♪ ♪ <i>Man: "Mother Angelica Live!"</i> <i>brought to you from the Eternal
Word Television Studios</i> <i>in Birmingham, Alabama.</i> ♪ ♪ <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 and
God lives in Him.</i> ♪ ♪ <i>What a wonderful thing
is our Church.</i> <i>This whole network is
built on trust.</i> <i>The essence of evangelization
is to tell everybody,</i> <i>"Jesus loves you!"</i> <i>We're all called to
be great saints.</i> <i>Don't miss the opportunity!</i> (applause) Mother: And that's exactly what we're going to talk about, family. We're going to talk about Jesus. Today I think I owe an apology to somebody who wrote to me the other day and I've answered your letter because I was so disheartened by it. But I have a feeling and we have brothers in the same boat. And so I just thought before I begin whenever we're going to begin that I would address this. A woman wrote to me and said her brother, her sister-in-law and herself decided after watching the network that they wanted to be Catholic. And so all 3 of them went to a pastor and entered the RICA-- I think that's what you call it, or ICIA, what is it?-- Whatever it is they went and the priest said, "Oh, why do you want to bother?" And they went two or three weeks and some of the things he said were to them outrageous --on morality, on God, on the Eucharist, which they began to believe in by watching the network. For the woman who wrote and those of you who may have had the same experience have never written to me, I apologize in the Name of the Lord for the lukewarmness, the indifference and the coldness of this young priest and whoever has done this to you. "You do not go through the gate," as Our Lord said, "and you don't allow anyone else to go through the gate." When they tried to get in touch with him, he looked at his watch one day and he said, "Well, I have a golf game. "Do whatever your conscience tells you." What a terrible thing that the Spirit leads someone to the Eucharist and to the Church and all this wondrous doctrines and a shepherd says, "I don't have time. Follow your conscience." If there are any of you out there, I want to tell you what I wrote to this woman. "Don't be discouraged. "I'm sorry you cannot find a Church that is teaching you the truth. "I think there are in your city some churches that teach the real doctrine of the Catholic Church, the Eucharist. "One Holy Communion is worth the search, is worth the effort, is worth the pain, is worth the disappointment, is worth the heartache." That's how your letter began. It said, "Dear Mother Angelica, I'm heartsick." Dear friend, so am I. So, be courageous. Don't give up. "Search and you shall find." Seek and knock until you find a zealous priest who welcomes you with open arms and teaches you the wonders of the revelations of Jesus and the Father and the Spirit is worth the effort. So I had to get that off my mind. I feel kind of responsible almost, you know. The network leads you to this wondrous decision and then somebody comes and crushes it. Woe to the man. Many woes to the man who does such a thing. Pray for him and ask the Lord to give him light, deliver him from the obsession of the world, the lack of courage and truth. Your prayers for him will touch the heart of God because you'll forgive an enemy who tried to lead you away from the Kingdom. That kind of forgiveness has to merit a great grace for the person who was so cold. I encourage you to please do that. We're all going to say a prayer for that priest and all those in the world, in the country, both ministers and priests and sisters (heavy sigh) who say such a thing. All: "Hail Mary, Full of Grace, the Lord is with Thee, blessed art Thou among women and blessed is the Fruit of Thy Womb, Jesus. "Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen." I think tonight we ought to talk a little bit about integrity and molding a character of a Christian. And what is integrity? Well, integrity is honesty, clarity of mind and single-mindedness, I think. It is to be without guile. Integrity is something that's almost a lost virtue. Kids cheat in school. You never really believe a politician. (audience chuckles) See, you don't believe in politicians, do you? You listen to their speeches and you listen to these debates just because you want to see which one's the best. But many times you don't listen because you're almost sure they're not going, not the slightest idea they're going to do what they say they're going to do. That's not the fault of politics. I think it's just a habit people get into. See, we have a terrible lack of integrity--and why? Well, if you don't develop a Christian conscience and a Christian mind and a Christian heart how are you going to be all these wonderful things that Christianity's supposed to be? And that's why in the American