By learning more about Mary, Chris Stepien hopes readers will risk taking ‘a leap toward embracing God’s far larger world’

By DAVID CRUMM
Editor of ReadTheSpirit magazine

This week’s Cover Story is a rare opportunity to recommend a book that represents the flowering of a friend’s spiritual vocation to use his skills as a media professional to help us plumb the mysteries of faith.

In half a century as a journalist covering religious diversity, I have met hundreds of men and women who are successful in the secular world and yet daydream of leaving their current careers to write, paint, sculpt, develop a screenplay or compose music that could convey their faith to the world. However, the hard truth is that precious few people are able to do that. Chris Stepien is one of those few who accomplished this feat of combining the authenticity of his personal faith with his skills as a media professional. First, he produced the bestselling historical novel, Three Days: The Search for the Boy Messiah. And now he is releasing a sequel to that book, Disciples of Doubt: A Journey with the Messiah’s Mother.

On one level, these are straight-forward Bible stories. The plots of the two novels are taken so directly from the New Testament that Chris provides chapter-and-verse references along the way, if readers care to read more from the Bible. His first novel expands on the famous story of Jesus, as a boy, scaring his parents by suddenly leaving them to spend time in the Jerusalem temple talking with scholars. The second novel begins at the end of Mary’s life, then takes readers back over her entire life with Jesus and his followers.

I have described these novels as historical fiction—but ultimately they are love stories. That’s especially clear in Disciples of Doubt where at least two forms of love are apparent. First, there’s Chris’s love for his Catholic faith, which has blossomed over the years into a resilient, compassionate love of God as described in the Gospel stories. Second, there’s the tough-as-steel love of Jesus’s mother Mary that Chris portrays in these pages. In one scene after another, we see how Mary helped to hold Jesus’s ragtag group of followers together after the trauma of his torture and crucifixion by Roman authorities.

Writing novels as ‘a way to express God’s loving mercy for us’

“This is an act of love—a way to express God’s loving mercy for us,” Chris said as we discussed, via Zoom, the merging of his spiritual and professional vocations over the years.

I started our conversation by summarizing the opening paragraphs of this ReadTheSpirit story. Then, I asked him, “Am I telling your story accurately?”

“Yes, I think you have grasped it,” Chris said. “I worked on these books really out of my gratitude for all that God has provided. And I really mean that. I am so grateful. In my life, I have had so many questions—and I’ve found that Jesus brings the answers. It’s amazing how, in the four Gospels alone, Jesus’s teachings cover every part of our lives. And, in the end, we realize that Jesus’s message ends up being: ‘Love God and love your neighbor as yourself.’

“Then, I also love this line from the scriptures, too, that sums up what we’re supposed to be doing in following Jesus. Lately these words have been haunting me every day that I reflect on them. It’s in Matthew. Jesus tells us, ‘Go and learn the meaning of: I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ There’s a whole lot to think about in those few words, isn’t there? It’s that same core message of love and mercy that I want to share with others.”

Four sets of rosary Mysteries are keys to Chris’s overall vision

In Chris’s spiritual journey—through prayer and worship and retreats and selfless public service—he found that his Catholic traditions made it easy to welcome Mary as a gateway toward a deeper connection with Jesus. When talking publicly about his faith, Chris encourages others to try regularly praying through the cycles of reflection on Gospel stories that are associated with the rosary. That list of thematic cycles now includes four different sets of “Mysteries“—each one of them pointing people to prayerfully think about five stories from the Gospels. Pope John Paul II added the fourth—called “Luminous Mysteries” or “Mysteries of Light”—in a special year-long focus on the rosary in 2002. So now, 20 Gospel stories are highlighted if someone prays through all four sets of Mysteries.

For Chris, these are powerful gateways to the Bible—and through the Bible to a deeper relationships with God. For example, praying the rosary along with meditations from the “Joyful Mysteries” concludes with: “Finding Jesus in the Temple” from the Gospel of Luke Chapter 2—the subject of Chris’s first novel.

Understanding Chris’s personal journey adds a richness to the reading of his books—and underlines his overall purpose in helping readers to move from these novels toward a deeper daily prayer life. In choosing to explore Mary’s life in his second novel, Chris is drawing together reflections from all four sets of rosary Mysteries: Joyful, Luminous, Sorrowful and Glorious.

“When I saw how well the first novel was doing, especially among Catholics, I saw that this was the natural second book,” Chris said. “For me, I believe that Mary—or Miriam as she is called in this book—brought me closer to her son. Through my reading of the Gospels and years of prayer, I came to realize how much her life is intertwined with Jesus’s life and the lives of his followers both back then and today as well.

“When people hear me say this, particularly if they don’t know the Gospel stories well, they will ask me, ‘You’re focusing on Mary? Really? She’s not there much in the scriptures, is she?’

“Then, I say to them, ‘Well, first, we know that she was there through all of it, whether she’s mentioned in every passage or not. And, yes, there are long passages when she’s not mentioned. But, when she shows up in the Gospels—Wow!—we really know she’s there. All you have to do is start by reading the Magnificat in Luke to realize how powerful Mary’s words are in shaping our whole sense of Jesus’s life and message.”

As if to demonstrate that point, Chris began to recite a long passage of the Magnificat from memory—then he realized that he had to pause because those words had caused such emotion to well up in him. He finally said, “Wow! Sorry, but those words are so powerful, aren’t they?”

