I am a Catholic woman, living with my husband John and our three children in the Archdiocese of NY. Currently, I am pursuing a Masters in Theology with a concentration in Sacred Scripture from the Augustine Institute. I hope to complete the degree in Spring 2025.
John and I will celebrate our 19th anniversary in 2024. We met in college, but began dating a couple years after graduation. We settled in the Hudson Valley but are both native New Yorkers. Two years ago we began homeschooling our children (ages 13, 11, and 8) which has been a tremendous blessing to our family.
As a cradle Catholic, I spent most of my years trying to fill the God-sized hole in my heart with everything but God, until His Grace broke it open.
I was baptized as an infant, and received all my sacraments as a child. I attended Catholic school from grade 7 onward. I learned about our religion but I always sensed something was missing and often felt “empty.” I didn’t understand that it was because I was missing a relationship with God. So I spent a lot of years trying to fill that emptiness with achievements, awards, relationships, anything really. But ever so slowly, God was drawing me near to Him.
It is true that a soul can frustrate God’s action and place barriers of stiff resistance to God’s interventions, but no one has the power to terminate God’s pursuit…The desires of God for a soul remain hidden from sight. He may be drawing someone to himself long before that soul becomes aware of it.
Conversion, Father Donald Haggerty
Slowly and gently through grace, he placed small little cracks in my hardened heart. And then one day, He finally broke it fully open. Some people call it their “Come to Jesus” moment, but I can safely say that it wasn’t just one moment for me, but lots and lots of them, culminating in a point of no return.
By sharing my personal stories, I hope to inspire others to discover that there is something greater for all of us than the world tells us.
A missionary impulse enters into our soul in undergoing a conversion. We want the truth of God’s mercy to be known, the taste of his presence to pierce others…The world shines in a luminous appearance once the truth of a personal God and his mercy becomes undeniably evident to our soul.
Conversion, Father Donald Haggerty
Jesus is waiting to transform our hearts.