Our Lady Brings a Loved One to Our Lord: An Answered Prayer [Champion Blog by Roy Rasmussen]
At the National Shrine of Our Lady of Champion, we hear many pilgrim stories about graces they received after visiting. Some graces are as subtle as a deep sense of peace, and others are as dramatic as discovering a chronic illness is suddenly gone. While these cases are not declared miracles without a long Church process, many personal encounters and graces received bear witness to the work Our Lady continues to do in Champion.
Here is one inspiring report we received from a woman who visited the Shrine. She gave us permission to share it but requested to remain anonymous. In this story, we hear how a prayer to Our Lady to help someone come to know Jesus led to sacramental graces for two people.
Our visitor wrote, "Our Lady is so kind and I have proof that she hears her children and answers their prayers! She truly is the best Mother."
"About five years ago I was entering into the Church and was getting to know a new friend," she said. "This person and I had many conversations about Jesus and the Catholic Church. I was very excited to be on my journey into the Church, but my friend couldn't understand my excitement. He would tell me over and over again, that if they can't see God, hear God, touch God, it's hard to believe He exists. He needed proof. He wanted to experience God."
Maybe you've been in this situation where someone you care about is having trouble believing in God because they haven't experienced Him personally. What do you do? Instead of relying on human arguments to prove that God exists, our pilgrim asked Our Lady for help:
"One day in February I went to The National Shrine of Our Lady of Champion and asked the Blessed Mother to help my friend know her Son," she continued. "I asked her to allow my friend to have an experience with Jesus. There was nothing remarkable about my time at The Shrine. It was just an ordinary day. I had only been there once or twice before. I prayed, lit some candles, and left."
What seemed like an ordinary day turned out to be an extraordinary, answered prayer. Our Lady wants nothing more than to bring others to Her Son, so She did exactly what our pilgrim asked, in a remarkable way.
"Not even two weeks later, I get a frantic text from my friend," our visitor continued. "We met up in person, and he told me he talked with Jesus." He went on to describe two vivid personal experiences of Jesus he had just had over the course of two days. These experiences convinced him that Jesus loved him, led him to confess his sins, and guided him on how to begin following the Lord.
What would you think if you prayed for someone and they came back and told you this? Our pilgrim was naturally skeptical at first. But the spiritual fruits that grew out of the experience convinced her that her prayer had been answered.
"I didn't believe my friend," she continued. "But what happened next shocked me. My friend changed dramatically for the better over the next weeks and months. Bad habits stopped and a life focused on Christ emerged. It was like the Lord put my friend on the runway to Heaven and they couldn't be stopped. It was absolutely incredible. My friend was truly transformed and I believed."
This was already an incredible answer to a prayer. But Our Lady wasn't done sharing her graces yet. Our Lord shares His graces through the Sacraments, so Our Lady brought both our visitor and her friend to the Sacraments of Confirmation and the Eucharist. Our Lady had one more grace to give our story its joyful conclusion:
"My friend and I are now Catholics and were married in the Catholic Church. Thanks be to God and thanks be to His perfect Mother!"
In a follow-up, our friend adds, "This Easter, God willing, my spouse and I will celebrate nearly a decade as practicing Catholics. I owe it all to Our Lady. She's the best! I've received many graces at The Shrine."
To which we can only add, "Praise be Jesus Christ!"
God blesses each of us in unique ways, so everyone's story is different. Some experiences of grace are dramatic, and some are quiet. At Mount Sinai, God spoke to Moses and the Israelites in a thundercloud and a pillar of fire and a trumpet blast, but at Mount Carmel, He spoke to Elijah in a whisper. No matter what your experience at The Shrine was like, if you have a story you'd like to share, please get in touch.