Biblical Wisdom for Family Life | Kimberly Hahn | Franciscan University Presents

proverbs 31 describes the life in the heart of a godly woman but how does that description translate to the 21st century join us as we discuss the heart of godly womanhood with kimberly haunt author of beloved and blessed biblical wisdom for family life i'm father dave pavanki and i'm president of franciscan university in steubenville ohio and you're watching franciscan university presents please stay with us [Music] [Music] and welcome to franciscan university presents i'm your host father dave pavanka i'm president of franciscan university of steubenville and today we're talking about biblical wisdom for family life i'm joined by our regular panelist dr regis martin welcome he's the professor of systematic theology here at franciscan and dr scott hahn the father michael scanlon professor of biblical theology and the new evangelization here at franciscan we are pleased to welcome our special guest kimberly han a popular speaker author and host of the ew10 radio show and podcast beloved and blessed kimberly's written numerous books including the worldwide bestseller rome sweet home which i think she got some help with and she holds a master's in theological studies from gordon conwell theological seminary kimberly is also a council councilwoman for the city of steubenville a mother of six children uh 20 grandchildren yet growing here's my understanding great and she's well qualified to discuss the questions of godly womanhood family life in her book beloved blessed biblical wisdom for family life welcome it's wonderful to have you here and just a great blessing a breath-catching introduction you're running a family and you're now running a city a corporation yeah yeah yeah that's right mother of the city building a building it's just a blessing to have you and i enjoyed the book very much and we get to talk about it but why this what kind of motivated you and moved in your heart that says okay this is what i need to do yeah so we would open our home and have bible studies in our home and i loved to welcome the franciscan university women and they loved going there oh it was wonderful we would just pack the room you know and i wanted to be able to share a vision of what it is to be a woman of god what it is to embrace the vocation of marriage and family life what surprised me were the numbers of students who had very different experiences at home you know some beautifully intact large generous families some whose parents are not catholic who or who are catholic but sadly divorced and so they came with a lot of uh a lot of misunderstandings i think um so to have an opportunity to open the scriptures and we use proverbs 31 almost as a table of contents and then range throughout the scriptures filling that in and saying you know what does it mean to understand myself as a woman to the daughter of god before i get into my vocation and then what does that vocation mean and how can we live that out in a in a really beautiful compelling witness to the world of the relationship between christ and the church and what he has done i think you said that beautifully and you really do the laid the foundation that before there's a vocation before you call what you're called to do it's it's just understanding who you are as a woman before lord so maybe just speak to that that what does it mean just to be a woman of god and what does that look like and where do you find examples and direction in israel how much time do you have yeah we'll make this a four-part series um so we begin with the fact that god is the one who decided that i would be which is important today it's really important you know when people say did your parents plan you they don't understand that's not even a relevant question because you have existence you know god chose you and so we begin with god and not with our parents or whatever uh whoever brought us into existence and then understand that not only has he created us he has redeemed us he has done everything needed so that we're in right relationship to him and i think before it's for instance proverbs 31 it's a queen mother explaining to her son who who he should marry and and what values to um decide on his own that he really needs to seek in a wife top top billing is does she understand before she's the k the wife of the king that she's the daughter of the king of kings and he is the one who gives us our sense of worth this this is actually a very powerful um point when we gather with the college women because it is so easy to get caught up in looking at ourselves and our own weaknesses failures sins and deciding that god really couldn't love me or he couldn't really redeem me because of x y or z and to just really deal with that and say he chose you from before the foundation of the world that you should be holy and blameless i mean that is his earnest desire he will give you the power of the holy spirit to do what he's that i think is what's so freeing about your book that you begin with that foundational premise that i stand in relation to god before i stand in relation to a husband or a wife or the children in the world yeah and uh that that's formative that's constitutive of who i am and i should be grateful for that i'm a gift that keeps on giving yes fulton sheen says uh god was in love but he couldn't keep the secret the telling of it was creation and that means this discrete creation you or me or you or anyone yes you know and that's a lofty and profound background you know that we are in relation to god before we're in relation to anybody else that he planned us he loved us into being out of nothing but it doesn't mean it stays lofty because what you do in this book is pretty much what is done in the book of proverbs generally and throughout wisdom literature it's very practical it's very personal it's also very interpersonal you know proverbs is the the first of the books of wisdom it's 31 chapters long the theme is the fear of the lord is the beginning of wisdom proverbs 8 identifies wisdom as eternal and divine but at the same time proverbs 31 shows us that wisdom is also embodied in a person and that is a wife a mother a woman and to me it is so exciting that you know apart from all of the scholarship that is done on proverbs 3 1 uh hardly any catholics have discovered this treasure i mean you have been doing this now for decades i mean even before you were catholic you were leading us but one last thought about proverbs 31 that people don't often recognize is that it is a literary masterpiece when you look at it in hebrew it's what is called an acrostic the 22 