Prologue
Although it may seem drawn out to some, I should mention that I include many of the following brief encounters between Leo and I for a reason. That reason being that most things in our life don’t happen all at once. Many years often pass where not much seems to change or to be moving in a particular direction, and although my meetings with Leo seemed fleeting and inconsequential at the time, as I later saw (and you will too), they were creating a pattern of utmost significance for me. Without mentioning these smaller details, the genius of God’s handiwork would be underplayed, and I have no desire to tell a story that does not pay tribute to the wonder of God’s love for His people. I want those reading this to see, through my story, (which is the only one I can tell I such detail) that God really is always at work in our lives. People tell us that all the time, but until we experience it for ourselves, some of us doubt. If you’re anything like me, a part of you may still doubt afterwards. Moreover, we may even think that God does spectacular things in other people’s lives, but that He doesn’t care as much about ours. Or that we are somehow not good enough for Him to do great things in our lives since, in ours, God seems much less active.
However, what I’ve learned is that God doesn’t need much openness on our part to do extraordinary work; God is extraordinary despite our thoughts of Him.
He is constantly on the lookout for opportunities to bless us. In fact, He creates those moments constantly. On our part, God just asks us at every moment to give Him all that we have. It doesn’t matter that it may not be much. He takes what we have, and He transforms it, multiplying it tenfold. Trust me, as many years went on, I often felt that I was too unworthwhile to receive God’s goodness. As my scrupulosity and depression grew, I didn’t see how God could look favorably on someone so imperfect and seemingly behind in life. I still followed Him and sought Him out, but it was a struggle for me. Inwardly, I often cringed. I knew God was good, but I didn’t think that I was. All the more so, because of my own insecurities, God blew me away with the extraordinary events that this story leads up to (which will be explained more in my next blog post. Setting the stage is important, however, which this post seeks to do.) As I tried so hard to prove my love for God in trying to be “perfect,” I wasn’t allowing Him to continue to prove His love for me. I was about to learn just how extraordinary His love really is.
Years 1-4 (The Beginning of Our Story)
Leo was a side story in my life for a long time. We met seven years before we actually became friends. Although we had met seven years previously at a Catholic young adult group, our interactions with one another were small and sporadic. I bumped into Leo or heard about him from others just enough over that span of time that I never quite forgot about him. When I first met him, I noticed that he was quite good-looking – my ideal type in fact. He had brown hair, green in his eyes, and he seemed to take his Catholic faith seriously. The latter was especially important to me. I mentally noted that he stopped by the Adoration chapel after every single young adult meeting; Moreover, that he seemed able – and was willing – to defend the Faith (I watched him politely explain another person’s error in a Catholic teaching, and he explained it well.) He captured my attention even further one day when Leo and I ended up next to each other in line for confession, and he didn’t even notice I was there! It was because he was so focused on preparing for the sacrament that he didn’t see me, and I admired that his faith was important to him. (However, I still like to tease him about the day he “ignored” me while we were standing in line for confession haha.) I didn’t want to bother him, but I also didn’t want to be rude, so I remember debating briefly with myself about uttering a quick hello to him to be polite. On the other hand, I didn’t like to talk in church, and I wasn’t sure he would remember who I was. The extent of our relationship at that point was not much more than learning each other’s names in general introductions. Anyway, as he seemed deep in prayer, I decided not to disturb him. Abruptly, the confession line started to move quickly – as if someone had suddenly installed a revolving door inside the confessional. I’m sure many of us have experienced that phenomenon. Either you start to wonder if everyone in front of you is a mass murderer because of the time they spend talking to the priest, or else you wonder if they uttered anything at all before darting out of the confessional haha! (I have always secretly wanted to lean over to someone in line next to me for confession and whisper to them, “So. What are you in for?” I’m an incorrigible jokester.) At any rate, before I knew it, it was my turn, and I wasn’t done with my examination of conscience yet. At that point, I turned to Leo to ask him if he wanted to go ahead of me in line. I accidentally startled him out of his prayer, and he was very apologetic that he hadn’t noticed sooner that he was right next to me. He would have said hello. I told him not to worry about it, and after insisting that I was ok with my turn being skipped, he went ahead of me in line. Now, I don’t know if other girls would have been turned off by the fact that he didn’t know of their existence while right next to them at church, but it made me want to know more about him. First off, I was ridiculously excited that he even remembered who I was, and he was polite in speaking to me; Second, for a young man to be more focused on God while in church than in the young woman right next to him – in my eyes, that was a big plus. I knew that if he was close to God and took his relationship with God seriously, then he would also treat the others around him well – including a girlfriend. That thought did cross my mind, but I never truly expected that person to one day be me.
