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Catholic Conversations #177: Finding Faith Amidst Family Trials · Catholic Spirit Radio

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Catholic Conversations on Catholic Spirit Radio. Hello everyone and welcome
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to Catholic Conversations on Catholic Spirit Radio.
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I'm your host, Paul Garcia, and today I'm joined by two Catholic women who have
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experienced a renewal or a conversion in the first place to their Catholic faith.
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First, we'll talk with Heather Wilson, followed by Libby Morissette Andrews.
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Each of them has a unique story about what led them to their Catholic faith
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and how it shaped their lives today.
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First, we'll start with Heather Wilson. Heather, thank you so much for joining
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us today. We really look forward to the conversation.
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Thank you, Paul, for having me today. Of course, the pleasure's all ours.
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So, Heather, tell us a little bit, we were speaking before the show began,
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about your interesting upbringing.
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What can you tell myself and the listeners about that? I think my upbringing
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is very key to my conversion. because from the beginning, I thought things just
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seemed a little out of place in my life, even as a young child.
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I grew up with my father was a Vietnam veteran, and he had, I'd say,
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probably severe PTSD in trying to block the memories from the war out of his mind.
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So that integrated some things into my young lifehood that some other people
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might be able to relate to. He was a very intelligent man, however,
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and he was a constructional civil engineer.
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And I think he just had problems gelling what had happened with the war with his real life.
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And so there was lots of things that were just kind of crazy going on in his
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head trying to figure that out.
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My mom, she was a non-practicing Catholic, studying to be a school teacher.
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And I think she was probably very stable in my young life.
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My father was a non-practicing Protestant. We never went to church at all.
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The only time anything church-related came up was when we would go visit my
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mother's grandparents.
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They were both Catholic and they were practicing.
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My mother and father, from a very young age, I just remember my mom waking me up when I was younger.
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And I was sleeping in the middle of the night and we would go find my dad at some bar that he was at.
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We would, you know, she'd be like, your dad hasn't come home, we need to go find him.
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And so he would be out at a bar.
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A lot of times she would try and leave me in the car to go find him and find
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out which bar he had went.
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And this just greatly impacted me. I thought this was just so strange.
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And I was really tired most of the time because of these nightly wake-ups.
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Also, there was odd things that would happen at times with my father, too.
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Because he was very level-headed and, like I said, intelligent, charming person.
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When he was not drinking, but if he was drinking, it was like it just kind of
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suspended reality in his mind.
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And different things happened in my lifehood that were just really,
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I don't know, traumatizing is probably the best way to put it.
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And anybody that's a child of alcoholics would know that.
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And my dad was just trying to cover pain and his experiences.
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He very rarely talked about his experience in the war.
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He was very bitter for going because his older brother ran away and my father took his place.
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And yeah, there was just a lot of pain.
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Eventually, to try and shorten it up a little bit, my parents just couldn't reconcile.
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My mom was like, you need to start coming home after work. If you don't, we're going to leave.
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And I remember that night. You know, I didn't realize the conversation they had had.
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And she's like, come on, get up, Heather. It's time to go.
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And she had already packed things. We went into, you know, the car.
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I slept all the way to my grandma and grandpa, her parents' house.
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And basically, we relocated up there to Peoria from Southern Illinois.
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And my grandparents started trying, they said to my mom, she needs to go to,
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she needs to know her faith.
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She needs to go to a Catholic school.
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She needs to receive Eucharist. She needs to do all of these things.
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These things need to be caught up. I have been baptized as a child.
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I just, you know, the other sacraments, I was about six or seven when my parents
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split. and I just didn't have any kind of interaction with God. I didn't understand.
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I think I might have understood God in general terms.
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With the weird things that went on in my home life as a younger child,
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that was very just jarring.
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Some of the things that had happened and people can kind of imagine with alcoholism.
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My father later went on to trying drugs to dull that when he got remarried and
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just kind of kept, you know, spiraling, trying to find,
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I think, just peace inside. I don't think he had a lot of peace.
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And so, you know, to pick up again where I was about seven years old at,
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you know, and now my grandparents' influence is starting to come into my life
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because my mom had to now find a job.
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To support us, and the teaching wasn't going to work. It just didn't pay enough.
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So she started going into secretarial work, and my grandparents started watching
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me after school. So I did go to.
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I really, I don't know, there was a huge disconnect between the kids and myself.
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And I started getting very angry at my father, too, because there would be father-daughter
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dances and there would be, you know, events with, you know, your family.
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And of course, my grandpa would show up and try and fill the place and things
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like that. But he looked so much older than the other people.
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And so the kids would ask me who that was. And I was like, my grandpa,
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my dad couldn't come. And, you know, my dad eventually had been transferred
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down to Texas for his job. So he was way far away and there really wasn't a lot of communication.
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My mom would have me call him for his birthday.
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My mom would have me call him, you know, for my birthday, his birthday,
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holidays, things like that.
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But I was always, when I was on the phone with him, I would talk to him a little
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bit and then he would find whoever he was dating or married to at the time.
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And they would be given the phone and be like, here, talk to Heather.
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But that was painful because I was like, I don't know these people.
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And another thing I was like, I was calling to talk to you.
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And so there was a lot of built up, pent up anger that just started just festering.
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And it would boil over as I got older. When I got to be about,
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I'd say my teenage years, which
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my teenage years, my mom started getting transferred because she became a.
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Nursing home administrator. And she started doing that job very well,
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cleaning up nursing homes and taking care of the elderly.
