This letter is via email.

Dear Father,

When I was 17, I began to suffer from depression and emotional upheaval at my beginning awareness that my father and my brother had sexually abused me.

Although I begged my parents to send me to counseling, they refused. During that time, a wonderful teacher of mine made me promise that as soon as I went away to college, I would seek counseling in order to heal from these wounds. I promised I would, but I was terrified that I would not be able to go through with it.

The night before I left for college, I went to my parish church to pray. I had been baptized in that particular church and gone to Mass there all of my life. For the first time in my life, I chose to pray for Mary’s help in strengthening me and helping me keep my promise.

I went away to college the next day. In my first week at college, I met a priest at a campus ministry event. I told him about the episodes of my abuse. He knew a therapist and immediately got me in touch with that therapist to begin counseling.

In the years since then, the counseling I have received has been a blessing of healing.

In time, I, myself, became a therapist specializing in working with women and men who have been victims of childhood sexual abuse.

I have no question in my mind that it was Mary’s intervention and a true miracle in my life that allowed this to take place.