Journey Home - 2019-2019-04-15 - Denise Bossert

[Music] good evening and welcome to the journey home I'm Marcus Grodi your host for this program and EWTN gives me this great privilege every week to to sit with you and let's hear how the holy spirit has awakened someone someone to a deeper walk in Jesus Christ in a discovery of the church and our guest tonight is a returning guest well she hasn't been on the program for many years so we can rehear her story all over again Denise Bossert and former Presbyterian author of gifts I've had my gifts of the visitation we'll talk about that later in the program right so welcome back to the program because you've done a lot of things since you run the program this is all your stuff with Israel and so anxious to hear about that but for those guests are in the VIP for those listeners that have not heard your story from before let's let's hear it again if you would okay you could remember it I know what it's like well I'm a preacher's kid so I'm the PK and so like many preachers kids my spiritual journey began probably before I was born it was already sort of planned out you know dad was a pastor at that time he was Wesleyan which is very more conservative branch of the United Methodist Church and I was dedicated as a baby I honestly I think I had a concept of God before I have a concept of who I was because that that's what it was like to be so rooted in a faith and faith and I loved being a preacher's kid I you know I didn't have anything to grouse about I love my father I loved being in the church and singing and doing all the things that we we were asked to do and when I was probably in about third grade there was a youth group for the young kids called Good News Club and my mom was teaching that and she offered the invitation to do the prayer of salvation and I loved Jesus and I wanted him to forgive my sins so that was the door in we were taught so I said the prayer Jesus come into my heart I want you to be the Lord of my life I want you to forgive my sins and I really meant it and I started lobbying to be baptized because I hadn't been baptized and I was told you're too young I was old enough to make the prayer of repentance but not old enough to be baptized baptized being seen as an adult expression at an age of accountability where you could choose for yourself was how they but not as a free gift only generation either right and not and not the new covenant of the old circumcision it wasn't seen as that which is which that's biblical but wasn't seen as that and then I was lobbying to receive Communion which for us was a symbol but I was told I wasn't old enough and God has really odd ways I think of answering these petitions that we have my one of my grandfather's died in a farming accident so dad left pastoral ministry and we moved to Northern Iowa and dad started taking care of the farm until grandma could get it ready for auction and during that time there were two Presbyterian churches that and you having been impressed petunia pastor you know that they don't immediately replace a pastor when you know when a pastor leaves and has a new parish they they have a ministerial nominating committee and the nominating committee goes to seek a new pastor and so these two churches had been without a pastor for like a year and when they realized there was a pastor in the area whose farming they started asking him to fill pulpit and that's how my dad became a presbyterian so really interesting thing about that I think as far as grace in my life is Wesley uns are very much from the holiness movement we were taught that personal vacation is essential that you know walking a personal path with Christ having him forgive your sins and being constantly vigil vigilant on your soul and where you are with Christ was important when we became Presbyterian it became a little bit more liturgical and we had two sacraments and we learned the Apostles Creed and the Our Father which we called the Lord's Prayer so I I now is seeing that Protestant churches had slightly different things I even had cousins who were Assembly of God so but one of the things that sticks in your mind I think as a child seeing all of these different denominations in your own family is that you have to pick and choose and you you have to what is a good fit for me or what even the pastor might not be a good fit for you you had to pick and choose and you know one of that's is what if you marry somebody who has a different opinion of how they want to worship then do you go to two different churches the idea that there might be a place where all of the gems are still in the in a treasure chest never would have and so under dad did you ever know young but your dad's struggling with is pretty basic theology differences between the Wesleyan 's and it actually came more between my mom and my dad my dad I think he could see that the Holy Spirit was moving in this change but dad was at a seminary in Dubuque Iowa and it's very Catholic town and so some of the the priests at Loras and Clark would come over and do some of the delivery of some of the the coursework yet but the illogical seminary for the Presbyterians and my dad came home one time and he said to my mom we got baptism wrong with regard to infant baptism which we had said you know is unacceptable and he laid out the Greek and he said you know in the Greek the word for household means everybody it means newborn to death beds and free and so we need we need to have our children baptized you know ASAP and my mom did not like that she came first of all she came from a very anti Catholic faith formation herself and she was rooted in in Wesleyan ISM and but eventually she prayed about it and she thought about my dad said and she