[music] Man: "Mother Angelica Live!" brought to you from the Eternal Word Television Studios in Birmingham, Alabama. [music] <i>Mother: See in you, the love,</i> <i>the compassion of Jesus.</i> <i>The most glorious work of all,</i> <i>to praise God in His Kingdom.</i> <i>Anyone moved by the Spirit...</i> <i>Anyone who lives in love,</i> <i>lives in God</i> <i>and God lives in Him.</i> [music] <i>What a wonderful thing</i> <i>is our Church.</i> <i>This whole network</i> <i>is built on trust.</i> <i>The essence of evangelization</i> <i>is to tell everybody,</i> <i>"Jesus loves you!"</i> <i>We're all called</i> <i>to be great saints.</i> <i>Don't miss the opportunity!</i> (applause) Mother Angelica: Well, welcome--and welcome all of you. I haven't been here in 6 weeks--seems like 100 years. God has designed for each one of us a certain degree of holiness, each one of us, as if no one else existed and I need so many things in order to create, in order for God to, to make that kind of holiness possible. And it's like a smorgasbord--there's joys there and sorrows and ecstasies and agonies. There's doubt, there's pain--there's physical pain and spiritual pain and mental pain. We all have it. No one is exempt. And we, we ask ourselves, well, why do we have it? After Jesus came and died for us. Well, you know, the answer to that is that He did die for us, but He died to give us the grace to be like Him, you know. I told you one time of a time that I was very upset, oh, three years after we had this television network and everything was going to pot, everything. We were out of money. We were, I was sick, in braces and crutches and I had a migraine headache, I think, that day and I had negative reports from various parts of the country--some I won't mention--but anyway, they were there. And I went to the chapel where we have Our Dear Lord exposed all the time and I rattled off all my problems, all of them, including my headache, and I said to the Lord, "Lord, I told You I don't know anything about this business, and I just got all these problems," and I said to Him, "Why me?" Well, I got an answer, yeah. He said to me--in a very gentle kind voice, He said to me, "Yes, and why Me?" Well, I tell you, I never asked that question again, 'cause He was God. There was no reason for Him to come down and, and help us out when He's the All Holy One, the Creator, the Omnipotent One, the One who always was, is, and always will be, He came down for love of me and love of you and we ask Him, "Why me?" No, you can't do that, because each one of us has a totally different degree of holiness destined for us by the Almighty One. I don't need the same thing you need at all. Somebody sent me a painting. It was very well done and it had various colors, of course. I said to one of the sisters, see, if I change those colors and I used different colors in different ways it wouldn't be as beautiful. It wouldn't. It had to have the colors destined for that particular painting. It made it beautiful and so with you and me, every part of my life, every part of your life has been looked at by God and determined that this is what you need to arrive at this degree of holiness. Your soul, your mind, your body has to be purified, made new, made holy. We don't like that. We all want to go to Heaven. There's not one person here that doesn't want to go to Heaven. You just don't like the way you have to go. That's the problem. You don't like the road. You want a nice road, a comfortable road, a road that doesn't have all these bumps in, a road that you can see ahead and know the end. No, you got the bumpy road and you don't see the end and you're not going to see the end. That's part of that thing you need to become holy, your particular bread. You know in Heaven with all the millions and trillions of people I hope are there, nobody's going to be like you. Not one person in Heaven is going to have the same degree of holiness. You're going to be unique. and if you don't make it that place is not going to be pushed together like bread, you know. My Grandma used to make bread and she made the best bread in this world, not because she was my grandmother, because she made the best bread in this world, that's all. Some have it and some don't. (audience chuckles) Know what I would do? Well, I'd wait till she was gone and I'd take a big piece from the middle see, and I'd push it together. I used to think my grandmother never knew, but she did, and then I'd run because I didn't want her to know I was hungry. But you can't do that in Heaven. See, if you don't make it, it's going to be empty forever. You've got to think about the life you're living. You've got to change that life, because this is a very short time. I'm, I'll be 78 in April, just want to start reminding you. It's a nice round age, 78, but see, I'll never pass this way again. All those 78 years are gone forever, aren't they? You're not going to pass them again. You can bring them back in your memory--and usually you bring out the worst. How many