I’m back at it with work and online college classes, so I’ve been juggling a lot! I apologize this entry is so far after my last one. I decided to make the format of this entry a little different than the previous ones. It is written more like journal entries. I wanted readers to be able to see the timeline of God at work by being able to see the actual dates of the following events. Sometimes, God allows lots of time in between events (such as mentioned in my previous entries); sometimes, He ordains them to happen almost all at once (as seen below.) Onwards!
February, 2019
2/10/19: The day that Mary first told me that she was sending me her knight was the same day that God spoke to me through the readings at Mass, further confirming my work in the Church and my marriage vocation. Everything I read that day (in the readings, the Gospel, and the commentary in my lector’s book about them) spoke of these aspects of my life. I found it hard to reconcile the two – how could my work be so specifically for the Church but also include marriage? I understood from the outset that I had a “vocation within a vocation,” a calling within a calling, but how that would play out, I didn’t understand. However, I knew it to be within God’s power, and I accepted both. In time, God would teach me that our personal vocation is more than just our state in life. Our state in life is a huge part of our overall vocation in life, but it is not all of it. Our personal vocation captures ALL the ways in which we personally and specifically give a glimpse into Who God is to others in the world. I do this as a wife, a mother, a sister, a friend, as someone who works in Catholic education. Every single aspect of my life is a part of my personal, unrepeatable calling because no one can live it out exactly as I can with my personality, my experiences, and my relationship with God. God was teaching me all this as I met Leo in person yet again on February 14th, 2019.
2/14/19: The last post ended with Leo coming to the Holy Hour I had started on Thursdays. The first Holy Hour was on Valentine’s Day, 2019. Other young adults showed up to the Holy Hour before Leo did, and I was worried he might not come. However, he did, and he did something once again which caught my attention. He came and knelt in the same pew I was in. Why was this important? Well, quite simply, because none of the other young adults who came that night did this. Typically, when a group goes to pray in the church or chapel, they split up. They may go in a pew in front of or behind another member, but they tend to want space to pray (unless they are there with someone they know very well.) In my three years as a young adult volunteer, no one who did not already know me very well had ever come to kneel in the same pew as me, except one: Zach (three years earlier.) Zach had also once ended up in line next me for Confession one day, which wasn’t so strange since we went to the same parish, but was strange because, afterwards, he came into the same pew as me to pray his penance even though he hardly knew me! Almost all the pews in the entire church were empty, so Zach could have gone literally anywhere else to pray. I got the eerie feeling at the time that Zach was going to be important to me somehow, and he did turn out to be so in becoming a great spiritual friend of mine. Now the phenomenon had repeated itself – Leo was in the same pew as me. The same feeling of importance came to me with Leo. But why was he important to me? That was what had to be discerned. Ok,” I started saying to the Holy Spirit, “What’s up with Leo? This has your fingerprint all over it.” I’m sure the Holy Spirit was amused. The Holy Hour ended, and Leo asked me if he could call later that week to ask my advice in the starting of his church’s new YA group. I told him yes. He texted me that night saying how wonderful the Holy Hour had been and how he was looking forward to our phone call. I went to sleep for the night, but not before telling the Holy Spirit that something was definitely up.
2/15: The next day, I went to a prayer meeting at my spiritual director’s house. A small group of people all met there that night. While the group was praying for me, one of my friends kept seeing an image in her mind of a lemon and a lime crossed over each other, similar to how a coat of arms would look. She felt quite silly saying this, and she only did so because she couldn’t shake the feeling that it was in relation to me somehow. “Ok, God,” I mentally prayed, “You’ll need to explain that one because I have no idea what it means, but I trust You that it means something.”
