In July 2025, Tony and Janet travelled from Florida to the Shrine Our Lady of Montligeon. A pilgrimage of faith, this day at the Shrine also represents a full-circle moment for them, the achievement of a stage in their journey as widower and widow. Their story is one of hope in life after death – the eternal life for the ones who passed on, and the continuation of life for the ones who remain. They tell us how they learned to heal and love again.
Praying to help, praying to heal
When Tony’s wife Theresa passed away, three and a half years ago, he was not at all prepared for her death. “It was a very sudden death”, he explains. “I was broken and didn’t know how to go forward.”
Tony went through a state of deep depression and, searching for something to alleviate some of his pain, he found the website of Our Lady of Montligeon. “I wanted to find a mass that I could have said in France because my wife and I had spent so many lovely days in this country.”
As he discovered the work of Montligeon, Tony became more involved with its international Confraternity of prayer. He first enrolled his wife in the Confraternity, entrusting her at the same time to the prayers of a large, worldwide movement, and to the unlimited mercy of God through the Perpetual Mass.
He even created a Prayer Group of Montligeon in his former parish of Ohio.
To him, being a part of a prayer group of the Confraternity means praying twofold. “First, you are praying for the souls of the departed in that particular parish. And because you are part of a larger group throughout the world, you pray with and join those people, no matter where they are from.”
Prayer was a necessary part of Tony’s grieving journey. Losing someone, we may be tempted to think that we can’t help them anymore. How then can we heal? How can we live again, thinking that we haven’t done everything we could for them.
Through prayer, Tony did what needed to do for his wife. Entrusting her to the prayer of the Confraternity was a first step. “Not only did it relieve my pain, it was doing so much for the wife that I lost.”
Building a spiritual relationship
Part of mourning, for Tony, is learning a new way of loving the departed. “First, I had to build my relationship with my former spouse in a different way. I had to build it spiritually.”
With those words, he expresses a truth that may be difficult to fully understand, whether we never experienced such a loss, or are in the deep end of mourning. We aren’t meant to live forever in the memory of the one we lost, and neither are we expected to abandon them for another.
We can build a new bond of love through the action of Mary.
One of the ways Tony found to build this new spiritual relationship was through the “Thank-you/Forgive-me” notes of the Shrine of Montligeon. These prayer cards allow one to write down things left unsaid to their departed, and leave those words in the hands of Mary.
To Tony, this was a very important step in his life as a widower. “It gave me such an uplifting sensation. It was a moment I’ll never forget. It allowed me to writed down things I wanted to say to her, and offer my words to her through the Blessed Mother. It gave me a feeling of grace and help for her that I didn’t think was possible.”
Writing as an act of prayer and love allowed him to start moving on, not away from her, but from depression, hand in hand with Mary. “It moved me through the depression into a state where I would be able to meet my lovely wife Janet.”
Allowing oneself to hope again
Tony and Janet met as widower and widow, but their experiences were different. Where Tony’s wife died suddenly, Janet’s husband’s deathcame at the term of a long illness. He in fact told her that he wished for her to have a life he passed away. “It made it a lot easier for me to start a new life,” she said. “I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life alone.”
And yet, after going through so much together, after giving oneself to someone fully, building a family, creating a life together, expecting to grow old together, how to start all over again? It takes a special kind of courage to accept to risk loving again, hoping again, knowing the journey ahead, and the possibility of loss.
This is something Tony and Janet both struggled with. “We weren’t sure we wanted to get married,” Tony says. “But after talking to each other, talking to a local priest, we felt the best way was to support each other. We saw that it was God’s will that we were together. We were lucky, not everyone may have that sort of feeling.”
Janet went through a similar path. “I didn’t want to get married again. But we fell in love, started going to church. We realized it was the right thing to do. So we got married and it was the best day of my life!”
The healing power of Mary
Healing from loss alone, is impossible. We need the love of others, and the love of Jesus and of Mary, his mother. Mary is uniquely close to us in that regard. She was there when Saint Joseph died. And she was standing at the foot of the cross when her only Son offered his life for our sins. She knows our pain, she whose heart was pierced by a sword.
After his wife died, Tony felt a special connection to Mary. “What brings people to the Shrine is the opportunity to talk personally, one on one, with the Blessed Mother, Our Lady of Montligeon.” Being here, seeing her statue showing her, a hand outstretched toward a soul and the other holding the Infant Christ, was a moment of great comfort for Tony and Janet, and for thousands of pilgrims, all looking for hope and consolation in the heart of the Blessed Virgin.
Faith is the way forward. When everything else seems to desert us, hope in God is the only way. In Tony’s closing words:
“All the glory goes to God, this Shrine, and Our Lady of Montligeon. The power that she has of healing through her divine Son – nobody should question that ever.
“Everybody should embrace that because, when you’re hurting, the best and only place to turn to is God.”