funny people, you think you'd want to remember something in the past, you bring out the best. We don't. We pick out the worst, and then what? We feel more miserable. You know what I do? I don't remember the good or the bad because in this present moment I have a treasure, a real treasure, and that treasure is grace and opportunity to know, to love, and to serve God better and more. That's awesome. You know, Theresa of Avila said one day she saw the Hand of God. She saw the Hand of God and she said she would be willing to suffer all the torments of every kind of sickness and illness till the end of time to see that Hand once more. You can't even imagine that, can you, huh? You can't imagine such beauty and awesomeness, you can't--but neither can you forget it, because see, it's waiting for us in every day, every pain you have, every ache, every disappointment. I think disappointments are harder to take than a headache, don't you think? I think they are. You wanted something, you didn't get it. You expected somebody to be doing something and they didn't. You expected something today and it never came. Those things are hard. But it's okay, because no matter what, no matter what, it's all intended by God to create that picture, that being, that person that has such beautiful holiness for ever and ever and ever and ever, never ending. I just had that feeling we need to pray for all those in danger of losing their faith. You have some among you, somebody that got very ill. One of my sisters has cancer. She's not that old, 45. She's very progressive, and we pray for it, we pray for her, and you know what she said? She said, "All I want to do is to live whatever time I have left with Jesus and my sisters. "I want to be able to say as I'm dying, 'Thank You Lord, thank You.'" See, that's dying with dignity and holiness of life--holiness of life-- and we need to think of that. And so rather than lament, we should say, "Thank You Jesus," and pray, pray, pray for priests and religious, pray for those who have lost their faith. You say, "How do I know?" Well, that's not too hard. If they don't believe in the Real Presence, you're pretty sure they lost their faith. You say you can't judge. Who's judging? It's a fact. A red light is a red light. I'm not judging. It's a red light. I'm also told I've got to stop. So if I don't stop I can't say, "You rash-judged me." Hey, I ran a red light. You can't say somebody rash-judged me when I ran a red light. I ran a red light. That's what we don't get today. We don't understand. There's some things you do that if you do it, you're going to suffer for it. You drink, well you drink too, you drink a pint of whatever everyday I can tell you what's going to happen and I'm not rash judging. You get cirrhosis of the liver, first thing you know you start blowing up, all because you drank a pint a day. Am I rash-judging you? No, it's a physician saying, "Look, you should have stopped 10 years ago. "I told you. Now you got 3 months." Is he rash judging you? No, no. If you don't believe in God, then I have to say you don't believe in God, that's all. We excuse everything. I think it's nice to excuse people. You know, you can say, "Well, he gave his wife a black eye 'cause he couldn't see straight." Well, what was he aiming for? (audience chuckles) See, you just, you can be kind and charitable and you can say, "Well, I think he's a little off balance." He probably is, see. But we're all afraid today to admit truth or even seek truth, and how in the world are you ever going to get to Heaven if you don't acknowledge God is Lord of All. He created me so He has a right to tell me what to do. That free choice business, God gave you a long time ago. It was His idea to make you have a will that can choose. What is free choice? My Lord and Savior. What, are you blind or something? God gave you the ability to choose before you were born, but you cannot choose murder over life, see. You say, "Why not?" It doesn't even make sense, doesn't make any sense. You know what St. John says? He says, "If you say there is no sin," which you hear today, "you call God a liar." Did you ever see what he's saying? You know what St. John said when he says that? If I say this is not a sin and God says it is, did you ever think of that? You call God a liar. Oh, I wouldn't want to do that. See, we don't think of these commonsense things. We just don't think about it. You don't have a will to do as you please. Nobody has that kind of will. And so you need to pray for all those in danger of losing their faith, because God's ways are not theirs. If you noticed, when the Holy Father was here, at least four or five times he said, "Do not be afraid." Do you remember him saying that, huh? "Do not be afraid," and you wonder, what's he telling us not to be afraid of? Do you know? I don't know, but here's good ol' St. John 14th chapter, here, Jesus, in St. John 14th chapter, who says, "Do not let your hearts be troubled." You know, these little words in Scripture kind of get to