Cathleen

I had this beautiful friend John. After college, I went to live in New York and John was in medical school and he called me out of the blue just to say hi. I had heard that he went to Europe so I asked him about it.

He said, “Oh it was great! I might be going back.”

Then I said, “You must’ve met a hot chick.”

He laughed and he said, “Maybe kind of.” Then he started telling me about Medjugorje. He was the perfect messenger for me because I knew he was sane and really smart and I knew him. We stayed on the phone for an hour and a half. This was back when you had to pay for long distance phone calls.

I said to him, “John, we’ve been on the phone for an hour and a half. Can I call you back?” Because he had called me, I called him back, and we were on the phone for another hour and a half. 

I just knew it was real when he was telling me. 

I went home at Christmas time, we went out to have a beer. I said, “I feel like I want to go.”

He said to me, “The visionaries have said that if you feel like you want to go, Mary’s asking you to come.” I had chills head to toe.

That was in December. I went in May.

My thought was, “I want to run.” I have no idea why I’m going to this place. Like, I knew but I didn’t know. Because I was not being good about going to church. Then there was this crowd of older women, and that was what I pictured, like, “I’m going to be there with lots of old people. It just doesn’t make sense.”

But I came. 

My conversion started at confession. I had to go to confession twice because my first confession, I just cried. The priest asked me if I was experiencing conversion. I didn’t even know what that meant. I just nodded. 

After that, I came home.

It was a gift of gifts. I just kept going, chugging along, praying for a husband, that was my big focus. Someone told me, “Pray to Saint Anne. ‘Saint Anne, get me a man as fast as you can.’” I didn’t do that, but it was funny.

Then my friend Maureen who was in my prayer group, she told me about how she saw this online Catholic dating thing on EWTN. My initial reaction was, “I’m not that desperate.” 

But it planted the seeds. I went online. I did meet with two, but there was nothing there. There was no spark. 

Then Scott came. We emailed each other for like three months, then we talked on the phone. Then, finally, we met. We went on a hike with my dog. He was wonderful. He brought me a rosary made out of rose petals as first date flowers. He brought this little bag of gourmet potatoes because he knows I love potatoes.

I knew.

Exactly one year later, we got married at my church. He proposed at my church.

The day he proposed, he came out and we were going to go pray a Rosary at this church, but it was closed. It worked out because we went to my parish and prayed in front of the tabernacle and at the end of our Rosary, he proposed to me. 

Because we had adoption on our hearts, we started the process. I can’t imagine if we didn’t have our three kids. I thank God for it.

It’s been good. It’s hard, but it’s a good hard. 

Now we’re all here. They’ve heard about Medjugorje from both of us, all the time. We’ve been dreaming about going as a family, for years.