Many years ago I helped my good friends, Cathie and Bassam Poullath get married in the Catholic Church. Today they are two of the best Catholics that I know and have 10 children. I was in Detroit promoting the Miracle of Damascus (Mirna Nazzour and Our Lady of Soufanieh) and was finishing the writing of the book. Cathie's brother, Ron Barno, came to see me with a problem. Cathie had told him about me and he looked me up.

He was deliberately getting away from his girl friend by visiting his older sister in Detroit. He said he had to make up his mind about getting married or becoming a priest but could not do it around her as she was very aggressive. "Around her I cannot think." He said.

I told him my thinking about marriage and that he had two other options. He could wait or even look for another wife. His culture does not marry outside its own race, the Chaldeans, so he did not have many marriage options. That has changed now (thank God) but it was his belief at the time.

I told him that marriage was one of three important things in life, birth, marriage and death. Two of these things we have no say in, but the one is the most important choice we will ever make because it is forever and will help us to a happy life and death, or an unhappy life and death. I suggested that even if he had doubts he should walk away from this woman. I did not know her but I knew he had doubts about her.

Just by chance Mirna Nazzour visited his father's house in San Diego a year later and Ron and his future wife came to the prayer session to see Mirna. This was a very holy occasion where we would pray with a woman who had seen and talked with the Virgin Mary. This was the first time I saw his future wife and I was not warmly impressed. She was not dressed for prayer. She was dressed to impress someone and it was not God. The way one dresses is the way they want the world to see them or (even worse) the way they see themselves. She was selling sex at a prayer meeting.

In those days I gave a lot of lectures with questions and answers on the Catholic Faith as related to the Bible all over Southern California. Cathie arranged for me to give a class in her father's house and there I met for the fist time the brothers and father of Ron's future wife. They were very antagonistic towards God and the Bible. I often wondered why they even came to my class. They were into making money and did not care if they made it legally or morally as long as they made a lot of it. They also liked to show off their money. I could see that this was not a family that Ron should be part of since he was very Catholic and very gentle. He did not have the aggressiveness to cope with these people.

He married the girl and I was there. He was married in the Chaldean Church in San Diego. She was late to her own marriage because she was not happy with her hair and had it done over and over again until she was happy with it. Everyone waited for a very long time for her to show up. To me this was a very sad day as I could not see such a gentle giving man with so much love of God marrying such a worldly woman.

Some years later after twins were born, Ron and his wife came to see me because of marriage problems. It had become part of my avocation to give marriage counseling and I had saved a few marriages. I had helped two of his sisters with some minor problems. Ron wanted to tell me how her mother, father, and brothers were trying to destroy there marriage. She wanted to tell me how much Ron hated her family. I would not listen to either one of them. I told them that they had time to think about marriage, but now it was too late.

I was wrong. Sometimes the best thing for the children is for people who are so totally wrong for each other is to keep harmony at any cost - even separation. The real solution to marriage is getting married right in the first place. People marry today for like or lust but not for love. I really think that only holy people really know how to love, for love is to suffer, to give, to commit, and it has nothing to do with like or lust.

Ron continued to have problems but no longer came to me for help. They had two more children. Unwilling to make money illegally he could not compete with the life stile of her family and she wanted that life stile. A man must leave his father and mother and cling to his wife. A woman must leave her father and mother and cling to her husband. He did and she did not. Money, fancy clothes, big houses, expensive cars, jewels, expensive night clubs against a simple man who loved God and his children.

In time he could not find and answer to his problems. On the one side my words rang in his ears "Suffer" but on the other side, he was ridiculed, hated, belittled, and made fun of even in front of his children. His manhood was attacked, his love was not understood, his gentleness was taken for weakness. Unable to think right anymore and thinking it was best for the children, he took his own life.................................

I am to blame. May God forgive me.

For a loving tribute to Ron Barno go to www.ronbarno.com and for an example of his loving heart the following is one of his last letters before he died.

"In my depression away from my family, I found myself alone, scared, powerless and heartbroken. I became consumed with self-pity, that my grief took control of me. I became blinded to the pain of others, and then I reflected on the life of a living saint. I remember your gentle ways. You never complained, the courage you showed, when most would have gave in. Strong, yet gentle to the need of others, you never showed your worries, but your compassion was always abundant. I remember for all the good thing you shared with the world, you gave praise and thanks to God. All the bad that evil people did, with ease you forgave, this too I remember, gentle saint.

In your youth, top of the mountain you stood, knowing that the water would not drown you, you gave praise and thanks to God still. I remember your smile, even in the worst times. In my depression, I was consumed, until I saw you in that room. I remember the many you helped, even some you never met. In your eyes He was present, Mighty and Pure, full of Majesty and Truth. Now He comes, calling out your name, saying "Sabri" my beloved servant, my son. It is time, my son, your labor is done. Now come home, for your life has begun."