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So they started transferring her to places to clean up the nursing home facility.
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So we got transferred when I was like in my junior high age.
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And we, you know, moved to another northern Illinois town.
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And I started, you know, again, no, you know, this time I didn't have my grandparents
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to watch me at night. So I get off the bus with kids.
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And sometimes the kids would take me to their houses and they were,
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you know, poking around into their parents' liquor cabinets and stuff.
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And we were drinking that stuff.
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But then I knew I didn't want to go down that path because my dad had just,
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you know, his life kept spiraling out of control.
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He could keep it together at work, but at home, his home life was a wreck.
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And I was like, so eventually I started telling those kids, I'm like,
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no, I'm going to go home, you know, and I'm going to, you know,
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go back, you know, and just do what I need to do, do my homework and stuff like that.
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But there was your own, like, if you don't have God in your life,
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you have that own sinfulness that is really pulling you down to,
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you know, how can I fill this heartbreak and the holes in your life?
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And that's kind of what internally is going on.
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You're like, and I was like, no, it's not going to be the liquor,
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no, it's not going to be the drugs, because I, you know, came into contact with my dad with that.
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And I was like, I knew it wasn't doing anything for him. I knew his life was a mess.
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He was totally going in the wrong direction. And I was like,
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I don't know exactly where the right direction is or how it is,
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but I had seen friends and family, you know, their families, and especially,
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you know, when I was going to the Catholic grade school, that,
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you know, they had these nice, peaceful homes.
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And I was like, what is going on? You know, what is in the middle here?
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I really want this for myself.
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And I'm like, I don't know how to do this. You know, everything seems like it's
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very messed up in my life. And I'm just like, and I don't know about how to do that. I'm a child.
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How do I build that in my life?
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You know, how do I get what they have type of thing?
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And so that was kind of the motivation behind, you know, you know,
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and sometimes it was mixed with jealousy towards these people because you were
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jealous of what they had.
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And you're like, I get more angry at my dad because I'm like,
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OK, he was the one that, you know, split up the marriage because he wasn't treating
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my mom right. My mom was like, OK, you got to come home.
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You got to be stable and a good role model.
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And and he was just like, couldn't do it. You know, he couldn't wrap his mind
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around it of going from a war to, you know, back to real civilian life.
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So it was just like, what do you know?
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So I don't know. So it was kind of like the preteen and teen years of my life
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were kind of like, OK, you know, at least I had when I say the training wheels on.
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My mom was very protective and took care of me.
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And although the relationship was more in some instances, like my grandma and
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grandpa said, they used to call us their girls.
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So sometimes I wasn't exactly always treated as the child of the family,
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but sometimes the partner of the family, my mom and I would work through things
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together, especially the older I got.
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And that's just, you know, I don't know. I think that time period,
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you know, people were buddy-buddy and friends and sometimes with their kids.
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And I don't know, I guess, you know, in some instances, God and Christianity
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just straightened me out with a lot of that.
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And so, I don't know, we continued to move around.
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Things continued just like festering in me, festering and everything.
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And when I got to college, because we had, you know, moved back to Illinois.
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We had been in Arizona for a while, too.
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But we moved back to Illinois because my grandfather was getting sicker.
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And so I actually did go to one, you know, high school.
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I think I counted it up one time from K through 12.
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I went to 12 different schools somehow, you know, day here, you know. Yeah.
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So it's just it was kind of a bit crazy. My life, a lot of times people are
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like, wow, you know, how'd you do well?
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Well, the only thing I can think is my dad's good intelligent genes.
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That's the only thing that kind of, you know, saved me because I think and, you know,
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I don't know. It's just otherwise I think I just would have sunk like some some
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kids, I think, do when they're moved around that much.
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But anyway, I so I I get to high school again. You know, my mom's good support.
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We're back home. Grandma and grandpa are good support.
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You know, I get confirmed in the Catholic Church. Really didn't understand what any of that meant.
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I remember one kid at our confirmation or in our class at the time saying he
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wasn't getting confirmed because he he didn't really, you know,
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think he wanted to necessarily be a Catholic.
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And I was like, what? And I never really even thought about that.
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So I just kind of went through the ceremony and did, you know,
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had the pretty dress and everything and left that kind of all on the back burner
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to not really knowing what it was.
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But when I went away to college, things kind of went off the Richter scale.
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I didn't have mom around anymore, and I had friends, and so started partying
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and started drinking a lot.
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Just really partaking in whatever direction my sinful nature wanted to take me in.
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Luckily, God saved me from doing drugs, you know, but there is just a wildness
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about college that I think a lot of people don't realize that right after college,
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you really start to ask some questions like.
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Okay, I really screwed that up.
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You know, maybe not the courses and everything. I did well in my studies,
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very much like my father.
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I did well in all of that, but I was just partying, you know, like crazy.
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And it was about, I think it was my senior year in college, where I all of a
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sudden said, nope, not drinking anymore, because I realized I didn't get sick when I drank.
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There was something in me that I could drink Everclear, and only when I drank
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lots of Everclear would I throw up
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It was for the most part, yeah, that's almost pure alcohol.
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And so I was really scared I was going to turn into an alcoholic like my father.
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So I said no to that my senior year. A lot of my friends didn't understand when I turned 21.
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They were mad at me because I only had a few drinks.
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And I was just like absolutely like turned into no fun, I think.
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But the thing is, is they didn't understand the pain and the suffering that
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was brewing, from my childhood and all the stuff that was going on in my brain.
