Kimberly Hahn - Married Saints: How to Become One and How to Raise More! (2021 DFC Conference)

[Music] [Music] oh it is such a privilege to be with you today can i ask you to stand one more time and let me say a word it felt so good to stand i want you to feel that too all right let's pray dear heavenly father we thank you for the feast we have already enjoyed from lisa thank you for your work in our hearts and our lives through the various meditations the mass the holy hour we asked lord jesus that you would use these final minutes of a talk to spur our hearts on to consider the great gift you have given us in the communion of saints and to show us ways forward to imitate them and we pray all of this in the precious name of jesus amen amen you may be seated until january 1989 i thought the communion of saints was what we experience person to person friend to friend in christ and in heaven the people up there did the same but there was no connection between them the old testament clearly condemned contacting the dead as a form of witchcraft and after all wouldn't the people in heaven just be so caught up with jesus that they're not even paying attention to what's going on on earth anyway and then i discovered that i had a tubal pregnancy i've been hemorrhaging for three days and following surgery scott could only stay so long with me in the room before he needed to get home and be with our three small children and i was on the maternity ward i just felt broken in body so sad that i had miscarried obviously in great physical pain because they gave me an entire c-section not just one way but both so the old cut and a new one just to make sure he got everything and as i lay there and this is highlighting why lisa mentioned memorizing scripture you don't know when you won't have access to a bible but you still need to hear a word from god and i had memorized hebrews 12 1 and 2. god brought that back to my mind and it says this therefore since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses let us lay aside every weight and sin which clings so closely and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us looking to jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith who for the joy set before him endured the cross despising the shame and is seated at the right hand of the throne of god end quote as i meditated on those verses our lord spoke to my heart and he said do you see this is present tense in this room of this hospital you are surrounded by this cloud of witnesses you know the olympics is going on right now and that was the image that came to my heart then too that it was like being in an olympic stadium and the stands were filled with people who had already meddled in the race i was in and they weren't there in judgment they weren't there saying i wonder how kimberly will blow it this time it was how can i encourage sorry how can i encourage her how can i pray for her i am with her and it just broke through and i just i just wept for the preciousness of the reality that the saints are actually there i've begun to know a number of saints in my 30 years as a catholic but i have started really pursuing declared saints that are married i found 149 so far believe that now there are a few that were married had kids everybody died except that person that person went off to the monastery or the abbey and then they became a saint but i'm looking for people in the crucible of marriage and family life and and i want to share a few of their stories today to become a saint we need hope and i want to give you an acrostic for that h is the holy spirit o is for obedience p is for prayer and e is for eternal perspective so the holy spirit a few weeks ago we had the privilege of witnessing the baptism of michael scott hahn jr and they go by he goes by scotty and we witnessed then about a week later the baptism of our newest god son benedict through baptism the grace of divine sonship that had been lost in adam was restored to scotty and to benedict and each received the gift of the holy spirit and the gifts of faith hope and love this put them in a state of grace titus 3 4-8 says this when the goodness and loving-kindness of god our savior appeared to he saved us not because of deeds done by us in righteousness but in virtue of his own mercy by the washing of regeneration and renewal in the holy spirit which he poured out upon us richly through jesus christ our savior so that we might be justified by his grace and become heirs in hope of eternal life the saying is sure this is the mercy of god the grace of god that comes to us through baptism don't ever let someone tell you catholics believe in works but other christian people believe in grace no we believe in the grace of god active especially through the sacraments by the washing of regeneration little scott and little benedict received the gift of the spirit making them children of god and enabling them to live as children of god but what follows is that life insurance out of hell is that is that the great escape now they can just live any way they want to no that leads us to the o of obedience why do little children obey well they may obey because they want to please you but usually it's just to avoid punishment right but as they get older you're looking for ways that they initiate doing things because they know it will please you that's maturity and the lord wants us to go much deeper than just not wanting to have to go to confession for that sin or even more not wanting to go