JP II and Fulton Sheen October 2, 1979 (EWTN)
“As our Lord said, “Where your treasure is, there is your heart also.” Hence the least love of God is worth more than the knowledge of all created things.” ―
We were blessed to have Bonnie Engstrom at my parish today. This is the story of her son James Fulton – who was dead for 61 minutes and was brought back to life through the intercession of Fulton Sheen. You can purchase Bonnie’s book here.
Here is the talk she gave;
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But the hour is coming, and is now here, when true worshipers will worship the Father in Spirit and truth; and indeed the Father seeks such people to worship him. God is Spirit, and those who worship him must worship in Spirit and truth.” The woman said to him, “I know that the Messiah is coming, the one called the Anointed; when he comes, he will tell us everything.” Jesus said to her, “I am he, the one who is speaking with you.”
John 4:23-26
This is the story of my friend, Joshua Ridgeway. He came through our RCIA program last year. I post it here in his own words straight from his heart. I am so proud to have walked with him on this journey and I hope the Lord pours abundant blessings over him as he continues. Please keep him sincerely in your prayers.
A TESTIMONY – BY: JOSHUA RIDGEWAY
A little over a year ago my whole life changed. I invited a co-worker, that was going through a nasty divorce, to lunch with me. My impression was that I would get all the juicy details of her divorce and see how she was holding up. I was perplexed when met and she was calm, peaceful, and full of joy. I thought how is this possible. She began to tell me about her new relationship with Christ and how it has transformed her life. looking at her she was gleaming with love I had never seen. I looked at her and told her, “I want what you have.” She replied,” that’s Jesus!” She invited me to church that following sunday and I agreed to go. While getting into my car to leave she stopped me and said that she felt compelled to give me something. It was a little medal of St. Christopher and the Miraculous medal of Mary with Jesus in the middle, that goes on your sun visor.
The next day I got pulled over for speeding on the interstate, going over 100. The officer asked me to get out of the car and that was when I began to realize my life is about to change forever, I’m going to Jail. At this point in time I was already broken, and had hit rock bottom. I was living a homosexual lifestyle, being very promiscuous, doing drugs, and had left home and dropped out of school when I was 16 because I was tired of the abuse from my father. I already had two speeding tickets that month that I told the officer about, and he rewarded me for my honesty and sincerity and didn’t give me a ticket. I sat in my car for a while and ugly cried. I told God at that moment if he got me through this I would go back to church. At that moment I heard God’s voice for the first time,” You sing my praises but you deny my presence.” I continued down the road and heard a song by Rascal Flatts, I wont let go. I listened as though God were saying these lyrics to me. I ugly cried again.
That following Sunday was Divine Mercy sunday and I remembered the homily was on forgiveness. Immediately my father came to mind, but I wasn’t ready. I spent some time alone in the Old Chapel lying on the floor crying. One particular time I heard God say to me,” I need you to forgive your father. I need you to be an example.” I replied,” How?”
He gave me a vision of my Father being beaten by his father, and my heart sank. A few weeks later I called my father up and had a difficult conversation with him. I told him that I forgave him, and asked for his forgiveness. I didn’t get a response, but I called my mom a few days later and she said,” I don’t know what you and your dad talked about but he cried like I have never seen before.” I told her about the conversation and she said thank you.
I knew I had a long road ahead of me but forgiving my father is where it began. I invited my parents, aunt and family to my first Communion. I saw my dad glowing in a way I hadn’t before. He was smiling more and laughing more. While at the Easter Vigil when the choir sung Veni Sancti Spiritus, I heard my dad singing for the first time. I broke into tears, and hit the floor. At that moment a voice came out of me I had never heard before. I was just confirmed into the church and I had heard of the gifts you receive from the Holy Spirit. It was then that God revealed to me my Purpose. I grew up singing in church but I held back a lot and never felt any conviction with what I was singing. When I sing from the heart, I cry and feel naked and exposed. That following week I joined my church choir.
Going through Deliverance helped me to reconnect with my heavenly father as well as my earthly father. Deliverance helped me to realize that no matter what is going on in your life you can be redeemed, and there is Forgiveness. I learned to fight inteligently, and learned what I was fighting. Deliverance not only revealed to me what part of my purpose was, but my whole purpose. I learned how to give up control and surrender to God’s will, and what trust means. Not only was I given great examples, but friends I have met and go to church with are some of the best to date examples of what a redemption looks like.
I have since then given up assuming I know who I am, and started asking God, “who am I?” And,” what is my purpose?”
It was revealed to me in prayer that God wants me to become a priest. I know some of you are reading this and thinking how can you go from living a homosexual lifestyle to being a priest? Anything is possible with God. I gave up that lifestyle, and became celibate and chaste. I have found freedom in redemption. No one is more worthy of God’s love than the other. If you truly want freedom from whatever vice, or past you can find it. The keys to the chains that bind you were hung on the cross.
I knew at a early age what God’s truth is. My mom made sure I attended church every sunday. The only thing I didn’t fully understand were the consequences. Nothing could prepare me for what I was about to go through living the homosexual lifestyle. Having a close relationship with God has the power to change people, and your heart.
