‘I entered the church and spent the next seven days crying’

Yvonne was Protestant, she spent her time raising horses, living far from God. When her husband Patrick, a Catholic, saw her on the doorstep after her visit to Međugorje, he was shocked – Yvonne was completely changed

“The horses were everything in my life. And I would say, I was a bit selfish, just like my husband. I lived for success, for the horses, for my dreams with regard to my horses. And I’m still crazy about horses. But since my conversion through my experience in Međugorje, my life has changed completely. That was the turning point of my life. Where do my talents come from, if not from Him? Only Međugorje taught me to be grateful to the Lord for my talents” – Yvonne Monahan told us commenting on the change in her life.

We visited Yvonne and her husband Patrick, at their stud farm near Dublin. Patrick comes from a Catholic, and Yvonne from a Protestant family. Still, that difference didn’t prevent them from getting married. They were living in a small house and they soon managed to raise an excellent horse. They decided to sell it for a money deposit, in order to get a loan from the bank. They bought the farm, organized the facilities, and with enormous energy and hard work paid back their creditors. They continued to raise horses and to mix with the people from that set. And then, one day Yvonne’s friend Mimi, a fellow horse-rider, mentioned Međugorje.

“She told me she had been there twice and kept persuading me to come with her. But I didn't even want to start talking about it” – remembers Yvonne, who at the time had quit riding and started working as a judge. “Mimi found ten people to go to Međugorje, and the agency offered her a free ticket for the eleventh. When I was offered to go, my first reaction was – no way!

I can't go on a pilgrimage! But after a while I started thinking that maybe it was an opportunity for me to go on vacation with my friend. We were over-worked, and since I really liked Mimi, it seemed like a nice opportunity to get to know her. Besides, I like traveling and seeing different countries. So I started to see it as something completely different. Although I knew where I was going, I didn't even want to bring any clothes suitable for a pilgrimage. I even tried to persuade my friends to continue on down to the coast“, Yvonne says.

Her husband Patrick observed the preparations for her journey to Međugorje with interest and surprise. I said to her, “maybe Mimi doesn't even know that you're not a Catholic. Maybe because of me she thinks you are, and you probably have never talked about it”.-I also told her that maybe the pilgrimage was meant for hardened Catholics and she might even feel isolated in the group. Yvonne was a bit confused by that, but she still phoned her friends and confirmed that she'd go. They told her that there were no problems about it”-says Patrick.

The full article can be found on pages 29-31 of January 2007 issue.