We describe our life now in two parts: Before Christ and After Jesus.
The ‘BC years’ might be lamented as wasted time, but the Church does not see it this way. All the years and circumstances of our life serve as steps in our journey to sanctify and make us worthy of God’s Kingdom.
For your encouragement in this Jubilee Year of Hope, we will share excerpts from Deacon Tom and Mary Jane’s story. May it serve as a companion of hope on your life’s journey...
1978 - 1981
Deacon Tom: I met Mary Jane the first day of my hotel career. I had just completed hotel management training, and took a job as general manager of a hotel in San Antonio.
Mary Jane: When Tom and I met, I was working my way through college. My father was retired military, and our family traveled the world with him. I inherited my father’s adventurous spirit, and this life of travel only whetted my appetite for more. I chose the hospitality business as the way to live my dream.
Deacon Tom: We married in 1978 at Holy Spirit Catholic Church. Our identity was certainly Catholic, but our practice of it consisted of weekly Mass attendance and nothing more. Our plan, like most young married couples, was to own a home and fill it with children.
Mary Jane: Shortly after we married, I began to experience pain. A visit to the doctor resulted in the diagnosis of endometriosis. The doctor told Tom and me that even with surgery, there was little chance we would have children. After surgery, the pain only got worse. Tumors the size of grapefruits formed on my uterus. I began to despair as I missed many days of work due to acute pain. Our bright plans for the future dimmed. Anger at this perceived injustice took root and I directed my pain, both physical and emotional, towards my husband, family, friends, co-workers, store clerks, and anyone else in my path. I had thought I could do anything I put my mind to; losing control of my plans made me angry at the world and I doubted God’s love for me.
Deacon Tom: It is very difficult for a man not to act when he sees a problem. It is in the nature of a man to protect and care for his wife. There are times when God needs us to wait and needs us to watch with Him. It takes strength and courage for this type of patience, and had I been a man of prayer, I would have found comfort in this consolation. Interesting, it was around this time that someone asked me if Jesus was Lord of my life. Now I can see that this question began an awakening in me, but up until then I had not allowed God a place in my life. I felt inadequate, incompetent, and powerless to help Mary Jane. We still very much loved each other and continued as best we could, but a shadow now hung over our lives.
Mary Jane: At the end of 1981, I was fed up. I made a New Year’s resolution to discover God and seek His help.
Deacon Tom: It was only a few days later, on January 2nd, that a healing priest from Boston came to our parish. I told Mary Jane we should go, and she said, “Sure, why not?”
Mary Jane: What we did not know was that it was a Charismatic service. We were not prepared, and when I saw people around me being ‘slain in the Spirit,’ I told Tom, “You better grab me! I don’t want to fall.” When the priest came to me, I remember him looking at me and putting his hand on my head. I did not fall, but I do remember leaving feeling really good. That was our first experience with anything like that, and it made me curious.
Deacon Tom: Though we were not conscious of God’s action during this time, Mary Jane and I can see now how He has been with us all along. He had always been knocking on the doors of our lives, but it was not until Mary Jane’s illness and the failure of all our human attempts to heal her that we opened the door. Often when life does not go according to our plans, we blame God or think He is just not there for us. It is the opposite. God always knocks; it is us who fail to open the doors of our heart to Him.
- In what circumstance is our Lord Jesus asking you to wait and watch with Him?
Proclaiming 2025 the Jubilee Year of Hope, Pope Francis writes,
Patience, one of the fruits of the Holy Spirit, sustains our hope and strengthens it as a virtue and a way of life. May we learn to pray frequently for the grace of patience, which is both the daughter of hope and at the same time its foundation. [...]
This interplay of hope and patience makes us see clearly the Christian life is a journey calling for moments of greater intensity to encourage and sustain hope as the constant companion that guides our steps towards the goal of our encounter with the Lord Jesus.
Next month, we will go with the Foxes on their first pilgrimage to the Holy Land.
Nan Balfour is a grateful Catholic whose greatest desire is to make our Lord Jesus more loved. She seeks to accomplish this through her vocation to womanhood, marriage, and motherhood, as a writer, Missionary of Hope, Prayer Intercessor, Speaker Team member, and Volunteer for Pilgrim Center of Hope.
Answering Christ’s call, Pilgrim Center of Hope guides people to encounter Him so as to live in hope, as pilgrims in daily life. See what’s happening & let us journey with you! Visit PilgrimCenterOfHope.org.
