"I didn't know what that is out there, but I felt like I could stay there forever." | Bethane Cabrera

Bethane begrudgingly began the RCIA process when she fell in love with a Catholic man and the two had planned to get married. While she resisted some of the activities of RCIA, she unexpectedly experienced exposition of the Blessed Sacrament and received a sign she’d been asking God for, ever since she was a little girl.

(01:07) We welcome our guest, Bethane Cabrera, a wife and a mom of four, parishioner at Guardian Angels Catholic Church in Clawson, MI, and administrative assistant at Camp Sancta Maria.

(02:56) Bethane shares a bit about her upbringing in the faith and describes her teen and young adult years as she experienced a crisis of faith after losing her father. She shares how meeting her husband in her early twenties initiated a return to faith, as he was a practicing Catholic and shared his faith with her while they were dating.

(06:33) As their relationship got more serious and they started to think about marriage and raising kids, Bethane determined that she would become Catholic, but she wasn’t  necessarily happy about it.

(09:40) Bethane describes her experience in RCIA and how she didn’t particularly enjoy the process or engage with her peers during it. She shares a frustrating interaction she had with a priest, who was encouraging her to enter in more fully or delay entering the Church and how she regretted some of the things she said to him.

(17:53) Bethane intended to apologize to that priest and had set up a time to meet with him following a daily Mass. Unbeknownst to her, she arrived just as exposition of the Blessed Sacrament was taking place and found herself undeniably drawn to the Eucharist on the altar, without knowing or understanding what it was.

(20:23) After crying in the presence of the Eucharist and being stunned by her reaction to it, Bethane tried to collect herself to meet with the priest and shares something he said that struck her to the core.

(23:14) Bethane shares how, as a young child, she would go into the empty church she grew up in and ask God for a sign that it was his house. She explains how her conversation with the priest that day was the sign she had asked for. She describes how her approach to RCIA shifted and how that priest walked with her through her conversion, as her devotion to the Eucharist grew.

(29:28) Bethane describes what it was like to enter the Church, receive the Eucharist for the first time, and to go to Confession. She shares what her devotion to the Blessed Sacrament has looked like, from going to adoration daily, to adjusting her prayer according to her state of life as a wife and a mother.