2/16: The following day, Leo and I had our phone call. We spoke about YA groups for the first 20 minutes, and then we proceeded to talk for the next hour and 40 minutes about more personal things. It was strange how easy it was for us to talk to each other. We started talking about desires we had for our lives and how important our Catholic faith was to each to us. Leo spent part of that time telling me how he longed to spread the Gospel like St. Paul did as a zealous, single man. He had read from St. Paul that it was good to be unmarried because of the time you could devote to the Lord (Obviously St. Paul added the caveat, however, that there are other ways of serving the Lord that are also good and that not all people are called to be single.) While Leo tried to convince me (and himself) that he could see himself called to the single life, the Holy Spirit told me clearly that Leo was called to marriage. Part of how I knew that was because Leo spoke so similarly to how I had been thinking and speaking to my spiritual director for the last year. He felt, as I had, that he could either be married or be single – he didn’t know which, but he leaned towards single life. However, at this point, I knew I was called to marriage, and I could see it was the same for him. As he spoke, I remember thinking, I don’t know who this guy is called to marry, but he’s definitely called to marriage. His reasoning that he should be single had the word DENIAL written all over it. I had been there myself. Could it be he’s called to marry me? I kept the thought in the back of my mind. We’ll see, I thought. I was uplifted by the conversation. Whether a romantic interest or friend, Leo and I seemed to get along well, and it was refreshing to have a conversation about faith with someone who met my enthusiasm for it. My family noticed that I had been on the phone for two hours with Leo, and my mom (politely) semi-followed me around and asked me how the conversation went. I told her it went well. Leo and I had more in common than I’d thought, I’d given him whatever advice for starting their YA group that I could, and we’d talked about many things. I was excited at the promising friendship and to see where it would lead. My mom was pleased.
That same day, later in the evening, my spiritual director called me while I was waiting in a mall for other young adults to meet up with me. My director quickly explained that she knew what the image of the lemon and lime meant. She had been praying and the Holy Spirit told her that it went hand-in-hand with the message the Blessed Mother had given me about the person who was “coming.” She was also told the meaning behind the image. As I was short on time, she said she would explain it all to me at our next spiritual direction meeting. All she said was that both the message and the image had to do with my future husband. “Your future husband is the one coming!”, she said. “I’ll explain more when I see you next week, but I wanted to tell you that. You have to go, so I’ll talk to you then.” I stood there in the middle of the mall with people passing me by like I was in a movie. I barely noticed them as I thought about what she said. My future husband?! Excitement and fear filled me. I really am called to marriage…and I’m actually going to meet the guy?! It was a lot to process. I didn’t have any time to process it, however, as right after she dumped the news on me, young adults started showing up all at once. In fact, I hadn’t even hung up with my spiritual director yet. I got off the phone with her and turned to the young adults who were arriving. 2-3 of them were young men. I quickly switched to young adult president mode, but in the back of my mind I wondered if any of them was the one God was talking about. Have I met him already? I wondered. Have I not met him yet? I shook the thoughts away, and I decided to leave the matter alone until I spoke to my spiritual director again.
2/21: On the night before I went to meet with my spiritual director, I became filled with sudden anxiety as worries played out in my mind about all the aspects of what God was calling me to, both to do work for Him and to be married. How could I be called to do anything good for God? Could I do it? I didn’t even have a college degree. What real good could I do without it? No one would listen to me. On top of that, I have so many flaws. With those flaws, would I be able to do God’s will and respond to His grace? Marriage? Who would want to marry someone who didn’t have their life together? Surely, I couldn’t be meeting my future husband any time soon. Maybe once I’d started classes or had full time work, but right now, it doesn’t make sense to pursue marriage. I wasn’t good enough right now. I wasn’t ready enough. Maybe Mary meant later. She didn’t say when exactly my future husband was coming, after all. As I went round and round in my mind with these doubts, they became almost unbearably loud in my mind. The Holy Spirit eventually stopped me by asking, “Wouldst thou fight a dragon?” It was something He had spoken to me about before and which I was writing a poem about at the time: Fighting against evil in life, carrying our crosses, and ultimately finding that when we made it to heaven, the reward was more than worth all the suffering and struggles. It was about having no regrets that we had fought the good fight in life because of the infinite happiness we would experience in heaven. The Holy Spirit’s words reminded me that it was worth it to go through whatever discomfort I had to in order to keep moving forward. He had told me a couple of years before that He had brought me out of a cave, and that right outside that cave was a waterfall. As I started to leave the cave, I would feel the force of the water upon me, but He told me, “Do not go back in the cave. I will lead you through the waterfall.” I calmed down enough that I was able to fall asleep briefly. When I woke up anxious again, my thoughts louder than ever, God reassured me that He was with me. At His words, my mind and my whole interior became silent at once. It was as if time had stopped, and I could have heard a pin drop in the silence. All was still. “I will uphold you with My victorious right hand!”, He spoke. He gave me a Scripture verse to look up to reiterate His caring for me. As I read it, all the doubts in my head disappeared. Suddenly, my fears of how I would manage in school, in my calling, who would help me, and how I’d be able to bear it all didn’t seem to matter because I knew God was with me.