Church today--not the Church in America but the American Church--is so screwy. There's not that integrity that you can say "I believe what you say." You can't! "Integrity is never to be deceitful or hypocritical." What's integrity? St. Peter says that in the First Epistle. Well, a high-school student, an honor student was told today that in 10 years or so, 5 years or so that religion will not be taught. It will be the cosmic god, three cheers for your honors. The cosmic god, because there's deceit. There is no integrity there, there's no honesty. There's no truth, you see. Now, St. Peter says, "You are newborn and like babies you should be hungry for nothing; have spiritual honesty," oh wow! "which will help you to grow up to salvation." Spiritual honesty. Well, for me to be spiritually honest, I have to know the truth, don't I? I have to seek the truth, otherwise I'm ignorant and then I believe whatever's put before me. You know, St. Peter says, St. Paul says, "We have itching ears." We want to hear what we want to hear. We go to Confession and we go to priests who believe in birth control and then we go to Confession. We come out smelling like a rose but you stink in the eyes of God. (audience chuckles) You are not smelling like a rose at all. See, we're always doing things so that I get exactly what I want and that's the problem. See, St. Peter says again in the 4th Chapter, "Think of what Christ suffered in this life and arm yourself at the resolution He had." That's in honesty. "Anyone who in this life has bodily suffering has broken with sin." Wow! All you people suffering so much out there, He says, "You're broken with sin." I wonder what that means. Do you know what means? Well, just say you have cirrhosis of the liver because you drank a quart of booze a day and now you got cirrhosis of the liver. You can't drink, can you? That stopped you! I'm not too sure that's all it means. But many times our illnesses have kept us from a life of sin. In fact, in the life of Padre Pio, his nephew was blind, was blinded at an early age and someone said to Padre Pio, "Why don't you heal your nephew? "You healed so many other people." He said, "No, if I heal him, he will lose his soul." Does that mean every illness is a punishment? Oh no! I hope not! Boy, am I in trouble, you know. (audience chuckles) I'm in lots of trouble. It's a blessing. That's what it says here. We have to have the same-- what was the resolution of Jesus--to suffer for souls, to suffer for our redemption? St. Paul says, "We live in a wicked generation and your life should redeem it." Oh wow! Our Lord already redeemed us, right? But my life has to be as sacrificial as the life of Jesus. What I do, I must do for God and for you. Everything we do, you see, has a benefit for others. It's something that we do, whether I have to suffer, whether you're lonely, whether you've lost everyone, you're living all by yourself and whatever suffering you have can be beneficial to the Kingdom of God for poor sinners. You know, I heard a story the other day, one of our priests gave the sermon, it was the bishop, I think it was Bishop Vaughn the other morning and he said, these two nuns and their mother were praying for their brother and he murdered someone and was up for electric chair and that was not their idea of an answer to prayer. And he went to see a priest. So this priest went to see him and finally, I think it was just a day or so before his execution, he became very repentant, sincerely repentant, received the Sacraments--Confession, Communion, he was anointed, sorry for what he had done. Isn't that strange, you know? You had to kind of think that even though God allowed the very worst to happen to that young man, that very worst was still at that point an occasion for salvation. So the mother and the two sisters' prayers were answered--not in the way they thought but they were answered. The very thing they fought against, somehow God used to save his soul. And though, sometimes, our sufferings and part of our Christian character is to have that courage in times of suffering, in times of pain, in times of misunderstanding, in times of slander. All these times in your life and times when you have trouble with your children, all of these things that are painful and cause anxiety-- all these are occasions to do this, to have the same resolution Jesus had. In all His pain, in all His suffering had one thing in mind--to redeem you and me, to give us that opportunity to have the Divine Indwelling and to call God "My Father." And, you see, once we can break with sin, then we're free to search and to seek for God. Once all that attachment to myself, to others, to things, to the world is gone, at that point I'm free. I'm free to love God, I'm free to study, I'm free to know, I'm free to love, I'm free to