said okay without left questions for from me anyway it's like I wanted to be baptized and you said I'm not old enough and now I haven't been asking for a few years and now suddenly it's like you're gonna be baptized next Sunday kind of thing and so you know that's about left questions but my dad was working through those things but it's kind of interesting because you think of Presbyterians as being like predestination and my dad never preached a single sermon on predestination it's like he could pick and choose even as a pastor whether he believed in the core tenets of the Presbyterian faith so yeah sadly especially if you're ever not named that the particular Presbyterian denominations because there's at least nine or ten of them ranging from extremely conservative five-point Calvinist all the way to whatever right bud you're exactly right that you could be a Presbyterian pastor and pretty much operate like a congregation so but we didn't hear much I think unholiness anymore in sanctification it's not I think at this since we didn't believe in it I mean of course we did it's biblical but the the idea was more that this is a lifelong journey with with Christ and a lifelong pursuit in walking with him and again those aspects are true and and taken in isolation there's a problem but the fact that we have as Catholics I would eventually discover that what we mean by the fullness of the faith is not arrogant what we mean by the fullest fullness of the faith is all the treasures that have maybe in little pieces out there what is true what is good what is holy what is of God is still here and has always been here so but that was my my Faith Formation so it was a little bit of this a little bit of that and I tried to make sense of it and it didn't make a lot of sense although I knew God was real and I knew Jesus Christ was real and I think that you know took me through some some tough times the high school I went to was a public high school but most of the students were Catholic so we did rub elbows with some Catholic students and I was in a debate class Marcus and and one of the students in the debate class was a good friend of mine just a friend but he was a good friend and he was always a jokester he was always like making jokes and cutting it up and class and stuff and he said I don't understand why you're not Catholic I thought this was another joke because I'm like oh Bob we can't all be Catholic you know I just get over yourself Ben and he's like well no really I mean all of the states they're so holy and and they're all Catholic and so I said well they're your Saints Bob they're not my Saints they're like my Saints are like Corrie ten Boom my Saints are like Billy Graham people who were still living at the time right and so then he switched and he said okay but what about the long line all the way back to Peter he didn't use the term apostolic succession as a junior in high school that was the level of his apologetics but and I remember wishing I had history on my side because we didn't know history you know church history was not something we even I don't know if my dad really knew church history so any may have gotten two different strands because if you had the Wesleyan side and then right President our guess is getting sponsored just to remind you of that he may have had two different strands ignoring different different people and emphasizing so now it's interesting I called Bob up after I became Catholic and they said hey Bob this is Danny and I'm Catholic now and that was surprising him and Emily do you remember the you know the conversation we had in debate class and they say this for a special reason explaining it wasn't Wesleyan no no no no he's Catholic but I said your mother the conversation I said it and he said and this still makes me laugh he said I have absolutely no memory of that conversation at all and that is Grace isn't it I mean we plant see it's and we may never know but I remember that conversation as if it happened yesterday and that's grace too so but being a preacher's kid it's not always easy I know as I was just thinking when you read First Samuel the story of Samuel part of that is a couple preachers kids we're really nasty in the beginning of that if you remember it took Israel down because of the sons of this priest who were just horrendous it can be and I mean I think we have we get kind of a bad rap that were either really really wild or just just ridiculously straight-laced I don't think I felt and fell in either camp but I do do have scars from it in that dad took a new pastor it right before my senior year of high school and we moved and that was very difficult for me took me a long time to get over it and I very quickly became serious with a young man in the youth group which I think probably would have made my mom happy on the surface because he wasn't Catholic you know we weren't supposed to ever marry Catholic so but he was Presbyterian but we were both too young and it later was annulled but that was probably one of the darkest times was going through moving right before my senior year and and and not knowing who I was or how to make friends for just one year before college so be married right out of high school and it was a very very tough thing getting married right after turning 18 so that marriage ended was it was faith a part of that interesting you should ask that it wasn't at first and then he felt he had a call to the ministry he went to the same seminary my father went to he became a United Methodist minister we lived in Atlanta are north of Atlanta Marietta Georgia and I can't remember I think we had something like 1200 families I think it was a pretty large church he was an associate pastor and that's when the