you. "Do not let..." This means you've got to do something. Do not allow anything to trouble your hearts. You know what's so funny about the Resurrection? I think it is, the apostles went through this terrible time. They failed the Lord. They were guilty. He was crucified in the most terrible, terrible way. He dies, He's buried, they're hiding in the Upper Room. (chuckles) All of a sudden, He's there. Didn't even open the door. He's just standing there in the midst of them. And what does He say? "Do not be afraid. Why are you so agitated?" (chuckles) I think that's so funny, because they're petrified. They're not agitated, they're petrified. And that He asked that question. Don't you think they had a reason? Don't you think they all had a reason to be afraid? On a human level can you even imagine they couldn't or wouldn't have a reason? If you were going to fail in something, you wouldn't want to fail between the Master, and they did. Everybody but Our Lady and St. John, the poor ex-sinner and a few women that were healed or exorcised by the Lord, batting average not too good for poor Jesus. He didn't win. It looked like He lost that battle, but He didn't. But He still asked the question. I've asked myself that question, "Why are you so agitated? "Why are you upset? "Why are you worried about this? Why?" 'Cause Jesus asked that question--and everybody had a reason, a real good human reason to be afraid, to be sorry, to feel guilty, and to feel they failed the Master. Ooh, what a terrible thing. You know how you feel if the Lord really asks you to do something and you didn't-- the most miserable feeling in the world. I think it's a very hard question, don't you, huh? And I have to ask myself, why do I get agitated? I can always blame my Italian nationality, you know, I mean, if you've got a nice hot-tempered nationality, it's always nice to have something like that to blame everything on. I find it like a cushion, see, I can say, "Well I'm Italian." I don't think the Lord thinks that way. He says, "Yeah, I know you're Italian. "I made you one. "But you don't have a reason to feel like this." You ought to read the Gospel sometime. You know, I, I saw a small Bible. This is a chitchat night, you know, after being away a whole month you got to get in the mood to do this every week--and I saw this little Bible about that big, and I wanted to make some comparisons with other Bibles, and so I called up the Catalogue department and I said, "Will you send me this Bible?" They said okay, you know. I put that Bible in my hand--it's just that big and it was soft--and the power, the power of the word was there. I never felt that way in my whole life. I took that Bible and it was like the Lord was really there in His word, and I just kind of hugged it for a while, and I realized I was holding in my hand the very word of the Son of God Who came and lived and died and gave me a spirit that I could believe, and so when He says to me… Oh Lord, don't tell me I lost my place. When He says to me, "Do not let your hearts be troubled," then I can do something about it. "Do not let..." When He asked the apostles, "Why are you so agitated?" We all have reasons. We all have good reasons, we think, to be hateful, not to forgive. This is January. You got to start the whole year off right. You don't know what's going to happen. We don't know. You know, I don't think Our Lord's going to allow us to just go on as we are. Pretty bad, but I have to listen. He said, "Trust in God still." Which means no matter what happens to you, trust in the Lord. Does that mean you're going to get what you want tonight? No. You're going to love your husband only because he comes home with a paycheck every week? That's not love. That's providence. He's providing for you. Why do you love people? You love them because God loves them and you want to be like the Lord and you want to love them for themselves, as they are, imperfect, nasty sometimes. And Our Lord, "Trust in God still, no matter what happens, and trust in Me," He says. You know what is amazing to me about God? Well, many things are, that He wants me to trust Him. He wants me to love Him. If I put all the love that's in my heart from my conception to this moment, it's a big fat zero. Why? Because it cannot compare with the One I love. He's Infinite, He's Holy. He's Holiness itself. He's Goodness itself. He's Compassion itself. He's everything. I only have little smidgens of these things. Well, isn't it wonderful that He wants me to love Him? And then He said, "There are many rooms in My Father's House," many rooms. Another translation says, "mansions". Did you ever see a mansion? Did you ever go in one? Boy, they're big. Kind of cold though, you know, they don't have that hominess that some little three-room house has. Are you ready to see His mansion? And this is what's so beautiful about this sentence. "If there were not many mansions, many rooms in My Father's House I should have told you." Isn't that a plea for trust, trust--and we don't