Soldier’s wrongful step leads to leap of faith

Colin Faust wasn’t even Catholic when he was wearing the Miraculous Medal that he now believes helped save his life.

He was a 21-year-old Marine serving in Afghanistan in 2010, stationed in the most dangerous combat zone in the country, he said. On top of that, he had one of the most dangerous assignments — forward scout observer. His job involved helping clear and secure areas once occupied by the enemy, walking on terrain riddled with improvised explosive devices.

He stepped on one the morning of Oct. 15. Walking a few feet behind a combat engineer, whose job it was to use a minesweeper to detect IEDs, Faust’s left foot caught a mine that the sweeper had missed.

The explosion catapulted him about 5 to 10 feet upward. He recalls looking down at the ground while feeling suspended in mid-air. His rifle later was found 100 yards from the point of impact.

“I remember being extremely confused … not knowing what just happened,” said Faust, now 31. “And, my first reaction, my instinct, for whatever reason, was to say a prayer. I don’t even remember what I said.”

But he definitely remembers what he wore — a Miraculous Medal he had received from his Catholic grandmother that once belonged to her brother, a priest. She had given it to him while he was on leave shortly before his deployment. He hadn’t given it much thought before his accident, but he now reveres this piece of sacred jewelry, which he sees as a sign that God saved his life. It was the only thing he was wearing on that day that survived the blast. And, he wore it daily for seven more years before putting it in storage to preserve it for future generations.

As he looks back on the traumatic incident now, he sees so many reasons his life could have — and maybe logistically should have — ended that day.

First, he easily could have bled to death, he said, had it not been for some quick medical attention from a Navy corpsman, who applied tourniquets to both legs and his left arm. For injuries such as his, Faust said tourniquets need to be applied within 45 seconds to avoid fatal blood loss.

Second, the medevac helicopter that was deployed to lift him out of the area could not do so because of heavy enemy artillery surrounding Faust’s position. He believes Taliban fighters knew someone had stepped on an IED because of the explosion, then came back to the area looking for a rescue helicopter sure to come for the wounded soldier. They had already set up and were firing on Faust’s position. Because of that, the helicopter was called off.

Third, a medic tried to give him a shot of morphine to kill the pain. Faust later learned that such a shot would have killed him due to the amount of blood he had lost. Fortunately, the syringe didn’t work properly and the medic ditched the effort.

All of this before he even was transported from the scene. The final danger came when a group of soldiers placed him on a tarp and ran across the field away from where he lay and toward a safe position, all the while being fired upon by the enemy. Faust found out later there were about 50 IEDs placed throughout the field, which could have caused serious injury or death if anyone had stepped on one.

With these risk factors in mind, he does not at all believe his survival was merely “luck.” The medal has served as a concrete reminder that God and the Blessed Mother were looking out for him and wanted to spare his life.

Faust, who described the Lutheran faith of his upbringing in Waconia as “lukewarm,” years later turned to the God who had protected him in battle and began to follow him. That led to his joining the Catholic Church in 2018. It took place at the Easter Vigil at St. Victoria in Victoria on March 31, his 29^th birthday.

He already had made a connection to the Church by marriage to his wife, Julia. A lifelong Catholic, she met Colin in 2013 when her mother and his, who were friends, set up a family dinner to connect Colin and Julia, hoping they would date.

It worked. By that time, Colin had gone through numerous surgeries and more than two years of rehabilitation. The bottom of his left leg was lost in the blast, and his right leg was severely damaged, along with serious injuries to his left arm.

What was fully intact, however, was a quiet strength and positive attitude that drew Julia to him. Though their first meeting was not a “date,” their long conversation made it feel like one. She can’t remember what they talked about, but she was struck by his humility. And, that triggered an impression that has lasted to this day.

“He’s different, in the best way,” she said. “It was very refreshing and exciting and comfortable.”

They got married Oct. 15, 2016, the anniversary date of his accident, at St. Victoria. They now belong to Our Lady of the Lake in Mound and have a 13-month-old son, Leo. Colin’s faith is evident in how he has bonded with Leo.

“It’s just awesome to see him now as a dad,” said Julia, a nurse. “He’s just gone above my wildest expectations with Leo. It’s been wonderful to watch. And, (Leo) is a dad’s boy. Their bond is really (strong). He (Leo) rarely reaches for me. He’d much rather be with Dad.”

