I did a 54-day Irresistible Novena, maybe a little more than a year ago from when I write this.
My life has changed so much since then!!! For the better! It would be almost impossible to describe to you the innumerable graces I've received and how much my life has changed like never before, but I guess I will sum it up with this: God is the living God, and you really know that when you pray the rosary, because of how He actively changes your life. It's like He breathes life into your life! And your life can grow and change like it never has before! It's so amazing! It's so amazing that I wish everyone prayed the rosary and had their Mama to flee to with their problems.
I'll tell you the specific grace I asked for with the novena and how it was answered, although it almost doesn't compare to the graces I've received that I didn't ask for -- the graces that are the fruits of the rosary, and the sweet care of God and His Mother.
I asked to go to school again. I didn't have any plans and my life was a complete mess - both inside and out (I could go on and on for pages about how messed up it was), but I had always wanted to go to animation school, since I was very little. There was no way, for so many reasons, that I could go - financially, my parents, my own personal life and emotional problems - it would take a miracle to be able to go to school. It would, actually, take a couple buckets full of miracles for me to go to school. So I asked Mary.
I had to pray for 54 days, which was, at first, very, very difficult. (I look back on it now as being amazing that it was ever so difficult. It would be much more difficult for me not to pray now than to continue praying...) Spiritually, I really didn't know as much or have as much spiritual strength as I did a year ago -- since then, I've learned so much, and so many prayers, and gotten so closer to God, that it isn't possible to describe to someone who hasn't traveled the same path (the path being, one who prays the rosary). It would have been ridiculous, a year ago, to try to tell me the mercies of God, because I just don't think I would have believed it, or comprehended it, and His mercies are something I can delight in all the time, through the good and bad.
At the time I was trying to get into school somehow, I was working at a job that I absolutely hated, but it actually turned out to be good for me because I got a lot closer to God through my trials and pain at the job. I learned to trust so much more in the Hand of God. I don't think the "door to grace," so to speak, would have been open for me to gain something from my suffering if I hadn't prayed the rosary.
Physically (temporally?), I got medicine for my physiological problems, and we just "somehow" found a way to make the money work... (Bless Mary!) My parents "coincidently" had a sudden change of heart about me going to school and we also suddenly had a closer, better relationship (that continues to grow and get better all the time). I suddenly "found myself" with a new set of friends who were encouraging and very nice to me, and were a big help in me getting over some problems I had with a bad sense of self-respect (it's hard to try to go to school when you don't respect yourself -- it's hard to do anything when you don't respect yourself; but not "self-love", just a healthy sense of self respect). I found a beautiful school with really high credential about 30 minutes from my house that I didn't know about. The first school I applied to rejected my portfolio (low admissions rate - only 6% were admitted) but the school close to my house that also had good credentials LOVED my portfolio and gave it one of the highest ratings for a portfolio that the admissions rep had ever seen.
BEST OF ALL, I was scheduled to go down and register for classes before I was supposed to
start school on my 21st birthday!!! It was so exciting to register for classes on my birthday
because it was my life dream! And it was a life dream that God and His Mother practically just
handed to me! It all went so smoothly!
start school on my 21st birthday!!! It was so exciting to register for classes on my birthday
because it was my life dream! And it was a life dream that God and His Mother practically just
handed to me! It all went so smoothly!
My birthday is on December 10th, and I registered Dec 10th 2008. That was the one day in December that it snowed where I live (I live in Houston - if you don't believe me, you can check the weather reports ^_^ ).
That night, my dad gave me a pillow that had a picture of Our Lady of Guadelupe on it as a birthday gift to me -- and he didn't know that I prayed an Irresistible Novena to get into school!!! It was definitely the Hand of God. I also found out that the feast of Our Lady of Guadelupe is on December 12th, which neither my dad nor I had known until the day of the feast!! It was all so, so exciting!! And so mind-blowing!
The blessed Virgin has not abandoned me a single step of the way while I've been in school, either! I always turn to her for help with projects and my grades and getting my homework done.
God's gifts that He will give to those who pray the rosary are truly unfathomable!
Bless your efforts to get more people to pray the rosary, especially the scriptural rosary!
- Claire
2 comments:
This gives me great hope. I am waiting for a sign - any sign - that my 54-day novena and daily scriptural rosaries have been heard. I have been questioning the effectiveness but your story gives me hope that I haven't prayed in vain.
Thank you!
I did indeed finish my 54-day rosary novena for an intention I believed had little hope of being resolved. Within days, our daughter's burden lightened and although my petition was not answered as requested, she IS on her way to recovery and the path is well-lit now. ("Sometimes God's greatest gift is the unanswered prayer.") I began my second 54-day rosary not for petition, but rather out of gratitude for my daughter's sake, and guilt that my faith wasn't strong enough at first. I am still in awe that we had such a speedy result. It truly is a powerful novena.
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