My boys kissing their little sister on the head. 2010 – Delaware
But when the kindness and generous love of God our savior appeared, not because of any righteous deeds we had done but because of his mercy, he saved us through the bath of rebirth and renewal by the holy Spirit, whom he richly poured out on us through Jesus Christ our savior… Titus 3:4-6
I have been struggling a lot recently feeling the weight and attack from all sides. I am raising two teenage boys, and a tween daughter and there are days I feel defeated. Like I am battling the entire world by myself. And then God reminds me I have a Savior.
He reminds me that this entire walk is about surrendering all to Him and letting Him be in control. And that for me, my job when I surrender, is to be filled up with his love and bring that love into the world.
So today I was in prayer lamenting about how the world barrages my children with everything that is anti-God. From the confusion of who they are supposed to be, to the sexualization of absolutely everything, I felt in an abyss. I felt I am fighting a fight that I can’t win because of the unGodliness is everywhere. I cannot possibly stop all of it, even though I am trying my hardest. I felt in a pit. I want for nothing more than my children to be Godly and there are just some days I feel I am losing the battle because they are bombarded with just so much stuff. I am not enough.
But God was gracious and gentle with me. He let me know He is enough. But he also showed me something very personal. He showed me one of my absolute darkest times. He showed me a memory of my post partum depression. You will remember, this was a time in my life I wanted to die because I couldn’t control the thoughts coming at me. And what he showed me was how I reacted towards my son when I had a bad thought. Please remember, I was barraged with thoughts of my child being harmed, or even that I would go crazy and harm him myself. I couldn’t go in the kitchen where there were knives because the anxiety and thoughts were relentless. So back then I made a choice with what to do about the thoughts.
I decided every time I had a bad thought I would kiss my son on the forehead. There were days I kissed him 1000 times. It was the only thing I could think to do in those moments when I felt so out of control. And God let me see this today and told me, “Susan, I am proud of you, because in your darkest hours you chose love. You chose me. If you think those children of yours won’t receive my blessing from this, then you still don’t know the greatness of who I AM.”
I was astonished that at the lowest of lows, that at my weakest when I felt worthless, the Lord could state he was proud of me. But I understood why. And as I sobbed at the memory, I let go and gave all my angst over my children to God. Because He rescued me from that pit, and He is the Savior of my children and not me. All He asks me to do is to pour love where I see none exactly in the place I am planted, and let Him take care of the rest. He reminded me that when I fail to love, which have been plenty of times, he left us confession, and His grace awaits to lift us back up again. Today was a consolation in a moment when I needed it most. He reminded me that I do not have to fix everything. He is the ultimate fixer, the one who heals.
So I act when I can, control what I can control, enlist help when I need help, and give the rest to God. Lord Jesus, I consecrate this day and everyday, my entire family to your Sacred Heart, that we may become conduits of your love in this broken world.
But the LORD’s mercy is from age to age, toward those who fear him. His salvation is for the children’s children of those who keep his covenant, and remember to carry out his precepts. Psalm 103:17-18
When the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.” And Jesus said to her, “Woman, what does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come.” His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.” John 2:3-5
Yesterday we had a retreat in our Diocese to kick off the start of a new Religious Education school year. We were blessed to have Dr. Ryan Hanning as our retreat leader.
Doctor Hanning gave us a talk on the Assumption of Mary. In his talk he said something that dumbfounded me a bit until I thought about it more. He said Mary knew exactly who she was and what her strengths and weaknesses were. What had dumbfounded me was that I had never really thought of Mary having weaknesses. This is because Mary is sinless. But weakness isn’t sin. So of course his statement made perfect sense.
I left pondering this all the way home. Mary was a human being with gifts that God gave her. It had just never occurred to me that there could be something she wasn’t good at. Scripture doesn’t tell us everything Mary did, but it tells us enough so that we know she really DID KNOW who she was and what her strengths and weaknesses were. She knew Joseph could protect her from her own society and she willingly followed his direction to flee to Egypt.
And then I thought about the wedding at Cana. Here the couple has run out of wine. Mary, like a good Mother, notices. What does she do? She advocates for them. Because she knows who can fix the situation. Jesus tells her His hour has not yet come, but she continues with her advocacy and she says, “do whatever He tells you.”
This statement and Jesus’ response tells us so much. It tells us she knows who can fix the situation, that Jesus will listen to her, and that Jesus wants our cooperation. But it tells us even more. When Jesus says to the servants to fill the jars with water, we don’t see Mary running to grab a jar and fill it. The servants are to whom she and Jesus both spoke. By this action these servants are about to partake in and witness a miracle. His first miracle. How many of us today want to do absolutely everything ourselves and be good at all of it? There was a point in my life where I think I could have pictured myself in this story knocking over the servants to get to the jar to fill it up, all the while I declare “I am doing God’s will!” But if we cannot include the other members of the Mystical Body in our action to do God’s will and we try to go it alone, we actually aren’t doing what He asks. In our independant society we actually have a hard time grasping this, and we get jealous and envious when someone else has a skill that we don’t have. Or even worse, we become ashamed. But remember, it isn’t a sin to not have a skill, the sin is in the envy of the other who does or getting stuck in the shame of it.
