Sitting in Biagio’s bakery following our Ladies Mini-Retreat in Stirling, NJ eating enormous “half” sandwiches (which made us wonder at the size of the “whole”) I had the opportunity to sit down with Mary Rohe. Mary is one of our so–called “newer” members, even though she has been in Regnum Christi for 9 years! Married in 1990, Mary and her husband have 3 kids, now young men, ages 19, 21, and 23. Her cradle catholic story begins in Brooklyn, NY, moving to Staten Island in grammar school. Her life shifted to New Jersey when she married a man from Long Island. Mary muses, “He refused to live in Staten Island, and I refused to live in Long Island, so New Jersey was the compromise.” Following a short stint in Hoboken, they’ve lived in Chatham ever since.
Church was a family experience growing up. With her mother’s family all in the same parish, she describes fond memories of all sitting together in a huge group of pews. There was a sense of family belonging inside the big family of the church. These two things have been intertwined ever since. “As a child, my faith was a felt sense of belonging, not really a personal relationship with God, but I knew I belonged there because my family was there. Sort of like a distant cousin. I didn’t know God personally, but my grandmother did, so I knew I belonged because of that.”
Sunday mass attendance was about the extent of her Catholic practice until soon after her first child came along. A hunger began to grow. She joined a group of very diverse moms and tots in parish bible study and started seeing faith for the first time as an adult. This study of scripture opened a craving for more. A few years later she met a Regnum Christi gal who must have sensed this and invited her to the evening retreats. It was difficult, as a stay-at-home mom of 3 young children to get out in the evening, so it wasn’t until there was something during the day that she could finally attend, an open Encounter. It was the spring of 2013 and Mary was hooked. She could not wait to learn more and attend more. She almost needed to pester her friend, “What’s next?”
“I knew. I need to be here with these ladies. This is the culmination of all I had been searching for. The community, formation, the Church, and Christ. Everything. I was hungry, and my experiences before were more superficial and social in nature meaning there was a lot of talking but not a lot of silence. I wanted silence and depth. Regnum Christi was a perfect fit.”
However, things do not always move so quickly in RC. Finally, after patient waiting, gentle persistence, attendance at encounters, retreats, and a discernment series, Mary incorporated in Feb of 2014. She jumped right in and joined our AFIRE team as the Economy person and became a vital part of our NJ women’s section. She is now, also, the Chatham team leader.
Mary has been instrumental in the implementation and is co-coordinator of the Walking With Purpose ministry in her parish for the last 7 years. With groups in the morning and the evening, this ministry reaches about 40 women annually. Additionally in her parish, Mary taught CCD for 15 years, she lectors, is a eucharistic minister, and helps with 1st Friday adoration.
“The impact RC has made in my life in terms of my faith, it helps to mature my understanding of church and faith as a whole. Also, it has helped with the apostolic end of things. We have these requirements in our baptism, we are baptized Priest, Prophet, and King and we are supposed to live out these different aspects. Regnum Christi actually helps me do that because I have a community supporting me.”
When I asked her what her favorite part of Regnum Christi is- “Encounter. Definitely encounter. The women in the encounter are so genuine and so faithful. But then any time I go to any Regnum Christi event all of the people are that way and you realize that your group is only one cell of this whole family. When I go on retreat with all of these ladies, I don’t really know them, but when they share their lights, I realize that God is speaking to each of us in different ways, yet so connected. This to me is very attractive. When you get a group of women together it is so easy to gossip and chat about inconsequential things, but our encounters are there to focus on Christ. It is so refreshing and rare that we can all do that.”
There is a support felt in Regnum Christi that isn’t felt anywhere else. Refreshing. Rare. Here is the same felt sense of family she had as a young girl. Community. Communion. Support.
As we finish our sandwiches, wave to the little twin girls at the next table with kitty face paintings, and depart the bakery, we discuss how we are looking forward to some of our future apostolic projects including hosting the NY Tri-State Regnum Christi Day in November. We both look forward to showing the rest of Tri-State our world here in NJ!
