Having ‘both a spiritual and an earthly mother’ is ‘very important’

Helen Stephon of St. Barnabas Parish in Indianapolis poses in front of the shrine in Lourdes, France, in 2017. (Submitted photo)

By Natalie Hoefer

As a young girl, Helen Stephon was fascinated by the stories her grandmother shared about the Blessed Mother.

“She didn’t drive, so we’d pick her up, and she would just love to sit and tells us [kids] stories,” Stephon recalls, “especially stories about how the Blessed Mother often appeared to little children around the world, like Fatima and the [three shepherd] children.”

Later in life, Stephon would travel on pilgrimage with her own mother to several sites where Mary appeared to children, including Fatima and Lourdes.

“I was fortunate to attend those Marian pilgrimages with my mother,” she says. “What a gift!”

As Stephon grew in her faith, she also grew closer to the Virgin Mary.

“I always felt like I had an earthly mother and a spiritual mother,” she says. “Both are very important.”

So when her faith community, St. Barnabas Parish in Indianapolis, announced a group study in 2012 using Immaculate Conception Father Michael Gaitley’s Marian consecration book titled 33 Days to Morning Glory, Stephon immediately signed up. The date chosen for the consecration was March 25, the feast of the Annunciation.

Knowing that Christ’s birth would be celebrated nine months later, “our teachers, Paul and Clara Kachinski, invited us to ask for a special intention from the Blessed Mother and to receive the answer on Christmas Day,” she says. “I immediately thought of my daughter, who had just recently had a miscarriage.”

That same year, Stephon received wonderful news—her daughter was expecting another child, and the due date was Dec. 25.

“I about hit the floor when she told me the due date!” says Stephon.

The baby ended up being born on Dec. 27, but she still sees him as a gift through the intercession of the Blessed Mother.

“What a blessing he is,” the happy grandmother gushes. †

The Criterion

May 14, 2021

Having ‘both a spiritual and an earthly mother’ is ‘very important’

By Natalie Hoefer

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