Digital Marian Helper Magazine Spring 2021

28 M arian H elper • S pring 2021 • marian . org “I said, ‘Why don’t we get together every Sunday, and we’ll go through the Mass as best we can?’ We started doing that.” He also started praying a daily Rosary o n Aug. 16 with a handful of Marines. “We took our last casualties on Aug. 14, and pulled out Dec. 4,” Matt said. “It wasn’t that we stopped getting shot at or ambushed. But the Blessed Mother, I believe, was covering us with that Rosary.” For the rest of his career as a Marine, Matt continued to pursue a role as a spiritual leader. “That’s where I started to find this deeper identity, that I didn’t need to be a combat hero. The more I entered into that role, the more I loved it,” he said. “My men were in need spiritually, and that was a way I could be a unique gift to them.” Healing in Confession When Matt finally returned from deployment, his sister prayed over him. “During that prayer, she had a vision of me kneeling at the foot of the cross crouched over and weeping,” he said. “I was surrounded by eight people, each trying to lift me up. That was a healing moment. It was like God was telling me that not only could I pray for those who were killed, but that I could have a rela- tionship with them, and that they desired a relationship with me.” He also went to Confession for the first time since the tragedy. “One of the things I realized in my Examination of Conscience was, to some extent, that I was guilty of the sin of murder,” he said. “Not so much because I authorized the dropping of a bomb that killed eight innocent people, but because there was a desire to exalt myself as a combat hero, and the means to achieving that end was to kill the enemy. To that extent, I desired to use another person as a means to an end, which is always sinful. “Being able to confess that was so healing and empowering because it helped me to no longer be a victim. …You have to take responsibility where you can and repent where you can. And God’s mercy is just waiting for that. That mercy transforms you. That love in that place of misery, that heart that gives itself to those in misery, transforms you. It uproots the lie planted by trauma. Trauma will always plant a lie. God’s mercy removes the lie. The lie was that I was a baby killer, that I was damned where I stood. God replaced the lies with a deep, intimate, abiding truth.” A few years later, sitting before the Blessed Sacrament, Matt felt the Lord invite him to revisit the trauma once again. “I said, ‘Jesus, I’ve had my big cry. I don’t want to go back there. I’m healed.’” He felt the Lord say to him in his heart, “I want to show you where I was that day.” Jesus by his side In his mind’s eye, Matt found himself back in the command center in Afghanistan. “It was as if I were a camera man, watching myself,” said Matt. “I watched that moment, when the call was com- ing in from the radio. Then I noticed Jesus was sitting next to me, looking at me. It was clear in His face that He was experiencing everything I was experiencing, all the pain. “When I got up and walked out, He followed me. As I was smoking and pacing, He was moving in front of me, want- ing to embrace me. As soon as I’d get close to Him, I’d pivot and go the other direction. …Then when I went to the tent, got sick, and curled up in a little ball on my cot, Jesus came in after me. “He had His hands over me. There was such sorrow and pain on His face,” Matt continued. “Then it was as if the camera widened out, and I noticed a new presence in the room. It was the Blessed Virgin Mary. She was right next to Jesus. … She never took her eyes off me. She had this fierceness yet this tenderness about her. She knelt down next to me and started rubbing my shoulder and singing to me, like a mother singing to a child. In that moment, that’s when I prayed the Hail Mary. “I look back on that moment now, and there’s still sadness there. It’s very sad what happened. But in the same sense,