Ireland
Responses to Totus2us podcasts given by Irish people with Christian names beginning with K to M - many thanks to you all ♥
Karen 
"My favourite pilgrimage is Knock and I’ve been there four times. Every time I go I just get a sense of peace, like it overwhelms me. I love being there (the people are just so nice). I don't know, I can't really express it, but I'm just filled with so much joy. "
Kate 
"Our Blessed Mother has been this beautiful, gentle presence throughout my life and I believe it's been her motherly care that's brought me back to her son Jesus. .. And, for me personally, I struggled in my life with the identity that I have as a woman. Somewhere along the line I kind of lost the true meaning of what it is to be a woman and the dignity of a woman, and I feel that our Blessed Mother has recently restored this to me, especially in the last two years. She's really taught me that the real dignity of a woman is our capacity to love and she is the perfect image of love because she is the masterpiece of all creation. She was picked to be the first tabernacle so she is to me the real image of a woman and the model of what we try to become more and more like. So, yeh, gentleness is the word that keeps coming to mind."
Kate chose St Augustine of Hippo on The Incredibles 
"I think the saint that probably has had most influence in my life has been St Augustine and that is because I identified with him in his rebelliousness and his struggle to walk with God because he had a deep desire to know him and to love him but he couldn't for so many years actually do it .... It has been really interesting because since I have had my conversion two years ago back to my faith little things have cropped up. .... That's the beauty of the Catholic Church is that we have this bank of people that are praying for us and that are so instrumental in the little graces that we receive every single day to come closer to God because they are interceding for us because they in heaven have the full knowledge and full image of what it is to be a community and to be God's children. So to have that amazing richness of the Catholic faith that all of these people are praying for you and loving you and helping you each and every day to a closer relationship with Jesus. It's pretty cool!"
Kate 
"Our Lady to me is my teacher."
Kathleen 
"I feel so close to her. I just feel I love Our Lady. What more can I say?"
Kathleen 
"Mary is everything, and any time I pray to her she do answer me everything I ask."
Kathleen 
"From when I was very young, I always believed that Our Lady was our mother in heaven. So I knew that your mother always was there for you, so I used to say a Hail Mary to her that she would guide me and help me through me life, keep me from all bad company, sin and evil. I've always said that from when I was very young."
Kieran
"Our Lady is the hope of mankind, she's the joy of mankind; the sweetest, loveliest woman who's lived. She's a presence and grace for all of us. She shows us how we can be fully human, she reveals Christ. She's the way to salvation, she's a friend who's always with us; she gives us strength. She's grace, blessing, and hope for our troubled world, a way through our own problems; she shows us the sanctity of life who's sweetness, kindness, love personified and we have an obligation to devote ourselves to her and her Immaculate Heart."
Kitty 
"Our Lady is wonderful to me."
Liam 
"Mother Mary is my life, my protector, my guide. She’s the one who shepherds me home to Jesus."
Lorraine
"At that moment I just had a real sense of God's healing presence, it was something so tangible and He was so real to me at that moment, it was just so real. I can remember the following days really praying at the Grotto. It was just the peace. I didn't want to leave. I can remember just saying prayers that I'd learned as a child. I knew that God was real, that Mary was real, and that I wanted to have a relationship with them. I suppose that healing that I experienced on that night, it changed the direction of my life. When I came back from Lourdes, all of my friends noticed that I just had this peace, and I was calm, and I accepted who I was and I knew at that moment and from then on that I was a child of God and that I was really loved by Him."
Maggie
"Mary, my blessed mother, is my reason for hope and faith in the Catholic Church and in the world."
Maggie 
"Our Lady is a mother around me, as my mother has been dead for so long. I also left a prayer in the church (first time I've ever done it) to tell people to pray to her because she's never let me down on something really major these last couple of years. I'd been out of the church for about 5 or 6 years, and she brought me back into it through a prayer I found here."
Margaret
"I love Our Blessed Lady. I pray to her constantly. I work under her mantle because I am in the Legion of Mary and I have got great favours from praying to Our Blessed Lady and in the Legion we spread her devotion always."
Margaret 
"I like Our Lady of Knock because when the people of Ireland were starving Our Lady appeared."