marriage fell apart and so in the heartache that any parish Protestant parish has when their pastors are married and then their pastors go through turmoil or whatever it's it's hard on the church and it was hard on me because I couldn't talk with people who had become very dear friends of mine because for the good of the church you remained silent and so you go through your sorrow you go through your pain in isolation and so I retreated to my parents and that was very humbling so I moved into their basement and with our three children and talked about a fall you go from you're going to be a pastor's wife to now you're a single mother of three young children and you have to ask yourself and in a way that this was a blessing and a grace because I had asked myself I've been a preacher's daughter I've been a preacher's wife do I believe in God do I believe in his son and do I believe in the Holy Spirit because I've been taught that and it's a role I had to play as a pastor's daughter or a pastor's wife because now I think I'm really going to find out because there's nothing to hang my hat on it's just whether it's really real or not so that was another very difficult time in life but I think it makes things that gave clarity to who I was and who Christ is to me and I met my husband in graduate school and we have a daughter and I cannot believe it she's now 20 so but what happened was about the time why I was pregnant with her my dad was very sick and suffering and that was my door into the church so I had a front-row seat to watch my father you know just did debilitating diseases and he died suddenly from something completely different he had a pulmonary embolism so when he died I was left with questions that Protestant theology does not have a good solid answer for God is a good and loving God he's he loves us unconditionally and he is all-powerful if if you got our lover of that sort and you're all-powerful why would you permit my father to suffer from other things when you knew all along that you would take him suddenly from a pulmonary embolism I know you were God and so something in me as is broken something in my theology is not complete so I inherited a lot of his personal library start going through books by the way English is my major so God got me by by my major I was constantly reading and within four or five months I found dark night of the soul and this isn't an era this is 2,000 three four five this is an era when like you couldn't Google things like what's a good book on this or that you know so that was God maneuvering and I read dark night of the soul that was in your dad's library not a usual Presbyterian was not in his library st. Augustine's Confessions was in there and I read that that broke down my bias against reading Catholic saints and from there I was also reading a series by Susan ho watch it's it's like an Anglican series but it's fiction and she would quote she would quote another lady and in that woman's book there was a chapter called dark night of this and then she fest up to the fact that she had borrowed the title from John the cross I went from the secondary source as an English major to the primary source and Evelyn Underhill that's who the lady was so and then I went to st. John of the Cross as you can see I don't see what's happening but God is one but I want taking me through blacks and that is all about our Lord does not abandon us in our suffering we speak a language that only those who suffer know and it's the language Christ speaks to our heart and the room is dark but Jesus is sitting closer to us and he's ever been before but the room is just that dark we don't see it says the dark night of the soul and that made sense to me and from there I went to his spiritual companion st. Teresa of Avila I still remember the day I was sitting up in bed reading the book I laid the book beside me and I had that that I want that I want that holiness I want that spirituality then the scary thought to have what they had I have to be part of the faith home that gave birth to that that was the first time I had haba thought of I think I'm supposed to be kind of like you know you didn't think that you could have that same spirituality outside the church at that point I didn't know anyone who was like them right I didn't know anyone is like them it's actually Evelyn Underhill was fascinated by Quakers and by Catholics that the Carmelite specifically and she was neither she stayed Anglican out of respect for her husband who didn't want her to change that was his faith tradition but she and so as I was reading her book my thought was what do these two have in common because my great-great-grandmother was a Quaker minister so I mean I come from a family of missionaries and preachers it was a woman who was a great-great grandmother she was a Quaker minister I which they're basically prayer leaders there like they lead prayer studies that that's the way they thought the old way that they used to worship so I started doing research on what they had in common it was the prayer of quiet contemplation and I have a very strong affinity for that type of prayer so then I was left the question where do I go my husband Southern Baptist die hard Southern Baptist he's not anymore he's Catholic but then he was and so I picked up the phone and I called a priest that my father had known on a ministerial board so if you were ever on ministerial boards okay so there's the ecumenical dialogue and I remembered a conversation and the dad saying he liked him and so I tried to find him I found him I called him up and I thought when I said I think I'm supposed to be a Catholic they'd be like oh this is great this never happened is like let's you know instead he was like this is good