My patron saint is Daniel.
The one I pray to most, and receive the most experiences from and answers from, however, is the Virgin Mary. I’ll relate my experiences with the Blessed Virgin here. I’ve been wanting someone to talk to about them, as I’m surrounded by Protestants on all sides.
While I was a Protestant visiting France a couple years ago, I went into a Catholic church full of images of the Holy Virgin. I felt that this was too much emphasis by far, and felt it distracted people from God and threatened to be idolatry. While I was in the church, I for the first time sincerely found myself questioning whether or not this might be holy- but my bias from my upbringing overwhelmed that questioning at that point in my life. I now believe that the Mother of the Church was calling to me at that point, when I entered the church dedicated to her, and I think that that is why for the first time in my life I seriously questioned whether my Protestant assumptions on this were valid. That’s not something I could normally have done on my own power. Unfortunately, the bias won out at that moment. But, praise God, the Blessed Virgin did not give up on me.
Later on, when the Lord was calling me to Catholicism, I felt immense spiritual hunger. I prayed that God would reveal to me more about his kingdom for months, and then he began to lead me toward the Catholic Church. I prayed more than once for a confirming sign that this was my Lord speaking to me. The Lord gave me many signs.
One of the first signs, and a very important one to me, came very shortly after I prayed that the Lord would reveal to me whether or not the Medieval Ages truly were God’s Christian kingdom, and whether or not Catholicism truly was his Church. Just one or two days after that prayer, my Protestant mother dug out of a junk pile a birthday card I’d received from my Protestant grandmother several years before. On it was a painting of the Blessed Virgin holding the Christ child, surrounded by angels and standing in front of a grassy plain and a city, the Heavenly Jerusalem. A monk stood outside it. It was a Renaissance painting of the Medieval kingdom, and it was clearly a Catholic painting too. The Lord had answered my prayer, but he gave me as his sign the Blessed Virgin. I had originally rejected her in her church in France. But she did not give up on me after that brief encounter, and it was her image given me in answer to prayer that strengthened me on my journey toward Catholicism.
The Virgin was thus there for me in the confirming sign near the beginning of my journey toward Catholicism. She was also there for me at the end of it.
At the end of my journey, after having debated and argued with Protestants and Catholics and read from the Early Church Fathers and studied Catholicism, and after having had months of intensive spiritual searching with the Lord, discussions with Him and many other signs from Him, I finally reached the point where I felt I had to get myself completely out of the equation and let the Lord make the final decision. So I laid it all before my dear God and appealed to Him for his mighty protection for my soul, so that demons and false philosophies would not deceive me as I made the final decision. All the evidence seemed to be leaning in Catholicism’s favor, but the Lord has always led me in my spiritual journey, both as a Protestant and as a Catholic, and I was afraid to make the decision my own human brain. I wanted the Lord’s ultimate answer on the quest I was taking.
So I appealed to God for the protection of Christ’s blood and prayed that it would cover me, and I prayed against all evil forces, and I said that I would believe God as he answered me. He has always protected me when I appeal for his direct protection from evil forces in this way, and I trusted after finishing that prayer engagement that the answer I received would be His. If he told me Catholicism was false and I was being led astray, I would believe Him, and if he told me Protestantism was false and leading me astray in its differences from Catholicism, I would believe Him. I laid my soul out completely at the feet of my sovereign and prayed, “You make the decision.”
Then I went on a prayer walk, alone, listening for his answer.
I walked halfway around my block, when, as I glanced up down the street, my eyes caught on a Stop sign and I felt the Lord telling me in my heart, “STOP.” So I stopped walking instantly, right where he had told me to stop.
I glanced around me. I saw a tree standing alone in the middle of their garden, and to me it represented the one Church of Christ. The plant arrangement around it likewise had spiritual significance leaning toward Catholicism, I thought, yet I said to myself after a little while, "This could easily be coincidence and my own interpretation pushing in here. There are all kinds of plant arrangements around the block. I’d need something much more solid to show me.
“Lord, I’ll need a much clearer sign than that.”
The very second after I prayed that, my eyes fell upon something else. There was a white statue of the Virgin Mary with her hands open in blessing, right in front of the house. It was the only house in my block with a statue of the Virgin Mary, clearly Catholic, and I had “coincidentally” stopped right in front of it. God had told me to stop there for a reason.
I’m finishing relating my Virgin Mary experiences in the next post . . .
) and he gives me strength to defeat temptation.
. I have the Eucharist, my Sacred Heart of Jesus. So of course it has changed my life completely