2/22: I went to see my spiritual director the very next day, and I never would have expected the conversation that transpired next. She told me that a coat of arms signified the coming together of two families. Often, an individual family would have their own family crest (a coat of arms.) The citrus fruits held special meaning for myself, my future husband, and our relationship, most of which I will keep to myself. One meaning I will share, however, is that the general use of fruit stood, in part, for the spiritual fruitfulness that God would bring out of our relationship.
As my spiritual director spoke, the Holy Spirit suddenly started revealing things to her about my future husband’s past that she could not have known otherwise. I was not used to such things happening, and I started taking notes, at the same time wondering what it all meant. If I hadn’t known my spiritual director so well, I would have been quite dubious about the whole thing, but I knew her to be someone faithful to God and trustworthy. (It’s worth mentioning that what happened that day is NOT the same as fortune telling. Fortune telling is condemned by the Church, and often the sources of fortune telling are demonic. Praying to God and asking Him to reveal His plan for our life so that we can follow it is entirely different. For one thing, our intention is different – it is not seeking to know the future specifically; it is seeking to know only that which God wants to reveal to us. It is left entirely up to God if that will include any information about the future or not – usually it doesn’t. It is asking for clarity on what God is asking of us in the present to help us move forward to where He is calling us. In other words, God gives us the information we need to take action in the present towards the future. For another thing, the source of the information and the intention of the source is starkly different. Fortune tellers are conning you – at best – or receiving their information from demons. In either instance (conning or demons) those parties are seeking to mislead you for their benefit. God leads with truth so that we can live a full and abundant life. God does not benefit from this – He already has everything – He informs us solely for our own benefit.) At our meeting, my spiritual director and I had simply prayed to God and asked Him what His messages had meant and what He was asking us to do with that information. We prayed for clarity and discernment.
Here is part of what God revealed (some of it I will again keep to myself.)
The Holy Spirit kept giving her the word “gladiator” to describe the man I would marry (this became important later.) He also said that the man had had a moment of strong conversion in his life and that it had been a solid one. He wanted me to be reassured of that. The man knew God the Father’s love specifically. Because of his strong conversion, and his knowledge of God the Father’s love, he would know how to deal with our children, and his background would be of great help to me in my work in the Church (I was always greatly afraid of marrying someone who would not be a good father. It was of the utmost importance to me. God knew this deep fear of mine.) He said the man would be good for me, and I would be happy making a life with him.
I honestly didn’t know what to think at all of it. I just couldn’t understand why God would go through so much trouble to tell me these things. My spiritual director reassured me, and she told me that it was because God knew me so well. He knew that I wouldn’t do anything so big as getting married unless I was sure that it was His will, so He was giving me confirmations of the person ahead of time. However, she said I still needed to keep praying about it. God would give further confirmations after I met the man, so I would know he was the right one. She also told me gently that because God knew some of the ways I’d been hurt in life, and the trouble I had trusting others and being vulnerable, that God wanted to assure me that His plan for my life was a happy one. I would be safe with this man. He would take care of me and lead our family well. I could trust him.
