Mary is the preeminent example of a disciple of the Lord. St. Augustine says that not only was she his mother, but she was also his disciple. She who had the privilege of bearing Him as mother, obeyed Him as master. I think when we look to her, we see this icon of a person who said “yes” to the Lord. As we respond in faith and obedience to the Lord like Mary did, He starts to bring us along the path of discipleship.

A part of my testimony as a revert to the Catholic faith is the Blessed Mother and what the Word of God says about her. The Holy Spirit really used that in my life to help me not only come back into the Catholic Church, but to begin to give myself more fully to the road of discipleship. I was in a stage of my life where I knew the Lord and I was meeting Him through the Scriptures, prayer, and a life of mission. I was encountering Him more and more, and it became normal as a disciple for me to say “yes” to Him. As He revealed something to me, I just gave my fiat like the Blessed Mother. I would say, “Yes. Here am I. Let it be to me according to your word.”

As I encountered more Catholic apologetics, I eventually came into contact with the rosary, as well. I started to read about the rosary and why the Church encourages the prayer of the rosary. I began to see the scriptural focus of the prayer and how it was, as Pope Paul VI puts it, “an epitome of the whole Gospel.” I began to pray the rosary hidden away in my room in the morning and something started to happen to me. The Holy Spirit came upon me, just like the Annunciation when the Spirit of God came upon the Blessed Mother. In my heart and my mind, every time I put my finger on a bead and said the Hail Mary, I just saw this image of the Blessed Mother pregnant with Jesus. It was like each bead was a womb. As I thought and prayed about this, the Holy Spirit started to grow this revelation of the Incarnation and the implications of it in my life. I went through the mysteries of Jesus, and it was like the Blessed Mother took me by the hand and started evangelizing me, walking with me, and pointing out and saying “Look at Jesus.”

The rosary was a major part of what the Lord was doing in my life at the time. I also started to visit Mass again, and then it came to the one Mass where, if I were to imagine it, it was like the Blessed Mother just kind of left me there and went out of the building. I was there with Jesus on the altar as the priest was saying the words of consecration. My eyes opened up and I recognized that this is not about Jesus. This is Jesus. Through an anointing and a grace of revelation, I knew that the Eucharist was Jesus and I knew what that meant. It meant leaving everything to follow Him, and that’s when I left my life in the non-Catholic Christian world and followed Jesus into the Church. There was plenty of testing, trial, and suffering that came as I began to follow Him. In a real way I started to conform to Him in the Sorrowful Mysteries, but the result of it was a deeper union with the Lord.

This article was condensed from a Fire on the Earth interview between Peter Herbeck and Anthony Feola on December 31, 2025. The program is entitled Mary, Our Model of Discipleship. You can listen to the full interview here.