to hell he wants us to waken in the day and say how can i please you today how can i obey you today lord we don't earn his love but we do respond to his love in obedience you know as a non-catholic i had memorized ephesians 2 8 and 9. but i didn't notice verse 10 and i've added that now it says for by grace you have been saved through faith and this is not your own doing it's the gift of god not because of works lest any man should boast for we are his workmanship created in christ jesus for good works which god prepared beforehand that we should walk in them it is all grace we are saved by grace we are given good works to walk in by grace and then he gives us the grace to actually do them he's the one bearing the good fruit in us but the fruit comes if we remain connected to him in that grace that we received in our baptism john 15 1 2 and 5 says this this is jesus i'm the true vine and my father's the vine dresser every branch that bears no fruit he takes away and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes that it may bear more fruit i'm the vine and you are the branches he who abides in me and i in him he it is who bears much fruit for apart from me you can do nothing notice cutting is going to occur right if it's dead it's going to get cut off if it's fruitful it's going to get pruned so we don't escape from suffering or difficulty simply by being connected but remember even jesus learned obedience though he was perfect and how did he learn it yeah i heard someone whisper it through suffering hebrews 5 8 and 9 says this quote though he was a son he learned obedience through what he suffered and being made perfect he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him if jesus himself learned obedience through sufferings how can we imagine that we're going to be exempt and that brings us to p prayer especially in the midst of suffering romans 5 4 and 5 says this and i'm going to break it down a little more after i read it quote more than that we rejoice in our sufferings knowing that suffering produces endurance and endurance produces character and character produces hope and hope does not disappoint us because god's love has been poured into our hearts through the holy spirit which has been given to us notice the plural saint paul is preparing christians for sufferings suffering isn't just part of the human condition it's actually part of the christian condition and if we're not suffering at the moment it's a lull okay just have to be honest what is our attitude to be dread bracing ourselves for the inevitable it is to trust our heavenly father jesus transforms our suffering into something meaningful the greek word for rejoice and i love what what uh uh mary healey shared on friday night and she shared so much more detail i'm only going to touch on it briefly but this word calchasthai is to triumph or to glory or to exalt it it does give an idea of an exuberance actually joy that's infectious we might call it the catholic variant sorry okay how do [Laughter] okay so how do we exalt in god in the midst of suffering we choose to we choose to it is easy to say and very hard to do i'll give you an example when i became a catholic one of the things that bothered me was in all the titles of mary you know queen of apostles queen of martyrs martyrs queen of the universe queen of the church i mean so many glorious titles there was a title that bothered me and it was our lady of sorrows it's like really do we have to just emphasize the negative okay and it did it just bothered me until god taught me a lesson scott and i found out that we were expecting it was a friday we gathered our children together before we headed out to math and we shared the wonderful news and then we went off to mass and of course it just seemed like it was so easy to praise god our hearts were so full this was our seventh pregnancy we had four living children at the time and then scott and i went off to give a talk and when we returned i had begun to miscarry and so on monday morning we had the sadness of having to tell the children before we left for mass that that little baby was not coming to our home and it was amazing how much of mass was talking about praise and the phrase a sacrifice of praise was one of the one of the things we read in the psalms and as i sat there i said lord i choose to praise you but i want you to know i will always grieve for these children i did not get to hold in this life and he said right back to my heart and do you think that my mother holding my broken body she gave me is not supposed to be our lady of sorrows i was like okay i get it lesson learned the word for suffering is clippers that's a really hard word to say philippus verse 4 is pressure we rejoice in our pressures resisting the temptation to quit in the midst of tribulation ye was a pagan aristocrat in korea when he met a catholic who shared with him about christ he repented he was baptized and he took the name augustine and then he invited his wife and his brother to join him in the faith which they did he became a catechist and their home became a center of the church on april 7 1839 a catechumen gave the police the names of 53 catholics and augustine his wife barbara their daughter agatha and their two little sons were arrested and they were all put to death for their faith a christian korean christian described how the the community of faith understood the impact when they were pressured to abandon the faith quote we are like nails the harder you hit us