MADISON — An automobile accident in 1975 changed Paula D’Arcy’s life forever.
She woke up to discover that her husband and daughter had been killed in the wreck, but the baby she had carried for three months was still alive inside her.
“Everything about my life altered at that moment,” she says. “I was at a fork in the road; I could despair, or I could go deeper.”
Long healing process
She sought God in the darkness. Thus began the long healing process.
A support group of loving friends prayed her through the initial agony. She gave birth to a healthy daughter. God was at work. “I was a stunned young woman, with death all around, still holding life,” she says.
But in her struggle, she found “a real intimacy with God that would sustain me for the long haul.” Faith, she realized, “wasn’t a belief or a concept but a real relationship with life.”
Walking the Path Before YouA Lenten mini-retreat with Paula D’Arcy at Our Lady Queen of Peace Church, 401 S. Owen Dr., Madison |
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Sharing spiritual journey
Originally a psychotherapist, D’Arcy has devoted her life to sharing her spiritual journey with others and to bringing helping, loving, prayerful support to those who need it.
She’s bringing that journey and that mission to Our Lady Queen of Peace Parish with a Friday evening talk on “Forgiveness” and a Saturday morning session, “Finding God,” on Feb. 27 and 28. All are welcome.
The journey that brings her to us included another life-changing event, an offer to work for the Norman Vincent Peale Foundation as a writer. It gave her a chance to work from home while caring for her infant daughter, and it also gave her a chance to hold out a helping hand to others, as her friends had done for her.
Her job was to answer letters from people seeking guidance and spiritual nourishment, “hurt cries from people all over the world.”
It opened her eyes to “all of us, struggling to find a way. We all have the same heart, and when the heart breaks, we’re all on the same journey.”
Red Bird Foundation
In 2001 she established the “Red Bird Foundation,” with a mission to “support the growth and spiritual development of those in need worldwide, including men and women in prison.”
The foundation has hosted international gatherings of WOMENSPEAK, honoring women’s voices as a forces for peace and healing.
She writes books, leads retreats around the country, and lectures at the Oblate School of Theology in San Antonio, Texas. Fr. Ronald Rohlheiser, OMI, president of the school, says they “consider it a privilege that she teaches for us. Nobody among our faculty or among the speakers we bring to our renewal center receives better evaluations than Paula D’Arcy — not just as pertaining to her teaching, but also as pertaining to her person.”
Now she brings her journey, her faith, and her testimony to Madison in what promises to be a life-changing mini-retreat.
For more information on this and other adult enrichment programs at Our Lady Queen of Peace, contact Debra Schroeder, pastoral associate, at [email protected]
Paula D’Arcy’s books include: A New Set of Eyes: Encountering the Hidden God; When People Grieve; Rivers of Sorrow, Currents of Hope; and The Gift of the Red Bird.