and while your dad was a Presbyterian you need to read dr. Scott Hans book because he was a Presbyterian pastor and that made me think like maybe dad would understand if a Presbyterian pastor came into the faith when I know a pastor gives up everything everything they've ever studied to do they set that aside to follow Christ into the church that made me realize that I kind of had dad's blessing to pursue this and then he said read John 6 and if you can take our Lord at his word your faith faith journey will keep going and if you cannot your faith journey will end here and Marcus is a preacher's kid who I've always felt the presence of God it's terrifying to think that maybe that will stop I was 40 at the time and the idea of after 40 years in communing with God and Jesus to have that stop it's just I couldn't I couldn't even face that as a possibility so I turned to John 6 with the most open of hearts and I read it and I knew it was true so it was the first thing infused grace I don't know this is really Christ in the Eucharist and he's always been just about a block away how's that even possible and the love that you've always felt immediately gets directed to to what you can touch what you can see and what you can receive within you and I entered RCIA and everything was great until it was December the 12th and it was a Sunday and I had class and he was talking about the Immaculate Conception because we had just had the solemnity of the Immaculate Conception and I had a problem with that because I had a memory of my parents in a car when I was in high school talking about it when dad was in seminary and he was saying what the priest had said that Mary was conceived and protected from original sin from the very first moment of her conception and my mom had this over-the-top horrific response and I remember every bit of it and then I remember my dad saying while God could do that for his mother to protect his divinity within her I don't think it was necessary for him to do it I don't think he did do it and that was a tape recorder we all have tape recorders of the people who framed us in the in the faith so I listened to everything that mr. Miller said and I still I'm crying now because like can I come in anyway if I can't say I believe it because I can't say I believe in something I don't believe in in order to receive the one I do believe in what do you do with that how do you get from point A to point B and after laying out Scripture and the the you know Ark of the New Covenant and the new Eve and it's not getting through my bias he said go make a petition to Mary to show you so I went home that day and I wrote my petition in my prayer journal and within 24 hours I had a letter from a woman who live in Scranton Pennsylvania I had seen her on your show on well she you been watching my show at this point she had been on your show on July 16th it was a repeat of her show on the feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel and underneath I've said third-order Carmelite and I was reading Carmelites and so I'm like wait a minute they were from 500 years ago and she's how's that even possible because in the Protestant world it's like you might have a movement for 40 years and it dies out and you have a new one really things lasted hundreds of years so I wrote the show and you said you sent the letter to her and we began a relationship and she's actually I dedicated the book to her but and her name is Mary Elizabeth and it's on the visitations lakeya it gets really really bizarre but she wrote me a letter with it and that I received within 24 hours of my petition and it was typed single spaced two pages encouraging me in the faith and do you know what she dated that letter December the 8th and above it she wrote flumpty with the Immaculate Conception which is was the question I had and Mary had answered my petition precisely the way I need it and and and that was so clear that she Mary had heard my petition and whispered into the ear someone who can know no other way that this is true Mary and intercession I live in st. Louis Mary Beth lives in near Scranton we still have never met even though we email each other and I've dedicated a book to her I mean this is just this this Holy Spirit stuff way our lady works - yeah all right let's pause there Denis we'll come back you just mumbles come back just a moment for the rest of Denise's story [Music] [Music] [Music] welcome back to the journey home I'm your host Marcus Grodi didn't he sponsored is our guest and we've paused but before we come back to you I just want to remind you the journey home isn't my main job my main job is with the coming-home Network International and I just want to encourage you you even mentioned a little bit that maybe we had a little bit of part to play do this on your own journey that the reason the coming home network exists is to stand beside people on the journey so first story other stories are interesting you if you'd like to hear more conversion stories please feel free to check us out CH network.org lots of conversion stories resources and connections of course to the journey home programs and other aspects like the deep scripture programs we'd love to have you connect with us to see what we're doing so that we can help you in your journey of faith let's let's pick up again you've come into the church and again if people want to hear more of the whole story they go back to the old journey home episode they can find out Nita BTN comm but what happened then well my daughter came into the church our daughter she's like I said now she's 20 she came in when she was I think oh well she her first like communion was second grade but she started PS our parish school religion in kindergarten