trust God because we don't believe really that what, what we have is for our good. And He said, "I'm going to prepare a place for you and after I've gone and prepared you a place I shall return and take you with Me." Do you see now why you shouldn't worry? Do you see now why you shouldn't have that frustration about everything? Do you understand now why He says, "Do not let your hearts be troubled?" What do I got, 10 more years? I don't know that though, could be five, could be three. With all the people threatening to bump me off, it may be tomorrow. (Mother chuckles) Oh, dear Lord. Who knows. But why should I worry about it? Why should it bother me? You say, "Well, why not? I'd be scared." Of what, when He says this? It's the most beautiful one and the most beautiful paragraphs, and all of you over 60 ought to read it. I'll just read it to you and then we'll go for questions. "Do not let," not "you got to do something about it," "Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God still." Meaning no matter what, and, "Trust in Me." Why? He answers that question. "Because there are many rooms, many mansions in My Father's House. "If it were not so I would have told you." It's like, you know, I have a very hard time sometimes, and I'm so frustrated, I mean frustrated, frustrated because when somebody says, "How did you do all this, Mother?" I say, "I didn't," and they look at me, "huh?" "The Lord did it." "Well, you had to do something." Well, if the Lord provides the people, the money, the opportunity, the inspiration, He does all of that, you can't really say, "I did it," and have any common sense. You can't say that 'cause there's no truth in that. God does everything. "Without Me," He says, "You do nothing." It's very frustrating. And when you say, "There are many rooms in My Father's House and if it there not I should have told you." He's pleading for trust. "I'm going now," He says, "to prepare a place for you, and after I've gone and prepared you a place I shall return and take you with me." Some of you listening tonight are dying. You know you don't have much time. The doctors have told you. Undertakers are waiting for that phone call, you know. They watch and see who's dying and who died and everything else. Why don't you read this before He says to you, "Come, come." You shouldn't be afraid. Never be afraid to die. And then He says, "I shall return and take you with me." You know, we learned that when Sr. Raphael died. She'd look in the corner of her room and she'd say, "Yes Jesus, yes, I know. "I didn't quite understand. "I know. "I'll wait. "It's okay. I'll wait," and then she'd close her eyes a while and she'd wake up and she'd talk to us a little bit, and Sunday her head would be glued on that one spot and she'd say, "Oh Jesus, You're so beautiful." And then one time she said to me, she said, "Oh, Mother, it's exactly like you said it would be and everything you told me is true." She could see something none of us see very well because we're so glued to things, and everything, I guess. And then Our Dear Lord says, "I shall return to take you with Me." Why? "So that where I am you may also be." Isn't that awesome, huh, that God wants me and wants you to be with Him? Oh, well. That's the reason, Chapter 14 of St. John's Gospel, that you and I should never be afraid, never, that we should trust Him and love Him. Well, we have a call. Hello. Female Caller #1: Hi. Mother Angelica: Hi. Caller #1: My name is Cindy Martinez and I'm from Albuquerque, New Mexico. Mother Angelica: Oh good. Now what is your question? Caller #1: Well, right now my grandpa's really sick and my grandma just died about six months ago from cancer (crying) and I just feel so bad because he's suffering so much and I saw my grandma suffer too, and why do we have to suffer so much? Mother Angelica: That's a question that people have asked since Adam and Eve. Why? Well, it's very simple. Let's see if I can think of something. If I put some acid on this hand, it may not even hurt in the beginning. But if every day I put a couple of drops in the same spot, it's going to get red. And then I put it every day, maybe two or three times a day I put it, and all of a sudden it begins to get open and festered and miserable-looking and it hurts a lot. And if I keep doing that, it will eat through my hand-- it will, and the pain will be unbearable. Well, that acid that I'm talking about is sin, sin. And we say, "Well, my grandmother, my mother, my father were good people." We never deny that. But because we cannot fathom what it means to see God face to face and to be able to live as God lives, to have that total holiness in order to live with Him forever, I've got to be totally absolutely holy. I have to think as He thinks and do as He does. I have to be everything that He is in a finite way. I cannot do that. And if all of these weaknesses--we used to call them concupiscence of original sin--that remnant of imperfection, anger, jealousy, lust, all these sins stick to us like glue. You