Walter Emerson Adams
Walter Emerson Adams
One begins this journey best in the context of this preface.
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I am a business and educational professional with an undergraduate degree in Economics from Princeton University and a master’s degree in public and private management from Yale University. My story begins in 1977 prior to attending university. Just out of high school and still a Protestant, I participated in a six-week cultural program in Brittany, France. Before leaving, we visited Mont Saint-Michel in Normandy where I encountered a statue of St. Joan of Arc. This project began with my introduction to Joan there. I later converted to the Catholic Church prior to my marriage in 1985.
On July 16th, 1986, a little over a year after joining the Catholic Church, I submitted to the Holy Virgin Mary as her slave according to the method of St. Louis de Montfort. I had a powerful conviction to abandon myself to Divine Providence through her Immaculate Heart. My benefactor in grace through Mary’s heart was St. Thérèse of Lisieux, to whom I owe the grace of my conversion on her Feast Day of 1984. Twenty-four years later, Thérèse miraculously brought St. Joan of Arc to the forefront of my spiritual and religious life. This project came together over the following fifteen years of lively devotion to St. Joan and St. Thérèse.
Our Lady had taken me seriously in 1986. My prayer was sincere and well-received by Heaven. I was praying for what Our Lord Jesus Christ wanted to give me.
Soon after my consecration to Mary, I entered twenty years of painful devastation. Over these two decades, I lost everything of earthly value except my faithful wife and son. We lost our family business. Despite successfully holding high-level corporate positions that came through my degrees from Princeton and Yale, I suffered humiliating personal failures, ridicule, the loss of respect of family and friends, the loss of self-respect, the loss of mental and physical health, and financial collapse. Two decades after my consecration to Mary, I had fallen to last place in life. This was the first major milestone and expression of loving grace on my journey.
As I plummeted, Our Lady and the Faith never failed me. Never did Our Lord Jesus Christ abandon me. Despite my chronic failures and humiliations, the sacraments and the Mass remained central to my life. I remained drawn to the Virgin Mary and, still in spiritual chains, reconsecrated myself to her in 2004 following the method of St. Maximilian Kolbe. Still suffering in the summer of 2005, alone in a motel room, I writhed in pain on my bed. Suddenly, out of nowhere, with no forethought, I moaned, “I offer all my suffering in reparation for offenses committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary.”
This prayer was also well-received by Heaven. My living death ended the following year. A resurrection began at the feet of a statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary in July of 2006 while on retreat at an abandoned seminary. As I drove through the previous night to the site, I prayed persistently to Mary, asking her to give me the Holy Spirit. The next evening after confession, I stood before her statue. I perceived her speaking through my heart, “I am the channel of the Holy Spirit in your life. I have always been with you. You have always had the Holy Spirit.” At that moment, she freed me from mental, emotional, and spiritual chains. Our Lady released me instantly from dependency on medications. The following day, the priest read Matthew 6:33, “Seek ye therefore first the Kingdom of God, and his justice, and all these things shall be added unto you.” I knew those words were Our Lady’s instructions for me.
I began seeking first the Kingdom of God by visiting the Eucharist in adoration on a regular basis. My mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual health improved steadily. Life became orderly again. I found a new senior-level career position to get back on my feet professionally. However, my hopes of redeeming myself in the eyes of the world proved naive and immature. Our Lady had instructed me to seek the Kingdom of God first, not to return to the Kingdom of man to impress the world. Due to the poor economy, I lost the position within a year and once again needed employment. This loss was another major milestone and expression of loving grace.
In the Fall of 2008, the moment happened. Through the influence of St. Thérèse’s plays and poetry, I instantaneously came to an astonishing comprehension of St. Joan of Arc in my life and a fervent, supernatural devotion to her. In that flash of a moment, St. Joan became my guide for this journey to the Kingdom.
A few weeks later, not yet comprehending the spiritual meaning of my previous job loss, I attended a large professional networking meeting attempting to find my next high-level corporate position. Halfway through the conference, I felt an overwhelming revulsion toward everything discussed. I felt compelled to leave and did immediately. The meeting facilitator had asked us to write down our impressions of the meeting and drop the comments in a designated box. I wrote a note saying that they all needed to study Joan of Arc and placed it in the box on my way out. I never attended another networking event. I had to focus on seeking first the Kingdom, which, in my case, meant something other than becoming wealthy, prominent, and professionally successful in the eyes of the world. I found obscure college and university-level adjunct teaching assignments that kept my income in respectable shape and allowed my wife and me to make ends meet.
I began writing. The Kingdom Our Lady referenced was inside me, and the way to seek it, to integrate this Kingdom into my deepest being, was to write. I wrote for fifteen years. It was an ongoing prayer, an interior journey to the Kingdom.
During this time, in late February of 2013, the relic tour of St. Mary Magdalene came to our area. We venerated her shin bone at the host parish. A few months later, a holy woman appeared to me in a dream, dressed in a brown robe and hood that resembled what I would imagine women wore in Our Lord’s time and place. She smiled at me just before I woke. My writing caught a second wind after that dream. Mystical France appeared on my horizon of meaning, and St. Joan of Arc appeared at my side to lead me there. Recently, by the grace of God, an opportunity opened for us to visit southern France where we entered the tomb of St. Mary Magdalene and hiked the mountain of La Sainte-Baume to pray in her Grotto. This visit was a miraculous answered prayer that brought me at last to the shores of Provence forty-seven years after beginning my journey before a statue of St. Joan of Arc at Mont Saint-Michel.
This project is the result of my journey to “seek first the Kingdom.” Developing it, I remained last in the world which is a treasured grace. My life is consecrated to St. Joan of Arc. One can understand my project only in the context of this preface.
~ Walter Emerson Adams
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Check out the Heroic Hearts podcast on Substack, Spotify, or Apple. Heroic Hearts is a podcast about healing, enchanting, and elevating our hearts through the stories and spirituality of St. Joan of Arc and St. Therese of Lisieux. Co-hosted with Amy Chase.