letters of the hebrew alphabet identify the verses and then it's also chiastic and so it has this center and it's all about finding the wife that will make you the kind of husband that will please the lord and and so you know with all of that as background it just comes down to earth in a way that uh you really are hard-pressed to find any other passage in all of scripture that unpacks it the way that chapter does but the way you do and i should mention too that this is just one book beloved and blessed one of four and uh you've been writing these books now for years you've been teaching this material for decades you've been living it now for 42 years actually really longer than that but i won't say exactly how long well you've raised your children in the light of that wisdom yeah that's right and that's that's amazing one of the things that i did appreciate about it because with both what you're both saying is that you you begin in and you are right profoundly practical for this person reading that's like wow that was really practical but that's a whole another story for another day but but the thing that is could you talk a little bit about what does it mean if you're not married and if you're a widow so one i really appreciated that that that the foundation is is a woman of god standing before the lord redeemed in jesus and then the other things that come from that but a person who is not married is going to enjoy this book a person who is widowed is going to enjoy this book so i think that that was a great beautiful insightful way to start thank you yeah yeah well well scott you you seized upon i think the two pivotal proverbs 8 and 31. uh i'm i love proverbs 8 because it speaks of sophia wisdom in relation to god lewis tells us we're all feminine and sophia is the creaturely response to divine wisdom the word the logos who utters this wisdom from all eternity but the creature is poised to receive it and delights to hear this wisdom and then to somehow put it into practice and this is where your book takes off yeah to literally flesh it out yeah right you spent a lot of time in proverbs 31 but you also talked about some other women in biblic in the bible that you can look to maybe just speak to a couple of other examples that we find in the scriptures of women that that we can you can look to for models and examples uh it's interesting because you can look at some of the poor models and it's explained it's like okay this is not what i want to be and then you look at the positive ones um it's actually a very interesting walk through salvation history to look at the wives of each of the pivotal figures you know and and to see how god is in the process of redeeming them as well as using their spouses to redeem the people of israel and then you've got examples like mary and martha where there's no comment about them being married they're still living together brothers brothers and sisters the sisters of lazarus and yet how how full their home is in hospitality um how eager uh they are both of them to receive from our lord mary obviously sitting more easily at jesus feet mary more caught up in the serving and yet god doesn't change their personalities and and the next scene is not martha sitting there right next to mary she's still serving but she's serving with the right attitude and she's not uh trying to dislodge mary you know we shouldn't give her a bum rap she's indispensable mary may sit at the feet of jesus and and feast on the word but she needs bread as well that somebody has to spread and cut and and and serve so martha is pretty necessary to this uh this equation and i think it's one of the things that i find so heartening in this whole vocation of marriage but also even further what it means to be a woman is to nurture life and so every woman i believe is called to a spousal commitment to our lord at least maybe to an actual person but at least to our lord in that faithfulness and fruitfulness and then um spiritual motherhood and it is not less and the cult of consecrated life as you know is not a call to being a neuter for god it is to bring the fullness of your manhood and your fatherhood to all of us and likewise a woman who is not yet married or who is choosing to be consecrated to our lord in singleness still is a woman and is to bring to the fore all of those beautiful qualities that go into nurturing life and sustaining life and you know creating a home and being hospitable extending herself with with all these practicals human vocation that is more sublime than motherhood and you you cite cardinal vincenti which is really a moving passage this description of the the mother who is this monument who creates this masterpiece which is greater even than the cathedral of notre dame here is a dwelling place for an immortal soul not even the angels have wrought such marvels a woman can do that she's really that much closer to the mystery of life you know god distinguishes to unite that's often ascribed to saint thomas aquinas we distinguish to unite not to separate but god is really the one who makes man male and female not for the purpose of dividing opposing polarizing the way our culture does and the you know the the critique of toxic masculinity is not entirely without merit there is a kind of machismo that is easily threatened by strong women but the solution to toxic masculinity is not to get rid of patriarchy it's to balance it with matriarchy you know and i think that as men i at least tend towards the abstract the theoretical the intellectual and i need to distinguish that from the concrete the practical and the personal and that's the equilibrium that we bring to each other it's not like you're not also intellectual you are you've got your master's degree in theology and i'd like to think i'm not entirely impractical but it's that distinctive it's it's it's the distinguishing to unite that is in a certain sense enveloped in marriage but it's it's basically written into the fabric of all of life and yet we live in a culture that has completely denied that and distorted it and made it beyond almost recognition and yet it's it's it's hiding in plain view it's it's right there in the middle of the room and it's like waiting to be discovered just by kind of recognizing the obvious and again thank you i just i have to say this before we finish the first segment i've told you this before but i am so proud to be your husband and so grateful not only for the literary output but for the human opponent the six kids and now 21 grandkids number 21 is on the way so glory to god we're all grateful i mean you pay occasional homage to scott in the book i mean you