do because He said, "The rest of the life on earth is not ruled by human passions but only by the will of God." If I know what I'm suffering is either permitted or ordained by God, if my faith leads to hope so that I do not despair in my pain and sufferings, then I'm not controlled by my passions, I'm not troubled by my feeling; I'm not controlled by sadness. I am in the Will of God. And you see, this is a part of building Christian character. It takes a lot of strength to do that. If we look over here and we realize that when we build character, we look at everything as part of the goodness of God. So, I can afford by building --how do I build my character? I must praise the Lord for whatever happens to me-- good, bad, indifferent. You know, something happened right on, near our property, not, just a week or so ago and I just wanted to tell you about this hidden character, strong character in someone who I understood, understand was partially retarded. Somebody got her, tried to rape her and she fought so hard she was stabbed to death, thrown not about a yard away from our property back here. But the coroner said, she was never raped, she fought that hard. A retarded young girl fought that hard. She just made her Communion a year ago, was going to be Confirmed in a few months. Nobody will know except those who hear my voice tonight that that girl is just as much a martyr as St. Maria Goretti because she had the same thing. She fought against a rapist, she was stabbed 40-some times and she died forgiving him. And I thought, "How many martyrs do we have today?" That's character. Who is to say she was retarded? I don't think she's retarded at all, do you? I think she had it all together. Unbelievable! Her name was Stephanie. I started praying to her. I thought, "She's got it!" She has it all together. That's character. See, nobody knew she had that kind of character. Everybody looked at her as, well, kind of pitifully, you know, she's retarded. She can't learn. But she had a job. But see, there was a character about that child that nobody even saw. But when the time came, it came out. That's integrity, honesty in what I believe and I fight to keep it. Strength and strong, in pain and suffering, trusting in the Lord in confusion, trusting in His providence when things go wrong, ever keeping your faith high, your hope burning high and your love never quenched by hatred or disappointment or the injustices of others. That's a Christian character that you and I have to develop. We have a call. Hello? Caller 1 (male): Hi, Mother Angelica. Mother: Where are you from? Caller: From Rhode Island. Mother: And what is your question? Caller: I don't have a question. First of all, I really love your program. Mother: Thank you. Caller: I missed you last week. And one of the weeks you were talking about being angry about something. Mother: Me? Caller: Not you being angry, (Mother and caller chuckle) no, if somebody was angry. Mother: Yeah, yeah. Caller: I'm angry this week, Sister. Mother: Well, what's the matter? Caller: Well, I've had all kinds of surgery. I've had knee surgery, I've had lens implanted, I've had laser treatment surgery, I've had open heart surgery and I need another total knee done and today I just found out that I have to have, the lens implant that I had 8 weeks ago, I have to have that taken out and then possibly have a corneal transplant. And when I found this out today, I was quite upset. But after listening to you tonight and you keep saying how we should be blessed with our suffering, it's so hard but boy, I feel like I'm cheated sometimes but I know I'm not. But, you know, I'm just asking for prayers and I just really want to say how good your program is. Mother: Well, wait. Will you offer some of that for a special intention for me? Caller: I certainly will, Mother. Mother: Will you? I would appreciate that. Because at this time in your life, even though there's a struggle, you know, Our Lord understands. Remember the time He said, to the... He said, "Who does the will of God?" He said, well, there was a man. He had two sons and he said, "Go to my farm." And the one son said, "Yeah, I'll go," but he never went. And the other son said, "No, I'm not going to go. I don't want to go." And he felt kind of bad, so then he went." And the Lord said, "Who did the will of the Father?" Well, that wasn't very hard to figure out--the one who went. Well, he balked and he fussed and he fumed but he went. Well, don't worry about it. And I've had, let's see, 7, 8, 9 operations myself and I didn't like any of them. But it's all up there. You see, that's the wonderful part about it. It's nothing about pain as ever lost. Nothing in our life is ever lost. It's all waiting in that wondrous place we call Heaven. See, everything in life is worth it if you keep your