That was the extent of our unexpected meeting that day, but I never forgot it. And neither did my mother. My mother. She’s one of the reasons I never completely forgot about Leo. The brief encounters I had with Leo over the years tended to be years apart, and one time was even as long as four years. For some inexplicable reason, (for my mom had never met Leo) every two to three years my mom would ask me what had happened to him, and in turn, that reminded me of his existence. She asked me because, after a few months of periodically attending YA meetings, Leo disappeared. I actually didn’t know what had happened to him myself. Four years went by before anyone I knew finally spotted him again (I later found out that he had started a master’s program that took him three years to complete, which was part of why he stopped attending meetings. He was very focused on his studies.) Before that, I assumed he had moved to another area for work, as many young men and women in our group tended to do. In the one and only time he and I ended up at the same YA table (for we hung out in different friend groups usually), I had learned that he worked for a non-profit group and traveled overseas often, so I thought that perhaps he had even moved abroad. I was a bit sad that he disappeared. The way he had spoken with me then – he seemed a very sincere person. I had listened with great interest. At the end of the meeting, we had shaken hands and remarked that it had been enjoyable learning more about each other, but that was pretty much it. We had enjoyed talking to one another, but neither of us were looking to date at the time; We simply thought the other seemed pleasant and might make a potential friend. Going back to my mother, although I didn’t know Leo well, she never forgot that Leo had captured my attention, whatever kind of attention that may have been. She also knew that I was a very discerning person, and I did not tend to praise others lightly. She listened to how I spoke about him, and I think she knew me better than I knew myself. I apparently described him well enough that she was able to identify him herself when she saw him walking along the parish grounds to the Adoration chapel one day. She agreed that he was good looking, and she thought he seemed serious, prayerful, and thoughtful. She wondered if he already had a girlfriend, and she secretly hoped he didn’t so that I could have a chance. He seemed such a treasure that she sighed because she thought he was probably already taken. Either that, or from his studious and prayerful look, that he was a seminarian. He did have that look about him. I laugh at her comments now. Either way, I could tell that she held onto the hope that perhaps he was not attached to anyone after all, and we might find him available (assuming he wasn’t a seminarian.)
Year 4
However, the years passed, and no one saw Leo around. It was my sister who unexpectedly came across him after four years (the same sister who inadvertently had gotten me into Marian consecration.) I was picking her up from a nearby bible study when she ran up to my car excited. She told me, “Leo is here!” She went on to say that a boys’ bible study went on at the same time as the girls’, and she found out that he was the leader of the boys’ study. Apparently, he was a parishioner of that parish. I couldn’t believe my sister even remembered who Leo was. Like my mother, she had never met him. She had seen him from afar perhaps once. I was shocked at her news. Wait, so he didn’t move? What has he been doing this whole time? I caught myself wondering. An excitement bubbled up in me at the news. I’d love to say that Leo and I got reacquainted from that point on and that the sparks flew from there, but that’s not what happened. We still had almost three years to go.
After my sister’s news, I considered picking her up from her bible study more often (instead of letting my mom do it.) That way, my chances of bumping into Leo would increase, or perhaps I could nonchalantly go inside and say hello to him while I was there (as if he wasn’t the whole reason I was there.) At the same time, I was skittish about it, and I absolutely refused to be that person. I thought it might seem creepy. Furthermore, I still wasn’t looking to date, so I didn’t want to give Leo the wrong idea. At that time, I was working on myself and some of my own wounds so that I would be better able to answer whatever state in life God was calling me to. I didn’t think that waiting until I figured out my state in life was a good time to start on self-improvement. I wanted to be as ready as possible. Additionally, looking back, I realize that I was also somewhat resistant to the idea of marriage. I wasn’t jumping up and down at the idea of religious life, but I wasn’t sure marriage was for me either. It scared me. Two people with problems coming together = more problems and more possibilities of being hurt and let down. Plus, it required a lot of vulnerability and trust. Vulnerability and trust were hard for me. Moreover, I wasn’t sure the life of being a wife, raising children, and creating a family home was for me. I had such longings to serve the Church that I thought serving the Church in such a seemingly “normal way” might not fill those desires. I think deep down inside I really did want to marry, but I wanted it so much that I was afraid to allow myself to want it. I thought that if I did, and it didn’t happen, that I would be painfully disappointed, so I didn’t want to even hope for it so that it would hurt less if I wasn’t called to it. Although I knew that it was completely in God’s power to find me a man that would be right for me if God was calling me to marriage, a part of me doubted I could have that happy, married life.