and I'd love to see her come in because she has none of the bias that I had received so she just comes in and it's all beautiful and wonderful still is to her thanks be to God as a college kid she's still just embraces her faith my husband who was Southern Baptist so he would never come in he came in two years later and it's funny because I think part of the fact is she came in and then he came in so it's like it became easier the more that say it said yes and and he's become a godfather to others were where God we're godparents to a little boy he helped his best friend from the college era come in it's they just it's ripples I have a daughter from that first marriage to the last show she had just given birth to a little boy and I don't think she'll care if I say this that she had little boys that she had born she given birth to wasn't married her life was a bit of a mess about that time and she came in to the church thanks be to God and all five of her little boys just five now are studying the faith and the one that was born like the day before this show he's about ready to receive his First Holy Communion so it got has been really good and blessed us and multiple conversions often there are hurdles let's stand in a way of people coming home and then on the other hand there are key things that are the drawing cards you know for you and even your husband what would you say was the number one hurdle that held you back from becoming Catholic maybe even for your husband and what was the number one you know drawing car well I think Marian Dogma for me was the hardest specifically the Immaculate Conception and had it not been for this remarkable intervention of grace I I'm not sure I would have come in because I wouldn't have committed to a teaching that I didn't believe in I had to believe in it in order to to be able to embrace the faith my husband he says he was studying it for his a doctorate from st. Louis University and of course we were not on the same page and that was really hard for him because as it's married we were on the same page with basically everything but he said he finally had asked himself if he shows up for these classes for his doctorate assuming that the professor's have been vetted they know what they're saying and they can you know he can get a degree at the end of it why wouldn't he at least sit at the feet of a 2000 year old church and assumed they have been vetted and that they can confer this this reality of being member and of that church that Jesus founded so that was the that was the thing for him now after you've come in you came into the church in fact since the last time you were on the program you've been involved in some pretty exciting things so many things that as I was preparing thinking about this I'm like I don't you know which things to say because it's it's I think the last 10 years have been just the Holy Spirit if there's nothing but just communion with with you then that's fine if if there are things you want me to do then that's fine and it it's nothing you could plan it's just been so much I currently teach high school theology which limits my availability but I've been a syndicated columnist for 10 years for diocesan newspapers I've been an author contract editor for Catholic publishers I give talks so I still go around and give talks not as much as I used to is my schedule of teaching but Ave Maria press contacted me in 2013-14 to work on a book for them and it was they wanted it on the visitation I'd pitched a couple ideas when they requested them and and that was the one they they stuck with and I had I don't know I think converts do this I had a lot of self-doubt Lord and I even prayed this prayer how can I write a book on this when I've never been there I've never been to the place where your mother encountered Elizabeth and st. John the Baptist leaped in Elizabeth's womb how can I speak with any credibility to this and so then I place a petition before Mary if you want me to see this place where this wonderful thing happened there's a time crunch I can't make it happen I can't even pull the money together for it to happen and within a month those who were members of the Catholic Press Association and I had only been a member for a month at that point we're invited to apply for Israel Ministry of Tourism was hosting journalists to go to the Holy Land to coincide with the same time in 2014 that Pope Francis was there to encounter the patriarch the Orthodox Patriarch it was the 50th anniversary of the 1964 encounter between the Pope and the patriarch and they planted an olive tree and while Pope Francis was going back to to do this again and I was one of seven journalists chosen so I was able to go to the Holy Land while the Holy Father was there see all of the sites in the Holy Land have specifically get to go to wine Karen where the visitation took place and I caught the fire of pilgrimage to the Holy Land like I I don't know it was if I can go every year and I have gone every year except for this year and this year I was teaching in February so I didn't go this year but next year this school has a pilgrimage and for this school community and we have like about a hundred people who are interested in going so I think it's really important as we're you know with Holy Week and and this time of the liturgical calendar to to realize these are real places where Jesus really walked and every time I go with groups there are two moments of collective grace Marcus the first one is on the Sea of Galilee everyone on the Sea of Galilee encounters grace and it's I can't describe what it's like they look at the shoreline and it's not built up it's exactly what Jesus saw they stay like in Tiberias or somewhere on maybe Magdala on