Margaret
"Our Lady to me is my life. She's obviously our spiritual mother but she is also going to be my intercessor at the hour of my death."
Sister Maria
"I feel Mary is a loving caring mother and I always feel she is with me at all times, in times of joys and sorrows, in times of darkness and light. And when I minister in the hospital, I have a great devotion to Our Lady of Lourdes and I feel she's helping not only myself, but all the sick who are in deep pain and distress. And when we say the Hail Mary, it is powerful, and the Lourdes holy water. So I thank God for Our Lady, and I feel she's with me for the rest of my life, I praise you Lord, through Mary our Mother of Mercy. Amen."
Sister Maria is a Sister of Mercy.
Marion 
"My mother had a great devotion to Mary. At our house we had rosary every night. My father insisted before we left the house that the rosary was said. So it's stayed with me ever since."
Mary 
"The Blessed Mother of Jesus, my best friend!"
Mary 
"I always turn to Our Lady as my mother, I mean if I'm in trouble or anything. And even if I'm not in trouble, I just turn to her. She's there. She looks after you, she has you under her mantle."
Mary
"She's a mother to me and I love the Blessed Virgin Mary with all my heart."
Mary 
"Our Lady means everything to me."
Mary
"I see Mary as my mother and I've got a great devotion to her. She's the mother of Christ and she's our mother as well."
Mary
"I think Our Lady is very precious and gets me many things in my life. All the things that happened to me in my life, she helped me."
Mary 
"Well, I’ve always devotion to Our Lady and to the rosary, because .. we always said the rosary, every night at home. We’ve great devotion to Our Lady, always. She's one of my best friends. When I’m down and out, I look up and see the Sacred Heart picture and then His Mother."
Mary 
"I love Our Lady. What more can I say? Through Our Lady we get to God, through her Son."
Mary 
"My name is also Mary and I didn’t realise at the time [of being a child] how beautiful the name is and half the time I really don't deserve it. I think, especially for October, everyone should try and say even a decade of the rosary in honour of Our Lady."
Mary 
"Our Lady means a lot to me, she looks after me."
Sister Mary Hilary 
"The rosary has always been part of my life and I come and pray here every day [in the chapel of Our Lady] either before or after Mass, and ask Mary to keep me very close to her son."
Mary-Jo 
"I’ve always had great faith in Our Lady ... I always make a point of going to Knock whenever I go to Ireland because it means so much to me, and Our Lady of Knock has showered many blessings and answered many prayers for my family over the years."
Sister Mary of Mercy 
"Mary is a wonderful person. She’s God’s Mother and she’s always looking after us. And she’s very close to her son and brings us closer to Jesus."
Sister Mary of Mercy is a Sister of Nazareth.
Mary-Rose 
"Mary is very inspiring to me and I would always feel that she's comforting me and she's there for me."
Father Matt OCD 
Father Matt Blake, a Carmelite priest currently based at the Carmel at Boars Hill, describes how St John of the Cross has been his inspiration throughout his priesthood.
"John gives us a way through the difficulties. John does not present us with superficial answers. John, rather, constantly draws us to Jesus Christ, to the Cross of Jesus Christ, to Jesus as the way, as the truth and the life. John, then, and his teaching, will not fail us and he has not failed me, and he has given me a well, a source of wisdom and of inspiration that I can constantly draw upon, and that sustains me on what is at times a very difficult road, but also a road that is filled with richness, with beauty, and ultimately a road that makes known to the world the greatness of God and the greatness of God's presence in each of our lives."
May 
"Our Lady has a special peace for me."
Meta 
"I thank Mary for all the support and strength she has given me over the years."
Michael
"Mary, the mother of Jesus Christ, the chosen woman, she means life, she means everything."
Michael 
"Our Lady means a lot to me. She means everything to me."
Father Michael OCD
"Our Lady is mother for me. I love the image of her standing at the foot of the Cross and for me she stands with me, she cares for me, she supports me and prays for me."
Father Michael McGoldrick is currently Prior at the Avila Carmelite Centre in Dublin.
Moira
"It's all one with Mary."
Monica 
"Mary has played a very important role in our lives because she has helped me in many, many ways in my every day life. When I speak to her, she helps and she answers me."