Some weeks passed (maybe even months), and I was picking my sister up from a bonfire that same church was hosting when she ran up to my vehicle, opened the door, and exclaimed once again, “Leo is here!” I tried to be cool. I replied, “Ok…so?” “Well…I thought you might want to know so you could say hi to him. He’s right down there. Are you really not to going to say hello?” she responded. I was a young adult president at my own parish at that time, and I had since grown less skittish about approaching other young adults. After all, reaching out to them was part of the official capacity of my position. I finally decided Why not? I will go and say hello. He may not remember me since it’s been four years, but it would be a nice thing to do, and maybe he’ll be interested in attending YA meetings again. It might be good for him. Well, I startled him again. He couldn’t believe I remembered who he was, but at the same time, he remembered me. He seemed pleasantly surprised and touched by the hello. We said goodbye and another year passed. After the bonfire, I found Leo on Facebook (which he wasn’t on before), and he accepted my friend request, but alas, he had almost no personal information in his profile! He hardly used his account. He remained an enigma.
Years 5-6
The next time Leo came up was in my actual work as a young adult president. It turns out that one of the people I worked with in our core group was the same young woman who led the teen bible study my sister attended. It came up in conversation one day that she was a good friend of Leo’s. I felt a pang of jealousy when she mentioned that, and I probably would have been more upset except for the fact that she already had a boyfriend. That cooled the fires a bit. Still, I thought to myself, What does it take to become friends with this guy?! I was starting to feel like everyone knew him except for me. That young woman – we’ll call her “K” – poked at Leo often about coming back to the young adult group. She thought it would be good for him as he was a bit of a loner. After months of prodding, Leo finally showed up to a meeting. It happened to be the night that I was giving a talk to the group on the Holy Spirit and finding the extraordinary in our everyday lives. It had been 1 to 1 ½ years since I had seen Leo at the bonfire. Again, a deep excitement welled up in me, which was surprising to me after so many years. After the talk, Leo came up to speak with me to say how much he enjoyed it, and we spoke for a good 20 minutes before he left.
One week later, Leo came to a summer event our group had at a local restaurant. He sat across the table from me, but to my growing frustration, he only spoke to K (who he was seated right next to) since she was the one in the group that he knew the best. In fact, K and I were some of the only people he knew in the YA group. Most people he had known before had either married, moved away, or both. To my satisfaction, K ended up having to leave early. Afterward, as I was the only one left that Leo had met before, Leo and I finally had our first long conversation. We spoke for hours. About three hours, in fact. Everyone left after dinner, but we stayed an hour after everyone else and continued chatting. My poor friend, who had gotten a ride there with me that night, was stuck with us the whole time – unless she wanted to walk home. For some odd reason, I mentioned in our conversation about demons and some of the things I had experienced, and we spoke about spiritual warfare in general. I wasn’t usually so open about those events. I mentally facepalmed myself later as I didn’t know him that well. After we said goodbye, I quickly mentioned to him that I hoped he wasn’t too weirded out by our conversation and some of the things I had talked about. He responded by saying that he wasn’t weirded out. He had read about many saints who had written about their own intense spiritual warfare, and he knew that demons were still real and active. I remember walking back to my vehicle with my friend and telling her, “Yeah…he’s never going to talk to me again.”
Year 7
Another year went by, and we didn’t see Leo at any other meetings. I thought I had scared him off for sure. I eventually reached out to him and invited him to a YA interest/planning meeting. It was to gather info from other young adults to see what direction we should take our group in the coming months/years. Young adults, as well as youth leaders and a few families from other parishes, were invited. I told him that I knew him to be someone with a solid foundation in his faith, so his opinion would be appreciated if he was able to come. He replied that he would try to attend, but ultimately, he was unable to make it. That was in November of 2018.