say the most romantic thing a husband can do is maybe do the dishes take out the garbage clean out the garage and i suspect scott is doing those things you don't you maternal you don't have to answer that let's go on no but really quickly and and maybe very quickly we can pick it up on the other side is just that sense you read the book and there's a stark image of what you present and what culture presents you put those two things up together and they're profoundly different so maybe really quickly a word on that and we'll go from there yes and and the difference is what's your focus is your focus the lord if the focus is the lord then being open to life is an expression of trusting god no matter how fearful circumstances may be or if you just had the loss of a baby miscarriage the world would say why risk it why why be bothered uh the lord calls this to generosity and yet the world would say one two and then get sterilized and you know and and there's this constant push and pull uh the lord calls us to imitate him and that relationship between us he's in the center yes yes we're just getting into our topic so stay with us francisco university presents we'll continue one of the things i love that kimberly emphasizes is how important a relationship with jesus christ is first because you know whatever vocation all of us have in our lives right now having that relationship with jesus christ is so important first and then from there you can build off of that and find your vocation and what you're called to walk in the footsteps of saints and martyrs on a franciscan university pilgrimage you'll explore the treasures of your catholic heritage in the holy land poland france austria italy and more destinations find out more at franciscan.edu pilgrimages [Music] welcome back to franciscan university presents we're talking about biblical wisdom for family life you spend a beautiful amount of time in the book about marriage and family and just some of the insights that you have again from a non-married person i just thought was really helpful in having given marriage prep to a lot of people but the first thing you begin to talk about or i want to talk about is the nature of marriage is holy that there's something holy about marriage in the sacrament maybe you speak to that yes so it's not just having a relationship it's not just finding someone who's a companion for life which is beautiful and wonderful but it's an actual call to holiness and so that means that that gets us back to i need to have my own relationship with the lord first and foremost and i need him to it's not enough to just pair up with someone who's willing to let you raise the kids catholic it is really really important that we're on the same page because being male and female we will already be very different no matter what our culture says we are and it is in that complementarity as opposed to a competitive relationship that we seek the lord side by side and as fulton sheen said the closer we get to the lord the closer we get to each other i love that image of the triangle moving us closer it takes three to get married yeah so this is an actual call to holiness and i remember when we were in joliet i i was not a catholic yet but i was peering into these things and i overheard a couple students one of them said um so do you think you're going to be a priest and the person said no i want to get married and uh and oh sorry the question was do you have a vocation excuse me do you have a vocation no i want to get married and i asked scott i said is that a catholic answer and he said no it really isn't it isn't but it's also not a general call and i think sometimes walking around campus you can hear conversation about you know i i know i'm called to marriage well you only know you're called to marriage when there's an individual there you could feel drawn to it or you can feel drawn to the priesthood i had one gal who felt drawn to consecrated life and was sure that god was going to make her get married because she wanted to be a nun it was like strange ideas doesn't work that way and so so we we have that opportunity to enter into a new kind of service through that vocation of marriage well it's the whole distinction that you've made a career out of between covenant and contract it's not a business enterprise two people conveniently convene get together and maybe they'll produce a couple of kids but for the most part they're trying to aggrandize the self and advance their own self-centered interests i mean that's that's a mockery of of union and intimacy what what i would insist upon is that when you get married something happens metaphysically there's an ontological shift i'm not the same guy i was before i'm now joined to the flesh of this stranger who will always remain other this endless mystery but the two of us are now one flesh i mean that's unspeakably profound you can never come to the end of that you know i i didn't just make a career out of it it's a sacrament it's a covenant but your god-centered approach to things might strike people as being well that's just too theoretical now that makes it even more practical you know when i married you 42 years ago you were the daughter of god as well as the daughter of jerry and patty kirk but you still are and one of the things that that hits me in prayer when we are at mass together or when we do morning prayer or when i'm just praying alone is that god has entrusted his beloved daughter to me and i'm responsible for that i mean your parents entrusted their beloved daughter but first and foremost you're his and when i remember that you know with fear and trembling i express heartfelt gratitude and ask god for the grace of the sacrament to be released so that i might rise to that calling because i mean that isn't hard that's just humanly impossible apart from supernatural grace we can't live that out practically day to day and yet you see me as god's son and and serve and love generously and i think that kind of adjustment is almost necessarily daily you know because it's just too easy to think i mean we are spouses you know we're parents together and grandparents all of the rest but it goes back to the fact that we're related to god and that is so much that that's easily obscure easily forgotten and yet it's the most important of all i think that's right and i stated it earlier and i think it's true is that that while this focuses a lot of marriage and family even if somebody was not married this is still there's still a lot of really helpful beneficial things and that's because i think it's so rooted in christ and so rooted in your relationship with the