I’m Catholic because of the Blessed Mother and her quiet, inner education of my heart.
I was born and raised Catholic by my wonderful parents. From kindergarten through eighth grade, I attended monthly Schoenstatt meetings where I learned about virtue and the Blessed Mother. Through that formation, I grew accustomed to the idea of striving for holiness, and I learned that Mary was to be my role model and my educator.
I was about 13 when I realized that I needed to choose my faith for myself, not because it’s what my parents raised me to do. During that time, I remember being struck in my religion classes by the fact that I needed to pray in order to go to heaven. I knew that that sort of praying wasn’t just about saying some rote prayers, so I started searching for the real meaning of prayer. I kept asking, “What is prayer?” I asked that question as I searched my textbooks and tried to figure it out from the definitions I read, but I was never satisfied with the answers I found. It was a deeply personal question, and my pride and sensitive heart wouldn’t let me ask it out loud.
In high school, I started going to youth group at my parish, and I was still silently asking that question. Those four years were a time of deep inner searching and radically turning over my life to God. I started to try different methods of prayer, trying to find the answer to that burning question. I’d regularly stay up late into the night with a flashlight reading the Bible and journaling. My oldest sister had an adoration hour right before youth group would meet, and so I’d go with her each week and spend an hour reading the Bible in front of the Blessed Sacrament, looking for the elusive answer to my question.
A pivotal moment came when I was 16. I made a special consecration to the Blessed Mother called the Covenant of Love: I gave her my heart, and she gave me hers in return. I didn’t realize it then, but that began a journey of profound inner transformation. I gradually started to discover the answer to my burning question: Prayer is a conversation with God, who loves me. The styles and words are just there to facilitate communion with him.
On Aug. 15, 2020, I deepened my covenant by giving the Blessed Mother my blank check: My life is hers, and she can ask whatever she wants of me. In return, she promises to give me everything that I need to answer her requests.
And she has taken my offering very seriously. After I graduated college a year later, she called me to spend an entire year with the Schoenstatt Sisters in Waukesha, Wisconsin, as a year of mission. Then, when I moved home, my mission was to care for my sisters and their children as they adjusted to new additions to their families. And most recently, the Blessed Mother has placed me in the pro-life movement, at Human Life Alliance, to work for her most vulnerable children. Through all these adventures, she has been teaching me how to pray and draw ever closer to her Son.
Fink, 26, is the sixth of eight children and is a member of St. Charles Borromeo in St. Anthony. She can usually be spotted with at least one of her 15 “niblings” (nieces and nephews). She enjoys reading, chatting with her small group, road trips to visit friends and experimenting with candle making. And tea!
