In late January of 2004, I was 16 years old and had reached an all-time low in my life. My teenage years were a time of rebellion, angst, and spiraling out of control, and after a very messy breakup from an anything but healthy relationship, myself longing to escape from my surroundings to be “anywhere but here”. The opportunity arose for me to accompany my parish confirmation class to a retreat. I had attended the same retreat the year before, and thought it’d be a good opportunity to get away from home for a couple days while also logging in some  community service hours for my college applications. After living so many years in darkness, it had been a very long time since I had truly confessed my sins, and while hearing the testimony of one of the friars, he repeated over and over, ‘confess and be free’. Encouraged by his words, I decided to go to confession. When I sat down to confess my sins, I immediately started to cry. The old priest, calm as could be, asked, “What’s wrong?”. “I just don’t even know where to start,” I replied. He then began to sing the sesame street song, “if you don’t know where to start, start from the beginning.” His joy and tranquility helped me open my heart, and I then let it all out. All of the terrible decisions and shameful sins I had committed in the past couple of years, the anger, the sadness, the heartbreak… everything. After remaining in silence for a while, he looked me in my tearfilled eyes and said, “You have no idea how much God loves you.” At that moment, I started to cry even more.
No longer from sadness or shame, but more out of shock…Surely I was expecting this priest to assign me a penance of 50 rosaries and tell me what a terrible daughter I was….and instead he tells me that God loves me beyond any fathoming of my mind…
I remember leaving confession, still crying, and running to the kitchen of the gym where the retreat was being held, sitting on the floor and breaking down even more. On the other side of the kitchen was sitting the friar who had been giving his testimony, who came over to me and asked if I was okay. “Do I look like I’m okay?!” I replied. After that he let me be and continue one with whatever was happening inside of me at that moment. In retrospect, I now know that my crying was a result of my first experience of the mercy of God and not knowing how to process it. But that first experience opened my heart to God…and prepared me for what was to come.
After that confession, my heart continued to open more and more. In prayer, during praise and worship, and in quite times kneeling at the burning bush and staring at the Blessed Sacrament trying to figure out what was going on. The time for the Eucharistic healing procession finally arrived that night, and since I had attended the retreat the previous year, I knew what it was all about. This time, however, I was coming with an open heart…
Before the procession started, the bible verse about the hemorrhaging woman was read. “Courage, daughter, your faith has saved you (Matthew 9:22)” Jesus says to her. Courage, daughter…
In that moment, I prayed what I consider the most honest prayer of my life… “Jesus, if you are real, SHOW ME.” As the deacon came closer to me with the Blessed Sacrament, I remember continuing to repeat that prayer in my heart. The Lord finally arrived in front of me, I grabbed his cloak, kissed it, and immediately was overcome with tears and semiprostrated myself on the ground. I don’t know what happened… to this day I cannot explain it…. all I know is that in that moment, my soul cried out, “MY LORD, MY GOD” and suddenly everything made sense. I was overcome with a great sense or repentance, and came to realize that HE was all I had been searching for the whole time I was out of control. That emptiness in my heart, that cry in my soul… it could only be filled and answered by Him.
I left that retreat with the conviction that I wanted to be a different person and that I wanted to follow Him. There were SO MANY obstacles in my way after leaving that retreat – I have fallen countless times, yet Christ has been there with His wounded hand reaching out to me to lift me back up and carry me when I cannot go on anymore. Seven years havepassed since that initial experience, and I have been a missionary for the past 2 ½ years in Honduras, working with the same group of friars and am part of the team that helps put on the exact same retreat here in Central America. God’s mercy is boundless…and I know that from having Him move in my life in such marvelous ways. Reflecting upon all ofthe wonders He has done in and for me, I cannot help but echo the words of the Blessed Mother’s magnificat
“The almighty has done great things for me, and holy is His name.”