The Sons of Santa. That’s the strangely-named band that 16-year-old Ben Walther belonged to in high school. He had no idea at the time that God would use that band to lead him to his vocation.
During an interview on Christopher Closeup, Walther recalled that he and other Sons of Santa members were feeling called by Christ to embrace their faith more deeply. After performing an original song at a retreat, several girls approached them in tears and said, “That song reminded us so much of our friend that we lost in a car accident two weeks ago.” The girls then hugged them and left.
Walther told me, “We realized at that moment just how powerful music ministry can be when we take poetry and give it a melody. I realized I want to do this for the rest of my life, to channel these gifts for God’s glory.”
In the years that followed, Walther got married, had children, and took a job doing campus ministry and teaching in a Houston Catholic high school. But his heart yearned to devote more time to music and songwriting. In between classes, he would go to the school chapel and pray the Suscipe prayer of St. Ignatius of Loyola, which reads, “Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding, and my entire will, all I have and call my own. You have given all to me. To You, Lord, I return it. Everything is Yours; do with it what You will. Give me only Your love and Your grace, that is enough for me.”
That prayer led Walther to pursue his music dream full time – and inspired his new album Make Your Home in Me. Why that title? Walther explained, “It’s one thing to welcome Christ to make His home in us. Eventually He should cause us to go into the streets and to be friends with the orphans and the widows, to look after those who are lost and to help them come to know and taste the joy of the Lord.”
Walther experienced that type of joy during a recent mission trip he and other musicians took to Ghana with Catholic Relief Services. When one of them asked a local monsignor what he’d like Americans to know about the people of Ghana, the priest answered, “You Americans write us checks and paint our orphanages and do great things. Those are great things! But what we really want is for you to come and be our friends.”
In light of the bonds between neighbors that he witnessed in Ghana, life back in the United States felt jolting to Walther. He observed, “[I saw the Ghanaians] sense of community, their sense of responsibility for each other. Then you come back to the States and you’re like, ‘Do I really know my neighbors? Do I depend on my neighbors?’. You’re isolated. That’s one of the greatest plagues here in the States.”
Walther is doing his best to live out that sense of community, as well as instill young people with a stronger commitment to their faith. At a recent retreat in Denver, he was approached by a young man who wanted to grow closer to God, but kept messing up. Having walked in his shoes, Walther told him, “You’re going to mess up again, and God is going to be right there with you. You’re going to feel lonely sometimes, but you need to know that God never leaves us.”
It was a coming-full-circle moment for the former Sons of Santa member who let God take control of his life-and wound up a better man for it.
(This essay is a recent “Light One Candle” column, written by Tony Rossi, of The Christophers; it is one of a series of weekly columns that deal with a variety of topics and current events.)
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