Students at St. Josaphat Parish School, Milwaukee, surround the Our Lady of Good Success statue given to Principal Karin Strasser during her journey learning about and ultimately sharing the devotion. (Submitted photo)
The Blessed Mother has worked in Karin Strasser’s life all along, even before she realized it.
In the early 1990s, Strasser traveled to the Working Boys Center, now known as the Center for Working Families, in Quito, Ecuador, during Easter break with a group of school principals who were Catholic.
Two decades later, the memories would come back to her in a big way when she realized she had a connection to the devotion to Our Lady of Good Success, which originated in Quito.
She eventually began providing free devotional boxes to those who asked and has continued to do so.
Perhaps in one way, Strasser’s journey with the devotion began with the visit to Quito.
“I was the assistant principal at New Berlin West High School and was invited to Quito with a group of Catholic school principals,” she said. “We spent Easter break there.”
The years passed, and family concerns came to the forefront.
Strasser’s mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, so Strasser began her own business selling technology to schools, which allowed her the freedom to stay home, raise her three children and care for her mom until she passed in 2018.
“After she died, I began caring for my dad, who lived in New Berlin. I drove him to my house and brought him back home five days a week,” Strasser recalled. “One Friday, one of his brothers got him, and I used the time to do a deep dive into my business. All of a sudden, the story of Our Lady of Good Success pops up on YouTube. I had no idea about this apparition.”
Strasser began researching Our Lady of Good Success. She learned about Mother Mariana de Jesus Torres y Berriochoa, a Conceptionist order nun who lived from 1563 to 1635. She was one of six sisters who arrived from Spain and founded the Conceptionist convent in Quito.
Mother Mariana had a very active mystic life from a young age and received various apparitions of our Blessed Mother.
On one occasion, the Virgin Mary asked to have a statue made of herself under the title of Our Lady of Good Success.
“I am a member of St. Jerome in Oconomowoc, and for years, our parish did the Our Lady of Fatima statue, where a new family received a suitcase with the statue, venerated it at home, and brought it to Mass where another family would receive it,” Strasser explained. “I was so excited to tell my dad about Our Lady of Good Success because of her messages and because he was a super faithful Catholic. My dad attended the Latin Mass at St. Stanislaus in Milwaukee.”
After putting her business on hold, Strasser researched Our Lady of Good Success and reviewed all the documentation, especially ourladyofgoodsuccess.com. Incredibly, the website creator lived just a few houses away.
“Her name is Kathleen Heckenkamp, and she also belongs to St. Stanislaus like my dad. I knocked on her door, and we had a great conversation about OLGS, and I asked her about getting a statue so I could start a similar ministry as the Fatima statue we had at our parish,” she explained. “Kathleen told me that she could not find any statues and that they were only available in Quito.”
Eager to tell her dad about Our Lady of Good Success, Strasser planned to pick him up on Sunday after he took a trip with his brother to Chicago the day before. Unfortunately, he became ill, and Strasser told him to stay home and rest. By Monday, he was very sick; Strasser called an ambulance to take him to the hospital.
Desperate for intervention, she went to Kathleen’s home and told her what was going on with her dad. Kathleen gave Strasser an OLGS holy card that was touched to the statue in Quito.
“I prayed with my family for him, and I knew there were many hospital healings linked to OLGS. I prayed to her and said that if she brings healing to my dad, I promised I would devote my life to spreading her message,” she said. “Unfortunately, he didn’t make it. He had been in the hospital for six days, and I remember telling the Blessed Mother that my promise was off the table as I was looking for a miracle. I wasn’t angry, just blown away.”
Coming home from her dad’s funeral Mass on Valentine’s Day 2019, she stopped at her mailbox and was shocked to find a mailing from America Needs Fatima with an Our Lady of Good Success rosary inside.
“I thought it was weird and began thinking of my mom and dad, who died in less than a year of each other. I began devoting my time to my business, and two weeks later, I went into the kitchen, and something happened to me,” she said. “I don’t know if it was five minutes or five seconds, but I was overcome by incredible grief. It was kind of an understanding deep into my intellect. I felt my dad’s grief when he lost my mom, and it was heavy on my heart. My dad’s presence was there. I felt I should have done more, but then I heard in my heart that it was over, and there was no more I could do. I wasn’t sure if that was divine or evil. It stopped me in my tracks. I went back to work, but it planted a seed.”
After this experience, Strasser began to have a greater appreciation for our limited time on earth to act in faith. She realized that she needed to fulfill her promise to find the statues and spread devotion to Our Lady of Good Success.
Strasser began a quest to locate OLGS statues to create devotional boxes to send to Catholics in the hope they also would share them with others.
“I ended up meeting a woman named Gina from Florida who was able to find the statues, and once I told her what I was doing, she offered to sell them to me at wholesale,” she said. “Now, my husband Rick is a UPS guy, and I am an educator. We are not wealthy, but I wanted to pay for this myself. Our Lady wants me to step up for the faith. I have a roof over my head, a car and a job, so it was important for me to do this.”
As it turned out, Gina was planning to move and had a large statue of Our Lady of Good Help. She felt that Our Lady didn’t want her to sell the statue, so she offered it to Strasser with the condition that she never sell it.
When the first shipment of the smaller statues arrived in 2019, Strasser and her husband loaded them into their truck and took them to the Basilica of St. Josaphat to be blessed.
“The door was open, and it was somewhat dark. I asked a worker if the priest was around, and a Franciscan priest turned to me and asked who I was,” Strasser said.
He was Fr. Lawrence Zurek, O.F.M. Conv., now the rector at the National Shrine of St. Maximilian Kolbe at Marytown in Libertyville, Illinois.
“I explained the devotional to him, and he blessed all the statues. I suddenly realized that Mother Mariana was a Franciscan, and it was providential that I brought the statues here (to the basilica).”
Fr. Zurek shared with Strasser that the parish needed a new school principal immediately and she vowed to help temporarily until he could hire someone else full time. When the full-time position was eventually filled only for a few months, Fr. Zurek asked her to return to St. Josaphat Parish School in the role permanently.
“I never expected I would end up in a Catholic school at the end of my career,” she said. “Our Lady of Good Success brought me here.”
In addition to serving as the principal at St. Josaphat Basilica School, Strasser enjoys sending Our Lady of Good Success devotional boxes to those who request them. They include a brief history and novena along with a 14-inch replica of the statue commissioned by Our Lady to Mother Mariana.
Strasser has received many testimonials of answered prayers, blessings and peace attributed to the prayer boxes along with some donations toward her ministry.
For the past two years, Strasser has collaborated with a friend in Rhode Island who is a consecrated virgin. Her friend helps find recipients to place statues around the world.
Since beginning her ministry, Strasser has mailed around 100 statues and devotional boxes worldwide.
Visit amessageforourtime.com to receive an Our Lady of Good Success devotional box or find out more.