the deeper you drive us trust in god is the key is god all powerful or all loving yes you see it's our heavenly father that holds those two ideas in tension when we are in pain when we are in suffering when we are challenged we tend to pit one aspect of god versus the other if if i were god and i could do anything i would not let me suffer this way so god loves me and he really wishes he could do something but he isn't powerful enough because he's not changing anything or the opposite that god loves me so much sorry he is all-powerful and he isn't changing things so he doesn't love me and sorry i think i said that wrong anyway you get the idea you get the idea right sorry i go off script there um so by uniting our sufferings to the cross he actually invites us to participate in redemption colossians 1 24 says this now i rejoice in my sufferings for your sake and in my flesh i complete what is lacking in christ's afflictions for the sake of his body that is the church he actually allows us to take very real very difficult circumstances and to unite them to the cross and we're so really a part of his body that it is salvific this is what's behind the idea of offering it up now we have to be careful that that doesn't become the catholic way of saying shut up right you know a child's complaining and you're like offered up okay i'm sorry you have to go to the bathroom and we're going to go 10 more miles before we're stopping but just offer it up okay unless you have a little boy then you just pull off on the side of the road and he's happy you're happy it's all good one of my sons was really sick with the flu and i i stood next to his bed he's on the upper bunk bed and i said honey somewhere someone really needs prayer do you think you could offer your suffering for that person and without missing a beat he just bowed his head and he said jesus someone somewhere is thinking about an abortion don't let her do it in the garden of gethsemane jesus never abandoned hope he knew why he faced suffering and death to restore us to his father when we struggle with fears related to suffering the gift of the holy spirit pours god's love into our hearts so that that suffering will have its full effect making us hope-filled being strengthened being fortified the garden of the gethsemane is the same place where jesus relinquished his will to the father regarding the cup of suffering and it has been a tremendous place for me to meet our lord the first time we went to the garden of gethsemane was just a few weeks after the miscarriage i described earlier inside the church the windows are made of very thick alabaster and so inside the church is always very dark even though lamps are lit it's it's dark and it's fitting i think and there's a great iron grate around the rock that we believe our lord sweat blood as i prayed there i said lord i just don't know how to let go of the pain of this miscarriage i'd already had two miscarriages but this one just seemed a lot more difficult and and i said i don't want to leave this place till i have met you here please help me and the scripture that came to mind was isaiah 53 that jesus was quote a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows and with his stripes we are healed we know that he came to save us from sin but i forgot that he also came to be emmanuel god with us in our griefs and sorrows and as i left the church i was almost completely healed of that deep deep sorrow what i didn't know was i was already pregnant with our joe and my heart when i discovered it was so ready to receive him with joy years later joe was six or seven we were sitting in the kitchen and he said mommy um how did you let's see how soon did you conceive me after you miscarried and i said it had to be weeks he said so if that baby had lived i wouldn't be here i said you're right you wouldn't and he said i'm really sorry that baby died but this way you get to have us both yeah the second time we were on our way to the garden of gethsemane i had so much joy i had joseph was now four and i was six months pregnant with our david and on the bus as i was praying over petitions i remembered a woman i'd met at this conference a couple of years earlier she carried a sorrow i had never imagined and she couldn't talk about it but she later sent me a newspaper article she was estranged from her husband they had three children and she and the children were living in the house and one night while they were asleep he broke into the house and i won't describe how but she woke to the children's screams as he was killing them he had barred the door she couldn't get in she called 9-1-1 and before they got there he had set the room on fire and shot himself she did not even have bodies to hold afterwards and i have no idea how she breathed i don't know how she functioned a group of nuns welcomed her in and let her convalesce there and she eventually became an artist that made stained glass windows depicting jesus surrounded by three children and so as i thought of that woman i said lord please comfort this woman be with this woman i prayed for her on that trip to the church we were having mass and so we were all kneeling preparing for mass and i got this little tap on my shoulder and i turned around and it was that woman she was not on our tour we were in israel she'd heard that franciscan university was going to have a mass there and so she thought i know it'll be a great mass i want to go and she said to me i don't know if you remember me and i