Miracle Moments, Part I

This week I'm doing something different for this blog by featuring a series of interviews with Mary Lou McCall of Miracle Moments. An award-winning, globe-trotting journalist and documentary producer, Mary Lou was particularly affected by the subject of her work several years ago when she visited Medjugorje in Bosnia-Herzegivina... Well, I'll let Mary Lou tell her story.

First of all, thank you, Mary Lou, for agreeing to this interview. The first question I have for you is, what sent you to Medjurgorje?

I went to Medjugorje in the capacity of an investigative television reporter for self-serving ideals. I was drawn to the story because of the "alleged" miracles like the spinning sun, rosaries turning to gold and physical healings. I didn't know what to think about the apparitions or the stories of spiritual conversions. But I did know a good story when I saw one and my hopes were to bring back an Emmy Award winning documentary that would catapult my career to the network news in New York.

I had no intention of strengthening my relationship with God or leaving my job as a secular news person and joining a spiritual television ministry. Of course, since God in ultimately in charge and I had an open hear, he could reach right in and transform my life. 

I felt comfortable in Medjugorje because I never heard one person say that we must convert to the Catholic faith. Instead, there was a universal theme to open our hearts to God's will so that He can guide us to our designed purpose in this life. One of the messages that has always stayed with me goes something like this, "God has a role for each and every one of us in His plan of salvation for mankind, but in order to understand that role, we must pray fervently." Another message I like urges us to pray for peace in our own hearts and then we will spread that peace through our families, into our communities and into the rest of the world.

I like that, Mary Lou, "pray for peace in our own hearts and then we will spread that peace..."

For me, Medjugorje is a message of life-transforming Love in a fallen world.

Please describe where you were spiritually before your conversion to Catholicism.

When I went to Medjugorje, I was a self-absorbed, fallen away Catholic.

After I got married and launched into my television career, my husband and I stopped going to weekly Mass. I became focused on catapulting my career to the network news in New York. My firstborn son wasn't even baptized until he was about five months old. I wasn't mad at the church or at God, I just got lazy about my spiritual development and I chose the secular world over the spiritual realm.

I broke the golden rule of any good relationship...I did not carve out one-on-one time with my Creator and so I could not develop that intimate connection with God that He is longing for. My self will served me and God had been placed on the back burner.

This is quite ironic since Christ appeared to me one night as a young teen. Imagine having a heavenly visitor and still ignoring the call within. To borrow a line from the book I am writing, "I let the noise of this world drown out the gentle whisperings of the next."

You see--God didn't let go of me, I let go of God.

[To be continued]