He continued by listing a long series of other Gospel passages involving Mary and said, “Just think about all those conversations Mary had with different figures in the Gospels. So, if people tell me that Mary isn’t that prominent, I list all those stories for them. And, at the end of that list, I ask people, ‘And, how can we ever forget Mary at the foot of the cross?’ She’s right there witnessing this trauma, this horrible trauma of her son’s torture and execution. And Jesus, even in his agony, looks down and says those words that direct care for her after he is gone. For anyone who has experienced trauma—or trauma that can run through our families for generations—there’s so much that Jesus is teaching us in that scene about caring for each other in our families even after we experience the worst horrors.”

Again in our conversation, Chris paused as he pondered the emotion of that crucifixion scene. He was silent for a moment. “I’m sorry, but these things just hit me, you know? Just thinking of that—wow.

“And that’s not all—there’s so much more I can add,” he continued. “Mary’s story continues. Leaping ahead, just read the passage in Acts and we know she’s with Jesus’s followers at Pentecost, the birth of the church. I could go on and on here.”

“I know!” I said. “There’s a lot to tell! Your new novel takes more than 180 pages to tell Mary’s whole story,” I said.

He chuckled. “Yeah, I guess that’s the point, isn’t it? Miriam’s life is quite a story!”

“And, now, quite a novel,” I said.

A mystery for all time: What happened to Mary?

Near the end of our conversation, I said, “I’m scheduling this cover story for the August 12 weekly issue of ReadTheSpirit magazine to coincide with the Feast of the Assumption.”

“Oh, perfect!” he said. “Perfect timing.”

“Of course, the Assumption—or what the Eastern Orthodox churches call the Dormition of the Theotokos—is the big mystery at the end of your novel,” I said. “That’s the 2,000-year-old mystery—or matter of faith is another way to describe it: What became of Mary? And I do like the way you end your novel. You quite literally give readers an opportunity to choose what they think may have happened. Your words are, ‘What do you think happened to Miriam?’ You leave this question hanging for readers. I think that was a wise choice.”

“Thanks for saying that,” Chris said. “I want Catholic readers to feel comfortable reading this book—and I know they will. And I’m also acknowledging that all Christians have this question: What happened to Miriam?”

A majority of Chris’s readers are Catholic, although he has heard from fans of all faiths—and some who have no affiliation at all. He has an “in” with Catholics, because he is part of a Catholic publishing house that makes it easy for parishes to buy large quantities of his books to distribute to parishioners. The ending of his new book, while left open to individual readers’ interpretation, also accurately reflects the Catholic understanding of the Assumption.

Chris devoted a good deal of time to researching everything from the complex history of that Catholic teaching to the latest findings about ancient burial practices. Viewers of the popular historical documentaries about New Testament times on the History or Smithsonian or National Geographic channels will find that Chris’s sections on burial practices reflect the latest archaeological finds.

“One thing we know from all those years of archaeological research is that no one claims to have found Mary’s remains,” Chris said. “Lots of other claims are made about the remains of Jesus’s followers and related figures—but no one has claimed to have found relics of Mary. So, the mystery remains: What happened to Mary, or Miriam? We don’t know for sure. It’s a matter of faith.

“And that really reflects the larger message of this book: I want to give readers a sense that faith is rooted in the ability to take a risk, to take a leap out of the world in which we’ve been living day by day—a leap toward embracing God’s far larger world that’s out there. We all know that we have a spiritual side that we don’t fully understand, whatever our faith tradition may be or even if we don’t have a religious affiliation. But, we all know there are deep questions and doubts there in life. Doubt is natural. We’re hard-wired to doubt.

“But in writing these books, I want to give readers just a glimpse of that spiritual realm out there that may seem mysterious and, of course, is filled with even more doubts. For me, that’s how I found Jesus providing so many of the big answers in my life—and it’s how I found that Mary could help lead me further toward Jesus.

“What do I hope readers will get out of reading this book? I just want to open a door for readers to see these big spiritual possibilities that are right there in their lives—if they choose to open their eyes and their hearts.”

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Care to Learn More?

We asked Chris to send us a short “bio” to fill in more of the “back story” about his long and successful journey. Chris sent us the following:

Chris Stepien grew up listening to riveting war stories from parents who had survived the Nazi occupation of Poland. In college, Stepien studied electronic journalism. As a producer-director for the American Broadcasting Company (ABC), he won six Emmy® Awards, and other honors for documentaries, sports, celebrity specials, and children’s programming at WXYZ-TV, Detroit, Mich. Then, Stepien co-founded Adventure, Inc., to create award-winning communications for Fortune 500 companies. Finally, as co-owner of Stepien Creative Services, Inc., he crafted marketing and advertising for global clients.

Imaginative prayer inspired Stepien’s first book, Three Days: The Search for the Boy Messiah, (Wellspring, 2015). The biblical novel journeys with preteen Jesus gone missing.

In 2014, Stepien’s wife, Ellen, was diagnosed with breast cancer, and Chris wrote Dying to Be Happy: Discovering the Truth About Life (Wellspring, 2016). This nonfiction book asks: “If you knew you were going to die today, what would you do?”

A native Detroiter and lifelong Catholic, Stepien and his wife volunteered with the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, assisting neighbors in need for 17 years. In 2017, they moved to Chicago to be near family. For more than three years, Stepien served as Workforce Development Coordinator at Precious Blood Ministry of Reconciliation, on Chicago’s South Side. (www.pbmr.org.) He accompanied at-risk youth and adults as they became job ready.

You can contact Chris at [email protected]