Digital Marian Helper Spring_2018
‘I knew G od was reaching out to me ’ By Melanie Williams I t was Nov. 1, 2014, at 2 a.m. A disabled car filled with teenagers was parked by the side of a highway in Bethesda, Maryland, when it was rammed by an SUV that had drifted onto the shoulder. One of the teens, Dominik “Dom” Pettey, was killed instantly. 10 M arian H elper • S pring 2018 • marian.org Dom, 17, was a high school senior, star hockey player, and all-around “great guy,” according to those who knew him. As a child, his family visited the Shrine of Divine Mercy in Poland, where he played with the sis- ters and ran up to the tomb of St. Faustina t o kiss and lay upon it. As a teenager, Dom didn’t preach his love for Jesus from a soap box, but friends and fellow students could see it in the genuineness of his smile and the kind- ness of his gestures towards others. We featured the story of Magdalena and Patrick Pettey’s witness of faith and trust in Jesus since the passing of their son Dom in our August 2016 issue of our Friends of Mercy newsletter, in an article entitled, “Tragic Death Makes an Apostle of Mercy.” Since his passing, Dom Pettey has been touching countless lives through Divine Mercy. His parents saw to it that an Image of Divine Mercy was placed in front of the altar at the funeral Mass and on the memorial cards so as to spread th e message of Divine Mercy to all those in attendance. His funeral Mass drew a standing-room-only crowd at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception inWashington, D.C. Those memorial cards with the Image and Chaplet of Divine Mercy h ave been a means through which Dom has become an apostle of mercy to thousands of people. Brendan Pearl believes the manner in which he received Dominik Pettey’s memorial card was an act of God.
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