said i not only remember you teresa i prayed for you before we came today and throughout the mass i was reminded that surely if our lord can help her carry her sorrows and her grief he can help me with my suffering if he can give her the peace that passes understanding he can give me peace in my trials as lisa quoted isaiah 55 8-9 for my thoughts or not your thoughts my ways are not your ways says the lord for as the heavens are higher than the earth so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts roman says we rejoice in our suffering because suffering produces endurance hoopomone in verse 5 an overcoming spirit it isn't passively just letting these trials wash over us we are actively embracing the suffering and all that it will produce in our hearts and lives romans 8 36-37 says quote for thy sake we are being killed all the day long we're regarded as sheep to be slaughtered that's quoting psalm 44 22 and then paul goes on no in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us so that means we don't have to die that means we don't get killed no but what it means is we are conquering in and through it i want to give you a few examples some of them may be familiar some not there were two catechumens imprisoned and sentenced to die st perpetua a married woman 22 years old still nursing her infant she was a catechumen and so was saint felicity a slave who was eight months pregnant she had an early delivery as an answer to prayer just before she was martyred and an eyewitness wrote this about perpetua but it does include felicity too perpetua entered the arena singing a song with unhurried gate her face radiant her flashing eyes challenging the gasping onlookers they said the milk that she had was dripping from her breasts and they could see that both women were scourged and attacked by a wild heifer that gored them and perpetuous said to the crowd stand fast in the faith love one another and do not let our sufferings upset you and quote and then they were beheaded in 135 a.d saint xuperius his wife zoe and their adult sons syriacus and theodolous were christian slaves in a pagan household and they functioned all right until the day that their master sent them meat that had been sacrificed to idols and he demanded that they eat it when they refused the master had the sons tortured in front of the parents and then all four were thrown into a furnace they were heard singing psalms to god before succumbing to the flames in the third century chrysanthus a roman noble son converted and his father was very upset that he converted and so he first put him in a house with prostitutes in the hope that they would get him to do whatever and then when he didn't succumb then he arranged for a vestal virgin daria to come in and entice him into a marriage well he decided chrysanthus decided to witness and in their time together she converted and so they went through a ceremony but together they became evangelizers and they reached a lot of their friends and people in their sphere of influence for christ many people came to faith until finally it was uncovered and they were sentenced to be buried alive in 286 a.d in egypt newlyweds of only 20 days saint timothy and saint mara were tortured and then killed simply because of their faith and to the end they encouraged and urged the other to stay the course romans 8 26 says quote likewise the spirit helps us in our weakness for we do not know how we are to pray but the spirit himself intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words when we don't know how to pray the holy spirit will interpret those groans those tears and i think of two saints that were not killed quickly when they were sentenced to death and there are many that fall in that category but two that languished in the tower of london a long time before they were killed the first one was saint thomas moore the brilliant lawyer he'd married he had four children when his wife died he remarried he served the king he served his country he resigned when king henry viii declared himself the head of the church of england and and that ended up costing him greatly in terms of losing his lands and and having to embrace certain poverty but when he would not give a cent to king henry viii's divorce he was condemned to be beheaded his last words were i die the king's servant but god's first the other one up in the tower of london was saint margaret clitherow in 1586 shortly after the time of saint thomas moore she converted to the catholic faith as did her son and her son went to do a france to begin studying to become a priest in her home she hid priests and she allowed mass to be said authorities raided her home and they almost left the house except a little child who was visiting said yes they had had mess so they began to search they found priest pre-specimens they found priests vessels and they immediately arrested her and sentenced her to death now she had a long time to wait but it was to be crushed by an oak door and she was pregnant and it took three days to die and she died because she allowed mass in her home because she was catholic romans 8 28 quote we know that in everything god works for good with those who love him who are called according to his purpose we rest in this hope god is at work he is working for his good saint macrina the elder and her husband i couldn't find his name if any of you know the name let me know i'm i'm really doing a lot of research on this but anyway say marina the elder and her husband to