Conversion Of A Future Priest
I had a conversion experience on May 13, 1987.
"It took place through a miraculous medal of Our Lady in a jewelry store. Suddenly all the jewelry disappeared form my sight in the window display and all that was left was this miraculous medal.
A mystical experience, one might say. Inspired and compelled to buy it, I began to wearing it. As a result, it changed my life which ultimately led to my entrance into the priesthood.
After this event, I had profound awareness that I had to pray the Rosary everyday, wear the brown scapular and consecrate myself to Our Lady. The more I prayed to Her the more She took me to Her son Jesus Christ and His Catholic Church. The motto I have taken for my priesthood is: "Omnes cum Petro ad Jesus per Miriam, which means: All with Peter in Jesus through Mary.
Mary's role is to bear Jesus to us and us to Jesus. His role is to bear us to the Father, for He said: "I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me." (John 14:6).
My prayer life consists of the daily celebration of the Mass. Again, upon this extraordinary experience back in 1987, I was given an infused understanding of the Sacrificial and Sacramental nature of the Mass. I also pray the Divine Office of the Church, a Holy Hour, three Rosaries in keeping with Our Lady's maternal request at Fatima and the Divine Mercy Chaplet every day.
Through Divine Providence, I met Mother Teresa in Ireland. She singled me out in a vast crowd, embraced me and promised to pray that I become a holy priest. I was graced to have a conversation with her. She took my hand and placed in it a miraculous medal which subsequently I gave to my mother. As for myself, I am assured of a powerful intercessor in Mother Teresa of Calcutta.
I have also been blessed with a wonderful family who reside in Dublin. My brother Barry is of saintly stock as he has a mental handicap.
I remember one midnight I was leaving to make a Holy Hour in the local Church, when suddenly I heard a voice telling me to go back into the house. I then decided to make a spiritual hour at home before an image of Our Lady.
During that hour I was inspired to go upstairs to get a book from my room. As I was going into my room I heard another voice audibly telling me to go into Barry's room to have a look at him. There, I fond him in bed with a cigarette lighter in his hand and the whole top bunk blazing on fire above him. I believe that God brought me back to the house that night to save him and perhaps my whole family.
Faith is a beautiful gift, the pearl of great price. It is a pearl that Our Lady so graciously obtained for me through Her intercession and a pearl worth giving everything up for, even one's own life. I believe the great crisis of faith today is due to a crisis of prayer. One has to pray.
Please pray for all priests that we may become holy priests!"
Source: Father R. Murphy