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It was like, I wanted a nice, stable life, stable home.
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I wanted to feel safe. I didn't want this up and down where it's like I had
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to go find somebody every night because they had been out drinking.
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I didn't want somebody have to do that with me.
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So I cut all that off, but the anger was still there. And so I had different relationships.
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Usually they were long-term, you know, relationships.
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And what would happen, though, is I would just, you know, at first it was okay,
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but then I'd start wondering.
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I'm like, are they going to be like my dad?
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So I would start just like, I don't know, being mean, okay?
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I guess it was, to try and test and see if this person would stick around and
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put up with me and put up with all the garbage.
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And if they did, then maybe they were a better person than my dad, you know?
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And what that resulted in was ending up with a marriage with somebody who enjoyed the chase.
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And he ended up like my dad, the cheating on my mother and things like that
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my dad did, which I don't think I've said yet. But he ended up being that kind of person.
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And that threw me into the tailspin where I was, I remember the night I figured
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all of this out, you know, for my marriage,
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I just, I almost just completely had a meltdown because I was like,
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I am in the exact same marriage,
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you know, my mother was, you know, how many years ago.
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And I left to go be with my sister. And I literally spiked a temperature of
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103 that night. And she had to put me into bed.
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And I think it was purely a mental thing of I couldn't handle this.
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I was like, how did I end up here when I tried to weed out and get rid of the
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people in my life that were going to hurt me, like my dad had hurt my mom and I.
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So that, you know, is just, you know, where I ended up, like,
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and at that point, when I was,
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I got married about 25, and 23 was when I went through my conversion.
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And so you kind of have to understand what's going on with my initial conversion
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to kind of understand how the marriage ended up and went a little awry as well. So...
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With that said, I think, I don't know, we can go on to that maybe.
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Of course. And I really look forward to that here in just one moment.
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You had a young adult life and a childhood riddled with all sorts of terrible things.
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Jealousy, anger, comparison, PTSD, resentment, instability, and a tough marriage, infidelity even.
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So many struggles in your young life all by the time you were in your mid-20s.
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And now it sounds like we're about to get into the part in your mid-20s where
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things, somehow through all this, you get led back to your Catholic faith.
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And that is something I really look forward to hearing about.
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And we're going to hear about it here in just one moment.
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Hello, everyone, and welcome back to Catholic Conversations.
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Right now, we are finishing our conversation with Heather Wilson,
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who has an incredible story of extreme challenges in her young life leading up to her mid-20s.
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Her father with PTSD caused a lot of issues in her family and in her young life.
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Her grandparents and her mother had a pivotal role in her coming to her faith little by little.
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But still, it was a childhood and young adult life.
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Filled with jealousy, anger, comparison, PTSD with her father,
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resentment, serious instability, 12 different schools, luckily one high school in the end.
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In her senior year of college, then Heather did stop drinking and she found
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a marriage that was very, very difficult.
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And long story short, here, we're at this part of her young adult life.
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During the break, Heather explained to me that she was in this bad marriage,
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23 years old. She actually did come to the Christian faith.
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It was the Protestant faith by way of a gentleman at the gym who was asking
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her some questions and led her to his Protestant church, where they,
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of course, had the message that a lot of Protestant churches have,
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which is sin is permanent.
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Hell is assured unless you become born again, unless you become saved.
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At this point, here's where we're going to pick up our conversation.
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She was led by this church to, of course, read your Bible.
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It is in that Bible reading that she found bits and pieces that had questions
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start to arise in her mind, especially one particular chapter.
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And I'll let you take over from there, Heather.
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What specific chapter were you reading and maybe what verse?
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I'm not really a person that memorizes verses, but most people will probably recognize this one.
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It's in John's chapter six.
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And this is the one where Christ is saying, this is my body,
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this is my blood. and he, you know, is breaking the bread.
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And so it's what we see at our mass.
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And all of a sudden, I read that, and I'm sure this is purely just God's grace pouring into my mind.
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I am an academic, and I do love to read.
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And at this time, you know, I had heard that Protestant minister say,
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read your Bible, pray, you know, go back to church.
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But I started reading that Bible once through every 10, you know,
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up to like 10 years later, I was reading it once every year.
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And so this time, all of a sudden, I just halted. And I was like,
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wow, what did the Bible just say there?
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And suddenly, it just made me aware that it was like, Jesus said,
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this is my body, this is my blood.
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And, you know, the Protestant churches I was investigating, they're always saying,
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you know, take the Bible literally, take it literally.
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And I'm like, if we take it literally, that is exactly what Jesus said.
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So I went to my mom and my stepdad.
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My mom eventually got remarried. And my stepdad is a wonderful man,
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wonderful man, godsend.
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And he had went through the altar call with me. And so I started asking him
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questions. I'm like, you know, you know, the communion, the host,
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because we were both, you know, still very baby Christians. And he's yeah, yeah.
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And I go, what churches, what religions believe that that's actually Jesus's body and blood?
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And he goes, well, Catholic, the, you know, the religion your mom grew up in.
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And he goes, and Lutheran.
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And he goes, and Anglican. You know, he goes, you know, some of those.
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And I go, oh, okay. So that automatically started narrowing which churches I wanted to go to.
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And then I started studying more and I started, you know, just cracking some
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other books open about church fathers.
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And I started realizing that, you know, as I read the Bible,
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you know, you have the Old Testament.
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And who did the Old Testament sacrifices?
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Well, the priest did. Well, this, you know, Christ is sitting there saying,
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this is my body. This is my blood.
