Heaven Opens

By Christian
We had already been married seven years and had three gorgeous daughters. We'd bought a beautiful farm house in the country side, close to my wife’s parents in the heart of Burgundy and its famous vineyards.

Our home in Burgundy, France

We had great friends with children the same age as ours. We were healthy, the children were great. Business was very good, money was not a problem.

Christine had started going back to Church after a deep conversion and I was going too, once in a while. More often, I stayed home with the children while she was at Mass. I felt a little jealous of her relationship with God and the Church. I sometimes resented having to baby-sit instead of  spending time with her, doing something fun. I felt as if God were stealing her away from me. It’s true, also, that I didn’t much like having spiritual conversations; it made me uncomfortable.

My Franciscan aunt

I had been raised Catholic; Sunday Mass, Catechism, some family prayer, the whole deal. I had gone to a Christian Brothers Elementary School, I had been to all the convents in my native Morocco to visit my aunt, who was a Franciscan nun, and my uncle was a Franciscan priest. We had spent a lot of time together, often going on long trips just the two of us. Then, at sixteen or seventeen, I became disinterested in my faith and drifted away. That was a sort of protection too; at that time the Church was in a turmoil. It was the sixties/seventies. I am glad my Mom never told me about our Boy Scouts Chaplain, who'd left to get married to a nun. It would only have justified my leaving the Church.

When I saw that Christine was going back to Church, praying, and enjoying it, I realized I was not fully happy, even though everything was going so well. I looking back at times when I had felt more fulfilled. I had enjoyed very much the beautiful Masses, full churches, the processions of the Blessed Sacrament, or the processions for Mary's Feast days, and the bells and smells. I also loved when, with my Mom, we prepared food boxes and visited poor people, mainly elderly, at a time when there was no social security and no retirement plans.
But now I was a grown man, a business man, and I was traveling all over the world meeting important people.

The Business Man (on the far left) in Italy!

I started to think: “I understand my Protestant brothers who talk directly to God. They don’t have to go through a priest for Confession. They don’t have to worry about the ritual of the Mass, when to kneel, sit or stand. They don’t have to worry about the Saints or the Virgin Mary. They talk to God like equals, so they can have adult conversations”. (When I was an Altar boy I was always afraid I would forget what I had to do, so I have been always a “flower pot”, just for decoration, doing nothing).
I knew very little of the Protestant way.
I thought Catholicism was too complicated and didn’t understand why we should learn about the Saints. What was their role? What about the Virgin Mary? That was too complicated.
I just wanted to talk to God directly, one on one, and everything would be just fine.

I was thirty-two when Christine and her sister trapped their husbands into a pilgrimage to Yugoslavia, via the Club Med. We were the only pilgrims at the Club Med.

The Church in Medjugorje, June 1984

Since that wasn’t enough, they dragged us, the same summer, to a one week retreat in Ars, France, with 5,000 people. Ars is the village of St Jean Vianney, the good Cure of Ars.
I was OK for the one week retreat, that was a good way to reconnect. I didn’t feel like going to a priest and talking. Talking about what? Why should I talk to anybody about my interior questions and my spiritual life when I could talk to God directly? I didn’t need to go through any third person.

Ars 1984

That one week retreat turned out to be a charismatic gathering, and all these smiling and joyful, exuberant people, were really getting on my nerves. But hey, I gave one week to the Lord. I was going to talk to Him and so I didn’t care much about the surroundings and all these people. Most of them were camping, but we stayed at a hotel.

The second evening was an evening of Reconciliation. I had my eyes closed and I was trying to pray when I started to shake. I felt as if I was holding 460 volts of naked wires in my bare hands. It was going all through my body in several waves. I thought: “Not me, not me, I didn’t ask for anything, I just came to look. I don’t want to do anything."
I felt like Zechaius; I wanted to see and not be seen. I wanted to be a spectator, not an actor. I knew something was happening!
Then somebody came to me in what I’d call a vision. It wasn’t God, no. It was the Virgin Mary.

Mary as depicted in Medjugorje

She was very young, very petite, and beautiful. She was maybe five feet above the ground, as though floating. She was in a very green pasture sloping down, surrounded by short stone walls. The Virgin didn’t say a word. I could see her blue eyes and dark hair; her lips. She was dressed in a long dress; the color of the dress was very dark, almost black but still very bright, full of light at the same time. It made me think of the color of black storm clouds when hit by the setting sun in summer.
Saint Pio used to call her, "Abyss of Grace, Incomparable Masterpiece, and Woman Clothed in Light. The Light of God flows into her and she - reflecting like a mirror - sends it back out onto humanity."
She had a very sad smile; she just looked at me.
Since I didn’t know what to do or say, I felt like I had to present to her all my family and friends. That’s what I did, as though I were presenting this long line of people to my Queen.
This is when she really smiled; she kind of even restrained herself to laugh joyfully. I don’t know why she laughed at that moment. Since she didn’t say a word, I felt like it could mean: “I know you and I know all your relatives and friends." Or , “I came for you and you only,” or even, “You're nice, it’s cute what you are doing,” or something like this. I felt comfortable, but shy and awkward. It lasted awhile and I felt it could have lasted longer. She welcomed everyone with this gentle smile; I could see her teeth, her hair moving. There was just one of my friends that she was not happy to meet; I had the feeling that she was repulsed by him.
Without noticing any changes in where we were, I sensed that she was leading me to a spot on my right side, up. And there I was, in front of a great light, nothing I have seen before, nothing I can describe.

Pope Benedict XVI once said that “when one has the grace to sense a strong experience of God, it is as though seeing something similar to what the disciples experienced during the Transfiguration: for a moment they experienced ahead of time something that will constitute the happiness of Paradise. In general, it is brief experiences that God grants on occasions, especially in anticipation of harsh trials.”

“While he was still speaking, behold, a bright cloud cast a shadow over them, then from the cloud came a voice that said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him.” Matt. 17: 5.

Yes, it was beautiful! Only years later could I compare it to what I read about people having had an after-life experience; the tunnel of light, and then this huge, magnificent light, so powerful. I knew I was in The Presence of the source of Light and Love. I was in the presence of God. It felt so good. No words can describe it. This was where I belonged; this was where I wanted to spend the rest of my life; my eternity. I stayed there in awe and didn’t want to move, not knowing what was happening. Everything of this world around me had disappeared; I didn’t feel the presence of anyone, didn’t hear the music nor the prayer. I was crying of happiness, and then I had to go back!

I didn’t know what had happened. I couldn’t talk about it. It took me a full year before I could talk about this experience to my wife and then many more years before I could talk about it to close friends and then I could give my testimony whenever I felt it was good to talk about it no matter who or what. The only thing I had decided on the spot was that I wanted to come back to this gathering the following year.