escape from a a terrible uh persecution by both emperors maximia maximianis and gallerius went into wild mountains and for seven years were foraging on this mountain just to stay alive after seven years they returned to their home in caesarea and they began their family and god blessed them with 10 children their son basel married amelia whose father had died as a martyr four of their children became saints that the church recognizes macrina the younger who was a virgin peter of sebast which he became a bishop and then both basil the great and gregory of nissa who are known as the kappa habit ocean fathers and doctors of the church that amazing think of the time up in that mountain thinking will we ever have a child will we ever survive this and that was part of the fruit of that saint gregory nazianzen wrote of their home life describing um saint basil and saint amelia so the grandmother was saint macrina this is the parents quote it was a community of virtue notable for generosity to the poor for hospitality for purity of soul as a result of self-discipline for the dedication to god of a portion of their property however their greatest claim to distinction is the excellence of their children end quote saint francis borgia is another example of the trust that comes from knowing god brings good out of difficulty he served at the court and he did not even convert until he was 29 years old but it was a true conversion and a deep one soon he required he retired from the court and devoted his life to prayer to his wife and their eight children and to charitable works when their youngest child was eight his wife passed away he took three years to settle all of his affairs make sure that all of his children had adequate monetary means and finished all of the charitable works that he had begun and then he joined the jesuits at age 40. he was ordained one year later as a priest and he had so many administrative talents and excellent connections that his superiors continually promoted him till he became head he became superior general he did so much work i just mentioned a couple things he wrote voluminously um urging all of his brothers and and being faithful to all that they have been given he began working on the jesus which is a major church in rome and he is the one who founded the gregorian which is a major major school for scripture his final act on the death bed surrounded by his children and grandchildren was to give them a blessing god alone knows the future okay but he does he does in proverbs 31 in verse 25 it says that the godly woman quote laughs at the time to come now maybe she laughs because she's just silly but i know that's not the case she doesn't know the future you and i don't know the future but what do we know we know him who knows the future when saint elizabeth ann seton wed william seton she never imagined that she would become a young widow with five young children or that she would convert to the catholic church and then be cut off financially as a widow from all of their relatives or that she would become the founders of catholic schools in america and the first american order of nuns the daughters of the charity of saint joseph but god knew when saint joachim and anne begged god with prayer and fasting for a child they had no idea that the answer would be conceiving mary the mother of the redeemer or that they would be grandparents of jesus the savior of the world and how about that son-in-law [Laughter] but god knew god knew saint aleth of dijon long to enter the convent and you read a lot of these stories that that different saints had it on their hearts that they wanted to give everything to jesus and jesus answer to them was good give it all to me but it'll be in the vocation of marriage she longed to enter the convent but her parents determined she would wed a truly noble christian night tesculen and together they had six sons and a daughter it was unusual for her time but she personally nursed and educated all of her children when her son bernard was away at school she died and he made frequent reference throughout his life to how her example was always before him a few years after his death her death sorry he convinced four of his brothers two uncles and 20 other nobles to join him in an asset in a cistercian monastery and later his father joined them as well he is saint bernard doctor of the church aleth didn't know but god knew his plan philippians 4 6-7 says have no anxiety about anything but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto god and the peace of god which passes all understanding will keep your hearts and your minds in christ jesus at the same time saint monica was praying for her son saint augustine to come to faith another lady saint nana was praying for the conversion of her husband gregory saint nana the daughter of christian parents entered a mixed marriage with gregory he was a government official and a pagan they raised three children in that home all three are venerated saints gorgona was a devout wife and mother cesarius was an eminent physician to the emperor until he stepped away from that and embraced a vow of poverty and turned his medical skills to the poor and okay before i say that before the birth of the middle child nana prayed for a son and promised to consecrate him to god afterward when she delivered him she brought him to church and placed his little hands on the sacred books and in time gregory became a scholar contemplative priest and bishop he's referr is revered