lord which is just which is beautiful and you spend a lot of time talking about i mean some really practical things about family about i wouldn't have thought of budgets and all these kinds of things that you just spent time thinking about which is very helpful but you also is has been alluded a busy life you know city council and writing and ministry and well being a wife and how you talk about juggling at all and my experience in the confessional so often times and and i'll always tell moms it's a hard job and 80 of the time they just start crying right they just needed somebody to say it's a hard job but how do you juggle that without i was going to say without getting discouraged my guess is you do get discouraged sometimes and and how do you manage all that sure um i think by valuing what what it means to create a home and to sustain a home for your family is it goes a long way to helping with that discouragement um i i remember walking up the stairs i gave this illustration i walked up the stairs with this load of laundry and my eye caught a little health text shirt on the top and michael had worn it gabriel had worn it hannah didn't but jeremiah had worn it now i was laundering it nearly every week for joe and i just stopped in the middle of the stairs like i'm an intelligent person what am i doing how many times am i gonna wash this shirt i i really and i literally out loud just said god what am i doing yeah and and he really answered my heart he said look at this one little shirt how many children have you loved how many times with this one little garment and i could have literally danced up the stairs the light began the low became so light and so we do need to understand what is it that we're doing um as my mom would say you know i welcome you back from the storms of life we're creating a haven a place of peace a place of beauty um the ministry of presence i i really do not think we can financially quantify what difference it makes your wife was home and that's a choice we could have earned a paycheck but the point is i invested myself in their lives i think the piece that it gives a spouse who is working outside the home is tremendous because you are there you're greeting them as they come back from practices or with friends or games or you're teaching them you know maybe you're teaching them homeschooling maybe you're just teaching them the faith but you're still teaching you're correcting you're training uh like with the budgets and so i i i believe that the the way we combat the discouragement is to get the big picture what is it that i am doing well you you you give a a wonderfully instructive example of when one of your students accosted you to ask isn't it frustrating having to stay home day after bloody day and you said look i'm changing the culture one diaper at a time that's a lot of diapers a lot of transformation a pretty seismic change and and in the perspective of christ nothing is merely banal like that shirt that you've had to watch a million times it's blessed it's beatific it's an occasion for grace i actually have saved it because my david also wore it i could really do it it'll become a fourth-class relative i must say i don't know what a health text is but i looked up on exactly what that is no but i think that's beautiful and just that in in making the difference in their life and being present to them and and you can't quantify that you can't put a number on that was it hard for you to make that decision or was it always how do you how do you deal with other families that maybe have not made that decision and and how do you wrestle with that yeah well the fir the first child was the hard adjustment okay because you you have a whole different pace you know i i remember reading everything in the sun out loud to michael he's two months three months four months old he's not even talking you know you're at least getting smiles eventually but you know and so i needed to hear another human voice and if i couldn't i would hear my own you know and i would take walks and look for any neighbors out there so we could talk you know so that's where i think older women need to really assist the younger women help them get a little break just because you choose to be home with your children does not mean that it's wrong to utilize a sitter have cleaning help or you know have assistance i mean i guess the one of the phrases that i find very liberating is i am queen of the realm and the heart of the home and so how i live that out includes other people who come and help me with the grounds and help me with the house and you know assist it doesn't mean you do every you know you grow the grain to to make the flower to make your own bread mention a ministry to mom something that you recognized early on when we moved here you know that you get so caught up you can almost feel trapped in the home and so you brought students to our home and then you also brought busy haggard wives and mothers together and over the years what happened well you exported a lot of those students because they came as far west as our home i know they made the trek and you know it's a ministry that continues at franciscan which is so beautiful and i've tried to help other people duplicate at other schools but to the best of my knowledge it's not been duplicated so as the women were coming to bible study they would say hey do you ever need help and one gal came and and offered help and then a second and when the second one did i thought you know there's something there are a lot of other mothers right who need that help so what they do is they volunteer three hours a week they come to the to the home they will do whatever is most needed so they help cook or clean or watch the children i had times that the women would i would hand them a list of errands the keys to my car all my children and i would be alone in my home maybe sit at the piano and play or go and have a holy hour and it it's like taking a pressure cooker and loosening the top and it just it just gave a little bit of okay god i'm refreshed i can go back into the fray i can do this again and it has been so meaningful and i believe it was meaningful to the girls many of them left little children little siblings at home and so they were able to come they got a home-cooked meal that was one thing we offered they could do their laundry while they were there which is a task they had to do anyway so why not do it at someone's home they found another family i mean in so many instances not just for ours but for many others as well this may sound like an impiety but i suspect even the blessed mother had to escape from time to time