Cheryl de la Cruz is a 26-year-old Filipino-American. Currently, she is studying to be a teacher in Tampa, Florida. She has been a member of the Home since 2001, although she first met the movement in 1998. She tells us her story after having gone through an extremely painful experience, one that many young people nowadays go through.

How was your childhood? Were you raised in a Catholic setting?
I was baptized Catholic, as most Filipino-American children are. When my sisters and I were young, my mother tried her best to instill in us a love for the Lord and the Blessed Mother. She also sent us to Catholic school to help cultivate in us good Christian values. But I, being a very rebellious child, would make it a point to do the complete opposite of what my mother would say and do. Although my mother encouraged us to embrace the faith, as she loved God from a very young age, I never had any interest of knowing Him and thus, did not know Him very well. On the other hand, He did know me.

When did you start developing a deeper relationship with the Lord?
I guess you can say that the beginning of my journey towards God began with an unexpected event that my whole extended family experienced. My uncle was diagnosed with prostate cancer and had been told by doctors that he had only 3 months to live. His children, my older cousins, decided that if their father was going to meet his Creator, then they should first try to be on good terms. They heard about a woman who had the gift of healing. Although they were pretty skeptical at first, they invited her to their house one night to pray with my uncle and the rest of the family. Little did we all know that after that night, our lives would never be the same. Loud nights of dancing were replaced with the celebration of the Holy Mass and idle chatting over the latest fashions were replaced with the recitation of the Holy Rosary and other spiritual discussions. To make a long story short, after a few short months, the grapefruit size mass in my uncle’s prostate had miraculously disappeared. But the biggest miracle of all was the conversion of many members of my family to God.

You said that your family experienced a general conversion. How did you live it personally? Did you continue to deepen your relationship with the Lord after that?
Although I was only about 12 years old when all this happened, I had very much felt the call of the Lord to love Him. But being very attracted to the world, I willingly went wherever its flow brought me and I forgot all about Him. Over the following years, my relationship with the Lord grew very little. The encounter that I had with God when I was 12 years old became nothing more than a fading memory.

Was there a point in your life when you encountered God again?
In March of 1998, my cousins organized a pilgrimage for friends and some family members to visit many holy places in France, Portugal, Italy, and Spain. Having no real interest in the trip more than to miss a few days of school and to do some sightseeing in Europe, I joined the group. I was 17 at the time, not very excited about visiting dead bodies, even if they were saints, and I was getting pretty restless from seeing church after church. To me, they were all the same: big and old. But while we were in Spain, we were invited to have lunch with the Servant Priests, Brothers, and Sisters of the Home of the Mother. I remember those moments with great affection and till this day, it remains engraved in my heart. After serving us some great paella, my eyes and ears were glued on the Servant Sisters and Brothers as they shared their vocation stories with us and sang a bunch of songs. Although I couldn’t understand the songs because they were in Spanish, I didn’t have to, the Lord spoke to me through the joy on their faces. It was a joy that I had never seen before. They seemed so free, so innocent. They had something inside of them that made them so happy. I definitely did not have it, nor did I even know that it existed. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, but whatever it was, I wanted it and needed it badly. That day was one of the happiest days of my life.
A little while later, we were given a tour of the house and the area around it. Fr. Raphael took us to the site where the chapel was to be built. At that time, little more than four walls were set in place. I remember him saying, “If anyone feels called to come and help us build… Come!” At that moment, I felt called. I felt called to help build. Little did I know that it wasn’t just the little chapel that I was called to build. It was something bigger, something much bigger. Some time later, through the grace of God, I found out what it was. A great deal had to happen in my life before I was able to come to this realization.

So, did you come back and help build the chapel?
Unfortunately, when I returned home from the pilgrimage, the idea of returning to Spain was no longer a priority on my list. I had my boyfriend, my friends, my new car, and my senior year of high school, including the prom and the infamous trip after prom. With all that fun and exciting stuff going on, how could I possibly think of leaving it? My whole life revolved around the here and the now. I was having a good time with all night dancing in the clubs of New York, living an immoral life with my boyfriend, and getting more and more into the drug and alcohol scene.

At that time, did you feel that you had to change some things in your life or were you content with the way that you were living?
I could say that at this point, I was content in trying to find happiness and a “high” on whatever I could get my hands on. Among my friends, I had always been the crazy one who never seemed to have a problem with doing whatever she felt like and never thought of the consequences. With that type of attitude, I was on the fast road to disaster.

How did your life continue on from there?
Now that I look back, I see how the Lord intervened at this time, in a difficult, yet remarkable way. In the blink of an eye, my whole life was flipped upside down. Those fun and exciting times were gone and my life was left in ruins. I had broken up with my boyfriend, and as the result of a violent break-up, had fallen into a deep depression that took control of every aspect of my life. Because I had lost the ability to function properly and concentrate, I had failed my senior year of high school and was able to pass the second time only by private in-home instruction. I was a living corpse, making it to school, only to spend the day sitting in the guidance counselor’s office, crying. I spent a lot of time jumping from one psychologist to the next and trying out new medications for depression. Finding no relief from all the pills and doctors, I began to medicate myself with more drugs and alcohol. This only made the situation worse. I became a living zombie, without the will to live, and one longing wish - to die. Because I was suicidal, and my doctors were afraid that I would take my life, I was placed in a drug rehabilitation center for those suffering from mental illness. The time spent in the institution helped to keep me off the drugs for a while and out of my environment with my friends, but without the strength, nor the will to live a life with dignity, things went back to normal when I came home. I was convinced that there was no hope for me.

