By Emilie Ng
HYPNOTHERAPY was no match for the healing power Kelli Buhse received from sitting in the pews of a Catholic church less than two years ago.
Mrs Buhse said the Church provided her answers to deal with post-natal depression and a range of other family issues.
“I’ve had post-natal depression since I had my daughter, and she’s turning six this year,” she said.
“I spoke to hypnotherapists, pyschologists, doctors, trying to get rid of the post-natal depression and deal with other family issues.
“I tried millions of ways to deal with it, and nothing was gelling.
“Everything has failed.”
When, as a favour, she took her grandmother, who was raised a Catholic but stopped practising because of an anti-religious husband, to Mass on Christmas in 2013, Mrs Buhse had “an epiphany”.
“When I started going to church, things became clearer, and I eventually felt at peace with myself,” she said.
Mrs Buhse said she was now off all her medication for depression.
“Psychologically and physically, the Catholic Church has changed my life,” she said.
Mrs Buhse is now a regular at St Mary’s Church in Beaudesert, although she is still not baptised.
That will change this Easter when, along with more than 100 other Brisbane archdiocese people, Mrs Buhse will become a Catholic.
An emotional Mrs Buhse publically professed her intention to become a Catholic at the Rite of Election at St Stephen’s Cathedral on February 22.
“I couldn’t stop crying; I was really, really emotional,” she said.
“The Catholic Church is the community I’ve needed.”
Mrs Buhse said the Church had not only healed her of her post-natal depression but has also saved her marriage of 10 years.
“My husband and I were having problems in our marriage, but so far all those have been answered by the Church,” she said.
Mrs Buhse said Pope Francis was correct in saying the Catholic Church should be “a hospital for sinners”.
Others to join the Church at Easter include an Iranian asylum seeker who learnt the Islamic faith in school, a university student whose parents are practising Buddhists, and a mother and two sons who came to Australia as refugees from Eritrea, Africa, in 2011.
