Discovering new ways God was speaking to me . . . .

We began to go to other healing Masses in our area and elsewhere. I craved the peace they gave to us. I needed to know the date of the next one that was coming up, so I had something uplifting to anticipate.  Sometimes after a service, Caitlyn would act as if she’d been given a shot of adrenaline. It was amazing to both of us and also to the professionals that worked with Catie. What oftentimes happened was that she would be super alert and energized immediately after being blessed.  Then over the next several days it would gradually diminish.  Mark and I were learning so much from speaking with other people we were meeting.  They told us remarkable testimonies of their healings and how God had worked in their lives and changed both them and oftentimes their circumstances. Most of the services were led by priests, but also nuns and lay people. Some of the priests were great teachers and preachers, as well as, healers. I couldn’t get enough.

I was also buying books and tapes by the carload. One subject that intrigued me was how the Lord might speak to someone in their dreams. Dreams had always fascinated me. In fact, way back in tenth grade, I did my first talk in Speech class on dreams. After attending several healing services, I had a powerful dream that more or less showed me clearly what God had been doing in my life.

The dream began with me sitting in the backseat (without a seatbelt) of a large black sedan driven by a hitman. It was nighttime and I was being flung all over the seat and floor as the car careened down streets, around corners, and up and down hills. Finally, the car stopped by a restaurant.  Gangsters surrounded the car brandishing guns. It was the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre (I had found out I was expecting Catie on Valentine’s Day.) I interpreted it to mean that my life had seemed dark and hopeless since the day of her frightening birth. We had all been robbed, especially Catie.  The normalcy of both Cate’s life and the rest of our family had been murdered, and there were dark and destructive forces shoving me around.  Threatening me.

Then the scene changed and I found myself sitting on a chair in the recreation (re-creation) room of a prison watching a movie on a large white screen.  There was a projector above me that was shining light into the room and putting forth bright images. Everything in the dream was gray except the screen and the light. My take on this was that as I learned more about God and got to know Him in a deeper way, I was being slowly restored (re-created).  Life still seemed bleak, and although still imprisoned in fear, I was looking at my life, and life in general, from a new vantage point.

The scene changed a third time. Now I was a man dressed in camouflage, strapped in a wheelchair that was plunging down the quad area of Oneonta State (where I had attended for two years). The entire area (which was in reality all concrete) was a raging rapid, but not frightening, more like an adventurous water slide. People were trying to get in front of me to stop me, but I was waving my arms wildly to push them out of my way forward. The sun was shining. The skies were blue. I was wounded, but still fighting, and being led forward by healing waters, into the light.

I found this all so beautiful. God was speaking to me in my dreams, in rich, poetic images that were so personal, specific and full of depth in their meaning. The crime of the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre (Catie’s traumatic birth) had brought me from utter darkness to a kind of prison. But through the grace of God I had now been given hope and a whole  new perspective on things. The power of the Spirit had freed me and brought me into the light, even though I was still deeply wounded, and unable to move forward on my own, I had found a path filled with healing.

We went to more of Father DiOrio’s services in Worcester. He was also coming to Albany, N. Y. to the “Egg” at our Empire State Plaza several times a year. At our third service, Father said to me “Isn’t she better yet?” I responded “She’s doing pretty well, but still has problems.” We left that day with a flyer containing all the information about Father’s August pilgrimage to Lourdes, France. I wanted to go. Mark was skeptical that we’d be able to swing it financially, but I insisted we should pray about it, and try to make it come together. Money was extremely tight with my unexpected (and forced) decision to leave my job and concentrate on the needs of Catie and the rest of us. Then there was also the question of who would watch our boys for the week.

With each service and blessing by Father we all felt more faith-filled and just generally better. I would still sob deeply each and every time I rested in the Spirit, but I was being healed of so much bottled up fear and pain.