March, 2019
March: To my surprise, I kept seeing Leo very regularly from the night of that first Holy Hour and onwards. After our phone call, he invited me to Panera so we could have a faith discussion with each other. We talked about our favorite saints, about Scripture, about how our faith led us to deal with certain situations or people. We had a budding friendship. I invited him to a Lenten bible study I was attending with some of my friends. All at once, I was seeing Leo 2-3 times a week. He still came every Thursday evening to the Holy Hours (which kept continuing.) He also came every week to the bible study. Aside from that, we met up for different events. I invited him to my birthday party, and he invited me to things as well. Every time we saw each other, we spoke for hours afterwards. I was in between vehicles at the time, so he often offered to drive me home after Adoration or to the bible study (both were close to my house.) Many times, we’d stay parked outside my house talking until time or responsibilities called us elsewhere. The more I spoke with Leo, the more he matched exactly what the Holy Spirit had revealed about the man I would marry. I never pried or sought out information from Leo regarding the list of qualities my future husband would have. I was determined not to “create” my future husband by throwing these qualities upon him and trying to make him fit into the boxes I’d been given. I knew that if he was the one, then anything I needed to know would come up in conversation naturally without me forcing it. And come up, it did.
Starting in February, Leo told me many times that he always felt like a fighter for the faith and for the Lord. It was uncanny how often he mentioned it, and it became impossible for the word, “gladiator” not to come to my mind. The Holy Spirit knew I would make that connection. In his case, Leo was a spiritual gladiator who had fought spiritually in his life. One could even say that, in a special way before his conversion, that Leo had fought hard for his spiritual life (like how gladiators fought for their physical life) to preserve it from death. I also learned that he was a Third Order Dominican (Hence, why the Blessed Mother had affectionately called him her “knight.”) The more I spoke with Leo, the more what the Holy Spirit and Our Lady had revealed made sense.
April, 2019
First week of April: As time went on, I seriously started thinking it likely that he was the man the Holy Spirit had spoken about. There was such an ease in the way we spoke with each other, and spiritually, we certainly melded very well. At the beginning of April, I told God my thoughts. God, I said, I think that Leo is the one you told me about. But, if so, I’m not sure he’s getting the same message. We’re great friends, but that’s all for the moment. I’m scared of our relationship being anything more, yet I’m also impatient for it to become so. Mostly, I feel strange knowing so many things about him that he doesn’t know I know. It’s weird that I knew my future husband was coming, but that he had no idea what was happening when we met. If I’m discerning this right, and it is him, can you please tell him too? I don’t want to be the only one that knows. It makes me feel weird. If you’re leading us to marriage, please tell him! I can’t be the only one who knows anymore. It’s becoming a burden.
4/14 (Sunday): Two months to the day of the special Holy Hour that Leo had come to, my mom and I went with Leo to one of his Dominican chapter meetings as his guests. He had invited both of us, and he told me he wanted me to come because being part of the Dominican order was such a huge part of his life, and he wanted me to learn more about it since it was something important to him. I remember thinking that it was a very specific request. He wanted me to know him more personally, but I wasn’t sure if he was thinking of anything more than friendship in that regard. He was a very polite person in general. I decided to go.
It was Palm Sunday when we went, and my mom and I enjoyed seeing this other part of Leo’s life. We had great fun during the car ride too as Leo had offered to drive us there and back. On the way back, my mom started asking Leo specific questions about his life. Not every single box on my Holy Spirit list had been checked off yet, and she knew it. She was one of the only people I had told about the meeting with my spiritual director. I also told her that I would not ask any men I met specific questions to see if they matched the list I had written down. So, she took it upon herself to ask a few questions. She was smart too, as she sat in the back seat and I was in front, so I couldn’t elbow her or give her any kind of (loving) death stare. Italian mothers, what are you going to do? Leo was only too happy to share. I sat there and begrudgingly accepted that my mom was going to say what she wanted, and I listened, pretending to not be as interested in their conversation as I was. I can’t remember if any important information came out of the conversation, but we learned more about Leo, and we felt even more comfortable with him because of it. In any case, when we arrived home, my mom excused herself from the conversation, and left us to talk. Which we did – for another 2-4 hours. I apologized for her questions, and he told me he didn’t mind. He wanted us to know more about him; that was why he had invited us that day. We continued speaking about many things until I finally had to go inside.
