The many faces of our Mother Mary
and how she has guided my life and
spiritual journey since I was four years old.
• My first encounter with her was in my backyard as a child. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph came to where I was playing in the sand. They stood before me, Jesus as a small child, with Mary and Joseph on either side of them. There were no words but the beauty of a child smiling at the Holy family with pure love. I went out to play the following day expecting them to be there but was met by a big black snake. I ran in the house crying and screaming, ” the snake has taken my Holy Family.” My father took me by the hand and went to the sand pile with me but all was gone. No snake, no Holy Family.
• My next encounter with our Holy Mother was “Our Lady of Fatima”, at the Fatima Shrine in Holliston, Massachusetts. My husband was transferred from Springfield, Massachusetts to Cambridge, Massachusetts in March of 1986 just as our third son Daniel was arriving to the world.
Ten days after Danny was born, we were in a car in the eastern part of Massachusetts looking for a home. I kept hearing the town of Holliston in my head but knew we had to exhaust other options closer to Cambridge first. As the day wore on it became obvious that we needed to head towards Holliston. Yes, there was one house newly constructed that was being sold by the builder. The market was so good at the time he wouldn’t work with realtors so we drove by the house, took the number off the sign and went to the pay phone in front of Russel’s supermarket to call the builder. I was very direct, “Margaret Munck I would like to buy the house on Rolling Meadow drive, where can we sign the papers”? I have to show you the house he said and I say no need I have to get back to my family in Springfield. He insisted so we waited and as God would have it the builder went to school with my husband. Several weeks later we were together again in our home in Holliston, just a few miles from the Fatima Shrine with lots of Masses and plenty of priests. We were going to the Baptist church as a family, but I was being called back into the Catholic Church. I was very reluctant as we both had short marriages in our early twenties, and I didn’t want to go through the annulment process. The hound of Heaven kept coming to my door and I kept saying no thank you.
I actually put God to the test by saying, “you have to tell me one more time”. And so he did! I was taking Danny for a stroll when a car passed me with a sticker on the back that read something about ACTS——–. Oh no this is not good. I chased her car and found that she was moving just down the street. She is a Catholic Charismatic, who does inner healing with a group of other people. The Charismatic Masses are just up the street at the Fatima Shrine.
THIS IS MY BLOOD GIVEN FOR YOU
The following morning, I went to my first Catholic Mass in many years at St. Mary’s in Holliston. I did go to communion. I went up to the altar to receive the Host and then the precious Blood. As I held the chalice, time stood still, I saw the head of Christ with the crown of thorns come up to me out of the chalice and say, “This is my blood given for you”.
We resided in Holliston for about twenty-two years. The family grew from three boys to five boys. Bill and I got our annulments, he became a catholic and we were married in the Catholic Church at St Mary’s. I was in spiritual direction for 5 years with a priest from Mexico who was residing at the shrine. Many more stories about the Shrine of our Lady of Fatima.
Our Lady of Guadalupe
• As I was in spiritual direction and the family became obviously dedicated to the Catholic way of life my family of origin moved further away. To the point that when I had my fourth son Brian baptized my own mother would not attend as I was becoming too Catholic. It was awful. I had a big party after and invited the entire family. Everyone was there but my mother. Through a rainforest of tears, I looked at the picture of Our Lady of Guadalupe and heard her words to Juan Diego, “Am I not her who am you mother, is there anything else that you should want”.
The Holy Mother of Guadalupe saved my life that day and every day since. As time went on the entire family of origin just slipped away.
Our next encounter with Our Mother was with Our Lady Queen of Peace in Medjugorje.
• In 1988 we began our return to Catholicism at St. Mary’s in Holliston Massachusetts. My husband Bill went through RCIA in 1988 and was confirmed in the Roman Catholic faith in the spring of 1989. In the fall, of 1989 we went to Europe on an all expenses paid trip to Paris and ending in a little village in Bosnia, Yugoslavia. We joined a pilgrimage from Swansea, Massachusetts having made plans to meet them in Medjugorje. Total change from the luxury of Paris. We boarded a Communist flight where people were drinking and smoking even before the plane took off. I sat next to Bill praying for someone who wasn’t a huge burly man to sit next to me, thank you Mother, a beautiful young lady sat beside me. I was wearing a medal of The Mother of Medjugorje given to me by a previous friend and pilgrim. I heard a whisper, give her your medal. I just gave it to her which sparked a conversation that took us right back to Holliston. This young woman was on her way to Kuwait from her family home in Colombia. She was to meet her fiance and marry there. Now for the kicker, she had spent the summer in a little village outside of Boston, yes Holliston. Massachusetts. Her cousins had a big family wedding and many of them spent a good part of the summer at the house of the aunt and uncle in Holliston.