i i know she went up into the country but she needed to get out okay yeah joseph you watch yeah this empty house yes you know what the lesson is the takeaway openness to life for us going back to like 1980 when you first read humane vt and we were seminarians you know and openness to life meant throwing away contraception you know but that was like the pebble in the pond the ripples you know then suddenly you're pregnant and over 30 hours of labor and a cesarean section and then after michael comes gabriel and an openness to life is here comes life here comes everything you know one thing at a time but the ripples openness to life is just nothing but a radical submission to the lordship of christ and a trust that is never betrayed by the lord he always gives us back more than what we gave him but he always asks us to give him more than we can you know and i think that can be seen in the home so it's not just the the you know the woman is open to life or the couple is open life but my home was a home that was open to life we had a large family but also my home was always kids were running through and so it wasn't just you guys that were open but you open your family to that and and many people over the decades have experienced life in that you know in in in your instance in our experience uh we have this thing where extended family and so in the last 31 years living here in steubenville you know we've had at least 60 guys mostly live with us and they don't just they're not just borders they really are you know role models for our kids but they become like sons to us well you've touched their lives in ways that i think only in eternity uh well you know the full extent of yeah and they have blessed us yes yes recipient life gives life yes so we'll be right back with more franciscan university presents stay with us of the things that i found super touching in kimberly's book was just how much she touches on spiritual motherhood and how important that is for even college girls my age people my age we're all trying to figure out a vacation trying to figure out you know what we want to do for the rest of our life and whether we're called to married life or singleness or entering religious life you know spiritual motherhood is so important to practice now it's so important to start learning how to care for other people now so whatever vocation you're called to in the future that is you know what you can emphasize and you can keep learning that and you can start learning how to do that now what if you discovered a university with unmatched science faculty and programs a place where you didn't have to choose science over faith at franciscan university of steubenville you'll find faith-inspired student-focused research-driven programs leading to satisfying careers in medicine scientific research engineering computer science and many more science and health fields at franciscan university of steubenville education is more than just a word it's a discovery [Music] welcome back and thank you for joining us you're watching franciscan university presents which we we record here at the com arts studio at franciscan university in steubenville our students are operating the cameras and the equipment and members of our theology faculty dr martin and dr han and i are discussing biblical wisdom for family life with kimberly and kimberly as we were talking um i think a danger or perhaps a fear that some women have is that they're not going to measure up that they're not i mean you you present such a beautiful model of being a woman of god of being a wife of being a mother and just because i deal largely with younger moms there's a fear about that that they're not going to measure up so maybe speak to that and help them be able to alleviate some of that fear for them first of all it's a very slow process so we can we can take uh great joy in knowing i've got a long time to to learn how to be a mom you know that little baby comes just so you don't have to have it all figured out your first day have it all figured out secondly we need more mentoring of older women who will come alongside and say you know that that really is some a problem that's going to resolve itself or you you actually need to give this a little focus this this this could become something you know that would be a concern and just giving that balance um i one of the things i offer my daughter and daughters-in-law is on a really tough day call me and i will set the alarm on my phone and i will pray for you every hour until i go to bed tonight and and they just noticed throughout the day okay mom already prayed for me this hour and there are days where you really feel like i don't know how i'm going to get through this and all of a sudden it's the end of the day and you did um i i think uh when when i read what mother teresa calcutta saint teresa of calcutta said she was holding a little baby here in the states and she said to the baby why are they so afraid of you and i think there's an a lot of fear whether or not people maybe were were raised in homes that weren't happy or just how unsettling it is to have one little one so dependent on you um it does demand a lot even just to have one child and but it's not the way our society sees or the way our society sees it is it it costs so much you know it's such a burden but if you read through sacred scripture children are only and always a blessing and i remember uh thinking of your family regis uh with psalm 128 where it talks about the godly man who was surrounded by his wife and children like olive shoots around the table you know you did not set out to say can i afford to have 10 children but they also didn't all come did we have that many yeah you got a look on your face like really they didn't all come at the same time you know one at a time they assist each other i mean there's so much that is missed in evaluating whether or not you know the cost-benefit analysis and i would say love is generous lavish and even just a little ridiculous right and and it's just and and what child ever when you make the announcement that another one's on the way what child ever says oh another one i mean it's pandemonium and joy it's like it's a party you know and we need we need to celebrate life you know i remember when we were homeschooling for more than a quarter of a century our philosophy was you know one year at a time one kid at a time and now that echoes one day at a time but i remember you also sharing the wisdom of it's like one hour at a time one minute at a time you know mid-morning we're all ready to plan z you know you have not implemented that list of things that you had set