From the moment I received my first Communion I felt like the opportunity to receive the sacrifice Jesus made for all of us was sacred and so very important. Little did I know how that feeling, in that moment, would come back to me and change my life again some 40 years later. 

When I was 18 and just graduating high school, I was caught up in the conflict created by a society that tells you that you should go to college and have a career, because that is how success was defined, and my Catholic faith was telling me that success is about being married and having children and that I should stay at home to raise them. It was very confusing for an 18-year-old and maybe even more so for 18-year-olds now. 

Marriage followed and with it came more confusion and distractions, and time in my husband’s Baptist Church. I am a cradle Catholic and never stopped being a Catholic in my heart, but I made a lot of mistakes during that 30-year period. I did not go to Confession or receive the Eucharist. During this period my inner feelings were never right, they were always unsettled. The world is full of distractions meant to keep you from the foundation of your faith and I was a victim of that. I knew something was wrong, or just not right, but life and man-made distractions can occupy so much of your time and energy you just follow along until something changes. It is even worse when the people around you seem like good people, good leaders trying to serve others; but reflecting on it now, I realize many people were not working from a sound moral perspective. It took me a long time to realize that. 

The Body and Blood of Jesus Christ have always helped heal me but I misplaced that feeling for way too long. The first time I took communion after the longer period away was like an awakening for me. I realized that I had been like a boat that had drifted from shore and when I finally turned around, I couldn’t see land anymore. Taking Communion caused me to flash back to being a little girl taking my first Communion and to all the things I was taught about being Catholic. Like the boat I now had a serious journey to get back to where I needed to be. A journey that is ongoing still today and one I am very committed to. 

In the midst of that long period away from the Catholic Church, my husband became addicted to prescription opioids combined with alcohol. It destroyed our marriage and he died shortly thereafter. This wouldn’t be the only big challenge in my life that would lead me back to the Church.

The second big challenge was  when I went through an 18-month battle over serving others in Africa with a group that did not believe in accountability or responsibility to their fellow man. This part of the story started early in 2020 when I made a trip to Ghana in west Africa to assess the possibility of putting solar equipment in a medical clinic in a remote area. They had no access to power, which meant no vaccines or medicines that needed to be refrigerated and many suffered serious or fatal snake bites at night when they left their huts for any reason. My intention was to help with that problem, but I was rudely awakened when I got there. For the first time in my life, I saw children who were starving, with distended stomachs, pain in their faces and absolutely no hope for long term survival. I was speechless and heartbroken at the same time. I knew I could help because I had raised money from donors in the United States who wanted to help. 

At this point I ran into a roadblock that haunts me to this day. People in a position to stop me from using the donors' money and completing the project decided the money was better spent on things they wanted to, not on worrying about starving children a world away, children they had never seen. It would take me 18 months to win that battle, but I knew God wanted me to fight for those people in Africa. It would have been so easy to just quit and focus elsewhere rather than deal with people who tried to ruin my reputation and stop me from doing what was right. I did not quit and in the end the work in Africa got done and to this day it is helping people in ways we never dreamed were possible. The most emotional day in that struggle was when a light turned on for the first time in that small village. A light in the midst of the darkness; God made that possible. 

After it was over, I should have been celebrating but I had lost faith in my fellow man, in people I once called colleagues and friends. Why did this happen? Being right wasn’t enough for me; I needed new hope. It was during that period that I woke up; I went back to the Catholic Church. Everything started to make sense again and I literally saw the light of God through a 33-day program of total consecration to Jesus through Mary, sponsored by my parish. It was being offered for the first time in my parish at just the moment I needed something to guide me, something to believe in. I was drifting and it was as if God and the Church reached out their hand to help me at exactly the right moment. Learning about St. Louis de Montfort, St. Maximilian Kolbe, St. Mother Teresa, and St. Pope John Paul II and their incredible struggles, while leaning on the power of the Virgin Mary and the pathway she provides to Jesus, was powerful for me and many small signs appeared along the way. Their struggles were so difficult compared to mine but their commitment to what was right was so very inspiring. 

If receiving Communion for the first time woke me up, the 33-Day Consecration process turned me toward the Church and the direction I needed. Standing in church and being consecrated at the end of the program made me feel like I was in the right place and at home again in the Catholic Church. 

Today my life is so very different because of my faith and my return home to the Church. I pray the Rosary every day and will do so for the rest of my life, because it helps bind me to my core beliefs and it serves others when we put God’s words out into the world. 

Additionally, Confession is a process I will go through often for the rest of my life, to reconcile for my sins and to overcome the 30-year absence from the Church and what happened during that period. I believe people build up insensitivity toward sin and it is important to me to get rid of that forever. I know the other side of my penance is Holy Communion. Communion is the right word for me because when I take the body of Jesus into my body it renews my spirit, my faith, and my desire to serve through the Church.

Speaking of serving, I never dreamed that a day would come that I would become a lector in our church – but now I have. Be careful what you wish for and what you think you shouldn’t do, because God can tap you on the shoulder any time he wants to call you to duty. 

St. Porphyrios said it best: ‘When people are empty of Christ, a thousand and one other things come and fill them up: jealousies, hatreds, boredom, melancholy, resentment, a worldly outlook, worldly pleasures. Try to fill your soul with Christ so that it’s not empty.’ 

Filling my soul starts with the Eucharist and I am so very grateful I know where to find God and what he has done for me. My favorite part of any week is taking Communion because when I do, I know I am on the right path – the one Jesus created for us and which leads to heaven.