mind on Him. How many times...? I'm gonna ask a question, by golly, I know exactly what's going to happen, too. (audience chuckles) How many times have you heard a sermon on Heaven? Oho-o! (audience chuckles) Just exactly what I thought. Now, there's not a strange phenomenon but that's why I was born, that's why I was created, that's why I'm here and nobody has ever talked to me about where I'm going? Man: A lot of people tell me where to go but... Mother: (laughs) A few people tell me where to go, too. (all chuckle) But you see, that's what's so important. You can't have courage; you can't build a character if you don't have the reality that I'm on my way. I don't have here a lasting city. I'm on my way! I had a wonderful experience the other night, the other morning. I was in bed and I've been sleeping in because I got this bronchitis and everything. My room is very dark. And, you know, when I was a young sister, I used to lean on the window sill in my bedroom as a young sister trying to watch the dawn, trying to watch it get light. And I'd sit there like that and I'd just stand there and I'm looking at that. I never could see it get light, and it got light but I couldn't see it happen. Did you ever try that? (audience chuckles) Doesn't that bug you? (audience laughs) I could never, I could never see it happen. And well, I forgot about it. I thought, well, you know, sometimes you ask God for things and you're just wasting your time with it because you can't have it, you can't see it. So for years now I have not leaned out the window or the window sill or even thought about seeing that instant when something goes on and there's light. Now, don't tell me about the sun and the world and all that stuff. I want to know when it got light, you know. So I was lying in bed and I was awake and I had the most awesome experience of my whole life. I saw the dawn! It was awesome! I don't think I'll ever forget it. I saw that instant when it went from darkness to light. I was so excited I didn't know what to do. And it was an instant. It wasn't even a second. It was a part, maybe a part of a second. But suddenly my room was lit up, not with a bright sun. But I could see from that total darkness, I could see the wall, my cabinet, my bed and I knew I saw the dawn. And do you know what? I was telling my sisters at lesson and what dawned on me, that's at conception. In an instant quicker than my, my fingers could snap, you became. And I though, "That's the way death must be." Maybe you're in pain, you're in suffering and you've had a rotten life all your life and nothing ever seemed to go right, you were born a loser. But there's going to come a moment, a wondrous moment, an instant, just like that light, that you're going to see Him face-to-face and everything else is going to be gone, gone forever-- pain, suffering, misunderstanding, the whole bit! And then I thought of the darkness in the Church today. Awesome darkness and somehow at some time, there will be that instant and we'll see the dawn, a new light, a new Church, a new vibrancy. It's going to happen! God has not abandoned us. But I have to know that after that instant of sight when I see God, just as quick as I saw the dawn... The sisters said this morning to me, "Did you see the dawn again, Mother?" I said, "No. No, I didn't." I even watched for it but I didn't see anything, not a thing. It just got light. Heaven, struggling as it says here in Galatians, "To have love and joy and peace and patience and kindness and goodness and trustfulness, gentleness and self-control," all these things mold the character. And without them my character is dissipated and weak, confused, anxious. You can't get around it. You can't get around it. And it's worth it all, you see. That's the beauty of it. If I think in that one instant that I shall see Him face to face and after that a happiness you and I cannot even believe, a joy, a beauty, a voice, a knowledge, understanding. I will not only know how much I am loved by God, but I will be loved by everybody there. You're not loved by everybody. Are you loved by everybody? No, you're not loved but everybody. That's a joke here on this earth. But there, there in Heaven I and you will love each other in the same way God loves us. Can you imagine that? Even that pill you lived with that you didn't love, (audience chuckles) you're going to love him there! The person who caused you the most trouble, if he was repentant, you're going to love him there. And if you refuse, you won't be there, see. We have a phone call. Is that what you're trying to tell me, sweetheart? You are. Thank you. Hello? Caller 2 (child): Hello. Mother: Hello. Caller: I'm from Pennsylvania. Mother: You're from Pennsylvania? Caller: Uh huh. Mother: Okay, what's your question? Caller: My teacher from school