2018 was probably one of the hardest years in my life. It was the year that both Zach and Jacqueline moved. It was the year I wrote about in my previous blog entry. It was a time of much uncertainty and anguish for me. Interestingly, the hardest year of my life prior to that was 2011. I later found out that Leo had also suffered greatly during 2011. When I first met Leo in 2012, we had both just been through the hardest year of our respective lives. I remember offering up the suffering during 2011 for however God wanted to use it. When it was really bad, I remember telling God, “I don’t know who this is for, but I know it’s for someone. Whoever it is – please use it for them.” I don’t think it’s an accident that Leo and I both had a rough 2011. I think our paths were already leading to each other (after all, we met for the first time the next year: 2012. Which actually makes me laugh because everyone thought the world was ending that year, but our story was just beginning.) I believe that God used our sufferings at that time to further prepare us for each other, and even that the graces from what we offered up that year likely went towards helping the other in their struggles. Our lives followed similar parallels even before we met.
Going back to the main story of Leo and I – I had last written to him in November of 2018 to invite him to the YA interest meeting. Not long after that, God started talking to me about marriage. Now, at this point it would seem obvious that Leo might be involved in this great marriage plan, but the 3-hour conversation Leo and I had had over a year earlier had been, well, over a year earlier. He hadn’t exactly been present for any long period of my life. Additionally, I was still very much interested in someone else at the time, and I was still getting over the fact that it probably wasn’t meant to be. So, God was telling me “No” to the person I knew, and “Yes” to someone else. But who? And was I really called to marriage? I still had some reservations about it. Nevertheless, God knew my heart better than I did, and He kept bringing up marriage to me. Maybe it’s because I’m so prone to doubt, but God speaks in a very direct way to me. Soon after the marriage bit came up, I was reading a children’s book about St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, and I came up to a scene in which her brother was courting a young woman named Angelique (bada-bing, bada-boom!) God can be that direct. I was startled and excited to see my name (because I hardly ever came across it.) I read on. Her brother wanted to marry Angelique, but he was meeting resistance from one of their parents. He resolved to pray about things and see how to go about it, but he declared to his sister, “…I could only be happy with Angelica! [Angelique in other translations as St. Margaret Mary and her family were French.]” (St. Margaret Mary and the Promises of the Sacred Heart of Jesus by Mary Fabyan Windeatt) I felt something deeply interior which brought the thought to my mind: Someone out there is waiting and they really want to marry me. The thought scared me, and I tried not to think about it. It probably wishful thinking on my part anyway…right?
Life went on as normal for a little bit. Then marriage came up in a conversation with my spiritual director. She said that she strongly got the impression from talking to me for over a year that I was likely called to marriage. I then somewhat hesitantly told her what I had been getting about marriage through reading/prayer. I hadn’t mentioned them because I doubted my own discernment on the matter. After that conversation, I started to think more seriously about it. Maybe I was called to that state of life. Little by little, I opened up to the idea. My daily life continued. I kept volunteering at my local Young Adult group, I studied on and off, and I went about my other duties. I was still missing my friends terribly, and I was rather lonely. I didn’t know that the future held, and because of my loneliness, part of me was frightened to accept the marriage notion completely. This is because I thought myself biased. I didn’t want to throw my loneliness on another person like some kind of rebound and unintentionally use them, so I was wary of my feelings.
A New Beginning
You never know when another chapter of your life will begin, and the next one came suddenly for me. I started to receive inspirations to start a Holy Hour on Thursdays in order to keep Christ company in the garden. My inspiration was based on Jesus’ agony in the Garden and the loneliness He must have felt when all His friends fell asleep and could not keep watch with Him. I longed to give His heart some comfort as I could relate in a small way to the loneliness He felt, and I felt an urge to invite others to do the same. I prayed about it for some time, and I finally decided to launch a special Holy Hour on Thursday, February 14th, 2019. In a broad stroke (because I didn’t know who would benefit from it and who wouldn’t – I thought I’d let God decide), I invited every young adult I knew, whether I had been in recent contact with them or not. I thought Valentine’s Day was a perfect day to allow our hearts to spend time with Jesus, who loved us more than anyone. I also knew that many of the single young adults in our area might be sulking at home that they didn’t have a date, so I figured I would offer a more profitable way of spending that time. For myself, I never really felt self-pity during Valentine’s Day. I always spent the day with whoever I had in my life at the time – my parents, my sisters, friends. I never let the day go to waste. I could always find someone in need of love among my family, friends, and acquaintances (so I would plan a fun outing, movie night, or cooking/baking party) or I could find someone who loved me (family/friends) to spend the day with.
As I planned the Holy Hour, Leo was one of the people who came to my mind to invite. It had now been about a year and a half since I saw him in person. I decided to make one last ditch effort to get him to come to a group event again. I invited him to the Holy Hour. This was on February 12th, 2019.
Future Husband?
