One time, he was deep in prayer, meditating on the Rosary, when he perceived a gentle kiss on his cheek. This, he believes, was a sign of affection from the Blessed Mother.

“It was unbelievable,” he said as he choked up. “Sometimes, I think (about how with) the crazy life that I lived, only God knows why I’m here. … He has a purpose.”

A long road

These days, Norbert and his wife Irma are parishioners at All Saints Parish in Bay City, where they typically attend the Spanish Mass. Irma dedicated many years of service to migrant ministry and continues to volunteer with the food pantry. Norbert is active in parish life and a regular adorer at the parish’s Adoration Chapel. But, he says, it was a long road to get here.

“I grew up in the country fields of Oklahoma, and we never really had a Catholic church close to us,” Norbert said. The family would have to travel between 25 and 40 miles, depending on the direction, to get to a Catholic church.

“My mom never had an education, but she always prayed and always talked about God,” Norbert said. “She would always say, ‘you cannot live without him!’”

The impact of his mother’s witness never went away, even after Norbert left home after high school to work as a truck driver in the “big city of Toledo,” Ohio, in 1970. It was a huge change, with significant ups and downs.

“There were bars and parties,” he said.

But there was also a young woman who became his wife, Maria Irma. The two met on Valentine’s Day weekend of 1976, and they married 19 months later. The couple moved to Bay City, where Norbert began working for a power company, traveling across the state.

For many years, Norbert worked away from home, living two very different lives.

“I worked away from home all week; I drank all week; I did drugs all week. I was on the road all the time,” he said.

He would come home on the weekends, stop his vices, get counseling from priests … but then the workweek would be a different story.

Norbert was trying, but he couldn’t do it alone. He needed the Holy Spirit to intervene in a powerful way.

Made new

In 1989, his mother died, and Norbert did his first Cursillo Movement (“Cursillo” is Spanish for “short course.”) A Cursillo retreat is three days long, with the subsequent “Fourth Day” dedicated to piety, study and action for the rest of one’s life.

“That’s when and why I started changing,” he said.

Still, the battle between Norbert’s two lives continued for another three years.

Then, one day, as suddenly and dramatically as St. Paul’s conversion on the road to Damascus, everything changed.

“One day in August of ’92, I was working at Ludington, and I was coming home, and I turned on my radio. It went to 99.7 [Family Life Christian Radio],” he recalled. “I heard the preacher asking, ‘When was the last time that you prayed for forgiveness for being an alcoholic, for watching pornography, for doing drugs, for all the bad things in life?’ And I just broke down. I cried for two hours … all the way to Bay City.”

He thinks his parents' prayers and examples of a faithful life helped him turn the corner.

“My mom and my dad … they always [encouraged us to] work hard, do good, help people, because that’s the way they were,” he said.

Norbert recalled telling his mother that one day, he would walk where Jesus walked.

Nine years ago, he did.

In January 2017, Norbert had the opportunity to go on a life-changing pilgrimage to Jerusalem with several diocesan priests. “A novena,” he called it, because the pilgrims spent nine days there and had Mass every day. (A novena is traditionally a nine-day prayer for a specific intention.)

“Just walking where Jesus walked … I felt safe and I knew God was with us,” he said.

Answering the call to prayer and action

After he returned to Bay City, Norbert noticed that there were open slots in the schedule for the Adoration Chapel, which was then located at St. Jude Thaddeus Parish, St. Joseph Church in Bay City. He and his wife and children would sometimes go to the chapel and pray. But after the pilgrimage, he felt a pull to dedicate more time in the Adoration Chapel.

“I enjoy it, because it gives me an hour to just reflect, sit there, be quiet:  knowing that I’m a sinner, knowing that we think of crazy stuff during the week,” he said. “The hour that I’m there just makes me reflect on my life and blessings. It’s just a special moment there for me, an hour.”

When the Adoration Chapel relocated in 2018 to All Saints Parish, St. James Church, Norbert continued his dedicated Holy Hour each week.

One hour became two after a friend passed away, and Norbert took his hour. So, for two hours in the middle of the night every Monday, Norbert sits in the presence of Jesus and prays.

“It’s just a lot of time to reflect … and to be there in the presence of God. It’s an awesome feeling.”

Father José María Cabrera, pastor of All Saints Parish, sees the impact.

“Norbert is a man of prayer. It is in prayer where he draws his strength for his dedication to the parish,” he said. “He is a pillar of our Hispanic community at All Saints Parish and Bay City.”

He puts his faith into action by being involved in the parish, especially by being an usher and volunteering. In addition to serving in the food pantry, Irma is a sacristan, Eucharistic minister and a Guadalupana. (The Guadalupanas Society is a group of women who promote devotion to Our Lady of Guadalupe.) They both seek to help those in need in any way they can.

Irma is quick to insist that “it isn’t about us—it’s about God.”

In addition to an active life of serving the parish, Father José notes that “spending an hour in the Adoration Chapel is like living the contemplative mission of the Church, from which we draw strength for active ministry.” Since the chapel is open 24/7, he knows that there is always someone praying for the good of the Church, even in the middle of the night. And one of those people is Norbert.

“When Norbert spends time in the chapel, it's a reminder to the world that not everything is an activity,” Father José said. “It is okay to spend leisure time in front of the Eucharistic Lord and to be in his presence—because doing is not our identity. Our identity is being a disciple of Christ.”

Prayer in the Adoration Chapel also has given him the strength to endure many trials, Norbert said.

“It helped me being able to sit by my son every day for three months … while he was in an induced coma,” he said, adding that the church community and beyond helped the family so much. Around the same time, Irma was enduring cancer treatment.

Still, the couple kept the faith.

“When you have God in your heart—and we all have God in our heart—he knows what we’re going through,” Norbert said. “He wants to help us.”

In her trials throughout life, Irma looks to the Blessed Mother for strength. Their son survived, and Irma is now cancer-free. Norbert has also overcome health challenges, thanking God for all of it.

“We just have to keep the faith!” Irma said. “We answered the Lord’s call. People said, ‘Why you?’ But we said, ‘Why not us?’ If God says so, that’s what we’re going to do.”

He and his wife Irma have spent years supporting others, from migrant ministry to driving seniors to doctor’s appointments. Any time someone asks what they owe him, Norbert responds simply:  a prayer.

Norbert’s winding road in life has taught him “to help. To share what you have to give. That [God] has forgiven all my sins … I hear that every day:  share, feed the hungry, just do his mercy.”

“There's just so many blessings I've had,” he said. “There's only one way that I can repay:  to help anybody I can, when I can.”

Norbert’s life is a witness to the love of God, said Father José.

“It's a reminder to everyone that nobody is beyond God's mercy,” he said. “God can transform our life and make that [the] life a faithful disciple.”

And to anybody who is struggling, he has a simple message:  

“Get to church … You need to get baptized. You need to get this done, so that God can receive you, because God loves you.”

You’re invited to spend time with Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament at the Adoration Chapel

Open 24/7. All are welcome.

All Saints Parish, St. James Church

710 Columbus Ave., Bay City

Enter the doors facing the intersection of Columbus Avenue and Monroe Street. The chapel is open 24/7.

Please note that the Blessed Sacrament will not be exposed while Mass is being celebrated. The chapel also has video surveillance for security.

Find Eucharistic Adoration near you at saginaw.org/adoration.