DoveKote Rosaries: A Journey of Healing and Communion with Christ Through Our Lady

This week, I have had the pleasure of receiving a guest post from a very special Catholic, Kirilee Katz. Kirilee is the founder of the company called DoveKote Rosaries and has made it her mission to spread Marian Devotion Throughout Australia. 

Yet, she didn't start her life religious.

So what made her switch and become the Catholic hero that she is. This is her story... 

DoveKote Rosaries has been a journey of healing and communion with Christ
through Our Lady from the time of my conversion to Catholicism.

I grew up in a protestant family and had spiritual experiences at a very young age
with Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit, the Father Almighty, and my guardian angel... but
also with spiritual warfare. I was Baptised at a very young age, quite scandalous for
my denomination, but my grandfather, who was a pastor, recognised my faith and
commitment to Christ and defied the objections by the fundamentalists within the
church. After this point, my encounters of spiritual ecstasy of communion with God
increased and could not be explained by my Christian faith. They were considered
“acts of the demonic” and rejected by my elders, my family, and friends at the
time. At the age of 12, after the onset of a serious illness and subsequently bullying, then stalking and harassment by an older boy at my school and church, I drifted
away as a teenager from the Christian faith. I was scared, depressed, but still searching for
God in a way that I could understand my internal reality and suffering. This led me
into the new age/occult at the rise of self-help and spiritual awakening in the mid
90’s.

I was married under civil law and gave birth to my first precious child at 21 to a
man who was also following this path. The deeper I got involved in this movement,
the more I recognised the egocentric nature, trying to ‘divinise’ one’s own
“specialness” and plan as a channel for one’s own “god presence” to help others
through one’s own spiritual gifts. There were moments where Christ would break
through my meditations, and I would feel as though my heart would literally explode from His mercy and grace. But I was programmed to believe that Christ was a
just ‘universal presence’ to embody, just like my own “god presence” as part of the
ascension movement, equal with other “ascended masters”.

My husband left my son and me when he was two and a half, and cut off
communication for a very long time, without child support. I filed for a divorce
(currently under the final stages of the Annulment Tribunal, with a plea of non-consent
on his behalf) after another man I knew within the same group or “cult” turned up in
my life was like a ‘knight in shining armour’, or so I thought at the time.

We had a child together very shortly after beginning our relationship. The ‘honeymoon period’ of this
relationship ended very quickly, and the cracks of domestic violence began to show
through gradually. I grew frustrated with the ‘fruits’ of the occult after
wrestling with this cognitive dissonance and closed the doors to the the New Age after 14
years. This hit me hard at the time when my blessed second child became a toddler.
I shifted to look for God in nature, the patterns of life and sustainability. This is when I
headed into one of the darkest places of my life.

I began to worship the created, not the Creator, thinking that if only I could design
my environment around me to work with creation instead of against it, I would I find
the key to security, peace, and preventing entropy- death. But instead, all I found
was death. Death in my environment, my relationships, I lost babies, I lost dreams,
resources, my safety, (living in an increasingly severe domestic violent family
environment and relationship), my work and study as a horticulturalist, and I died to
myself.

That’s when Mary, Our Blessed Mother, came into my life. I had already built up many
walls around Christianity from my past that I was very resistant to. But I was
irresistibly drawn to the Rosary. I began a rapid search to find out everything about
Our Lady, all of which I was told was “evil” as a child, and even had ghost stories
around campfires around The Blessed Virgin Mary, and yet, she kept calling me to
her. I learned the Rosary from a podcast after playing it over and over on repeat day
after day, night after night. Fr Donald Calloway’s testimony deeply influenced me
during this period.

Before I knew it, I ended up late at night at one of our local Catholic parishes. By
Divine providence, the priest came to my aid and spoke with me in my distress,
hearing my desperate desire to repent and come back to Christ, and all I knew
was that Mary had brought me there. After some gentle accompaniment and
encouragement, he took me from the prayer room before the altar and the
Tabernacle. He showed me how to make the sign of the cross and then later gave
me the contact details for the RCIA team.

From that moment on, I knew I was home. I was on my journey to the conversion of
Catholicism, I studied, prayed, and soaked in as much as I could about the faith. I
returned to Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, with joy and anticipation like the bride awaiting her Bridegroom. My life took very dramatic changes, painful ones, but step
by step in faith, God freed me from the bondages I had been bound by.
My prayer life became such a priority during the preparation for the Sacraments of
Initiation into the Catholic Church, and I was shown in personal revelation of a co-
mission with Our Lady and Jesus Christ through the Rosary, to not only create them
but to begin a daily online multi-platform prayer circle during the Oceanic Time Zone
with other members of the community. I knew this would all evolve in God’s timing,
and to trust in Him, even though I had no idea how this could possibly become a reality as a single mother in hiding from serious domestic violence with no resources or connections at the time.

Fast forward to 2026; I have been blessed with the miracles of both of my children,
(now young men) converted to Christ and the Catholic Church, my eldest is going
through the Sacraments of Initiation, this Easter Vigil, my own study of Theology and
Catechesis, ministry with the local RCIA team in our parish, fraternity, and the
ongoing ever deepening conversion, love, faith, and communion with Our Lord and
The Consecration to Our Blessed Mother.

As Christians, we all learn in this life that being a disciple of Christ means carrying our
crosses. Those of which I carry many. I am still healing from the scars and dealing
with domestic violence after leaving my relationship and going through over six years
of family and criminal court, (of which is still ongoing for protection orders.) Living in
trust of the Lord God Almighty’s protection for my family. I struggle with CPTSD,
sleep reversal, hypervigilance, anxiety, depression, and a condition called Functional
Neurological Disorder. This condition features symptoms of chronic migraines,
pseudo seizures, dissociation, loss of speech, loss of motor control, nerve, joint, and
muscle pain, fatigue, brain fog, and word loss. This disorder is worsened by stress
and can take time to settle once triggered.

Under a great deal of strain, it has taken a lot more time for DoveKote Rosaries to
take flight and begin production over 2025 than I ever expected, but through the
grace of God, I am now on the cusp of being ready to bring my creations out to the
world, and from there, focus on co-creating an online Intercessory/Rosary prayer
circle, following my original commitment to The Blessed Virgin Mary and Our Blessed
Lord.

Through my suffering, I am surrendering, day by day, walking in faith despite the pain
or fear. Learning to lean closer to God as my only hope and greatest treasure. I sing
praises through the pain, the fear, the joys, the darkness, knowing He is truly good
and worthy of worship and glory, forever and ever. Amen.

We are all in this together, brothers and sisters in Christ. All called. All with our
unique stories, our weaknesses and strengths that God will use if we allow Him, for
building the Kingdom. Know that whatever struggles you may be facing, you are not
alone. We are all part of the Body of Christ, the Church Militant, the Church Suffering. Yet, the Church Triumphant and Our King has won the battle. So keep on praying,
keep seeking, keep reading the Scriptures, keep going to Mass and receiving Jesus,
keep forgiving, and keep reaching out to each other in charity and love.