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And, you know, he's asking us to do it in remembrance of him.
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But who's going to do it after he's gone? You know, the priest.
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So you have to have true priests that are all the way connected back to the
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original church that Christ founded.
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I'm like, they have to be legitimate priests. So that was another crack.
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And as soon as I saw that, I was like, okay, I know I'm Catholic now.
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And now I got to start to read this book in light of that, in light of the little
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bit that I know from my child or remember from my childhood.
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So I luckily started digging into that.
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And then almost, you know, everything like you have confession where it's like
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the binding and the loosing, you know, the scripture.
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There are actually, you know, specific scripture, you know, that the Catholic
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has their, you know, own interpretation of it.
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And it's like, if you don't know that, then you don't know what it means and
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you might make something up about it.
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But it's like all of this that, you know, there's just always been now through
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my life as I read these watershed moments. Like I will ask God,
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I'll be like, okay, where does that come from?
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And the next thing I know, it might be at the mass readings that week.
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And all of a sudden, there is a line in scripture. And I'm like,
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that's where it is. So it's like.
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It's amazing. It's like he, you know, just all of a sudden started enlightening
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these different truths about the Catholic Church, you know, and it's just just
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probably one thing I need to bring up, though.
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But after this happened, my conversion and I, you know, and then I started going
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into the Catholic Church and I realized that was where I needed to be.
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That was Christ's church.
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God miraculously, like my whole life, I had really bad stomach issues and problems
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just tightening because of the anger and everything like that.
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That started to release, and I started to get peace in that area.
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My whole perspective started changing.
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And this peace that I felt in my life now, He just granted me so many graces
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to be able to now live my life in light of Him.
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And so the thing, the shadows of those other families that I saw when I was
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younger and why they were so peaceful and why there was such just love in everything,
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I realized it wasn't necessarily just their love individually,
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but it was Christ's love coming through them.
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Loving them, and then loving each other with God through them.
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And that is what has established the peace in my life now, has taken away the anger.
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Because my father, lung cancer actually consumed him when he was 61 and he died.
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But my dad actually went through a conversion too.
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He never got quite to the Catholic church. He got to a Protestant church,
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but he started reconciling with me.
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And a lot of this stuff, just I think of as God's sin to my life,
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he just started tying up the loose ends and fixing and bandaging the wounds and healing me.
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And I mean, after I went through my conversion, I did apologize to several different
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people that I felt I had probably hurt and lashed out at.
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But a lot of it was just that pain and suffering as a young child and just that
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instability and just angry at it.
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And now, with God taking that away,
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there's so much more peace and so much just light in my life and less problems
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because I'm able to lean on God for anything and everything that I need. There's just.
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I just trust and love Him so much. And I guess that's what I want people to
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get through this, is that if you're suffering, if you're struggling,
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if the pain is so bad, just do what I did.
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You know, at different times, I would go into a church before I knew God,
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and I'd be like, just reveal yourself to me. Is that you? And He will answer.
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It may not be through somebody or however you think it's gonna be,
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but eventually you'll realize you've got that answer.
27:07
And then if you say yes and move towards him, he will begin the healing process in you.
27:15
And then he will show you the steps you need to take and what he wants you to
27:21
do in your life so that it just basically your life radiates him and helps bring
27:30
others to him that helps save them and love them.
27:35
All that he wants to do in us anyway is he just wants to love us and bring us
27:42
to him because he knows he will take care of us.
27:46
He's the safety, safety net and protection in our life. We just don't realize it.
27:53
There's so many mixed messages out there and so many wrong paths.
27:57
So please, if you've tried all the wrong paths, just try him once.
28:02
Just say, please help me.
28:05
I don't know who you are.
28:07
Just come to me, Lord, and tell me what's next.
28:12
What a fantastic story you have. So beautifully said.
28:16
And I mean, it is from the gateway being the Protestant church that you attended,
28:22
the Eucharistic reality, epistolic succession,
28:26
confession, the sacraments, those things that brought you to the Catholic faith,
28:30
your analytical mind, your engineering mind from your dad, the facts and reasoning,
28:36
that's what leads a lot of people, especially the Eucharist to the Catholic faith.
28:40
And I just love how it seems like your story really comes full circle and has
28:44
to do with Bible verses. I've been taking notes here.
28:48
Christ himself, God himself tells us that unless your faith is like that of
28:51
a child, you will not enter the kingdom of God. And it makes me think,
28:56
As children, we want to cling to our parents. You clung to your mother,
28:59
which is another thing that our faith tells us to do is to cling to the mother Mary.
29:05
So God tells us, you know, in your, the Protestant church told you, read your Bible.
29:10
I love that because who compiled the Bible? It was a Catholic church in 382 AD.
29:15
We're both analytical minds. We both like the facts and the history and the logic.
29:20
So who wrote the Bible? It's a Catholic church. Okay, does Christ really mean
29:25
it when he says, this is my body, this is my blood?
29:28
Well, given the fact that everyone questioned him after he said it,
29:31
and he said, let me try another word, and he actually uses another word in Hebrew,
29:34
he says, a word for gnaw, as though you do at meat.
29:37
You truly, truly, I say to you, if you do not consume the flesh in my blood,
29:42
you will not enter the kingdom of God.
29:44
Most of the people left him in that moment. Who stayed? The apostles.
29:48
And from them, we have been unbroken chained. And we've been handing off the
29:53
baton since those apostles to all the priests.