out to do because of all of the things that appear to be distractions but really constitute your actual vocation as a wife and a mom you know another thing i want to say about this book beloved and blessed and all four of them is uh i had lunch recently with a couple and you weren't able to join us but the woman shared what meaning it is for her to read this knowing that you know she's still raising her kids and she said to me but kimberly has run the race i'm like well she's not over you know no but she has raised the kids as a a wife and as a mother and now a mother-in-law and as a grandmother and i think that's what and it isn't like you're writing and saying just look at me no learn from the word of the lord as i have and uh you know nothing has been more frustrating i suspect than being married to me and you know raising all of the kids i mean nothing is more fulfilling than being married to you but we've shared those frustrations we've shared those fears we've shared sleepless nights you know and waking up uh with all kinds of anxiety and concern and trying to pray and struggling it isn't like you know we're a holy family there was only one it was in the first century not the 21st century but wanting to be holy is something that you have never let go of yeah and that inspires me you know i don't want to just simply be your husband and hero i want to be a saint yeah and and you just reinkindle that longing in me because for you it comes naturally for me it only comes supernaturally i don't know that there's a wife anywhere who hasn't harbored from time to time of a furtive homicidal impulse to simply annihilate her husband but to divorce him it's unthinkable that's off the table we're in this together it's an adventure and god is a god of surprises he may surprise us with a kind of unexpected peace bliss even you have a wonderful example well many of them but but this stands out in particular i think a couple of weeks after you lost a child you conceived another maybe that was joe it was joe and and he had this piercing insight he said you mean if if that child had not been lost then i wouldn't exist and you say well that's right you wouldn't and then he says well i'm so glad you had both of us because now there are two that we can celebrate i mean that's that's profound yeah and you would not have had that insight that sunburst if if it hadn't been god surprising you with this unexpected fruitfulness i mean a lot of couples would have said look let's cut our losses we've had enough let's try something else let's let me get a job find fulfillment in in the marketplace but no maybe we should try this again we should be open to the future and and we have lots of limitations we really do in our in our backgrounds our personalities maybe finances whatever but god can provide what we need and i love that passage where paul in second corinthians 12 hits this wall he's begging god to change something and he says my grace is sufficient for you for my power is made perfect in weakness so the question is not am i strong enough to have 10 children am i strong enough to be open to life after a miscarriage am i strong enough even to get married it is am i weak enough right am i weak enough to then depend on god and of course as we model this and we will blow it we will model for our children the need to go to confession as well as wonderful moments of insight and holiness we also are pointing them in the direction for their own lives which is embracing grace i think one of the struggles we see in particularly in social media and honestly maybe more with women is that what is often presented is this perfect image and and i always say turn the camera around and you can see the chaos but maybe just how do you speak to that and comparison yes and i'm not like them and i think yes because people will treat i mean i remember one woman coming by my home i was 11 30 in the morning i was still in my bathrobe and she goes well kimberly hon's in her bathrobe and i said yes and she said you just fell off your pedestal and i said then let me be off yeah in the first place yeah exactly we need models so i can appreciate that but at the same time there isn't a perfect wife and mom apart from the blessed mother and the saints that we can hook up with churchill was in his bathrobe till about three or four years found the time to win a war but it is sort of intimidating that that that that scripture passage perfect love casts out fear and you think to yourself is my love perfect enough but really it's not about you christ is perfect love let him cast out the fear and if i could just speak to the fear aspect because we were talking on the break about that this crisis of covet is seems to be somewhat unique in a variety of ways but a key one is typically when people go through a major crisis like a tornado a hurricane an earthquake a blizzard they'll say nine months later they're seeing all these babies at the hospital that are blizzard babies you know here we had covid where people were home for months and months together and they're seeing a decline in population from one side of cove to where we are right now and i guess i just want to say don't let fear be what motivates you or paralyzes or paralyzes you lead with faith we've never we've never had the perfect time to have a child well if you're on a smartphone lost in cyberspace you're not likely to be making love making babies these people have no future it's it's sterilizing it's also paralyzing i think that fear has so overwhelmed so disarmed so many people that they're literally afraid of the future that's what neurosis is yeah they need therapy i'm going to say something rather risky because i i remember reading in saint thomas aquinas that you know there's a tendency of women toward vain glory vanity you know and i suspect that is the wellspring for the whole cosmetic industry because you know we need models but we didn't don't need models walking down you know that runway yeah we we don't need cover girls um you know what what we recognize is that we ought to be looking to our own mothers or to our grandmothers or to a woman of god you know i i remember sitting with you in the cabin with dr billy graham and ruth for a few hours it was an amazing time it was an enchanted afternoon but they were so down to earth you know and he was a model for me at the time when i was a protestant minister and she was a model for you i'm sure you know and to echo what you said a few minutes ago you know she's famously quoted as saying you know he was gone sometimes for weeks and months you know did you ever think of divorcing him she said it never