Carolyn's Story

My Daddy had come home from World War II when I was nearly two; it was July 13, 1945. He went back into the service and sometime after when I was five and a half we moved. Briefly it was to Jackson, MS and then to Memphis, TN where I turned six and seven. We then moved to Georgia for a few months, then Texas after that for a little over two years. Eventually we made it back to my hometown of Vicksburg, MS where I turned ten. I received candy while out trick-or-treating from the nuns and had hopes of saving it forever, as you can imagine that didn’t happen. Shortly after I was sitting on the steps near their home thinking to myself that one day I would become one of them, that is I would become a Catholic. I would often go and sit on the steps of St. Paul, not venturing inside until one day I did. I decided to go in and look around; I remember it well. I even had the thought that I had better leave if I wasn’t supposed to be there. 

Sometime before Christmas an F5 tornado came through and the church was in its path. I recall praying to God for safety as it passed in view of our apartment. Soon after we would follow my Daddy to the country of Holland where I had the privilege of going to Mass with a friend. I blessed myself with holy water, and I followed my friend and her sign of the cross knowing one day I would belong to Jesus. While I lived in Holland, I had the opportunity of playing the part of Ruth in the bible at the age of twelve which had meaning to me. I also watched the movie The Robe while there, and when I saw the crucifixion scene, I was touched by the sight of Jesus’s Blood. When we finally made it back to the states, I was thirteen and had the opportunity to play as Mary. How significant this role would be for me, for later on when I turned sixteen Mary would introduce herself to me again by way of a holy card.   

In my sorrow, I fell into the “mine fields” of sin. God showed His mercy and spared me, bringing me to the shores of California where we lived in sight of the Catholic Church. I would talk to Mary on that same holy card and ask her why she always looked so sad. As my memories continue to resurface, I remember how I would cry at the Passion songs of Jesus from within the Episcopal Church. Another time at a fair I won a pink plaster crucifix that I placed on my windowsill, there a friend of my mother’s saw it in my room and commented that we believe in the Resurrection. I replied, “Jesus also died for us”. 

One day after my graduation I was walking with a friend and asked her to come to my church, she insisted I come to her church, the Church of Christ. As we passed the Catholic Church, I said to my friend, “look the Catholic Church says it is the only true church and for all I know, it is.” At that moment, I felt a force drawing me in. In a years' time I met someone I would eventually marry, he was a Catholic. The priest that instructed us and later married us would become an instrumental part of my baptism. Two days before the wedding, I was brought into the church. Located above the Baptismal Font was a picture of the child Jesus. The priest was aware that I was drawn to the picture, and so he made a gesture of silence as Jesus spoke to me. From the words on the picture He spoke to my heart, “You I seek, I love you.” I would remember those words as I entered into and lived through a sorrowful marriage.   

Jesus led me to read the lives of the Saints, where they became my schoolbooks. Over and over, I would read them, and I would learn, “Thy Heart loves me with the most tender and burning love, as no other Heart can love.” For these are Mama Mary’s words for a prayer to Jesus in the book The Way of Divine Love, and through this Jesus taught me. I would write poems to Him of what I discovered, and I would learn to snuggle close to His Heart as St. Faustina did and to always be as a little child. From her Diary Quote 240, there is a prayer of thanksgiving, “Oh my Jesus, I thank You for Your Heart – it is all I need.” 

One day we will share in the most beautiful “Love of all Loves” as Jesus says in The Way of Divine Love. From the words of St. Margaret Mary, I read “Could you realize what happiness it is to love the Sacred Heart of Jesus; you would despise all else to love but It alone.”   

Sincerely, In the Heart of Jesus