Catholic author and YouTube influencer Emily Wilson gives a talk during the Marian Authentic Women’s Conference at Primo Banquet Hall in Indianapolis on Oct. 25. (Submitted photo by Jennifer Lindberg)For 250 women accustomed to pouring love into their families and communities, the Marian Authentic Women’s Conference was a sacred pause—a time to rest and be renewed.

“God is so within us,” said Jennifer Lewis, a member of St. Paul Catholic Center in Bloomington. “Sometimes you feel so alone, and this is a good reminder that you are not.”

Lewis joined hundreds of women on Oct. 25 at Primo Banquet Hall in Indianapolis for the Marian Authentic Women’s Conference. The event offered not only inspiring speakers but also the grace of sisterhood.

“When 250 women are in a room, someone has something you need,” joked emcee Katie Klee of St. Joan of Arc Parish in Indianapolis.

Yet, it is the sharing of those needs and desires with other women that helps instill a vocation of love, a message emphasized by the day’s three speakers:

“Let yourself be loved,” urged author Claire Dwyer.

“There is a mystery of God revealed in femininity,” said Father Patrick Schultz.

“Share your gifts with the world to live the mission the Lord gave you,” added author Emily Wilson.

‘God put this on my heart’

The conference grew from a nudge of the Holy Spirit that led Lisa Brassie of Our Lady of the Most Holy Rosary Parish in Indianapolis to found LOVE Ministries—an acronym for Living Our Vocations Everyday.

“God put this on my heart,” Brassie said. “It’s needed. We need a place to come together.”

And come together they did—women from parishes large and small across the archdiocese and throughout the state—drawn by faith, friendship and the simple truth that to be loved is to remember who we are in the eyes of God.

Gatherings like these create space for “human connections,” said Anna Seacat of Our Lady of Mount Carmel Parish in Carmel, Ind., in the Lafayette Diocese. “There is nothing like face-to-face connection. Praying together and listening together is like a haven and a respite.”

‘The world needs authentic women’s love’

Father Schultz, administrator of St. Bartholomew Parish in Middleburg Heights, Ohio, said women’s conferences serve as heavenly reminders of God’s love.

“Women are so beaten down by the every day,” he said. “This [conference] reminds them that they are enough, they are doing enough, and that they are good and loved.”

Father Schultz reminded the women that the love of Christ is ever present.

“Love does not tolerate you—it is obsessed with you,” he said. “It never takes time off from you. [Christ] is always actively pressing in with infinite tenderness.”

He invited the women to surrender to the love of Christ and be open to it, because Christ reveals love through women.

“The world needs authentic women’s love,” he said.

‘Let yourself be loved’

Part of that surrender, Dwyer noted, is learning to let oneself be loved—and to care for oneself as a woman.

Dwyer, author of The Present Paradise: A Spiritual Journey with St. Elizabeth of the Trinity, said the saint taught her how to receive love and how to nurture herself.

She learned this the hard way—during a miscarriage, when she was afraid to call her doctor on the weekend. That instinct to always care for others, she realized, can become unhealthy.

In her conversations with women, Dwyer often encounters a lack of trust—a fear of being “too much,” and a belief that self-care is selfish.

Instead, she said, it’s a both/and.

“Humility supports our foundation of deep worth,” Dwyer said. “We can do nothing without God. But we are made in his image—and we need to take care of ourselves. Let yourself be loved.”

Give your vulnerabilities to Christ

Emily Wilson, a Catholic YouTube influencer and author of Go Bravely: Becoming the Woman You Were Created To Be, reminded the women to honor their gifts and talents, seen or unseen, because “your good and beautiful work is your vocation, even if no one sees it except Jesus.”

She noted that women “have an allergy to vulnerability.”

It is that very vulnerability, she explained, that enables women to give love. She urged the participants to name their vulnerabilities—their hurts and betrayals—and give them to Christ.

Father Schultz also addressed the deep need for healing. He told the women that Jesus “looks at you with infinite love and wonder. You are part of his dream for the world.”

He encouraged the participants not to remain locked in shame or fear, but to open their hearts to God’s tender mercy. And perhaps, he added, they needed to hear an apology to begin that healing.

“I am so sorry for the ways you have not been loved, honored well, cherished or reverenced,” Father Schultz said. “It wasn’t supposed to be that way.”

Instead, he reminded them, “He loves to love you.” Christ’s love, he added, has the power to transform every wound.

He ended with a simple truth: “Love says, ‘I will have a place for you.’ Christ stands before your heart—ravished, poor, a beggar before the beauty of your love—and says, ‘Will you be a home for me, so I can make you a home for others?’ ”
 

(The next Marian Authentic Women’s Conference will be held on Oct. 17, 2026, at Primo Banquet Hall in Indianapolis. Jennifer Lindberg is a freelance writer and a member of St. Mary Parish in North Vernon.) †