As much as Faust loves being a husband and father, his primary passion is his faith. He currently is pursuing a master’s degree in theology from The St. Paul Seminary School of Divinity. He describes himself as an avid reader who likes to study all things Catholic.

That, in fact, is what got the conversion ball rolling for him. Throughout his rehabilitation and readjustment phase, following his honorable discharge from the Marines, he suffered bouts of depression and went through what he calls “some very dark periods.”

“I sought short-lived pleasures to mask the interior suffering,” he wrote in a 2019 speech he gave at St. Maximilian Kolbe in Delano. “In other words, regrettably, this period included bad decisions of trying to fill that void with created things that, by their nature, could not fill that infinite hole, because they were not the one and only infinite, limitless good, our ultimate end — God.”

A quote from St. Augustine’s “Confessions” for him sums up what life was like during that period: “The heart is restless until it rests in Thee.”

Three years ago, Faust’s restless heart experienced what he calls an “explosion of grace.” He credits the Blessed Mother for this, which he ties to wearing the Miraculous Medal on the battlefield. The medal, also known as the Medal of Our Lady of Grace, originates from St. Catherine Labouré in France following her apparitions in 1830 of the Blessed Virgin.

Faust was sitting in bed late one night, waiting for Julia to come home from work. In the quiet, he was convicted that he no longer could be lukewarm about his faith. Christ “needed to be the center of my life,” he said.

“I could see clearly my spiritual state, my own contradiction — professing to believe but not acting like I believe,” he wrote. “I saw my lukewarmness and the consequent danger my soul was in. … I needed to restructure and reorient my life in a radical, dramatic way.”

In that private moment, he said, “a fire was lit in my soul that, to this day, not only continues to burn, but is growing more intense by the day. It is something I can quite literally feel in the most intimate depths of my soul.”

After that experience, he started reading about the Catholic faith and kept stumbling onto material about the life of St. Padre Pio, an Italian Capuchin Franciscan priest with a range of spiritual gifts who died at age 81 in 1968. Faust bought a book about the saint’s life and “was absolutely blown away by the man’s heroic virtue and holiness and sanctity,” he said. “I had never encountered anything like it. And, reading that book was the tipping point at which I wanted to convert.”

As if to underscore that desire, he set up a meeting with Father Bob White, pastor of St. Victoria. The priest then invited Colin to join a pilgrimage that members of the parish were going on the following week.

“And, guess what that was?” Faust wrote in that speech. “To venerate the relics of St. Padre Pio. What an amazing sign this was to affirm that I was on the right track, and certainly beyond coincident, as it was the first time ever that the St. Pio Foundation had done this relic tour in America.”

Faust made the pilgrimage to LaCrosse, Wisconsin, and venerated first-class relics like the saint’s blood-soaked gloves that had covered the stigmata on his hands. That showed Colin that “the communion of saints is a very real and beautiful part of our Catholic faith.”

His next step was taking part in the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults at St. Victoria. One of the things he relishes about being Catholic is going to confession. He still remembers the first time he went to confession with Father Tony O’Neill, then-pastor of Our Lady of the Lake. He called it an “unforgettable, powerful experience.”

Another part of his faith is Marian devotion. He prays the rosary daily and has consecrated himself to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. He describes himself as being “utterly consumed with everything Catholic — constant reading, listening to Catholic podcasts instead of (secular) music, learning, adoration, study, prayer, devotions, Mass, volunteering, confession. Virtually every free moment I have, I spend immersed in learning about the Catholic faith, trying to faithfully live the Catholic faith, and helping others learn about the Catholic faith.”

This lifestyle connects to one of his favorite Scripture verses, Matthew 16:24: “If any man would come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow me.”

Faust certainly has carried a cross — the suffering of years of surgery and rehabilitation, and having to spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair. But the way he talks about it now indicates he has pushed self-pity out of his life. It has been replaced by a deep wisdom for which he has paid a heavy price.

“A joyous peace reigns through the soul when one realizes that all the pain, suffering and moments of trial in this life are not meaningless, but rather they become the means of your own and others’ sanctification when united to Christ as part of his Mystical Body,” he wrote. “Thus, when ordered to our proper end, they do have meaning, they do have a purpose, and as one progresses in the interior life, one learns that they are to be cherished. They conform us to Christ, they provide opportunity to demonstrate our love, destroy our ego and lean on God in our vulnerability. How contrary this is to the wisdom of the world.”