The morning after this particular healing service in Worcester (where I had picked up the pilgrimage flyer), I was full of joy from the blessing I had received the previous day.  It was the most light-hearted I’d been in months. The kids were in the family room watching cartoons and playing quietly and I was cleaning up the kitchen table after breakfast. While wiping up milk and Cheerios from the end of the table, standing near the basement door, I suddenly heard a voice.  It was out loud, but within my head.  “Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted.”  That was it.  Clear.  Audible only to me.

I set the dish cloth down on the table and stood there stunned. Instantly, I knew that the “blessing” was that I had to turn to God completely because there was no one, no surgery, no medication, no therapy that could truly help either Caitlyn or the rest of us. I went to the phone and called Carol, the woman who had organized the first bus trip.
“Carol, guess what I just “thought” of?” I knew I hadn’t “thought” of it, but I also didn’t know quite how to characterize what I’d experienced. I told Carol exactly what had happened.
“That’s beautiful Pat!”  I remember thinking “Yeah . . . . what was it?”
All day I pondered what had occurred. I knew something unusual and important had happened but I hadn’t a clue as to exactly what it was. Well . . .. the very next day, while reading one of my many new books, I came across the term “inner locution”.  It’s meaning is defined as something like this:
“An interior locution is a mystical concept used by various religions. An interior locution is a form of private revelation, but is distinct from an apparition, or religious vision. An interior locution may be defined as “A supernatural communication to the ear, imagination, or directly to the intellect.”
That was it! I had experienced an “inner locution”. I heard an interior voice aloud within me and I was given the meaning of what it was I was receiving. Wow!! All these months I’d been yelling out “Why this?” “Why that? “What’s the point? “God was speaking to me in so many ways. He was communicating through scripture, other people, books and tapes, dreams, charisms, and now through an “inner locution”. It was as if I was given both new eye glasses and the ability to comprehend new languages.  Life was coming into  sharper focus.  The veil between heaven and earth would sometimes give me a peek.  It meant everything.  These experiences told me that there was meaning and purpose in the events that were unfolding.  God was and is so good.

We did the math and we could afford for one of us to go to Lourdes with Catie (She was almost free!). That idea was not even conceivable to either of us. It would be too much to physically and emotionally handle Cate and everything else alone. Besides, we both felt it should be shared by us as a couple, as parents. We stepped out in faith and paid a deposit, hoping and praying for the money we lacked. I told my Mom we were thinking of going.  She said she’d watch the boys.

Next thing we knew, my Aunt Julie and Uncle Al were throwing a large family picnic for us at their home in Poughkeepsie. Many of my aunts and uncles, and cousins were there. (I come from a large family. My mother was one of six.  I have five siblings and there were thirty grandchildren on this side of the family too.) We were moved by the outpouring of support and generosity to us. We now had more than enough to go on pilgrimage that August. Wow!  We were thrilled.
Back then New York City was crime ridden. If you left your car in a parking lot for even a few hours, much less a week, there was a good chance it would be “stripped”. My youngest brother Danny was working in NYC and he said “Look, I’ll drive you to JFK in your car and bring it back to Mom and Dad’s so it’s safe.” We agreed.
When the big day arrived, we all piled into our little Dodge Aries wagon. Dan left us off at the airport and headed home. After driving several miles, the car began to overheat. Danny abruptly pulled to the side of the road on an exit ramp off of a nearby expressway in a famously dangerous neighborhood close to the airport. He says “I was ready to kill you guys as I’m thinking “No good deed goes unpunished!” Dan threw open the hood, and hot steam poured out furiously.

As Danny tells it, “Before I could even swear about you two leaving me stranded with a dead car, I glanced off to the side, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw a gallon jug of water.  A JUG of WATER just sitting there!” Dan described it as “Doot, doot, doot, doot . . .. doot . . . . ” – like he had entered the “Twilight Zone”. He poured the water in the radiator and made it safely back home.

“Was it Lourdes water, Danny?!”

“I believe it was.”