said that there is no Purgatory. Mother: I didn't hear it, did you? Purgatory. Caller: My teacher from school said there was no Purgatory. Mother: Okay. Do you want me to explain it to you? Caller: Yeah. Mother: How old are you? Caller: Eight. Mother: You're eight. You know, we have a wonderful young audience. Last week, we had the most intelligent questions from two eight-year-olds and one nine. And now we got a whopper, but it's not hard to see. The whole essence, sweetheart, of our living is that in the struggle of life, in the struggle against our own faults, weaknesses and sins, we overcome and become like Jesus. That's the power of grace, that part of God in me. And when I cooperate with God, then that image of me that is not so good, you know, becomes brighter and brighter. I'll be more like Jesus. And as it becomes more like Jesus then I love, I'm kinder, I'm more compassionate, more patient, more understanding, more filled with self control. So when I die, then, when I look at Him and He looks to me, we look alike. Isn't that great? We're looking like and that's what, that's when I run into the arms of Jesus because we look alike! We think alike, we act alike, we loved alike, we forgave alike, we had mercy alike. But say I did not always forgive, I did not always love, I was not always patient, there were some people I disliked, maybe hated, couldn't stand around. And then I see all this wondrous beauty and love and compassion and all. See, we don't look alike, do we? We don't look alike. But at the moment I see that beautiful Face of Jesus and understand His love and compassion and understand how much He loved me all my life, but I can't go! There's like my feet are stuck because I don't look alike. I want to look alike but I don't. That's Purgatory. I want so much to be with Him but I can't because I got all these things in me. See, that's what Purgatory is. That's not hard to understand, is it? Is that hard to understand? No. Now, if I have at some point arrived at such an evil life that I have hated Him, then when I see that infinite love, I shall recoil. I'm going to pull back because I can't stand the sight of it and I turn away and that's Hell, see. Do you understand? It's very simple. We put ourselves in Hell and we put ourselves in Purgatory. He merely stands there and loves us. What I'm saying I think is be a look-alike with Jesus. We have another call. Hello? Caller 3 (female): Hello, Sister? Mother: Where are you from? Caller: I'm from Chicago, Illinois. Thank you for accepting my call. Mother: And what is your, what is your question? Caller: Sister, I lost my mother four months ago tomorrow and it seems to me that the subject of losing your mother, especially your mother, is not spoken about as much as it should be. I'm going through this pain that I think it's the greatest pain anybody could ever feel. And I want to know, you know, what do you think about this? I'm sorry I never said, "I love you." She passed away suddenly. I never thanked her for being my mother. Give me some advice, Sister. Mother: Were you, did you, did you have a quarrel with her or something? Caller: No. No! Mother Angelica: No. Caller: No, it's just that it happened suddenly. Mother: But you loved her when she was living? Caller: Oh yes. We were very close. Mother: Well, I think everybody feels that. My mother was sick 13 years and I did as much as I could for her. But I don't care how much you do, I don't know what it is, it's just part of our nature, I think that we wonder why we didn't do this little thing and why I didn't answer more quickly when she called. But I would put that aside. If you could see your mother now, she has seen the Face of Jesus. If she's in Heaven, she wants you to forget all that. She wants you to know she forgives, she loves you and she wants you to go on. Don't, don't, don't ever yield to regret. Don't yield to regret because you loved your mother and all these little things that you didn't do or didn't say "thank you," didn't say "I love you" enough. If she, if she felt that, but from the way you're talking I think you loved your mother but I think it's a part of us that we just, it's a part of grieving. But do you know what I would do? I would go before the Blessed Sacrament, if you can find a Church open, or just kneel in your room and tell her everything you wanted to tell her--"I love you. "I'm grateful. "I'm grateful you're my mother." Just tell her the whole thing and then she's heard it, forget it now. It's finished. She hears you. She knows. So don't spend the rest of your life in some kind of grief. There is an emptiness I think that was going to go with time and I think that's a part of the suffering and purification we all have to go through. And that's good. It means you loved her much and we'll pray for her. We have