29:56
That's so important. And I hope that a lot of people take your story and say,
30:00
man, that sounds pretty legit. That sounds like the real deal.
30:04
This Catholic church seems like it might be the one true faith.
30:07
And your final words here.
30:09
Your words to all the listeners. If you're lost, if you are searching for something
30:14
to fill this God-sized hole in your heart, try God at least once.
30:19
Yes. And I think that's a great note to end on.
30:22
Heather Wilson, thank you for being Catholic. Thank you for persevering through a difficult life.
30:26
And thank you so much for sharing your story here on Catholic Spirit Radio and
30:30
Catholic Conversations. We really appreciate it.
30:33
Thank you, Paul. And thank you so much, Heather Wilson, for sharing your great story.
30:38
Listeners, now I'm excited to introduce our new guests in the studio.
30:41
We will hear from Libby Morissette Andrews and her husband, Monty Andrews,
30:47
who've been married for 17 years.
30:48
And they are also fellow St. Andrews Catholic Church in Fairbury Latin Mass
30:52
goers, as are my wife and I.
30:54
And they have a powerful story of reconnecting with their lovely Catholic faith.
31:00
But Libby and Monty, thank you both so much for joining us in the studio today.
31:04
Thank you for having us. Of course. The pleasure's all ours.
31:08
Libby, I want to start with you. It sounds like in our brief conversation before
31:12
we started recording, you and Monty both are actually cradle Catholics,
31:16
but did fall away from the faith at some point.
31:19
I want to hear from both of you, but Libby, could you tell me a little bit about
31:22
what your relationship with the Catholic Church was like early in life and how
31:25
you did eventually fall away?
31:28
I think as I was younger, I was pretty devoted to the Catholic Church.
31:33
My mother loved the rosary, and so I often would pray with her.
31:40
And as I got older, in teenage years into my young adult years,
31:45
it was difficult to stay Catholic.
31:48
It was difficult to follow the rules of the Catholic Church being young,
31:54
and I did not care for confession, and that was something that was very difficult.
32:01
I had had a bad encounter one time not being forgiven for sins,
32:06
and that really turned me away.
32:10
So I think as I had children, I,
32:14
was pushed by my mother to have them baptized in First Communion and confirmation,
32:20
but I definitely was not walking truly with Jesus. I did an obligation.
32:27
I see. Okay. So, it was confession, among other things. That was the big thing that turned you away.
32:32
And of course, we can walk the walk a little bit, or maybe we talked the talk, didn't walk the walk.
32:38
Bottom line, your faith wasn't truly there.
32:41
By the time you had kids. And Monty, then in a nutshell for you,
32:45
you also were born into a Catholic family, it sounds like.
32:48
What was your upbringing with the Catholic church like? And then how did you fall away?
32:54
Primarily, I was the oldest of four kids. My father was a convert to marry my mother.
33:00
And so they were both very much loved their faith to an extent.
33:05
And coincidentally, my mother loved all of the sacraments except confession.
33:11
She came from a northern Minnesota town where during a time where priests were
33:17
often harsh during confessions and so forth.
33:20
So that was one that she did not really make us go to.
33:25
But I received all the others, baptism, first communion, confirmation, etc.
33:31
Confession was very, very infrequent for the whole family, but Mass was definitely every Sunday.
33:36
And I was not as involved as a teenager in my church as I wish now that I had been.
33:44
There were retreats. I only remember going on one retreat in my teen years.
33:48
But again, a lot like Libby, being young, following all the rules of the Catholic
33:53
faith is extremely difficult.
33:55
And I was undisciplined as a young man.
33:59
And just once I was in my 20s and beyond, I just wanted to do my own thing. So always...
34:06
Prayed, always knew Jesus was there, and I thank Him for being there to keep
34:12
me, at least with my head, somewhat above water all those years.
34:18
Right, right. It's a practically universal experience for adolescents and young
34:23
adults to find difficulty in having and holding true to their Catholic faith.
34:27
The Bible tells us, Christ tells us, that heaven is a city on a hill and narrow
34:32
is the gate, narrow is the pathway, wide is the pathway, and easy is the pathway to damnation.
34:37
It's a difficult thing. He didn't say that it's going to be a lot of fun,
34:40
everyone's going to think you're cool for holding true to the Catholic faith.
34:43
It is certainly difficult for young people.
34:45
I'm curious, when did your reconversion begin?
34:49
Either of you, whoever wants to start, was it when you met each other or was
34:53
it just before you met each other?
34:54
And if you don't mind, another question, when did you two meet each other?
34:58
Well, I had now always loving the rosary when I was young, even though I did not,
35:05
I went to church, I went to mass, definitely sometimes kicking and screaming,
35:11
but there was power in the rosary and always had power in the rosary.
35:15
And I always had—God love my mother. She did her best. I'm one of nine children.
35:21
And by the time I came along, I was eight of nine.
35:25
My mother was tired. And so having this heavenly mother was just something I could really hold on to.
35:34
And so I would hold my rosary in my hand.
35:38
Didn't always know the prayers completely, and I certainly didn't know the decades,
35:43
but I would just hold that rosary.
35:45
And so that turned into learning novenas and loving the saints.
35:51
Even though I didn't have a relationship with Jesus at the time,
35:54
I still had this amazing understanding that the saints were just like us and
36:00
that they were there to comfort us and work for us to get to heaven.
36:06
And so I had prayed at that time, I had prayed a novena for a husband.
36:11
I was unmarried with three sons.
36:15
I had been through a divorce, and I was really looking for a husband, a man.
