BY GRETCHEN KEISER

Staff Writer

STONE MOUNTAIN--Magnificat speaker Marilyn Quirk says that in a troubled and painful childhood her two grandmothers were God's "secret weapons" who taught her about Jesus and prayed for her.

"I really believe that the grace I have standing before you today is from the prayers of my grandmothers," the New Orleans woman who founded Magnificat told a gathering of 400 women.

Because her parents' marriage was unstable she suffered while they were repeatedly separated. But "from an early age I knew Jesus...God gave me two secret weapons--my grandmothers." She also believes the experience deepened her faith and compassion.

A mother of six and grandmother of six, Mrs. Quirk co-founded the Catholic ministry to women in the New Orleans Archdiocese in 1981. Magnificat now has 38 chapters in the U.S. and abroad, including the "Joyful Visitation Chapter" in the Archdiocese of Atlanta, which invited Mrs. Quirk to speak. Archbishop John F. Donoghue also addressed the Feb. 24 gathering held at Mount Carmel Christian Church.

Baptized Catholic, then raised in the Episcopal Church, Mrs. Quirk was instructed in Catholicism by Father Stanley Ott, then campus minister at Louisiana State University. He helped her to see that marriage was as much a vocation as missionary work. She was received into the Church shortly before her wedding to Peter Quirk in 1958.

"I believe it was a great grace God poured out upon me at that time," she said of the sacrament of marriage. "Your love is caught up in God's unconditional love... In difficulties, in times of stress, we can draw upon that."

Although her marriage remained strong, Mrs. Quirk related that her spiritual life weakened over time. She was a mother of four children and busy with "luncheons, style shows and card parties."

"Jesus was there, but he certainly wasn't Lord of my life at that time," she said.

A friend repeatedly invited her to a charismatic prayer meeting being held at Loyola University. Finally the friend's persistence paid off and she went. As she heard the prayers of the 70 or so people, Mrs. Quirk said she "felt like I was in an early Christian community. I felt like I was home. Tears of repentance and joy welled up in me."

As she continued to attend she was prayed with for the fuller release of the Holy Spirit in her life. Nothing dramatic occurred at the time of the prayer, she said, but the direction of her life changed. "I was going in one direction and I began going in another direction. I gave my life and bought the pearl of great price."

She reflects now upon how merciful God was to her. "When I was going away from (God), he came and drew me back."

Much fruit came of this change in her priorities. A group of women began to meet at her home once a week to pray together and eventually became so large that other women's groups were created off of it and they began offering Christian teaching to women. She also had two more children during those years.

"So much began happening in my life and in the lives of those who were coming...We were becoming and learning what it meant to be Christian women....Sometimes when we give our lives to God we think we are going to have to make big sacrifices, but God comes in and changes our hearts and we desire his will...God was revealing to us how much we had been evangelized by the world and not by his Word."

At the time Women Aglow, an evangelical Christian outreach to women, began attracting New Orleans women to prayer breakfasts. Many were Catholic women, Mrs. Quirk said, and the Women Aglow leadership began looking for a Catholic spiritual advisor to help them minister effectively. Mrs. Quirk, who was five months pregnant, sought out her former campus minister, now Auxiliary Bishop Ott, who instead encouraged formation of a Catholic ministry similar to Women Aglow. The idea was also presented to her by her doctor, who was an advisor to Women Aglow.

"I felt like Elizabeth," Mrs. Quirk said. "I wanted to go into seclusion. I was very tired. I was five months pregnant." Yet the Magnificat ministry was blessed with great success from the beginning. "It is a sovereign gift of God for this moment."

Vatican II documents and Pope John Paul II's encyclical on women assert that "women impregnated with the Spirit of the Gospel can do much in aiding mankind," she said. Yet, "we as women have been more often evangelized by the world."

"The world is telling women, 'You must seek yourself,' but what does Jesus tell you: 'If you seek yourself, you will lose yourself; if you seek Me, you will find yourself.'"

She exhorted the women not to be seduced by the world's gospel, but to seek God, spend time alone with God, pray with other women and pray for all women. "God has a plan for you. God wants you to use your love and your prayers," Mrs. Quirk said.

"I feel personally my weakness in evangelization," she said, "but I know God can do more than I can ask or imagine." Quoting St. Ambrose she prayed, "Let Mary's spirit be in each of you to proclaim the greatness of the Lord."

Archbishop Donoghue also reflected on the prayer of Mary, known as the Magnificat, in speaking to those gathered.

Priests say this prayer "countless times in their lives" and find in it a rich source of inspiration, the archbishop said. "It has accompanied me through the happiest and also the hardest moments of my life."

Despite his love of the Magnificat, Archbishop Donoghue said, he believes "women probably understand it to the fullest...I am sure each and every one of you could teach me a great deal about Mary, and about what she felt as this prayer welled up within her soul."

In his own reflection upon it, particularly in moment of great trial, he said, he is struck by the opening lines in which Mary describes herself as a "lowly servant" and says that she will be called blessed "because of what God has done for her."

"This is the kind of conduct, the kind of attitude and spirit that we all--men and women, young and old--need to admire, to study, to ponder and somehow try to work into every moment of our conscious lives," the archbishop said.

"Our question should be not, who am I, but who does God make me. Not, what can I do today to find happiness and fulfillment, but instead, how can I be the instrument of God's salvation in the world today."

He called Mary's prayer, "a prayer of health and optimism" and welcomed the presence of the Magnificat ministry in the archdiocese.

Magnificat breakfasts are held quarterly, organized by a service team of five women of the archdiocese, assisted by spiritual advisor Father Frank Giusta and a committee of 15 chairwomen. Each breakfast involves dozens of dedicated workers. The events have attracted about 400 women to each breakfast over the past four years and the mailing list is over 2,000, said Olga Myers, one of the chapter founders. At each breakfast she asks for a show of hands of those who have come for the first time and finds a sizable number of newcomers.

"Everything is based on prayer," Mrs. Myers said. "It is the power of prayer there that morning that begins to change hearts."

The intent of Magnificat is "to reach out to women so they can encounter God," Mrs. Myers said, "through one another, through praise and worship, through listening to another woman share."

A shared meal has a paraliturgical quality, she said, as people "break bread" together. For those who have stopped coming to church, "it is an easy, non-threatening way of coming back...They might come to several meals before they come back."

While the speakers are different at each, the Magnificat breakfast always includes beautiful music, a place for those who come to leave written prayer petitions, and an opportunity afterward for individual prayer and the sacrament of reconciliation.

A former coordinator of the Corpus Christi Parish school of religion who was led into the Magnificat ministry, Mrs. Myers said the opportunity to receive the sacrament of reconciliation has touched women's lives. "We have confession after each meal. People always come," she said. "Sometimes the lines are longer than others. The few priests that come are touched tremendously by the ministry."

The shared meal and the opportunity to converse with other women seems to be part of the "Mary and Elizabeth" dynamic of Magnificat, which has reached both Catholic and non-Catholic women, Mrs. Myers said. "A group of Baptist women who came asked if they could learn to pray the rosary."

Although the fruitfulness of the Atlanta chapter has led to her being asked to serve on the national board of Magnificat, she says that she is unable to fully explain what happens when women gather in this way. "I still don't understand. It amazes me," she said.