Did you ever think of praying or asking God for help in this time of desperation?
In the back of my mind, I heard the voice of my mother saying, “Just ask God to help you! He’ll save you!” At that time, I couldn’t ask for help from God. I don’t know if I thought that He couldn’t help me, or if my pride wouldn’t let me reach out to Him. Pride had always been a protagonist in my life, and now I can see the way that the Lord permitted me to hit rock bottom before I could begin to go up.

You don’t look like the person who you described above. How did your life begin to change?
One day, after bringing home a friend to visit her boyfriend in juvenile detention center (all my friends were in similar situations… teenagers with babies and in trouble with the law), I felt that I couldn’t take it anymore. My only wish was to die and I felt totally trapped in a body that only knew pain. I had begun to hurt myself physically, just to see if there was anything that could hurt more than what I was already feeling inside. I had been suicidal for some time, but having enough Catholic formation to know that if you kill yourself, you’ll go to hell, I was scared and did not have the guts to do it. Although this knowledge prevented me from attempting suicide for a long time, the time had come when I couldn’t take it any longer. I went to the drugstore, bought a bottle of pills, and planned to overdose. But I was afraid. I was afraid of hell and I knew that there was a sign with my name on it waiting there for me. But I had to do it! Then, out of nowhere, the thought came to my mind that I should first go to confession and then kill myself. In my desperation, I thought that it was the only way that I could sneak my way out of hell. (Now I see how the merciful Lord, lowered Himself to the point of using my own selfishness to save my soul.) In a daze, I wrote down all my sins in a notebook, left the bottle of pills on the table beside my bed, and went to church, knowing that when I returned, it would all be over. I entered the confessional and cried out my sins. To my surprise, something strange happened when I left the confessional. All of a sudden, a great sense of hope filled me. I felt as if a great load was taken off my shoulders and I felt free from the dark cloud that followed me. I remember calling my psychologist, who called me everyday to see if I was all right, and shouting to her, “I have a reason to live! I don’t exactly know what it is, but I have a reason to live!”
At that moment, I received a great grace from the Lord to cut off all connections with my friends, which was always very hard for me to do. I switched off my cell phone permanently and for the next 3 months, I stayed at home trying to regain myself and the relationship with my family. For the first time in 3 years I felt alive again.

You mentioned above that a new sense of hope filled you and that you had found a “reason to live” but did not know exactly what it was. When did you finally find out what it was?
In July of 2001, I was invited to attend a Summer Encounter of the Home of the Mother in New Jersey. I had remembered Spain, and I knew that I would have a good time at the camp. I came to the camp a few days late, a few suitcases too many, but more importantly, I came with an open heart. And that’s where the Lord filled it! That’s where I found out what the meaning of my life was. My life was meant for the Lord and from that day on I knew that I had to live for Him, and only Him. I learned of the great love that the Blessed Mother had for me and the big part she played in saving my life and my soul. I am grateful to her for taking care of me, and choosing me to form part of the Home of the Mother. I am also very thankful to God for all the people (it must have been a whole lot) who prayed for me, especially my mother, who entrusted me to the care and protection of the Blessed Mother.

What advice can you give a young person who might be going through a similar situation and suffering with depression?
Like I said above, all throughout this time, I had been talking to many psychologists and had been taking a variety of medications, all of which, if I had taken as prescribed, would have helped me to some degree. But in my case, I am certain that my condition was a sickness of the soul. My soul was very sick from sin, and only the Divine Physician was able to heal me of this debilitating illness through the Sacrament of Confession. I don’t doubt that clinical depression continues to be a mental illness that plagues our society, especially among young people; I was one of them. But, considering that we live in a culture that kicks God and human values out the window and places money, power, and the big “I” as king, I’m not surprised that the suicide rate is at an all-time high and depression is a common occurrence. The all-too-common feeling of emptiness felt by many young people is all because we seek to fill the holes in our hearts with everything the world tells us will make us happy. I searched in material things, in friends, diversions, pleasures, and finally when I could not find it anywhere and began to get desperate, I turned to the only escape I could find, drugs. It became a vicious cycle where I searched and searched, and found nothing. And it’s all because I was looking in all the wrong places. What I was really looking for was God. Thankfully, God is patient, very merciful and was the one who was looking ardently for me the whole time. It’s amazing! Many times I find myself asking Him why He looked for me and why He continues to seek me out and love me, being the miserable creature that I am. The only answer I can find is that He is good, because He is love. For He says, “I do not desire the death of the sinner; but I desire that the sinner should turn from his evil way, and live.” (Ezekiel 33: 11) And because of His great mercy and because I have the best mother in heaven that loves me with madness, I now live. I live, not the way the world lives destroying everything that God made good, but I help build. I help the Lord and the Blessed Mother build something big, something very big, the Kingdom of God here on earth!

©HM Magazine No. 139 November/December 2007