(This interview was completed in 2007. Born and raised in Hawaii, Patricia Devlin is the mother of two children and holds advanced degrees in psychology and counseling. She has been blind since birth, and has survived two bouts with cancer. She currently suffers from migraines and breast cancer. Her book, The Light of Love, is a compilation of conversations with her guardian angel, and later with our Lord. She lives in Lubbock, Texas and is under spiritual direction there with a priest of her diocese, in obedience to the bishop.)
Kristen: Was your family Catholic?
Patricia: I feel very much like a convert! My culturally Catholic family wasn’t active in their faith. They thought they were doing a lot by going to church on Sunday. I was always asking questions, hungering to know more about God.
Kristen: Do you know how you became blind?
Patricia: Yes, I was born prematurely. My baptismal certificate says, “baptized at the hour of birth, not expected to live.” I was three months early and they put me in the incubator right away. The oxygen levels affected my retinal tissues. I got pneumonia, and at one point only weighed one and a half pounds. On the unofficial Marian calendar of apparitions, my birthday is the day of Our Lady of Miracles! And I am!
Kristen: Did your childhood suffering make you more open to faith?
Patricia: Both yes and no. Yes, because I spent a lot of time alone. As a child, I would sit and touch the grass, the flowers, the trees, and just wonder at the amazing world God made for us. But, on the other hand, the treatment of other people bothered me, especially within my own family. Their message was, “You are a burden and life would be happier without you here.”
I had to fight just not to die, so my faith is what kept me alive. My life was God’s, not mine. It was an infused knowledge and I knew that very clearly as a child.
Kristen: How did you meet your husband?
Patricia: My children were conceived by force. Unfortunately, I married the man who did it. The violation and the violence continued and finally I had the sense to run away with my children. I burst out. There were people who couldn’t believe a blind woman could raise her children alone but I did the best I could.
Kristen: And throughout all of these sufferings, you had serious health concerns.
Patricia: My eyes gave me terrible pain as a child, because of glaucoma. When I couldn’t function anymore, I had both removed, the right eye in 1974, and the left in 1978. They found a malignant brain tumor behind the left eye. They said, “Prepare for dying within the next year.”
Well, my children were only four at the time. I knew they would be handed over to my ex-husband if I died. When they went in for the exploratory surgery they couldn’t find any cancer. Then, I ran away to Hawaii to protect the children.
In 1988, they discovered a meningioma tumor behind my left ear. They would have to cut my neck muscles to take it out. Losing my hearing was a risk and I was so scared. I was frozen inside and I couldn’t do anything; I could barely pray.
I had just moved to Lubbock, Texas to finish my doctorate. Things were so confusing. It truly was my Gethsemane. My angel prompted me to ask for what I truly wanted, which was to have all my senses, except blindness of course. And I prayed to offer my pain as prayers, at least as much as I was able.
Kristen: Weren’t there a number of alleged apparitions in Lubbock at this time?
Patricia: Yes. I prayed to the Lord, “Help me to know what is true.” I hesitate to tell my story, because I could so easily be labeled a masochist. Or crazy. But a wise use of suffering will show us more clearly what our gifts are.
Kristen: What happened after the surgery?
Patricia: After the surgery, my migraines were so bad, I couldn’t finish my degree. God could have taken the tumor and I’d have finished my degree, but that’s not the life he had planned for me. He used the tumor and the pain and everything else. The mystical experiences I had then, I wrote in the book, the Light of Love.
Kristen: How did you know you could trust the voice you heard?
Patricia: Well, I’ve never had interlocutions. I always heard an external voice. Because of my psychological background, I was a little concerned that my mind was fragmenting or something. I did check with my counseling program advisors, and I tested the spirits. Most of all, I remained quiet and avoided sensationalizing my experiences.
Kristen: Do you still have mystical experiences?
Patricia: Yes, but now the focus is on offering my pain as prayers; right now that’s my job. The mystical experiences prepared me for this. My guardian angel gave me a glimpse of a human soul. First, he had to warn me not to begin to worship, because a human soul is so beautiful.
One glimpse sent me shaking and trembling. I can’t tell you. It’s not just the soul’s “bigness,” but a question of glory. The human soul is so infinitely precious and that’s why the body is sacred, because it is the vessel of the soul. That’s why abortion and euthanasia are so infinitely unspeakable—they don’t recognize the value of a human life.
Patricia Devlin with her seeing eye dog, Gia, in 1994. Photo courtesy of Queenship Publishing.
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