the Sea of Galilee they in the middle of the night when they have jetlag they get up and they go out and they look at the sea in the middle of the night where Jesus walked in the middle of the night on this sea the other place that's the the universal moment of grace is the Stations of the Cross in Jerusalem which ends at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre where on one end of it Jesus was crucified and on the other end under the big rotunda there's the etic you'll where the tomb is and but another thing that strikes me part of the thing I love to do with going is everyone has an individual moment that's completely unpredictable and seem spontaneous but God has planned it due to you know the personality of the person and you'll look up you might be a Cana of Galilee you might be in a little church little st. Peters there's a little st. Peter's Church in Tiberias and someone will be a sobbing and you don't know what it is but that is their personal moment of grace and it happens everyone has the collective and everyone has a just a personal moment and everyone comes back and says the same thing this has changed how I encounter the liturgical calendar I've lived at the liturgical calendar in these nine or ten days and the readings at mass that you when you hear the Gospels you smell it you touch it you taste it you feel it you are in your mind you're immediately taken back there so like whether it's transfiguration you're on Mount Tabor or and I've had people like I took the director of communication for the Archdiocese of st. Louis and she came back she said the only regret I have is that I didn't go sooner so I could unpack these things the fifth gospel my the rest of my life the brief time we had before the program you had made the mention and we were talking about the visitation that before you were Catholic it seemed that most non Catholics don't see the value of going to the Holy Land I've got the stories in the book why do I need to go to the Holy Land but you've seen as if from a Catholic perspective the great value in that and I and I think particularly when you think about Holy Week when when it's all laid out before you you're you've got to all the stories in Scripture of course what we're trying to experience them in a unique way how valuable having been in those spots is for you and others and I think about does it also in doing that does it help you appreciate why Catholic tradition has always insisted on continuing the tradition of the crucifix yes what anytime you do and I worked for a year for Israel Ministry of Tourism I was their Catholic liaison they didn't understand why Catholics were going to pilgrimage they understood whether Jewish people would go they understood why evangelicals would go because they tried to market to them I don't know if you remember Rex Hubbard in Akron Ohio my dad would watch his specials on the Holy Land so now they can't really reach the evangelicals like they once used to because they're like all over the place but they used to be able to think that they understood the mind of an evangelical but they have never understood the mind of the Catholic and they would ask why do Catholics go we don't really market to them we don't know how to market to them and I'm like well let's talk about Queen Helena maybe and let's talk about Saint Francis I can help you with that or the rosary the wrote mysteries of the rosary like at least 19 of them or 19 of them the coronation is heaven we have to wait on that one but then you can go to all the places of the other ones while you're there and but any time we would prepare an itinerary the itinerary always started in Tel Aviv and went up the Mediterranean maybe through Mount Carmel through Megiddo Armageddon where I'm again a supposed to take place then into the Galilee Nazareth Cana and then the Sea of Galilee Mount of Beatitudes Capernaum Magdala etc then Jordan and Jerusalem the Jordan River of baptism in Jerusalem it always hits climax to Jerusalem and by the time you get there and you do the Palm Sunday route you're you're crying you have you're no longer have the jetlag so you're fully engaged in this and like I've stood on Mount Scopus with with ladies who didn't know they're looking at this the old city and they don't know where things are and suddenly one of them like and turn around and look at me and I'm like yes because it's the church holy sepulcher turn back and then just burst into tears because it's like everything I believe is that's where it was and in the Church of Holy Sepulchre you have the crucifixion and you have the tomb in the same church and they will just they will just lose it and as you mentioned Helena and beauty of of preserving these spots I I've had experiences where I remember once I was I was doing some research on the first Catholic Church in Boston and I knew right where it was and it was originally a Huguenot Church that had been abandoned and then it was turned into this look so there it is and I went to Boston cuz I want to be at the first Catholic Church in Boston it ain't there anymore it's in a very congested tall buildings and there I found on a plaque on the alley it said to the spot so you lose the sense of history because history's moved on and we lost but that's the beauty of going to Israel because they've been preserved yes it's part of it's part of the Jewish culture I mean they know where the Cave of Machpelah is where Abraham Isaac and Jacob I've been there where Abraham Isaac Jacob and Esau are buried Leah's buried there too and so if they can remember that which is old that salvation history beginning of salvation history if they can remember where they are in the places then they know when Queen Helena went they could