Two interesting messages came to me in prayer in the two days leading up to my sending out of the invitations. One was on February 10th, 2019. I was praying the Annunciation mystery of the Joyful Mysteries and thinking about one of the beliefs that, when Mary was assumed into heaven, the Apostles discovered her tomb empty and full of roses. Suddenly, I heard a voice in my mind say, “I am giving him to you.” I quickly started to discern whose voice it was, as I had learned from my spiritual director to do. This is important whenever you get any kind of interior message. Such messages can be of God, but they can also be of oneself, or of the enemy (the devil.) Demons love to masquerade as saints, the Blessed Mother, and God. The saints tested such messages, and so must we. So, I prayed as my spiritual director had taught me: I told Jesus Christ that if the message was of God then I accepted it, but if it was not, then I sent it to the foot of the Cross in His name and I asked Him to take it away. Typically, you do this multiple times, and the message or image you have received will either stick and become more insistent, or it will fade somewhat (like it’s moved more to the back of your mind.) After practice, you learn how to discern more naturally and more quickly which voices are God’s and which are from other sources, and when you can’t tell, well, spiritual directors are a great blessing!
Anyway, I digress. Not only did the voice continue and the image become more insistent, but the image in my mind’s eye of the tomb full of roses changed. It zoomed in on one particular red rose that was in full bloom.
I understood it to mean that Mary was speaking to me (she is known as the Mystical Rose), and that she was telling me about someone in particular. I felt a little doubtful, I admit. Why would Mary, the Mother of God, be speaking to me?! However, she insisted, so I finally asked her, “Who are you giving to me?” “My knight,” she replied. I had met one other person that I knew Mary considered a knight of hers, and I had walked with that person and helped him with many things. He no longer lived near me. I wondered if she was sending the same person back or if it was another. I asked, “Which knight are you sending me?” She replied, “My knight in shining armor.” This was a different knight, I understood. No way this is the Blessed Mother. This has to be me, I thought to myself. This sounds like something I would imagine. I like knights and castles and fairytales. Why would the Mother of God be talking about such things? You see, I didn’t consider the fact that Mary would be speaking in such terms precisely because she knew me so intimately. Of course she would speak in terms that I could specifically relate to, and which had special meaning to me! But still, I wasn’t sure. I kept testing the message for half the day. Her answers remained the same. Finally, while in the shower, and with her message still repeating in my mind, I finally said, “Ok. You’re sending me your knight. Why? For me to help him? For him to help me? Why are you sending him to me?” “I am sending you one to help you and uphold you.” She told me. My first thought with the language “to help you and uphold you” was that she meant my future husband as it sounded like marriage language to me, but I quickly dismissed that thought. I didn’t want to add insinuations to her message where there might be none. This seems too good to be true. Am I giving in to wishful thinking? Is all this just me? I continued testing, doubting, and asking. Eventually, the tone of the message changed, as if Mary was wiping her hands clean. She said, “I have given him to you,” as if the matter was done with and settled. I didn’t hear anything more from her that day. I didn’t know what to make of the whole thing. I went about my day, and then I went to sleep.
The next day, (February 11th – the Feast Day of Our Lady of Lourdes) an interior voice spoke to me upon waking (I hadn’t even opened my eyes yet!) “He is coming,” it said. My sleepiness abruptly left me. Again? I thought. Is someone really coming? I tested the message. “He’s coming…He’s coming…He’s coming.” The message continued for almost three hours. It was insistent, and it wasn’t fading. I discerned again that it was the Blessed Mother. I asked her yet again, “Who’s coming?” She said, “My knight in shining armor. I am sending you one to help you and uphold you.” Typically, if it is a message of great importance for me, the Lord will keep repeating it until I write it down. His mother spoke to me the same way. After those three hours, I finally accepted that the messages were likely of God, and I wrote them all down, that day’s messages and the messages before it. Instantly, the interior voice ceased. I didn’t hear another thing about it after that, and life continued as usual.
Mary spoke to me on February 10th and February 11th of 2019. On February 12th, I sent out the Holy Hour invitations. On February 13th, Leo replied to me that he would come to the Holy Hour as a similar notion of comforting Jesus’ heart had been coming to him in prayer. He also told me that my message was very timely as his parish was starting up their own YA group, and he was hoping he might be able to ask me some questions about the workings of ours and to get my advice. On February 14th, (Valentine’s Day – Who says God doesn’t have a sense of humor!) Leo came to the Holy Hour. And this time, unbeknownst to me (and him), he had come to stay.
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