When we got back from our Pilgrimage all was still going well; our prayer group was a joy and well attended, work was good, and the boys were enjoying living there. In short, we felt settled and secure. On Vocations Sunday 1999, we attended Mass at the Abbey church. While at Mass the Lord spoke to me saying, “I want you to go back to the land of your fathers.” My mental answer was, “Where is the land of my fathers?” My father’s family are all English although he himself was born in Malta.
As we came down the steps of the church, I told Ursula. Who listened but was not very receptive to the idea. In fact, we simply let the idea drop and did not mention it again for the next few months.
The idyllic lifestyle seemed to change during the following year. Everything went topsy-turvey. Problems arose, which thankfully were later resolved. However, at that time we found it necessary to remove our children from the school and life in general was certainly not so rosy. After taking the boys out of Ampleforth, we thought we might look into the ‘Malta’ idea after all.
We now started getting messages from our friends - one being Ann Benn who was the President of the Third Order Franciscans in our area, asking what Malta had to do with us. They kept getting the same readings for us every time they prayed. Some of them did not know I had any connection with the Island. This started us thinking again.