point out these places and I just want to point this out because this is so important and I don't know that Protestants really realized this maybe Catholics don't even either but the reason we know where these sites are is because underneath of them there are ruins of 4th 5th century churches and that should be a bell go off historically if there are ruins of 4th 5th century churches then Queen Helena ordered those churches and her son funded them constantly funded them and so we know where they were because Catholic churches were built there and so if you go to the Holy Land everything you'll see except for two things will be clearly Catholic and the only two things that aren't is some people will go to yard and need for the baptismal site but it's not the real baptismal site that's the site Israel promotes because it's upstream so it's clear if the water is clearer it's not farther downstream but you want to go to Alcazar yahood which is where Pope Francis went and where Catholics go and we know because there's ruins of the churches there and the other one is they'll go to the garden tomb which is gordon's calvary and that was presented in like the 1900s but from the time of Queen Helen it's the church Holy Sepulchre and even the geography our geologists have done studies I don't remember like a couple years ago they took the slab off and they studied it and they did the studies on it's like third century debris inside so they know that that is there's a scene in Indiana Jones the first beginning where they're there digging in the site over here and it's like wait a second what's that going way over there in that hill it's like they're focusing you're building and one of the other things they do with the the garden tomb is it looks like a skull in the side of the rock and they think that well that's Golgotha the skull but there are some there is some thought in Jewish lore that the skull is Adams skull that is buried underneath where the cross was that that is where you get the term Golgotha the skull and they also say well it's within the city walls and he was crucified outside the city walls and all you have to say is do you know what urban sprawl is and this is 2,000 years ago anyone who lives in the area or knows the area Israelis know that that's not the same border around the old city as it used to be let's talk about your new book gifts of the visitation I think you did a bookmark with dr. Peck on us so there's a you've got a whole discussion on that but I'd like to ask it in terms of your journey you know why this book in relationship to your journey of faith well I think Mary had the whole thing planned I first of all my biggest obstacle coming in had to do with Mary and first of all I couldn't come in if I didn't embrace you know the teachings of the church so I had to overcome that for that reason but also I think I was permitted this obstacle and the grace to be to overcome it because I could not have written this book with with the zeal that I have for Mary as my mother had I not come to the point where I realized she's not only the mother of the church she knows me like a mother knows me because she knew my petition before I asked it because the letter I got from Mary Beth was written a couple days before I made the petition so it could write arrived within 24 hours of my petition that clarified everything for me so when I sat down and wrote this I wrote it as as a Protestant you don't mere son even on your radar does she even know who I am isn't she like in heaven and like I'm not like not even on her radar yes you are and it enabled me to write the book about one of her most er credible moments and things I love about this is it also showed me that the encounter between Mary and Elizabeth it's like Old Covenant New Covenant embracing literally because you have Elizabeth and in the very last verse is the very last chapter the very last book of the Old Testament is prophesying the the fact that the new Elijah would come who is John the Baptist and here we have these two together so it is like the old coming a new covenant really a but the baton is being touched and the other thing that it tells me is how much God wanted to use women to be a voice for the evangelization or the kerygma because they were the first from the lips of one person to another to share the story of the Messiah's coming and then you see this again at the tomb you know so the women at the tomb so I think for women and I give a lot of talks at Advent on during on these two women because I think women understand just whether or not they give birth they understand the maternal passing on of the message receiving the message yes and it's kind of very incarnational and then sharing the message and the joy of being by the way do you know how far it is from Nazareth to my Karen where Elizabeth lives I'm guessing three days it's 80 miles okay so yeah it would have been like three four days eighty miles and she's just like hey I think I'm gonna go see my cousin Elizabeth or my relative Elizabeth because know with God nothing is impossible I I think women kind understand that I've got to go tell this story it's so I had a great joint and just riding in did you deal in here with you're talking about Salvation history it seems like one of the unique things that God has used in Salvation history many of the incidences that are key are with an older couple that are childless that don't that can't have children they're not supposed to have children again but God in his brain his wisdom and chooses Abraham and Sarah yes in fact one of the things I put in the chapter I think on humility is the fact that Sarah not Sarah Elizabeth was at the lowest level on the social strata because she was barren