{"id":142,"date":"2015-12-28T09:10:22","date_gmt":"2015-12-28T14:10:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/mysticpost\/?p=142"},"modified":"2016-01-06T11:41:08","modified_gmt":"2016-01-06T16:41:08","slug":"wall-street-executive-in-career-crisis-discovers-medjugorje-and-the-mystery-and-power-of-the-virgin-mary-returns-to-the-catholic-faith","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/mysticpost\/2015\/12\/28\/wall-street-executive-in-career-crisis-discovers-medjugorje-and-the-mystery-and-power-of-the-virgin-mary-returns-to-the-catholic-faith\/","title":{"rendered":"WALL STREET EXECUTIVE IN CAREER CRISIS DISCOVERS MEDJUGORJE AND THE MYSTERY AND POWER OF THE VIRGIN MARY \u2013 RETURNS TO THE CATHOLIC FAITH"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"ryan-profile\"<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

By Stephen Ryan<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cThen I discovered Medjugorje. With Medjugorje the world of faith defeated my secular, skeptic, Wall Street sensibilities.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\n

I had been working as a financial advisor since the early 90\u2032s. Then the banking crisis hit. During \u00a0the depths of the 2008-2009 \u00a0financial crisis and \u00a0the shocking near collapse of the stock\u00a0market I found myself in a serious career crisis which spilled over into a personal crisis.<\/p>\n

With questions about my professional life unanswered, like so many others, I turned to faith to look for deeper meaning in my life. I soon discovered that I found solace in reading and writing about the mysterious world of Catholic miracles and unexplained supernatural events. As I\u00a0explored the mysteries of faith, I stumbled onto some special words that changed my life forever. \u00a0They came from \u00a0Saint John Paul II and he said: \u201cTo Christ through Mary.\u201d \u00a0Find Christ through the heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary. I asked myself \u2013 \u00a0Who is this \u201cMother of God\u201d, and why is She so important?<\/p>\n

Having spent most of my \u00a0career working on Wall Street this was not an easy question to answer. \u00a0 I was a trained skeptic and religion was basically a superstition. \u00a0There \u00a0is much wisdom behind the old adage: \u00a0\u201cA fool and his money are soon parted\u201d.<\/p>\n

I was certain I would find a secular answer\u00a0to the supernatural world that the Catholic Church alone \u00a0believes in. And I was sure the strange world of Marian apparitions would be revealed as a fairy tale for old ladies with blue hair. But as I dug deeper into the world of miracles and apparitions of the Virgin Mary, including researching the miraculous image of Our Lady of Guadalupe and the events of Fatima, rather than finding answers, I found myself asking more questions \u2013 \u00a0big questions like: \u00a0\u201cIs this stuff \u00a0for real?\u201d Does the Virgin Mary appear to visionaries on earth \u00a0bringing messages for the world? \u00a0It seemed impossible.<\/p>\n

Then I discovered Medjugorje. With Medjugorje the world of faith defeated my secular, skeptic, Wall Street sensibilities. \u00a0With Medjugorje, it is not one thing, it is a million things. All of it \u2013 the fruits, the peace, the impossibility of the visionaries \u2013 teenagers for crying out loud who took on the Catholic Church and communism and created an epic spiritual phenomena with the simple words of \u201cWe see what we see.\u201d<\/p>\n

Please Like Mystic Post on Facebook<\/a><\/p>\n

Looking for serious answers to serious questions, I soon discovered \u00a0it was the skeptics, not the religious, who \u00a0were \u00a0shallow and closed minded. Randall Sullivan, author of The Miracle Detectives (a book about Catholic miracles) \u00a0and former contributing editor for Rolling Stone magazine \u00a0describes religious skeptics as \u201ccuriously mute\u201d.<\/p>\n

The common\u00a0characteristic of religious doubters, I found is \u2013 ignorance \u2013 they don\u2019t bother to seek answers about unexplained, supernatural events because their \u00a0minds are already made up.<\/p>\n

With questions about Medjugore unanswered I turned to the internet (I am not shy about saying the\u00a0internet played a role in my conversion and I am not the first) \u00a0There I found some like minded people. I also \u00a0started to write about the spiritual events that were changing my life \u00a0and soon \u00a0my efforts \u00a0turned into a blog and thanks to contributions from amazing people like Daniel Klimek and Christine Watkins my internet news magazine \u00a0became somewhat well known in the world of Catholic media.<\/p>\n

Right from the start \u00a0it seemed we \u00a0were alone in covering\u00a0news events of a supernatural origin. Miraculous\u00a0events are very\u00a0 important to millions of faithful \u2013 they converrt\u00a0people \u2013 \u00a0but to our surprise they \u00a0are very much under-reported by religious news outlets. The events at Medjugorje were a particular interest. The alleged apparitions of the Virgin Mary are all but ignored by news organizations despite the fact that millions of faithful Catholics follow the events closely.<\/p>\n

Now the world awaits what could be a momentous announcement by the Vatican regarding the status of Medjugorje.<\/p>\n

One last thing, an eternally important thing, \u00a0the real blessing that began with my career crisis is that all of \u00a0my efforts to find meaning in my life led me back to the Catholic Church after being away for many years. \u00a0I truly believe if the Virgin Mary \u00a0can help a grizzled Wall Street veteran find his way back to \u00a0the Catholic Church She can help just about anybody.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Stephen Ryan runs the blog Mystic Post on Patheos.com and is the author of The Madonna Files.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and intelligent, and revealed them to little children\u201d. Jesus \u2013\u00a0Matthew 11:25<\/strong><\/p>\n

BUY ON AMAZON $4.99<\/a><\/p>\n

\"TheMadonnaFiles\"<\/a><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Stephen Ryan \u201cThen I discovered Medjugorje. With Medjugorje the world of faith defeated my secular, skeptic, Wall Street sensibilities.\u201d I had been working as a financial advisor since the early 90\u2032s. Then the banking crisis hit. 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