know, every time I go home Wednesday night or Thursday morning my habit smells like tobacco, and if my sisters didn't know better they would think I was out smoking. I never smoked in my life. Not only does the smell of tobacco stink, but your clothes stink. But I don't smoke, but when I go home they look at me and say, "Ooh." That's the world. That is the world. You can't go down the road and not see a pornographic billboard, billboard on a nice farm, beautiful grass, nice plants coming out. It's such a contrast. You can't open up a magazine without something lustful or just plain rotten. And we're so used to it we don't smell it anymore. We don't smell it anymore. You know, we have some cat lovers in our house, also dog lovers. I'm not against dog or cat lovers. I was the only one, though, that smelled the cat. (audience chuckles) All the cat lovers never smelled a thing. I was amazed. They had to keep them for about a week, and to me it was terrible. And I walked in one room and I said, "How do you stand it in here?" She said, "What's wrong?" I said, "Did you lose your sense of smell?" "What's wrong?" I said, "These cats stink." "I don't smell anything." "Okay." I closed my door 'cause I didn't want to smell it. That's the way sin is. That's the way habitual sin is, and serious sin. We cannot get in the presence of God forever smelling like that, looking like that, feeling like that, and being like that. And that's the purpose of suffering. If we could understand God for just a minute, if we could see His immensity and His holiness, if we could fathom what it means to look at God face to face, we would never, never--well, we would understand--put it that way. We would understand why it's absolutely necessary to suffer. You know, we look at the saints and we read their lives and they all said the same thing, Padre Pio, the last one, said very, very clearly, "I would be willing to suffer till the end of time," he said, "just for one soul." Oh, wow! Why would he say that? 'Cause he understood in a small way God, God. And when St. Thomas Aquinas wrote all he wrote, he said it was straw, because see he saw God in a new way that his tremendous, giant mind could even, he couldn't comprehend. So he'd look at what he wrote and then he'd look at what he saw, he said what he wrote was straw, see, and that's why there needs to be, and is, pain and suffering. But just don't bear it. Offer it up. I know you haven't heard that for a long time, have you, "offer it up"? Put a real good reason for it, for poor sinners who have lost their way. We have another call. Hello. Hi. Male Caller #2: Mother Angelica. Mother Angelica: Yes, where are you from? Caller #2: Abbeville, Louisiana, I'm sorry. Mother Angelica: What is your question? Caller #2: My question is, are there certain degrees of holiness in Heaven, and if so can a sinner wish to go to the lowest degree of holiness because of his unworthiness and his love of God? Mother Angelica: Oh, there are as many degrees in Heaven as there are people. That's awesome isn't it, huh? And the greatest sinner in this whole wide world could be the greatest saint in Heaven--if he changes, of course. You could be as high as the seraphim, seraphim, if you finally change your ways, if you finally gave your whole heart, mind, and soul to God. And even--let's take a nice juicy sinner, whatever that is--somebody who has done everything possible suddenly finds Jesus and suddenly knows what a terrible life they've lived, and say they got 5 minutes to live. You got that picture? Yeah. You got it? I don't know if you have it or not. I hope you do. You got 5 more minutes to live, and suddenly you realize from the depth of your being what a sad state you're in, and you're sorry--not because of any punishment, not because you might have to go to Purgatory--but the only reason you're sorry is because you offended such a Great God. You could have the highest place in Heaven. And you said, "Is it all right for you to pray for the lowest place?" I wouldn't do that. You can give God honor and glory forever because of His mercy if you get one of the highest places. The thing is to give God honor and glory, not yourself. Do you realize what Judas might have done for God had he repented and turned around and became a great saint? Did you ever think of that? When Judas committed suicide he did God, not only himself but God, a grave injustice 'cause he refused to repent. For all eternity we would have said how great is our God who forgave a betrayer, but he took that away from Jesus. He took that away from God and he said, "no". He lost it. Now, Peter didn't. Peter denied His Lord and Judas betrayed Him, but Peter wept bitterly over his sin. And the world will forget the Caesar that was in power when Peter walked through that arch in Rome, but no one in Heaven or Hell will ever forget Peter. See the difference? So if you feel you have not given the Lord your all, that's fine. Mary Magdalene didn't. Some of our great mystics didn't. No one did everything