as a doctor of the church now all this time her husband had not yet converted for years non assault to convert her husband through prayer and fasting and argument when he was 50 he embraced the faith and four years later he was made bishop of nazianzus which is in turkey and he reigned into his 70s one brief slide into arianism brought his son gregory home to help his father get it straight and and he did it gently and his father received the instruction humbly when their daughter gauguanya died both saints nana and gregory were still alive and they attended the eulogy that was delivered by their son gregory and here's some quotes quote this good shepherd and he's referring to his father this good shepherd was the result of his wife's prayers and guidance and it was her that he learned it from her that he learned his ideal of a good shepherd's life forsaking riches and yet being rich through their noble pursuits he's the ornament of men she of women and not only the ornament but the pattern of virtue end quote and then of his sister he said this quote from them gorganya derived both her existence and her reputation they sowed in her the seeds of piety she consecrated herself entirely to god and in so doing she won over her husband and made of him a good fellow servant her children and her children's children were the fruit of her spirit dedicating to god not her single soul but the whole family and household end quote meanwhile saint monica prayed for many years with many tears for her wayward son she never gave up she followed him to rome and to milan and she found an ally in bishop ambrose who god used to reach augustine in his confessions augustine praised god for the moment that he could tell monica that he wanted to be baptized and some of you are in that place now praying diligently for a child or a grandchild to come to faith don't give up keep praying keep offering and may you see that joy of that child or grandchild running to you to say i believe first peter 5 7 says quote cast all your cares on him for he cares for you now how do you cast okay if you're a fisherman you cast right the line but then you reel it back in right i often do that in prayer lord this is the concern that i have and now i know it all depends on me he wants us to cast like we're casting stones let it go let it go give it to him he cares about that man or that woman that you're bringing before him that boy that girl give that person to him when saints louis and zaylee martin wed they had many opportunities to cast their cares on the lord there were many challenges through openness to life they conceived nine children that that were delivered but they only had five that they raised into adulthood two little boys and two little girls died in childhood unimaginable grief one daughter said this about them quote different temperaments but perfectly well matched each one completing in perfect harmony the deficiencies of the other always corrected by virtue end quote we're all in process we're all saints in the making but god uses our spouse to help us to strengthen us to balance us to correct us at times zalian martin louis martin made the church rhythms their own by having a life of prayer in their home by fasting and feasting with the church by going to daily mass they were generous with the poor and cared for the sick among their acquaintances zaylee was she died of breast cancer when therese was only four and a half but all five of their daughters went into religious life and you know their most famous daughter saint therese of the child jesus who is also a doctor of the church so not only is therese an acknowledged saint and now her parents but at least one of her sisters um is in the process has a cause uh for beatification and there is under consideration both the parents of zaylee and the parents of louis psalm 37 3 says quote trust in the lord and do good take delight and he will give you the desires of your heart blessed eurosia fabrice barban was a teen who devoted her herself to going around and helping the neighbors her parents asked her and she agreed to marry a much older widower he already had two little children and two elderly relatives living in the home she embraced marriage and the two of them added nine of their own children and adopted three more and when her husband carlo struggled to provide eurosia would say quote god sends us children like treasure trust in him for he will not let us lack the necessities of life to the end after she was widowed she cared for the poor in the neighborhood and walked the neighborhood with a rosary in her hand another saint who had to trust in the lord heroically was saint gianna beretta mala she was from a devout catholic family large family and a pediatrician by training when she married pietro mala another devout catholic in a short period of time they had three children and she was expecting her fourth but she developed a condition that risked her life and possibly the babies jana wanted to save the child and she took the least invasive approach to see if it would heal her just before the baby was born she told her husband quote if you must decide between me and the child do not hesitate choose the child i insist on it she delivered gianna emmanuela and a few hours later developed severe abdominal pain due to septic peritonitis one week later she died repeating jesus i love you jesus i love you prayer strengthens us philippians 4 13 i can do all things through christ who strengthens me the grace