I didn’t want to go to the Eucharistic Congress. Just thinking about it was exhausting: the expense, the logistics, the travel. It was Maria, our nineteen-year-old daughter, who said we should go. She was very adamant about it.
I just couldn’t imagine bringing into a crowd of 60,000 people in Lucas Oil Stadium a teenager who had, for the past two months, suffered some of the worst headaches she had ever experienced. But she seemed so sure.
“But what about the noise?” I asked Maria. “There will be 60,000 people there! You can barely eat one meal a day right now and need to spend most of the day in a dark room. What are you thinking?” Nothing I said could deter her. She was going, and that was all there was to it.
Maria had struggled with headaches off and on for eight years. She had seen many doctors through the years as we sought treatment and answers. But the headaches had grown so severe through this past May and June that I tried getting her an appointment with a new neurologist. To my dismay, there were no openings until February 2025. Her primary care doctor said we couldn’t wait that long and advised us to keep calling until I found someone with an opening.
That’s when the miracles began to happen.
I reached the clinic at Faulkner Hospital and got an appointment for July 10. We also found a new naturopath for her and booked an appointment for July 11. The Congress was going to begin on July 17! We would just about make it, if we were going to go.
Desperate, I began looking for healing Masses and found one on July 5 at the Lazarus Center for Healing, a shrine in Wakefield, Massachusetts. Maria was hesitant to go, but I begged her, “You are planning to get into the car and drive 15 hours to Indy, you can certainly go to Wakefield. We need to do this. Please do this for me.”
At that Mass, Maria was prayed over and received the Anointing of the Sick. I can say with certainty that the morning of July 5 was her last severe headache! The following week’s appointments brought a clear diagnosis and the promise of new effective treatment. For the first time, we felt like we had a plan of action.
Miraculously, we made it to the Eucharistic Congress—Maria and three of her friends, my husband, and I.
I share this story to proclaim the goodness of a God who sees us, who knows our joys and sorrows, and who loves us more than we can imagine. I was absolutely sure we were not going to Indianapolis this July, but Maria was so sure, and it was God who made the way.
At the Congress, we were surrounded by throngs of people, loud noises, flashing lights, and all—everything we had avoided for eight years! My husband and I just looked at each other. How could it be, we asked ourselves, that Maria was up near the stage praising God with her friends, singing with Matt Maher, attending all the sessions, walking in the sun and heat, and having no headaches on any of those days? Not only did she and her friends thoroughly enjoy the Eucharistic Congress, but I can say that without a doubt we were all changed by it. It was truly miraculous and amazing.
A few weeks after we got back, Maria approached me with another surprise. “Oh, by the way, when we were at the Congress,” she said, “I talked to someone from Spiritus Ministries. I think I am going to apply to be a missionary.”
“What?!” my husband and I said. After the overflowing of grace we had witnessed in Indianapolis, we were somewhat shocked but not totally surprised. Maria had to gather references and a resume and complete her application, and on August 13 she was accepted. Six days later, she flew to Wisconsin.
It’s been three months since Maria joined the Spiritus Missionaries, and she loves it. She has learned so much and placed herself in God’s hands. Maria told me one day that she knows that it is only by God’s grace that she is there, and that, so far, she is headache-free!
What an unexpected and quite miraculous journey these seven months have been! If someone had told me in May what this summer would bring, I would have said it was impossible. Yet we know, truly, that with God all things are possible.
