke of “trusting in God” to make ends meet financially and openly gives credit to Rosemary who works in pharmacy full-time to allow him to travel so extensively.
“I felt the Lord saying, ‘I will provide for you’,” Bruce said.
“(And) by the grace of God we are surviving.
“It keeps me on my knees.”
The father of five and grandfather of three is emotive just at the sound of his wife’s name.
“It’s lonely work sometimes,” he said at the final night of in Corpus Christi Church, Nundah, on March 6.
“We meet all these wonderful people but there is a price to pay.”
Bruce said “Rosemary’s gift is faith” and her belief in evangelism allowed him to “be in the world”.
“Evangelism is not a moment,” he said.
“It is a gradual unfolding of the mission of Jesus Christ.”
In his prayerfulness and preparation Bruce said he was constantly asking how the team can “engage people who aren’t Catholic … people who are estranged from the Church … (and) young people”.
“How do we bring the Mass to people who just drive by?” he said.
“(And) how do we walk more deeply with Jesus and stay in the presence of the Lord forever?”
Bruce said he “spent 12 years figuring out” his call to outreach in The Catholic Guy ministry team and he was “convicted” of that calling.
“I’ve done this my whole life,” he said.
“My children (aged 21-28) have known no different.
“They too have a deep conviction that the Gospel needs to be conveyed in fresh ways.”
Bruce and Rosemary’s children and their partners are all involved to some extent in The Catholic Guy outreach.
Asked what kind of grandfather – or Pa, as he’s known – he is, Bruce was particularly cheeky.
“I can spoil the grandchildren in any way I want to,” he said.
“I take them to pet shops and buy them fish.”
He has four brothers, is “the middle child” and is close to them, too.
The Catholic Guy team “only have space for two more events this year”.
Those travelling with Bruce as vocalists or to set up “come and go” – often swapping over after a series of days.
Rosemary will be part of the team presenting on March 31 and Bruce is pleased because “people listen more to her”.
“There’s nothing special about me,” Bruce, who enjoys watching sports and action movies in his spare time, said.
“I just like to encourage people to listen to God with the ears of their heart.”
