Fast Forward and a Word on Eileen George
Thursday, June 9, 2022
Fast forward to June 2022. Everything that happened between Holy Thursday 2021 and now will have to wait until the book comes out. Catching up to the present is more important, I’m told by the Holy Spirit. So be it, then.
The blog is finally taking shape.
In yesterday’s and today’s Adoration, Jesus and I have been brainstorming on how to go about publishing my new Substack blog, Diary of a Stumbling Saint. There’s an option for paid subscriptions so the bloggers can earn some money, but Jesus says, no, keep the blog free and make money from the book.
At this point, I’ve gotten pretty good at listening to the whispers of the Holy Spirit. I don’t always choose to listen, but life tends to be easier and smoother if I do. Nothing good ever comes from ignoring the voice of God.
I have high hopes for the blog, though I try to rein in my expectations. “VatiGod*,” I pray, “if these writings get even just one person to open up to you, turn their life around, and be saved, it’ll be all worth it.”
I’ll do my best to be your willing tool, VatiGod. You tell me what to do, what to write, what to post and when, and I’ll do it. Thy will be done.
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*A note about the title “VatiGod.” I started to call God “Vati” (which literally means “Daddy” in German and is pronounced “Fuh-tee”) in 2021 after becoming a huge fan of Saint-in-the-making Eileen George and her wonderful, childlike way of relating to Him.
Eileen, who passed away in 2017, was a homemaker and mother of eight from Massachusetts who was as close to Jesus and God as anyone could ever get.
In a nutshell, one day when she was a little kid, a man walked onto the playground with a small boy on his hand. He told Eileen that it’d be okay if his son played with her. The boy said, “You will call me Butchie, and I will call you Slug.” From that moment on, they were inseparable.
Soon Eileen realized that no one but her could see Butchie. Her adoptive parents called him her “imaginary friend.” As they grew up together, she came to understand that he was Jesus. Eileen was able to see and communicate with Jesus throughout her life, and he would be present at all of her public appearances. She also saw her and other people’s guardian angels.
She had the gift of knowledge, the gift of prophecy, the gift of communicating with animals and plants, and her healing ministry and “Meet the Father” retreats for laypeople, priests, and religious became famous around the world. She was not a highly educated woman, and yet the Holy Spirit enabled her to teach catechism classes. Even Catholic bishops would come to hear her talk about God. What drew people to her most was her unshakable and at the same time refreshingly simple and uncomplicated faith.
After receiving the Eucharist, Eileen would often go into ecstasy and be transported to Heaven by Jesus. She’d visit the Father, the Holy Spirit, the Holy Family, and the saints on a regular basis, becoming fast friends with St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Catherine of Siena, among others. Once, she began to levitate after Holy Communion, a sight that gave the priest who was with her at the time a heart attack… so when she came to, she was forced to call 911 to save him.
I owe Eileen George a great debt of gratitude. The first time I heard her speak so lovingly about God as “our Daddy,” I knew exactly what she meant. Most of my life, I’d had a similar relationship with Him—direct, childlike, trusting; an easy two-way communication that was a blend of signs, synchronicities, intuitive knowing, and verbal feedback.
But then life became more demanding. Suddenly, there was a family and a house and school tuition, and anxiety crept in. How am I going to feed my family? What if I lose my job, what if we can’t pay the mortgage, what if we lose the house, what if we end up on the street? Taking this fearful view of life and constantly focusing on the nitty-gritty catapulted me from “going with the flow” and “running on faith” to always feeling worried and overwhelmed, like I had to do it all myself.
Losing that childlike connection to God was excruciatingly painful. It felt like being kicked out of a fairytale realm of magic and miracles and being dumped into a cold, mechanistic, The Matrix-type reality where the machines ruled the world.
Listening to Eileen’s speeches—bless her soul!—returned the fairytale to me. The enormous relief this brought is hard to describe. And ever since, I’ve been having fun with Jesus and VatiGod. Jesus, by the way, has a very playful side and loves joking around and playing little pranks. It’s sad that most people never find out about this aspect of his.
Below are a few examples…
One morning, I went to refill the cat food bowl to find this:
In January, I threw out the Christmas tree and vacuumed up all the needles. And then I found this in a hidden corner:
For Lent, I committed to a 90-day series of strict spiritual exercises. One part was a daily Marian devotion. I said, “So, Jesus, which one do you want me to do? The Memorare? The Angelus? Just tell me.”
I had my Tetris screen open (yes, I know; guilty as charged). A new game started, but I wasn’t playing, so the pieces were just dropping down. All of a sudden, I realized they were making a 1…then a 5…then a 0 (yellow square at the bottom right).
150—the number of Hail Marys in a full Rosary! There was my answer: He wanted me to pray a full Rosary per day during Lent. He’s such a joker. That wasn’t the only time he used Tetris to communicate, by the way.
Not that these things happen every day; they’re the occasional highlights. But when they do happen, it’s truly exhilarating.
Do you have to be a special kind of person to develop such a close connection to God? I don’t think so. All you need is faith. Ask God to talk to you, and He’ll be more than happy to comply.