another call. Hello? Caller 4 (female): Hi, Mother Angelica. Mother: Where are you from? Caller: I'm from New England. Mother: And what is your question? Caller: Well, it's more of a statement than a question, I guess, so... It's a statement of confusion. I've been married 22 years and I have 3 children and my husband committed adultery 25 months ago. And when I confronted him, I went and prayed for quite a long time and just said, "Lord, I'm going to move my lips, You make the words come out." And I forgave him, put my arms around him, told him I loved him and we would work it through. And I've been praying and forgiving ever since. I'm an at-home mother, so I pray roughly 6 hours a day sitting still and I'm constantly when I'm on the go. But I went to talk to a priest 4 months into this situation and he said to me, "The marriage is over. Pull the plug." And I thought to myself at the time, "If he had a terminal illness and I threw him out, I would be terrible." This man has a cancer of the spirit far worse than any physical illness. I can't do that. I spoke recently to another priest, now it's 25 months later--and I have to be honest, I'm really getting tired--and he said to me, "Well divorce is only civil." Well, tongue-in-cheek, in this day and age divorce is anything but civil. But I don't know, it's just, a cavalier approach and when I tell, you know, people that I pray, that I trust in God, that my husband is a good man who's made a terrible mistake and that God loves him and He made him. Mother: I wonder, though, sweetheart, what these people think of who these priests or whoever they are that advise you, what they thought of Our Dear Lord when the law said to this woman who committed adultery--and there was a man involved. You have to have two, don't you? Am I naïve about this thing? (audience chuckles) No, I'm not naïve. Okay! (chuckles) Since I'm not naïve about this thing, there's a man involved and I never did find out what happened to this guy. However, the reality of Our Dear Lord's answers to her is, "No one condemned thee, then." She said, "No one, Lord." And He said, "Neither will I. Go and sin no more." See, people fail and I think it must be terribly hard for men, when everywhere they look there's a naked woman. My gosh! We talk about women's liberation and women this and women that and never in the history of the world have women been so degraded on television! Never! Never have they been so degraded. You get the impression that every woman is a prostitute, a hooker or a call girl. And don't yield to thoughts of divorce. Be forgiving, forgiving, forgiving, forgiving. Pray. Pray hard. Family life is torn apart today everywhere because as soon as things get hard, everybody wants to get out. (heavy sigh) You can't. Pray and pray and pray and forgive. You will never, never be sorry. We have another call. Hello? Caller 5 (female): Hello, Mother Angelica. Mother: Yeah, where are you from? Caller: I'm from in the Dallas, Texas area. Mother, you talked earlier-- first of all, we thank you so much for the wonderful things you do on EWTN and we're real grateful to have you in our home and in all the homes in the United States and we wish you well and God bless. I have a two-fold question for you, Mother. I have a son who I'm home- schooling eight years old and I just found out through talking to my son when we were teaching him the sixth Commandment about not committing adultery that he was sodomized by a little boy one year ago that was 13 years old and he was 7. Now, my mother said that I'm to look at that and I'm supposed to forgive and go on. And just previously about 20 minutes ago on your program, you were talking about how character. How God expects us to have character, character to rise above. My question is, I mean, where do you, I mean, even when you say the rosary and you say these prayers, you walk away after, you know, after seeing my son and he can't really deal with it. He's not emotionally hurt, I don't think. I think he's over it, but by talking about the commandments in school he ended up telling me this toward his bedtime about he was afraid he was going to go to Hell and what not. Well, how do you find the forgiveness? I mean, do you just let time go by and just and every day it gets better? I've had some things happen to me that never anything. Mother: Who are you talking of forgiving, the boy who abused? Caller: The boy who did, the 13 year old who did this to my son. Mother: Okay. Caller: But also, how do you get past it because as a mom you just want to scream and shout. Mother: I know. Well, have you done something about the boy with his parents and told them? Caller: Well, we told the parents and we're trying to have the parents seek counseling for him. Mother: Right. Caller: We talked to... Mother: Honey, that is