they should and no one arrived at that degree of holiness total, total except Our Lady, the Obedient one, the Obedient Woman, Obedient Daughter of God, Obedient Mother of the Eternal Word, and Obedient Spouse of the Holy Spirit. She's the only one. We have another call. Hello. Male Caller #3: Hello. Mother Angelica: And where are you from? Caller #3: Julian, New Jersey. Mother Angelica: Oh good and what is your question? Caller #3: My question is, does God determine when we die? Mother Angelica: What is that now? Give it to me slow. Caller #3: Huh? Mother Angelica: I said, give it to me slow. Caller #3: Oh. I said, does God determine when we die? Mother Angelica: Yes, He does. That's why suicide is so serious, because you determine when you die instead of God. That's why abortion is so serious. You cannot determine that this tiny little child that God gave life to you kill. Not only is that murder-- I know you don't want to hear that. I know you don't, but it is. It's murder. But you decide against God, see. God determines, He should determine… Now with all this Euthanasia and assisted suicide, what do you mean by that? Assisted murder. It used to be a crime. You can't, can't. God determines life and you say no. God determines death and you say no. You can't live that way. See, you understand that? You cannot live that way and go straight to Heaven. I mean you're really kidding yourself. You're in some kind of dream world. You can't, no more than you can go through that red light. You want to play Russian Roulette? That's your choice. Don't be surprised when you blow your brains out. You did it. Now, thank God there is Confession and repentance, but once you take a life or yours, only God can judge, but you, you really have no right to do that, see. We have another call. Hello. Male Caller #4: Hello, Mother. Mother Angelica: Yes. Caller #4: Hi, this is Bobby Joe. Mother Angelica: Where are you from? Caller #4: I am originally from Alabama. Mother Angelica: Okay. Caller #4: But I'm calling from Massachusetts. Mother Angelica: Okay. Caller #4: And I got to say, it's an honor to have this summit with you. Mother Angelica: Thank you. Caller #4: I have, I've led a paragon's life, I have to say. I aim to please and I'm pleased to serve, but recently actually I kind of feel like I entered my own personal Hell, or as I like to call it, Massachusetts. I've become crammed with doubt and I'm, my psyche's bloated with negative thoughts, which damages the freshness of my devout feelings. Mother Angelica: I didn't hear the last part. Did anybody? Ah, you're troubled with doubt and how you handle doubt. Well, doubt can increase faith, you know. The Little Flower had a lot of doubts. She had a doubt even there was a Heaven. Doubts are neither here nor there. It's what you do with them, like temptations. What do you do with a doubt? St. Francis De Sales did it. He was threatened, he felt that he was tempted that he was a lost soul and that he was destined for Hell and he was so upset about it that he went to bed for a whole week. That's a great saint, now. And finally he said, "Well, even if I do, I can love You now, Lord," and then the temptation went away. See, you act on faith. It can't always be here. You act on faith. If you've got a temptation there's not a Eucharist, it's just a symbol, you go there and you kneel and you say, "My Lord and my God, I believe." See, we have to act opposite of what our temptations are. If you have temptations of lust, you have to be even more pure. If you have temptations about Heaven, there is no Heaven, then read about Heaven, praise God for Heaven. You got to go the opposite. These are temptations. The enemy wants you to think all these things, see. You can't, and you can't help it. They're going to pass your way. It's not that we have temptations. What do you do with them? That's the important thing. And as long as we keep acting against them and acting on faith and hope and love… Even the man who asked for a cure said, "Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief," you see, and the Lord was very pleased with him. So don't worry about temptations. Always act in the favor of the Lord, see, act the way you know you should act. You say that's hypocrisy. Oh no, goodness. Hypocrisy is the ability to do someone in--though you act very nice to them--but your motivation is to do them in. That's hypocrisy, and that's everywhere today, everywhere. But you cannot do that. Remember, the Lord loves us with an infinite love. He's preparing a place for you and me. We don't need to doubt. Oh, they'll come, but we know He loves us. It's most important piece of knowledge there is. God loves me and God loves you. After that, nothing matters. So may you have a very blessed, blessed new year, and with all the trials and tribulations that will come, and we can bet on them, let us look at Jesus and say, "Thank You Lord, for trying so hard to make me holy." Well, I love you and we'll be back tomorrow night. 'Bye now. (applause) [music]