Unbeknownst to me, Leo stopped afterwards at the Adoration chapel on his way home. He had an experience there that I wouldn’t learn about for 2 more days. Mary had decided it was time to slap him over the head and make him privy to what God had been doing behind the scenes for us, and Leo wasn’t sure what to do about it.
4/15 (Monday): I received a text from Leo asking me if I wanted to meet up at the church with him the next day. Now that Lent was almost over, he thought we could talk about how our lent had been and what we’d learned from it. I told him sure.
4/16 (Tuesday): We met at the Adoration chapel, prayed for a little bit, and then went outside to talk about our lent. After a while, Leo seemed uneasy and distracted. He confessed to me that he had something else he wanted to tell me, but he warned me that it might scare me. I thought about all the things I’d been through in the last few years, from the demonic attacks, to the recent revelations about my vocation. I told him I doubted it. He insisted, “I really think this time, it might be something that will scare you,” he said. I repeated that I doubted it. He went on to say, “Well, I went to the Adoration chapel after I dropped you and your mom off on Palm Sunday. While I was praying there, I was suddenly filled with a great love. For you. I looked up at the Sacred Host and I saw you and me in it. I was told by God that the love I was feeling for you was Agape love specifically. I don’t know what it all means. Please don’t be offended by it, this is just how I think, but I asked God, ‘Do you want me to marry Angelique/are you telling me to marry Angelique?’ I haven’t gotten an answer yet. I don’t know what it means. What I do know is that we’ve experienced a lot of similar spiritual things, and I’m completely free to be myself when I’m with you. I wondered if I should ask you out, but we have such a great friendship, and I didn’t want to be hasty and make things weird between us since I don’t know what it all means yet. I thought of what else I could do, and it occurred to me that one option was just to simply tell you about it since it concerns you.” I had to stop myself from laughing out loud as he spoke. You really make quick work of things, God, I thought to myself. I had only prayed my prayer about Leo being made privy to what was going on about a week before. Leo’s words didn’t scare me at all, but he certainly surprised me. I couldn’t believe he was telling me about his experiences, especially since it had just happened, and he didn’t know what to make of it. Plus, most people don’t talk about those kinds of experiences, even if they’ve had them, because they are afraid of bringing undue attention to themselves or being perceived as crazy.
I took a moment to ponder what he had told me. It could be a confirmation of what I had been praying about – about whether Leo was the man I was being called to marry or not – but I didn’t want to be hasty either. It was possible that there was another explanation. I treaded carefully. I assured him that he hadn’t scared me, I thanked him for telling me, and I told him we would both pray more about it to see exactly what it meant. My reason for doing so is that I had experienced a similar thing to what Leo just had once before. I had been angry with a man I knew, and God suddenly showed me exactly how He saw the man. I felt his Agape love for the man, the delight God took in Him as His son, and I couldn’t be angry with the man anymore. I had never experienced anything like it, but it wasn’t anything romantic. God had simply wanted me to see how He views His children; How He delights in them. It was a lesson for me, and I was able to put my anger aside and provide the man with the help he needed. Leo wasn’t angry with me, but I still wanted to make sure that something similar wasn’t happening to Leo, and that God wasn’t trying to tell him something else, before I opened up to Leo about the things I had been getting in prayer about a future husband for the last few months. Leo thanked me for patiently listening to him and being so kind about it. He felt better. We parted, each wondering what the heck was going on, and each thinking that we probably knew.
4/17 (Wednesday): The next morning, Leo woke up with an insistent feeling that there was work to do for the Lord. He hadn’t done what the Lord wanted. He realized that he really had come to like me quite a bit, and that the next step was asking me out.