36:21
Of faith, of Catholic faith, to guide me, guide my children towards heaven. And so I prayed the.
36:36
The novena is you pray nine times, nine times a day, the Parade of St.
36:40
Jude, and then you publish it actually in the newspaper.
36:43
So this is how long it goes when people published it in the newspaper.
36:46
And so the ninth day in Pontiac, where I live, I published it in the Pontiac
36:52
newspaper. It's since now closed.
36:54
But I went in and published it there. And then I drove to my uncle's funeral
36:59
that was in the Twin Cities of Minnesota. and I met this lovely man that night.
37:07
He was the man that folded the flag over my uncle, over his coffin.
37:12
And I knew that night when I met him that I would marry him. I knew that night.
37:20
I mean, it goes into a lot deeper than that, but I met him through my father.
37:24
My father introduced me to him and there was just this warmness.
37:29
So I tell the story that And we had spoken for hours after my uncle's funeral
37:34
at my uncle's favorite bar.
37:35
We had all gone and joined together at his favorite bar after the funeral.
37:41
And this darling soldier had to come up and sat next to me. And we just started
37:45
sharing our lives together. And I said to him, are you a Catholic?
37:49
That was the first thing. I said, don't waste my time. If you're not Catholic,
37:52
then don't even waste my time. And he said, actually, I've just come back to the church.
37:56
And I said, to the Catholic church, right?
37:59
And he said, yes, I had been away for years, but I've just come back.
38:03
I said, well, I am looking for a husband, really.
38:06
I am. So, and I mean, it gets, it's sweeter than that, actually,
38:10
but I don't get into that.
38:11
But anyway, my leg touched his leg under the table and I felt like I was home.
38:17
I know that sounds absurd. A lot of people don't believe in miracles like that.
38:22
It was a miracle because I knew that night I would marry him. I knew.
38:27
Well, a lot of people do say that the Holy Spirit speaks to us through gut intuition.
38:31
And so you do have that feeling. And that is something the Holy Spirit does have access to.
38:35
And when it's a good feeling like that after the conversation you guys were
38:38
having, I think the message is clear.
38:40
I just want to double check. I know that I understood a few things correctly.
38:45
What did you post in the? the novena, it says to pray, it actually gives the St. Jude novena.
38:52
Pray it nine days for nine intentions, nine times a day for nine days,
38:57
and you actually are to publish the actual novena.
39:00
And thanks, St. Jude, on the bottom for answered prayers.
39:03
Even though my prayers had not been answered at the time, you are to publish
39:06
it. Thank you for answered prayers.
39:08
And indeed, they were answered later that evening. That's really, really amazing.
39:12
And it makes sense that St. Jude in that novena that you would say,
39:16
thank you for the answered prayers.
39:17
I know Christ tells us to pray as though it has already been done to you.
39:21
And so, I think that's really interesting.
39:22
Also, you mentioned the importance of the saints in your upbringing and in your
39:26
even holding your faith at all, the saints are important.
39:30
And that's why we have saints. They are to be relatable.
39:32
They are to be great role models. So, I think that everything just works out.
39:36
That is really, really interesting.
39:37
And just a guess here, you talk about the rosary, you talk about the novenas,
39:43
you talk about your mother, you talk about nine children.
39:45
Is your mother of Latin American descent or anything? No, actually, I'm Ojibwe Indian.
39:50
Really? Yes. I'm from a reservation in northern Minnesota. We just got back yesterday, last night.
39:57
Wow. Yes. So, my father is Ojibwe and my mother is French Canadian.
40:01
Oh, my gosh. I was so wrong. That is so interesting. Wow.
40:05
Amazing. Okay. Now, Monty, I have to ask, I'm sure there's plenty of overlap in your story.
40:11
But yeah, tell me a little bit more about at your end of things,
40:14
how did you guys meet, what you were doing before that or anything like that?
40:18
How did you come back to your faith?
40:20
So I had a contracting business. I had been married once before and then was
40:27
in a relationship for five years.
40:29
And then that ended and I was a single man going through from the ages of 38
40:35
to 42, kind of a midlife rough patch, so to speak, where church was sporadic or not at all.
40:42
Lots of sinning, I'll admit, different ways. And finally, I just, in almost succession.
40:50
Decided to get my life straight. I rejoined the Army National Guard.
40:56
I had been in the Army in my youth, in my 20s.
40:59
I was now 43 years old, and I just happened to run into a National Guard recruiter in Minnesota.
41:07
And at the time, the war in Afghanistan and Iraq was raging,
41:10
and I would see all of these young people dying over there every night and wished
41:16
as a veteran I could do something about it.
41:18
Well, the Lord said, I think you can do something about it by going back in.
41:22
And I ran into a recruiter and he said, no, you're not too old to come back in.
41:27
So that had all been about a year prior to meeting Libby. So in succession,
41:31
I started going back to the Catholic church.
41:34
I went back into the National Guard, Army National Guard, which I loved it when
41:40
I went back in. It was wonderful.
41:42
And then my best friend's father, who is Libby's uncle, passed away.
41:47
He was a Korean War veteran, and he was to be buried at Fort Snelling National
41:51
Cemetery up in Minneapolis.
41:53
And I asked for the honor of folding the flag and presenting it to his widow, Jackie is her name.
42:01
May she rest in peace. And I also was scheduled to deploy to Afghanistan in
42:08
two months' time from that funeral.
42:10
And I thought to myself, Lord, this is your will. I'm not married. I have no children.