crossed my mind shooting him yes you know the frustrations are real and especially when the absences or the tensions are there but the idea of modeling is not about how do i look you know because frankly i can't speak for all men but i think most men don't really care how much makeup you have you know it has much more to do with you know how do i look compared to other women you know it's like timeout that comparison is just so futile and so yeah and you'll always find i find you will always you know find a woman who cooks better than you who cleans better than you who who does anything better than you and so either your takeaway is what can i learn from her or how do i i'm not enough i'm not enough and it's like yes yeah and god again has not made a mistake you are unique your marriage is unique your children the fixation on what you might call cosmetic reconstruction is really obsessive and it's unhealthy i mean my own wife the thing that i'm looking for in her is a smile if she bestows the smile in fact that smile is i think diminished if she's wearing lipstick or rouge those are all distractions but the face that god made that's what i'm looking for and it's that and she is beautiful and i think so many things have gone on recently particularly in marriage and what is marriage and i actually as a preacher i've liked that it's allowed me to preach more about what is marriage and what is uniquely unique about christian marriage and you've said a couple of times scott and i believe it's fundamentally true and that is that it is supernatural it is it's simply what the lord is inviting you guys to do with your spouses and your families is supernatural and i'm reminded what the catechism says about marriage that the holy spirit is ever available to the couple and maybe just speak to that how the spirit of god in moments of difficulty has been present to you and helped you yes so in moments of unspeakable joy and in great grief and sorrow i i call on that romans 8 passage where the holy spirit interprets interprets our very spirit to the father and and and puts into words what i don't know how to articulate whether it's very deep joy or very deep sorrow um he enables us if we pause to give us perspective to to look at the child who's just disappointed us and to be able to look at that child through his eyes and to then extend grace so that i can reflect the holy spirit to that particular child um and then all of the ways in which i see the holy spirit bringing peace and joy and order out of the chaos you know that's what we can do in our homes i think there are a lot of ways to share the holy spirit and up next our panel and our guests will share their final thoughts on biblical wisdom for family life stay with us an important topic that kimberly brought up that i feel was very vital was the fact that women very often compare themselves to each other and that it makes them feel insecure in themselves but i really thought that it was wonderful that she pointed out that instead of feeling low or feeling bad about yourself it's important to learn from other women an important takeaway i received from what kimberly had to say was her emphasis on sisterhood and how we can live that now even as students and in that it means taking care of your fellow sisters but as well as receiving help from your sisters and i think it was a really important point that i haven't really heard that often and it's something that we could do right now as students there is a place where education begins and faith and reason connect franciscan university of steubenville's online programs will advance your career through an e-learning experience that's both academically excellent and passionately catholic with online degrees taught by full-time professors in theology catechetics business education and other disciplines you can earn your master's degree online without changing your lifestyle find out more today at franciscan.edu where your faith and career can connect online [Music] and welcome back to franciscan university presents we've come to our final segment so regis if you could start us off with some final thoughts yeah uh kimberly thank you so much for for this book and for your life the witness of your your life your marriage your family uh some people i i think might regard you as impossibly perfect and you know how can i my husband or your confessor we'll have the kids come in my children you know how can i begin to approach this paradigm of of the ideal wife and mother so i'll just give it up but in fact what struck me throughout the book were the times that you fell to your knees one endearing example is it it may have been a gabriel i i could be mistaken but you have to discipline all of those boys much of the time and this particular occasion you sent him out of his room and when he comes back he says i don't want to go to heaven and you say what does that have to do with anything and he says because if i go i would have to spend eternity with you and that dropped you to your knees it was so humbling that was that was a moving moment let me let me end with with this uh little uh vignette because my wife isn't here she's sort of like the fifth wheel but she's here in spirit and she and i had dinner the other night and uh she turned to me and said what is your favorite virtue and instantly i said the virtue of hope and i i described the image of the little girl that uh peggy exclaims about who walks down the boulevard between her two big sisters and everybody thinks this frail child is is helpless and faith and charity have to sustain her when in fact it's hope who shoulders the burden of these other two virtues so i gave her a little disquisition on hope and then i said well darling what's your favorite virtue and she said compassion and she said what i really think about jesus is god came all the way into this world so that he might weep so that he might cry for the children that that he created i mean that that just blew me away that is astounding he comes so close to us that he that he has tears i mean what what you know the episode with lazarus here is jesus the word the eternal son of god weeping because his friend has died that's compassion suffering with and i think that's what mothers and fathers are expected to do to be this extension of of the tears of god amen thank you thank you regis scott i feel like tevye on the one hand on the other hand on the one hand you know people come up to me and say what's it like to be married to her you know i've read her books i've heard her talks you know and what i say is you have no idea you think she's she's lived it out you know more than