I have been part of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal since
1986 and since my conversion to Christ I have always longed to
be holy and felt a call to poverty. I realised this path to sanctity
would involve suffering but looking back at my life at that time
I experienced only the normal simple little difficulties.
I had some problems with my family and I realised that key
to everything was forgiveness. I had to learn to forgive myself,
my parents and those around me if I wanted to experience inner
healing and grow in my friendship with Jesus. Without forgiveness
any sanctity is phoney.
Then in 1993 I had a terrible experience which I could never
have imagined would happen to me. I was gang raped by three men
as an act of revenge by a former colleague, whose misdemeanours
I had exposed. The violence and suffering you experience in rape
and what it does to you is hard to put in words. The police told
me that they had planned to kill me but as it was not God's time
for me to die I managed to get away and I survived, although
I was totally traumatised.
The physical recovery took a couple of days but the emotional
recovery was a lot longer and a very painful and hard process.
I have an outgoing temperament and I told myself that I had forgiven
the three men. But one day the Lord showed me that I hadn't and
his work was only half done.
One Sunday, during Mass, right after Holy Communion, while
bowing my head and giving thanks, the Lord spoke clearly to my
heart. "Look at the queue of people walking down the aisle
to receive communion and imagine those three men there."
My heart closed like iron and through tears of bitterness and
pain, I cried "Not them Lord, they don't have a right to
be here, to receive you. Not them." I realised how superficial
had been my apparent forgiveness. I couldn't do it without the
Lord's grace and from that moment I began to pray that I really
would one day be able to forgive them from the bottom of my heart.
One of the results of the rape 
was that I became more sensitive
to the suffering around me. It could be in my family or on the streets,
in the community, or the news on TV or the newspapers. Every pain
somehow hooked into my personal pain and experience and gave me an
opportunity to intercede for others. My favourite words were those
of Jesus "Father, forgive them, they don't know what they are
doing." Through this I would forgive those three men over and
over again. In fact every time their faces came to my mind, even though
my feelings resisted, I tried to forgive them with all my heart and
will.
About one year later, again after communion, without having
thought about it, the Lord spoke to my heart the same sentence
as before. "Imagine those men queuing for communion."
This time a miracle had happened and my heart was open and filled
with love and forgiveness. I knew for certain that this house
and this place belonged to them too. The kingdom of God was for
those three men. They were not rapists they were my brothers.
The tears ran down my face. I was free. The best image I can
think of to describe how I felt is from Henri Nowen's book "The
Return of the Prodigal". The first time I felt and behaved
like the oldest son. The Father was MY father, and this was MY
house. I had the right to be loved, not those prodigal sons.
Whereas the second time, I wanted to say to those men "Come
to the house of my Father, come to His love and embrace, this
is not only for me. I am your sister and all this is waiting
for us."
A short time afterwards in late 1996, the final consequence
of my rape became clear. My blood tests showed I now had AIDS.
The Lord, however, slowly had been preparing me for this. I realised
some of the dreams for my life had to be put away forever and
I started to look at life in a new way with a different perspective.
I found that those things that seemed so urgent were after all,
only relative, and instead it was the simple, little things of
daily life that became really valuable. I started to live far
more intensely the present moment, rather than always looking
to future, and I became really grateful for what I had.
These last four years have been hard ones with many physical,
professional, emotional and financial losses. The Lord, however,
has been faithfully present in my struggles and above all he
doesn't allow my heart to become bitter or filled with self pity.
He has been conquering my heart. I know there is still a lot
to be done but I know that in a strange way I have what I wished
for at the start of my spiritual journey - that I am poorer and
more sanctified than I used to be. My heart is full of Him and
I can only say "You know how much I love you. Lord you are
everything!"