42:16
And I'm a single man. And as much as I would love to have a family,
42:21
if this is your will for me to maybe even go off to war and be killed,
42:25
so be it. And I accepted that.
42:28
And two months before my deployment was this funeral, I met Libby.
42:33
And just knowing she was the right one, I asked her to marry me after a month and a half.
42:38
So two weeks before I left on deployment. I came down to Illinois twice.
42:42
She came up to Minnesota once.
42:44
I met her boys and there was definitely a connection there.
42:48
And I brought a ring the second time I came to Illinois and asked her to marry me. And she said yes.
42:53
And then two weeks later, she saw me off to deployment. And a year later,
42:58
when I came home, we were married.
43:00
We started planning our wedding and we were married six, seven months later
43:04
that year. I love it. I love it.
43:08
A novena, fallen away Catholics, come back to the faith.
43:12
Novena, uncle's funeral, Minnesota, met each other, leg touch under the table.
43:17
So many things went right just for you guys. And now you're together.
43:20
And now I want to hear how your faith then evolved further into where you are right now.
43:26
So Libby and Monty, what was the marriage like then? You came back from your deployment, Monty.
43:32
How quickly did you get married after that? And what was that all like for you?
43:37
You said you married into a family, you connected well with Libby's boys.
43:41
Just tell me about that period of time.
43:44
It was, it was actually kind of rough. We had gotten to know each other basically
43:49
on the telephone during the deployment.
43:51
There were tele, back then there were call centers on, on the bases in Afghanistan
43:56
and you had to use calling cards and all that kind of stuff.
43:59
Whereas cell phones now work just fine.
44:01
It was difficult for both of us.
44:04
I had been single and alone, you know, for five years. I had never really raised any children.
44:11
So I had a selfishness about me.
44:14
That probably wasn't as evident until I came home and we started planning things
44:20
together, planning our life together.
44:22
So there took a lot of prayers as well. There took a lot of intervention from
44:27
the Lord, who was definitely convinced, and it was His will that we would be
44:34
married, we would be together.
44:36
So there were a lot of things about me I still needed to work on,
44:40
personality-wise and so forth. And I'll turn it to Libby.
44:44
I'll tell you, it was so easy for me to point out those to him as well,
44:52
which probably definitely was not good.
44:57
But there was this sweetness about Monty that I stayed and continued.
45:05
I had had previous relationships where we were not wed, and it's so easy to
45:11
walk away when you don't have that blessed marriage.
45:16
And we did have that, and I was not going to quit on that.
45:20
And, of course, I had these three men, these three little men that love Quanti so much.
45:27
And so it was interesting because even though, I mean, we never missed Mass,
45:33
always went to Mass, But there was a period of time we were definitely just
45:39
going to go. It was required.
45:42
Our youngest went to St. Mary's in Pontiac. So you just go.
45:47
And then there was this lovely lady that were having a retreat at the church.
45:54
Called The Watch Retreat at St. Mary's. Do you remember her name,
45:58
first of all? Oh, yes, I do.
46:00
Deb Alsdorf. Never forget her. She would ask around for people and give this
46:07
wonderful little plea for those to come and join the retreat and be participants.
46:13
And I would avoid her after Mass.
46:18
I saw her coming my way, and I would grab the voice, and we would leave.
46:22
And Monty would say, the retreat's coming up.
46:26
We have to get signed up. And I said, oh, no, no, no, you go. I don't want to go.
46:31
So it was, I think, the next Sunday.
46:34
She beelined right towards us. Oh, and Monty said, yes, we're going.
46:40
And this, if I may, this was about a year and a half or two after we were married. Yes.
46:44
So 2010. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
46:48
That woman's asking her, her doing God's will and reaching out to us changed our lives.
46:55
I'll never forget going to that retreat, kicking and screaming, really.
47:00
Didn't want to go, and I was doing just fine with my prayer life.
47:05
And I just... And...
47:09
And you stay at home in your own home, but you go each day. So it was a Friday
47:15
evening, Saturday, and Sunday.
47:17
They had a break on Sunday before the final gathering.
47:22
And I came home and I sat on my coffee table. And I looked at this picture that
47:26
was willed to be my uncle of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit.
47:31
And I just, I was focused on that picture.
47:36
And something happened inside me. It actually brings tears to my eyes because
47:40
I think, why have I been fighting this for so long?
47:46
Such goodness and an understanding that the Lord loves us no matter where we are in life.
47:53
And He wanted to know me, just me, and not me as Monty's wife,
48:01
not me as the mother of these three children, just me intimately.
48:06
And wow, has the walk since then been one that has been so marvelous to my soul, so good.
48:19
Words cannot explain, earthly words cannot explain the love that I feel towards
48:26
the Lord and then the love He has for me.
48:29
I can't explain it. It's just heavenly.
48:33
That's incredible well it just
48:36
makes me think that photo that's or that painting that's
48:39
willed to you by your uncle the same uncle that whose
48:42
funeral you met at or a different uncle no a different uncle darn this
48:45
is my native american uncle who yes that's incredible still nonetheless and
48:52
and so you went to that final gathering was it profound in any way or was it
48:59
more so that The moment before was preparation for the final.
49:04
It really was. It was looking inside myself and seeing what I had done, for one.
49:14
To avoid the Lord, and then His acceptance of me.
49:18
And then that evening, when we shared, or it was afternoon actually,
49:23
but when we shared, because they passed the cross around.
