‘The heart and soul of my faith’
God’s gift shines through in a marriage proposal and a family’s struggle
After asking God about it during eucharistic adoration, Matthew Kubisch proposed to Amanda Johnson on the day before Palm Sunday. (Submitted photo)
(Editor’s note: Many young adult Catholics experience the tremendous difference that eucharistic adoration makes in their life and their relationship with God. Here are two of their stories in this continuing series.)
By John Shaughnessy
Before he proposed to the young woman he wanted to marry, 23-year-old Matthew Kubisch visited the one person he always checks with regarding major decisions in his life.
Kubisch walked into the chapel of the church during its hours of eucharistic adoration and asked God for his guidance.
A short time later, on the day before Palm Sunday of this year, Kubisch drove from Indianapolis to Minnesota to surprise his college sweetheart, Amanda Johnson, and pop the question to her.
The trip was worth the long drive and more as Johnson glowed when she told him yes.
“This is a real gift that God has given us—of each other,” says Kubisch, a member of St. John the Evangelist Parish in Indianapolis.
As far as gifts, Kubisch also loves the difference that the Eucharist and eucharistic adoration make in his life.
“Receiving the Eucharist is the heart and soul of my faith,” he says. “In terms of my prayer life, eucharistic adoration is my foundation. It leaves me with so much peace, and it helps me discern so well what I feel God is calling me to do—and being open to it.”
A financial advisor, Kubisch usually stops before or after work at St. Luke the Evangelist Parish in Indianapolis, which has a perpetual adoration chapel open seven days a week, 24 hours a day.
“I try to go at least once a week. I try to do a holy hour. And if it’s a really rough week, I may be there two or three times.”
The extra visits usually coincide with two stressful concerns in his life. One is trying to build up his client base in his first year as a financial adviser. In the chapel, he talks with God, asking him if this career is the best way to serve people. The other main concern involves how he can best help a close friend going through a hard time in life.
“His family is just falling apart,” Kubisch says. “So, whenever something changes—I just know I don’t have the wisdom to counsel him, and I just feel so overwhelmed—I say I need to go pray about this. And hopefully God will tell me what I should say or tell him what he needs to do. Because I know I don’t have my own wisdom to give to him right now.”
Kubisch and his fiancée also plan to stay close to God as they look forward to their wedding on Sept. 30—and their marriage beyond that day.
“Marriage is a lot of work,” he says. “Learning to sacrifice for the other in all areas. Prioritizing what the other wants. And being open and loving. It takes so much to give. We’ve found that just spending time in prayer, spending time with Jesus—whether that’s with eucharistic adoration or just going to church and spending time together—it helps us re-stabilize and learn to forgive.
“It’s so incredibly peaceful going with your partner and just praying together and coming out from prayer saying, ‘Let’s do this, let’s keep on going.’ ”
“It’s been my refuge in the worst and the best of times”
At 34, Evonne Corrales has an inviting way of describing the way that eucharistic adoration makes a difference in her life.
She compares it to having a close friend who you text, call or write a letter to during the week, sharing what makes you happy, nervous or leads you to asking for a prayer. But the best part of that relationship is when you sit across from that close friend, talking with him or her about everything from your daily highs and lows to the deepest concerns and longings of your heart.
“I really need that face-to-face time with the Lord to deepen that friendship with him,” she says. “It’s definitely a time of solace and healing for me. It keeps me centered and ordered. It’s been my refuge in the worst and the best of times.”
She has especially relied upon that gift as her family struggles with a heartbreaking reality.
“My dad has been in a nursing home since COVID,” she says. “He has Huntington’s disease, It’s a very severe neuro disease of the brain, very much like ALS [Lou Gehrig’s disease], Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s all in one. I’ve inherited the same disease that my dad has, and there’s no cure for it. Adoration has been the refuge that my family has run to in our time of distress. Adoration gives us strength, and it allows me to be Christ to my family—to find hope and joy.”
It’s also been a source of strength and inspiration for her in her everyday interactions with people, including in her role as the director of youth and childhood ministries for Our Lady of Perpetual Help Parish in New Albany.
“I want to be the face of Christ to those I encounter in my daily life whether I’m at work or someplace else,” she says. “I can’t be the face of Christ if I don’t gaze at the face of Christ—and have that gaze of love returned. It’s like getting my candle brighter when I’m there. That light is able to shine brighter when I go into adoration. I see that effect with others.
“The fruit of taking that time to receive healing allows me to be more patient to the people around me. It keeps me joyful despite whatever comes my way—the good, the bad, the ugly. It’s what roots me in the joy of who I am and whose I am.”
Those roots have connected her deeper to God and her Catholic faith.
“It’s the deepest time of my intimacy with the Lord other than Mass,” she says about eucharistic adoration. “It’s that personal time with the Lord that really helps me in my relationship with God, and it’s what makes me love my Catholic faith. I just fall in love with my Catholic faith again and again.
“It’s just so crucial to our faith to have that time with the Lord, to take advantage of that intimacy.” †