the most wonderful Christian thing you could ever do. And I think all parents today, especially when they begin sex education in 3rd, 4th, 5th Grade--what in the world do you expect these kids to do? When you start sex education in 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th Grade, my God, they don't go to school. How long does it take to know the facts of life? You know, we're pounding and pounding and pounding in these kids' heads and no wonder these kids are going crazy, sex crazy, at early ages. Why don't we teach them about God? Let them know there is such a thing as sin! And you see, the result of your child is part of this. It's everywhere, sweetheart. You got to be and you are careful. And love your son and tell him to be honest with you and tell him what's wrong but in such a way that he understands that purity and chastity are so wonderful and that he is not guilty of anything. That's where you have to come... How do you forgive? You forgive by saying it. It's very hard to forgive and not remember. I don't think God expects us to have spiritual amnesia. Things come back and just forgive again. Love your son. Make him know he is so loved by God. We had that same thing a couple of weeks ago with a 6 year old. She had to go to court--and what a terrible thing. See, it tells you the whole lack of integrity and honesty and goodness in the whole world when Catholic schools cease to be taught by nuns who were sincere and holy and strove for holiness of life, society went right down the tube because our children are not being taught the things they should be taught. I would be careful #1, what your son is taught. And I would, I would encourage him, also, to forgive. And it's a blessing from God and the fruit of your prayers that he is not emotionally damaged. And we'll pray. It's something that's going on everywhere every day. I hope we never take it for granted. Pray and continue to forgive. We have another call. Hello? Caller 6 (female): Hello, Mother. I'm calling from Wisconsin and I understand what you're saying about suffering and I've heard this many times in my life. My question is, I think I can handle the suffering going on in my life if that I knew that when I die I could be with Jesus. Mother: Yeah. Caller: What I'm having a hard time with is many of us know we will have to go to Purgatory and the thought of having to go through more suffering after this life is very difficult. Mother: Oh yeah! Caller: Do you have any suggestions how to keep one's hope up? Mother: Well, I would disagree with your first statement. I don't think you have to go to Purgatory. I really don't. I expect to make a little detour myself (audience laughs) but it's because "To whom much is given much is required. "And to those who have been given much of trust, even more is required" in St. Luke's Gospel. But I would not fear Purgatory because that is a lack of pure love for Jesus and it's not the same kind of suffering. There is in Purgatory, contrary to a lot of books you read, a great joy. You have seen Him face-to-face and you know you made it! (Mother chuckles) Yeah, you made it! Can you beat that? You know you made it! But we may have to suffer something. It's not the same kind, though. I wouldn't dwell on it. Just love Jesus for Himself. Thank Him for all He does for you. Try to do His Will the best way you can with love, even though you don't understand what's going on. That's okay. And I wouldn't worry about Purgatory. The essence of holiness is very simple. The essence of holiness is to love as God loves and to do His Will. Prayer is a means to that end; goodness is a means to that end; virtue is a means to that end; the sacraments are a means to that end. If you do not receive His Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity He said, you don't have life in you. Well, the life is grace. And I need that to be all these wonderful things that's in Galatians, that 5th Chapter. See? So, if you do all that, don't even think of Purgatory. We don't want to aim for Purgatory. You know, you're aiming for Heaven! (audience chuckles) And I wouldn't take for granted you're going to Purgatory because if you love God with a sincere heart and you accept the trials of the present moment with love, I think it'd be very short. I think it'd be very short. And the mercy of the Lord is so great, so great that we cannot conceive. If we were able, after we get to Heaven, to kick ourselves all around the Kingdom, we would do that once we realized how easy it was to be a saint. I really think that way, how easy it would've been to be a saint. Be one. This is what God expects from us. "You are a temple of the Holy Spirit," He says. And He says, "When you know that, then you will keep that temple clean." I love you. God loves you a lot. Bye now. (applause) ♪ ♪
