Meet Virginia Meeker: Finding Home in the Catholic Faith

Have you ever had a family member or friend tell you that it’s too late for them to become Catholic, or that they are too old? If so, have them talk to parishioner Virginia Meeker — she became Catholic in her late 70s and feels her life has been changed for the better.

It all started when Virginia was in fourth and fifth grade attending St. Mary’s Academy in Paducah, Ky. Her parents sent her there instead of the public school because it was considered a better education.

“After fifth grade, I told my parents I wanted to become Catholic,” Virginia says. “My dad was a Baptist, and that didn’t sit well with him.”

Virginia was enrolled at the public school, but she never lost that desire to become Catholic. The family moved to Louisville where Virginia made a lot of Catholic friends. In fact, she’s had Catholic friends most of her life. Virginia went on to get married, then divorced. She thought that the door was closed for her to ever become Catholic. Her second husband, Frank, also was interested in Catholicism, but the annulment process seemed too tedious and challenging for the couple. Frank passed away in 2017.

“When Frank passed, Catholicism was very much on my mind again,” she says. “I saw a sign at Queen about RCIA, and I said, ‘I am going to memorize that phone number.’”

Virginia asked Fr. Bill Bruning if he wanted to take in a potential Catholic of her age, and of course, he did. She was confirmed in the spring of 2018, having gone through the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults, or RCIA. Virginia’s Confirmation sponsor was a woman she had worked with and befriended, Kerry Godfrey. “I loved every minute of it,” she says. “When I was confirmed, I was ecstatic. It was one of the happiest days of my life. I was finally doing what I had wanted to do all along.”

At RCIA, Virginia most enjoyed Fr. Bill’s teaching and how he presented the topics. She also enjoyed getting to know her classmates.

“I was full of questions and curiosity, and trying to fill the gaps from all those years,” she says.

The sign outside of Queen led Virginia to finally take the leap to start RCIA classes. She knows that was a sign from the Holy Spirit.

“This is a wonderful parish,” she says. “The people are so nice and so friendly and so welcoming.”

Virginia attended RCIA for several years after she was done, until the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. She has also served as a Confirmation sponsor.

Virginia knows Frank is smiling down on her through her conversion to Catholicism.

“Today’s world is in such a pitiful mess,” she says. “It’s a downer. Everything that is emphasized in society is evil and sinful. The Church brings beauty back into life.”

Overall, Virginia is so glad to have her Catholic faith. She knows it will get her through all the trials of this life. Virginia says that becoming Catholic has given her a new take on life and has changed her whole disposition. She has loved learning more about the saints, citing her two favorites as St. Francis de Sales, which happens to be the name of the church she attended in Paducah, and St. André Bessette.

“God is good all the time,” Virginia says.

(From left) Kerry Godfrey (Virginia’s sponsor), Virginia, and Fr. Bill Bruning