she's written it up and she's spoken and so it really is an honor she's not perfect but i tell you i am perfectly blessed to have you and yet at the on the other hand it took me years and i'm still learning this but i remember it took me really ten years before i finally blurted out one day after a stupid fight i've never gone wrong trusting you and i've never done right distrusting you even when i could prove through a syllogism that you're wrong and i'm right i ended up being more wrong you know and to suddenly discover and then to rediscover it you know and i'm ashamed to say hundreds of times i've had to relearn this that we're not competition you know we are you know we're in the same team and uh you know that rediscovery is for me so exciting but at the same time i i have to admit that talking to husbands men who are fathers and all of that they're easily threatened by strong women it's like threatened you're completed you know get over yourself and you know i'm not threatened by your restraints i'm completed you know we're not threatened by our five sons that are one daughter you know the fact that michael is not only more intelligent more disciplined and more virtuous than me i couldn't be more grateful and proud of all of that and and so i i think that once we recognize that as dr thielmann said we deserve each other you know we didn't i never could deserve you but we need each other and we complement each other and we complete each other but it's never easy but it's always fruitful and so not to us o lord not to us but to your name give glory amen amen thanks kimberly your final thoughts yeah just a couple of thoughts one i've always taken great uh consolation in the fact that at the end of proverbs 31 her children rise up and call her blessed and that means that's years down the road and so there's a lot of time there's a lot of time to to get things better on track to better time management home management everything um so give yourself the time and the grace that god gives you be patient with yourself and secondly a call to older women to come alongside the younger women to find those ways to support encourage um maybe take over a meal maybe offer to have the children come over to the house and i'm so looking forward to more on-site grandparenting soon with hannah's family moving back to our area and seeing what small things i can do to help with just the the pressures of normal family life you know and increase the joy decrease some of the challenge thank you so much if you'd like to learn more about today's topic we have an article that kimberly has done for us on priorities and how you settle priorities it was written by kimberly it's yours free if you simply go online to faithandreason.com or call the number you're going to see at the screen below uh as in in much of this conversation and discussion i've been thinking obviously about my mom you know it would seem reasonable right that i think about my mom and and i have i think perhaps my father's my best friend and he's just been just such a rock in my life um and i am because of him but i'm also very much because of my mother and and just being able to see my mom my mom struggles with ms and in some ways she's the toughest lady i know but i just reflect on on who i am as a priest and and oftentimes i think we focus on perhaps the manliness of a priest but it was it was the feminine caring and love and concern that my mother had for me that was it was transformative my parents made the decision uh to not have my mom work outside of the house and there were five boys and one girl in my family and and uh she was amazing and and being able to come home and wrestle with that and and i'm just so grateful for the ways that she taught me uh what it is to be a man and and it's we can learn what it is to be a man by our moms and and what it is to love and and how it is to forgive and i think i always share one of the greatest stories that i have is we were having a family night a family prayer time and my mom and dad were sharing that the lord was the center of their life and then their relationship with one another was next and we come in third place and as a kid it's like who wants to be third right and i now understand that the greatest gift my mom and dad gave me was that yes they modeled for me that christ has to be in the center of my life and and there was the center of my family's life and and i saw that lived out the other thing that was beautiful was um my mother and father are living out weakness and and i remember mom and dad apologizing to the kids and there was something beautiful about that that they didn't always have to have it right i remember going as a family and mom and dad in line for confession that that we were doing this there was a sense that we were doing this family thing together and it was with the lord and the manner and it's just a great grace so for your invitation and you're inviting us to pray and reflect about that today we're very very grateful so we want everyone to know that you are in our prayers uh family life is wonderful and blessed and difficult and struggle so we just offer a prayer now for all of the families out there heavenly father we thank you for your love for us and we thank you that you've called us by name and that by your grace and by your anointing you have brought us into relationship with you we thank you for your son jesus who has saved us and redeemed us father i ask your blessing upon all women all mothers all spouses all children grandchildren that they know your love and your peace your care and your protection and that you continue to breathe life in them ask almighty god to bless them the father the son and the holy spirit amen amen [Music] download a free handout on today's topic at faithandreason.com where you can also watch past episodes of franciscan university presents or request the handout by emailing us at presents franciscan.edu or reach us by phone for today's handout by calling 800-783-6447 that's 800-783-6447 [Music] you

Channel: Franciscan University of Steubenville

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Keywords: Franciscan University, Steubenville, Ohio, Catholic, college, Franciscan University of Steubenville, Franciscan University of Steubenville (College / University), Franciscan University Presents, Presents, EWTN, Fr. Dave Pivonka TOR, Dr. Regis Martin, Dr. Scott Hahn, Kimberly Hahn, Beloved and Blessed: Biblical Wisdom for Family Life, Beloved and Blessed, Proverbs 31, womanhood, family life, motherhood

Id: 5zFTlSkARBM

Length: 58min 34sec (3514 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 06 2022