49:27
The Palm Cross, and everybody gets to share, there was this giving up of so
49:33
much control and avoidance of God to just to surrender. It was a true surrender.
49:42
And then it would go on to, it
49:45
went on after that with a lovely lady that became a nun from St. Mary's.
49:50
So it sounds like it was truly a profound experience from looking at that painting
49:55
and then going to the final gathering.
49:57
And Monty, I want to ask you then, what was your recollection of this time?
50:01
Did this change something in your marriage, in your life dramatically?
50:06
It definitely changed. It was a slow change at first, but it definitely planted
50:10
a seed in our marriage to where we both knew and both agreed that we needed to study together.
50:18
We needed to dig deeper in our faith together.
50:22
And from that moment on, we definitely have. And we've subsequently attended
50:27
several of these watch retreats and have been on team and so forth, so on.
50:32
And they're all a little different every year, depending on the attendees and
50:37
just the message that the Lord has for us in each of these kind of retreats.
50:42
But Libby, especially, it opened up a whole new world of study for her.
50:49
And it took me more years, I think, to come to the kind of level of study and
50:55
digging deeper into our faith than hers.
50:58
But she was on a roll from that point on.
51:01
But we definitely can agree that had we not put.
51:05
The Lord in the middle of our marriage from the beginning, it probably would
51:09
have been over by now because it's difficult. Things are difficult.
51:14
I don't know if you know this, but men do stupid things sometimes.
51:19
But the Lord has kept us together. And now, I mean, there's a hole between then
51:25
and now of just incredible journey, places and things we've done and gone to.
51:33
Deepen our faith. But that first
51:35
watch that Deb invited us to was definitely a calling for both of us.
51:41
Absolutely. And the topic of marriage is one that we visit all the time here
51:46
on Catholic Conversations because it's so important.
51:48
In fact, it's one of the most important things on earth. And that is exactly
51:52
why the devil tries to seek his way into marriages.
51:55
There's been multiple Saints, Bishop Fulton Sheen, even Mother Teresa,
51:59
I believe, said, if you want to create the downfall of a nation first, attack the marriage.
52:04
Because if that's not there, problems really start to arise for those kids for generations later.
52:10
So first of all, congratulations to you two, because marriage is not easy for anyone from what I hear.
52:15
And my wife and I were just married just under a year ago, actually. Congratulations.
52:20
And so, well, thank you very much. She's absolutely wonderful.
52:22
Love her. I do not deserve her. She's incredible.
52:25
And she's probably going to listen to this, but one of the lines that we hear
52:29
in every single Catholic marriage is in good times and in bad,
52:31
in sickness and in health, for richer or for poorer.
52:34
Let no man put asunder, the two will become one. And at that moment,
52:39
the two become one in God's eyes.
52:41
Yes, but it is not necessarily easy or natural that they become a team,
52:48
you know, spiritually and mentally.
52:51
So it takes a long time sometimes, it seems, for those two to really work together
52:55
and to mesh well. That takes years and years.
52:57
I want to just ask for all our listeners, the majority of whom are married,
53:02
many of them newly married, and myself selfishly.
53:05
What advice do you have? Because you two seem to really get along well.
53:09
I have loved the conversation thus far, and we're getting towards the end of it.
53:12
What advice do you have for living a beautiful, Catholic, spiritually nourishing marriage?
53:19
I would say pray together. Pray together. That's, it's, yes, prayer is individual.
53:25
Your relationship with Christ is an individual relationship,
53:28
but the prayer together blesses your marriage.
53:34
We pray the rosary, and I love the Seven Sorrows Rosary, and we pray the Seven
53:39
Sorrows Rosary. I love that.
53:41
We pray together every night. We actually have a prayer, our prayer chairs,
53:46
and so we'll read the Bible together, and it's just, it has grown us as people
53:54
and it has grown our faith.
53:58
And remember that it is your job as a spouse to get your spouse into heaven.
54:06
So, and that's my advice. What do you think, sweetheart?
54:10
I say at a minimum, pray together and whatever...
54:16
Reservations, someone, men especially, whatever reservations you might have
54:21
about praying the rosary, but praying the rosary together with your wife has
54:26
brought incredible joy, miracles,
54:30
everything, just bliss to our marriage. It really has.
54:34
So, men, get over whatever shyness or whatever it is. Ask the Lord to help you.
54:40
Get over that. Pray that rosary.
54:42
It is the most powerful weapon against evil, period.
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That's what Mother Mary tells us, yeah. And from there, study.
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Each of you, you know, grab a book about a saint and read it and then tell each other about it.
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Share your experiences. Share your, if you have experiences during the day with
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witnessing to others out in the public or at work, you know, share those things.
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But definitely putting the Lord Jesus Christ right in the middle of your marriage is key.
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Absolutely. It is key. It's just like working out, you know.
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You keep your arteries open and the blood flow is moving, everything's nourishing you.
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And it's a really good idea to work out. And we hear the same thing about prayer.
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It keeps the channels through which God's graces flow wide open for you to receive
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in your life. And I think that's really great. That's fantastic advice.
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And you guys have a wonderful story. You came back to your faith partly on your
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own, partly together, but really, you've really taken off together.
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And I just can't thank you both enough for coming in today and sharing your story.
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So thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Of course. And thank you all you
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listeners for listening to this episode of Catholic Conversations.
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Be sure to tune in next time and next weekend for another great conversation.
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And until then, may God bless you all with a great week. You've been listening
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to Catholic Conversations.
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Download our podcasts at catholicspiritradio.com.
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Music.