that i need is available today saint francis of rome is one of my absolute favorites she wanted to be a nun at 11 but her dad had already promised her to a nobleman lorenzo ponziano she pled for help from her spiritual director who said quote are you crying because you want to do god's will or because you want god to do your will wow i mean this is a 11 year old kid the next year she wed lorenzo loved her deeply but there were many social obligations she was part of a very large wealthy household and her piety was not understood or appreciated by the extended family with one exception she had a sister-in-law who had the same love and passion for our lord and so they would work hard to get all of their household duties taken care of and then they would go out and care for the poor and they gave so much food away that they began to deplete the stores of the house and her father-in-law upgraded her for bitter to continue doing it so she went out and sold something that some clothing that she had and when he heard that he said well go ahead and miraculously it seems that the stores of the family kept kept being restored at 16 the the um her mother-in-law died and so she became the mistress of this household and she already had four children she and this is her comment and you know she was very very prayerful but she said quote sometimes a wife must leave god at the altar to find him in her household management after the war lorenzo returned home now there had been sorry uh there had been a civil war there had been a major plague and in that process he was not in town and she turned their home into a hospital so after the war he returned home and he said he would even release her from her marriage vows as long as she would let him live there and they ended up having a marriage for 40 years before he passed away in that time she founded the oblates of mary and at his death she joined them and became their superior okay the final thing so we've got the holy spirit obedience prayer and eternal perspective this is our time to become saints what will it cost we don't know thank god we don't know if you look back on your life aren't you grateful that god did not tell you what would happen to get you to where you are i'm really serious there's a mercy in that spring we were nearing the ordination of our son jeremiah i had growing concerns and i still have great concerns for the safety and well-being of our priests i think a lot of people were caught flat-footed in different countries when the authorities the political authorities began going after priests and i kept finding myself in prayer trying to think where can i build a bunker where am i going to not just for my sons but for other priests because we all need priests we all need priests and and i kept thinking you know no this is too close to friend if they come after us they would come after them and i i was trying to think okay do i have a pagan somewhere by a lot of land i mean my mind was just going and i kept being distracted in prayer even in mass with it i was like lord i have to trust you i have to trust you help me not do this but in my mind i was constructing a shelter i probably had been reading some of these saints stories too and during communion i was sitting in the back of this room and there we must have been singing a song about relinquishment you know and and dying for christ or giving it all in my mind's eye god showed me my son jeremiah hanging on a cross dying naked emaciated and i looked to his left and i saw joe he was our other son and my heart just went mary you have to pray that this doesn't happen and she said to my heart you're asking me i will not pray that but what i will promise you is i will stand at the foot of the cross with them we don't know what we face we have to have the holy boldness to tell our children give christ everything all of your heart all of your mind all of your strength give him everything and then you you choose the vocation that's on your heart the only vocation is in priesthood and religious life but if you don't even find that attractive you have not understood it as my husband says we are here to get out of here this is a breath this is so short how do we become saints we love god with everything and we entrust our lives to them if he's the center of our life he'll be the center of our marriage he'll be the center of our family this is the in-between time this is a great time to be a catholic by the grace of god he will give us give us what we have to have and it's not about am i strong enough to be a saint right now i love that scripture that lisa quoted from second corinthians 12 10. i've got it in here where did i put it yep my grace is sufficient for you for my power is made perfect in weakness i will all the more gladly boast of my weaknesses for the power of christ may rest for on me for when i am weak then i am strong jesus i am too weak to be the grandmother for 20 children to be the mother of two priests to be scot's wife but i don't have to be you are sufficient you can do this in me and through me i am yours that's what he's asking you will you just give it all to him and trust him let's close in prayer in the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit

Channel: Steubenville Conferences

Views: 3,789

Keywords: Steubenville Conferences, Catholic, Franciscan University, Catholic Ministry, New Evangelization, Youth

Id: P1F-T76DyHo

Length: 52min 26sec (3146 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 30 2021