Medjugorje was very raw in 1989, no hotels just farmhouses that had been converted for sleeping and eating. Shocking for an American who ran hotels in America. At our first dinner I sat next to a priest who I had never seen in my life. I told him we had just joined the church, but that I had my second son baptized in a church in Baldwin. Missouri in 1982 and couldn’t find the records or remember the name of the church. Of course, he was from a church in Baldwin, Missouri, within a week of our getting home I had Greg’s Baptism records.
When Bill went through RCIA it was not required to go to confession before receiving the Holy Eucharist. I had a private prayer I had been saying for him as he went through the process of becoming a Catholic. “A cross in my pocket”. At our second Mass there were about 30 priests. As many people do in Medjugorje, Bill decided to make his first confession. He walked up to a priest and asked for his card. As a businessman I guess he was just making sure he was a priest. The card was rather large and in it was the poem, “A cross in my pocket”. He was from Nebraska. Yup Mother strikes again.
So much more to this short but grace filled time. My rosary beads that belonged to my grandmother turned gold. We could stare at the sun as if it was being blocked by a host. The picture I took explains what we saw.
• While living in Holliston and working as a volunteer at Our Lady of Fatima Shrine, a man by the name of Big Jim came and took over one of the offices. He came there to promote the ” World Mission Rosary.” I put together a group of young students from the area whose mothers brought their children to the shrine. We formed, ” St Theresa of the Child Jesus Rosary Prayer Group.” We met after school on Thursday. We set up a place for the children and mothers to make World Mission rosaries. We then went into the chapel and prayed the rosary, followed by all holding hands around the altar and praying the novena prayer to The Little Flower.
“St. Theresa of the Child Jesus, please pick me a rose from the heavenly garden and send it to me with a message of love, ask God to grant me the favor I the implore and tell him I will love him each day more and more.”
My third son Danny and I went through a terrible delivery experience and as a result he was born with learning disabilities. At the age of six we had extensive testing done. He was still not talking, although we communicated pretty well. Sometimes he would get so frustrated he would just sit and rock. The result was that we should have a genetic work up and never have more children, according to the doctor who conducted the testing. We went on to have two more boys. Holliston had a very good special education program so we proceeded to enroll him in public school.
One Thursday at the children’s prayer group it was Dan’s turn to lead the rosary. He sat very close to me and I would lead the prayers for him. Well, our Holy Mother and St. Theresa had another plan. Dan began to lead the rosary with perfect diction. Our Father, ten Hail Mary’s and a Glory be to the Father. You could hear a pin drop in the chapel. Dan was given his voice. After this we found a very good private school and Dan was wrapped in the mantle of Mary and still is. He is almost forty and one of the most wonderful people I have ever had the privilege to know. He lives with us in North Carolina, drives a truck, has two jobs and plans to take care of us until we die. He is a prayer warrior and has been given the gift of wisdom. It is such a pleasure to be in a home where you are greeted every morning by a young man who knows how to spread love and blessings wherever he goes. When I think of him the scripture passage that best describes him is,
“My Yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” Matthew 11: 28-30.
• Our Lady of Grace has been a very important partner in raising my family. Unless you have done it, it is impossible to understand how nearly impossible it is to raise five nice young men in the society as we know it over the past thirty or so years. Of course, the Mother of God and her son know everything and provide the grace for what seems like an impossible task.
Over the years I have had several close prayer partners. When I was pregnant with son # five (Justin). I was praying with my friend Paula. We had prayed together once a week either in church or at home for possibly ten years. While at prayer Our Lady of Grace appeared to me and infused me through the palms of my hands with Maternal Love. I was happy to be pregnant and had no idea why this happened but as time went on and our world kept spinning in a direction very contrary to the way we raised our sons I realized it would take much more than the maternal love and strength in my heart to launch these boys into men.
Justin is now thirty years old, and I am finally able to sleep at night. Suffering, praying, and offering everything for the salvation of souls has taken me from forty-four to seventy-four. A mother’s heart breaks day in and day out for her children. I have been told that there is a God given eternal connection between a mother and her sons, I do believe this is true. Without the grace of Maternal love given by such a generous Mother as Mary I for one would not have been able to endure all that was spread before me.
It would seem impossible but as a Carmelite we pray for the grace of detachment. The gift is given in God’s time not ours. The boys have a long way to go but I am finally at peace. I have great friends who take on praying for the family with me, as I pray for them. God is very, very good.
Margaret Alice of souls for Jesus Munck OCDS