4/18 (Holy Thursday): Leo contacted me to ask if there was still going to be a YA Holy Hour that night even though it was Holy Thursday. I told him there wouldn’t be – we were all going to Holy Thursday Mass instead – but I invited him to come and sit with my family and I for Mass if he wanted to. He said he’d be there, and that he’d like to talk to me afterwards. He came early to Mass and met me right outside the church. “You look very nice this evening,” he told me. I was a little taken aback. “Oh, thanks,” I replied. We both went to join my family in the pews. Suddenly, I was very conscious of the fact that any guy I’d ever met at our church that had ever showed interest in me before or had asked me out (and I’d politely declined) were all at this one Mass – as was every mom in the parish who knew me and hoped to see me married. As we were sitting in one of the front pews, I quickly became very self-conscious about sitting there with Leo. Oh my goodness, all the moms are going to be watching us and wondering who he is, I thought. Meanwhile, Leo seemed happy as a clam, blissfully unaware of the circumstances surrounding us. I tried to focus on Mass as it started. Right after the first reading, before the responsory psalm began, Leo leaned over and said to me, “I’m very glad to be here with you.” I blushed. “Thanks,” I replied. Leo is acting differently tonight – what’s going on? I continued trying to focus on the Mass. At the Sign of Peace, Leo went for a hug rather than a handshake. I didn’t want to seem rude, so I obliged. I saw him out of the periphery of my eyes give himself a little fist pump and quietly say, “Yes!” to himself. What is going on?! I continued to think to myself. Mass ended, and before leaving, I had some young adults to greet. I saw one young man in particular that showed up sporadically to our meetings, and I wanted him to feel welcome to come more often, so I tried to catch him before he left. I went into young adult president mode and ran off to say hello, with Leo trying to keep up as I rushed around greeting people. When I caught up to the young man, things got awkward quickly. Leo seemed suspicious, and the young man asked how I knew Leo. For some reason, I felt that if I told him that Leo and I were friends that Leo would be upset. I avoided it by saying that he was a young adult leader I knew from another parish. We said goodbye to the young man and went to the Adoration chapel before it closed for the night. My family went home, and I stayed behind with Leo to pray and talk.
We didn’t talk about much before he drove me home, so I wondered what it was that Leo had wanted to say. However, once we parked outside my house, and I motioned to leave, he stopped me before I got out of his car. “Angelique,” he said, “we get along well. I really like you, and I could see our relationship going somewhere. Would you go out with me?” Leo is straight shooter and he doesn’t beat around the bush, which I admired about him. He was one of the only men who have ever had the courage to make their intention known and ask me out, plain and simple. I was so surprised he was actually asking me that I didn’t know what to do. Poor Leo. I stalled for the next 20 minutes while I tried to think of how to answer. (I tease him about that day he “ignored me” when we were in line for Confession; he teases me about the night he asked me out and I evaded answering.) I knew Leo was the right guy, but the timing of us going out was what I had been trying to discern. I still needed to get my college degree. Leo was working in retail at the time. We didn’t have the money to get married if our relationship progressed. And what about raising children? How would we provide for them? They were valid concerns; however, God’s timing is best. I was about to tell Leo that we hadn’t been friends for long, and that we should keep getting to know each other as friends for now, when Leo countered my argument before I began it. He said, “We’ve already become good friends, and I don’t think we need to get to know each other better as friends before dating. I think we know each other well enough already.” Two more times, Leo countered my arguments before I made them! It was like he knew word-for-word what I was going to say before I said it. Except that he couldn’t have. I mentally told the Holy Spirit, You set me up, didn’t You? You made it so that there would be no way for me to say no. I thought to myself, There’s no way he’s getting all these counterarguments by himself. He couldn’t know what I was going to say so exactly. I told Leo another concern of mine (the only one he didn’t counteract before I spoke