but suddenly now that she's pregnant they recognize in her something that speaks to them of what happened to Sarah so now she's like gone to the moved immediately to the highest level who is this child and what does this mean and then a pregnant teenager shows up on her doorstep and this moment of humility and hospitality that must take place where she says even though she's at the highest level on the social strata Who am I that the mother of my lord should come to me so the one who appears to everyone else to be Sarah is the one who says humbly Who am I and that I think speaks to the you know God was starting and hinting with Sarah what he was planning to do you mentioned that and is true if you've listened to journey all programs over the years that it seems like one of the most common barriers for non Catholics is our lady and in your own case it might even have kept you out of the church if you will I'm guessing there may be people watching right now that might say I okay I can accept what the Church teaches about our lady but I'm not there how do I get there how would you tell people how do you get from this is what it says in the Catechism to really feeling where you've said she's your mother yes how do you help someone get there I don't think on our own steam we do get there I think that it's grace but I think there's a few things we know and we can guarantee and that is that God loves us he sent His Son Jesus loves us and he offers us his mother and so while we may have struggles maybe the way we were raised we have obstacles she's the mother and a mother loves and a mother's love will seek out the child so I think the main thing is just to get out of the way with the obstacle and let her love you and let her show you things she wants to show you and you'd said a few moments ago with that you presume that a great percentage of those outside the church don't even think about her thinking about them now my guess is most of them don't even think about the communion of saints in that way at all it all extends to that as well and how much we miss when we know we can have fellowship I mean I I've been in churches like brother or sister and not in a religious sense but they talk about one another that way why not the ones who have endured to the end run the race faithfully as st. Paul said great crowd of witnesses it's all biblical it's all there it's all biblical and I don't know how many times I've had to lean into that I think if we understand the body of Christ with crisis the head and we are parts of the body it makes perfect sense a couple minutes left you you went from Wesleyan yes to Presbyterian to Catholic one of the biggest differences in in the Wesleyan Presbyterian is this understanding of holiness I was becoming Catholic helped emphasize that trajectory for you in your own life you probably you have so many of these shows you probably don't remember but that question came up in the last one the importance of what I received when I was young on holiness and personal sanctification never left me never left me and it was missing but there were things I received when I became Presbyterian that's to go back to Wesley and I would be missing but the liturgical calendar the rightness of Lent the rightness of the confessional the rightness of even coming into the church and being told to wait when you as a preacher's daughter had always had the red carpet you get to be at the front of the line there is something so beautiful about knowing that everything that I've learned and hold dear in my formation in all of its places it's all right here it's like my heart was prepared already to have all of it fulfilled in one place I have found I've been a Catholic now for you know going on 26 years and that you distinct thing which parallels what you've talked about is I've found in my growth and Catholicism to appreciate the roots that I was given myself because one thing I've discovered am I reading I have come to dis when I was a seminary I'm major din the English Puritans the nonconformist the separatists who were trying to renew the Church of England Richard Baxter and Isaac Watts and all that and now I've come to appreciate them more because what they didn't discover they didn't seem to realize was that in their desire to renew the Church of England they were becoming more Catholic John Wesley was becoming more Catholic than what he was trying to renew and thanks be to God we stumbled into it it's like stumbling into the castle and what they would have given to be able to have found that and knelt at the Eucharist and I did it just what seemed to be a sequence of coincidences God is amazing I do want to say this before at the very end the last ten years have showed and shown me that it gets harder I know people want to think it gets easier and you get it just like oh it's like oh you can hear the angels singing but I think that we have lots of consolations at the beginning and then he pulls him back so we're not addicted to his consolations but love him and it's just a matter of persevering so if there are those who are further in their journey just keep persevering because that's just the nature of the discernment process like a father who wants his children to grow sometimes he pulls away because he wants us to grow deeper in intimacy with you Thank You Denise thank you for joining us again on the program and hope you booked as well and thank you for joining us on this episode episode of the journey home god bless see you again next week [Music]

Channel: EWTN

Views: 37,277

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Keywords: ytsync-en, jht, jht01653

Id: JS8af_T3Q-4

Length: 56min 10sec (3370 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 15 2019