Testimony 17
07 November 1998 12:19
This testimony, from 1992, is an extract from a letter sent to Vassula by J. Olsen from Missouri, USA
I am 34 years old and converted to the Roman Catholic faith as a young adult. My conversion might be described as “intellectually led”. My reading of Church doctors in college, and the influence of a couple of my
best teachers, slowly but surely convinced me that the Truth I sought in
life would be found in the Catholic Church. They were right. Since
joining the Church I have tried hard to both learn and “live my faith”.
My wife Diane, six children and I have been members of the Society of Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity for eleven years.
Though full of good intentions, I must say that I have remained a demanding and skeptical person. My faith has been grounded in fairly traditional teachings and I have been quite judgmental about the “flaky experiences of various Christians. I am very vigilant about being led astray by what I believe is usually nonsense. In all honesty, I initially regarded you and your narration with disinterest and disbelief. But now for the rest of the story..,
On the Sunday before Pentecost I was reading your first book of diaries.
The book was given to me by a good friend who is exceptionally faithful to
Jesus and Our Lady. Ron believes in and keeps track avidly of many
Marion apparitions and spiritual movements in the world. My friend
Phil also had become very excited and joyful about your book. As for
me, I only took their gift of the book out of respect for their
friendship – I never intended to read it. But, true friendship is a
powerful thing, so I eventually decided to try reading some of it, and tried have an open mind. On that Sunday, as I read through one of the earlier pages, Ibegan to wonder if I too could have a more intimate relationship with my Lord. So, I turned to him and asked in a simple prayer “would you make yourself even more known to me?” I will tell you how he answered.
Immediately the words came into my mind very clearly: “I will heal your stomach.” (You must realise, I have had an ulcer for about 5 years, and it has not responded well to medication or treatment. Every day I had taken medicine, usually at least twice. It was not particularly bad as ulcers go, but it was annoying and chronic.) Anyway, at that apparent response to my prayer, which I now know Jesus spoke directly to my mind, I quickly thought to myself, “Gee, that’s wishful thinking on my part.” I didn’t dare believe that the presence of these words in my mind could have come from anywhere but my own subconscious. But the words stayed there, and I soon began to consider that they might be true.
But how would I know? I said in further prayer that “I hoped Jesus had
Just answered me”. Again His words came into my mind, “I did.” I
thought a moment, and said to Him in prayer “If you have healed me, then
it will be my responsibility to treat my body as the temple of my spirit from now on, and to take good care of it. But, first I must wait and see if I am healed, and must test it, too.”
This was all very exciting, but I am a skeptical person and quickly put my thoughts aside and went on with the day. Little did I know, having had no miraculous physical sensation, that my stomach was already healed.
I won’t go into detail about all the junk food and silly stresses I put on my stomach for the next week, but they were numerous. I began to get more and more amazed as the stomach pains and acidity never recurred. By the end of the week I was convinced: Jesus had done it! And now I am learning to treat my body more as a temple and am listening for whatever else God wants to convey to me.
How can I describe the gratitude and unworthiness I feel over all this? It was quite wonderful. I have told my family and some friends, and the first flush of jubilation has already passed. It has given way to calm and curiosity about what, if anything, is next. Also, if I abuse my stomach now, I again get occasional heartburn, as I would expect given the nature of my promise to Jesus to treat my body as a temple. It doesn’t seem right that he would give me the gift of being able to eat like a.pig with impunity from now on. And I confess to being prey to occasional, infrequent doubt and disbelief. But my heartburn goes away, and so do my doubts. I don’t expect that either will be chronic.
More important than the healing is the gift of direct infusion of knowledge from Jesus. Now I must learn to recognize His voice without physical confirmation or signs.