it.) I told Him that God had asked certain things of me, and that I would meet much spiritual resistance because of them. The devil wouldn’t be happy about what I’d be doing for the Church, and anyone who wanted to seriously pursue a romantic relationship with me needed to know that they would be attacked too. Our life wouldn’t be easy. We would be doing specific work for the Lord that would put a spiritual target on our backs. I thought Leo should be given fair warning. He simply looked at me and said, “Well, if your life is going to be so hard, then you’re going to need help, right?” I ask you readers: Who’s going to say no to that?! I finally caved and said, “Ok. Let’s give it a try. Let’s go out.” Leo let out a huge sigh of relief and was instantly excited. He told me how happy he was that I was his girlfriend. “I guess I can hold your hand now!” he said as he reached for my hand. Woah woah woah, I thought. Girlfriend? I thought I had just agreed to go on a few dates. I didn’t realize he was asking me to go steady. Right at that moment, of course, my youngest sister appeared at the car window. Her eyes darted to our hands and her eyebrows raised all in a nano second as she quickly recovered and acted like she hadn’t seen anything. Great, my whole family is going to know that I apparently have a boyfriend as soon as my sister gets back inside. When I go in, they’re all going to pounce on me like a puma for information, and Dad isn’t going to be happy. (Since I was so behind in school, I knew Dad wanted me to focus on my studies and not to think about dating until after getting a degree.) My sister left after delivering a message to me from my mom. I could feel my sister’s and our friend’s eyes (our friend was visiting at the time) burning through the curtains inside my home as soon as my sister went back inside, and I caught the curtains move slightly. I knew they were watching us. I sighed. Happy and nervous, Leo and I said goodbye. Thankfully, news hadn’t spread to everyone in the house yet, only a few, and I made it through the night without being besieged.
God had gone through great lengths to get Leo and I to start dating one another; He was going to have to go through much greater lengths to see us married, and Mary was to continue to play a great part in His plan.
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Summary of events:
- 2/10/19: While praying the rosary, Mary tells me her knight is coming to help me.
- 2/11/19 (Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes): Mary reiterates that he’s coming.
- 2/14/19 (Valentine’s Day): I meet Leo again in person after over a year.
- 2/15/19: Image of a lemon and lime crossed in a coat of arms comes at a prayer meeting.
- 2/16/19: A short phone call with Leo turns into a 2 hour conversation. Later that same day, I receive a call from my spiritual director that she was given in prayer what Mary’s message and the image of citrus fruits meant.
- 2/21/19 (Night before seeing my spiritual director to discuss what she was given in prayer): Intense feelings of anxiety and worrisome thoughts fill my mind regarding my future and how I would get there. (NOTE: The devil especially loves to attack fiercely before God is about to do something huge for us in an attempt try to scare us into a disposition that will not be open to receiving God’s graces. When the devil talks big, you’re close to something wonderful – hold on firmly to God.) God consoles me.
- 2/22/19: I meet with my spiritual director and God reveals facts about my future husband’s past and where God is leading us. He assures me His plan for me is a happy one.
- March: Leo and I get to know each other better through group get-togethers and personal meetings/conversations.
- First week of April: I ask God and the Blessed Mother to make Leo privy to the same information that I have been receiving that God is calling us to marriage.
- Second week of April (4/14: Palm Sunday): God makes Leo privy. Leo has an unusual experience in the Adoration chapel.
- 4/15/19 (Holy Monday): Leo asks me to meet with him the next day.
- 4/16/19 (Holy Tuesday): We meet, and Leo tells me about his mystical experience.
- 4/17/19 (Holy Wednesday): Leo feels that there is unfinished business to be done for the Lord. He decides to ask me out.
- 4/18/19 (Holy Thursday): Leo asks if I would be free to meet up that night. He joins my family and I for Mass. Afterwards, he asks me out, and I say yes.
For I know well the plans I have in mind for you…plans for your welfare and not for woe, so as to give you a future of hope. (Jeremiah 29:11, USCCB website)
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