I am going to give you a recent example from my own life. I am not a good cook. I also am not great at knowing proper decor for parties. I have friends who are. It used to be that if I was going to have people over my family wanted to leave my house. The yelling and lamenting that took place to get the place clean, find the right napkins, and to cook my one decent meal, ran my family off. Over time I have realized that while I am hospitable, hospitality in the area of preparing is not something I am actually good at. It is a weakness. One day a few months ago I decided to have a dinner party. My friend, who is excellent at hospitality and decorating for these things offered to come help. I told her I would get back to her. I immediately hung up the phone and went into shame mode. The voices in my head barraging me, “she is a way better cook than you, you can never be that good. She will see how incompetent you are at doing things.” I realized rather quickly that I was ashamed and jealous. So I told those demons of insecurity who spoke to me to go back to the pit of hell in the name of Jesus. I called my friend and I said, “would it bring you joy to help me?” I think she actually squealed with glee and loudly proclaimed, “yes, so much it would!”
Once I was able to get over my own weakness, my friend and I were able to collaborate on a great party. I was way less stressed, and she was in her glory. The food was great and my table was beautiful. I smiled inside knowing this is how the Mystical Body should operate. Where one lacks another can fill up, so long as we get out of the way and allow it.
Mary understood this more than anyone. She pondered in her heart, which made her know the will of God and conform herself to it. She encouraged others encounter Christ without getting in the way. She is not in competition with her Son, she brings us closer to Him. This is why she is our Mother, she only leads us closer to him so our own gifts could be brought out by the glory of God.
“As Our Lady spoke these last words, she opened her hands once more, as she had done during the two previous months. The rays of light seemed to penetrate the earth, and we saw as it were a sea of fire. Plunged in this fire were demons and souls in human form, like transparent burning embers, all blackened or burnished bronze, floating about in the conflagration, now raised into the air by the flames that issued from within themselves together with great clouds of smoke now falling back on every side like sparks in huge fires, without weight or equilibrium, amid shrieks and groans of pain and despair, which horrified us and made us tremble with fear. (It must have been this sight which caused me to cry out, as people say they heard me). The demons could be distinguished by their terrifying and repellent likeness to frightful and unknown animals, black and transparent like burning coals. Terrified and as if to plead for succour, we looked up at Our Lady, who said to us, so kindly and so sadly: You have seen hell where the souls of poor sinners go. To save them, God wishes to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart. If what I say to you is done, many souls will be saved and there will be peace.”
Sister Lucia Santos – Seer at Fatima
I have had some conversations recently with some people who do not believe hell exists. They believe in God, heaven and the universe, but not in hell. The belief is that a good and loving God couldn’t possibly send people to hell for all eternity and that Christ had paid all. And that in the end all are saved because God is in everything, therefore hell cannot exist. I know this isn’t true. I know hell does exist.
Because of these conversations, I felt that God wanted me to contemplate hell. Not something I would enjoy doing. Many of you know I have felt God show me an experience of this already.
But I asked God to reconcile it with me; that He is good and loving, in everything, and that there is a hell. I told Him I know the teachings of the church and I believe them totally, but could he teach me? God spoke, “what is the unforgivable sin?” I answered, “blasphemy of the Holy Spirit.”
He asked, “what does that mean?” I answered, “a rejection of God in us at our death, a rejection of your mercy.” And then God showed me something. He showed me the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. One the source of divine life, the other, when we make it our source brings death.
And I realized, that though hell is an absence of God, he is still allowing us to exist. Hell is the absence of God in our own soul, where we forever go if we reject him all the way to death. But, he really never ever stopped loving us. If he did, we would cease to be at all. We would just cease to exist. God is pure love. All of existence is created from this love.
Even in hell His love continues to generate us, because God is a source outside of ourselves. But he gave us free will as a gift. And if we are to experience that love, we must receive it from him and not reject it. We must actually cooperate in our own Salvation, God does not force it on us. We must not reject God’s mercy. Love is a choice. He chooses to love us, but what do we choose? If we choose to reject Him at our death, he still maintains our existence because He is love, he cannot stop loving, but we, we have rejected the love of our own choice so love is absent within us. He allows us to experience His absence, He allows us to experience separation from love because it is what we requested. This is why the children at Fatima said they saw flames that issued from within themselves.
God is a gentleman. He never stops loving us. But He doesn’t force himself on us either. We have to choose to receive His love. In this light the existence of hell makes perfect sense. Hell is what we ask for, and because free will is a gift, we can do with it as we please. We can turn that gift into a gift itself; A gift of ourselves back to God and others, or we can see the gift as our only source instead of seeing the giver and reject the source itself. And this my friends, is the making of hell.
A couple final thoughts, Sometimes I feel as though the fire of God is the same in heaven or hell, that God is unchanging and his love is like a fire. If we receive it and cooperate with His will we become boldly confident and filled with God’s glory, if we reject it, it burns us with unquenchable fire and suffering. The difference being our own free will’s choice.
Responsorial Psalm 66 from Mass readings August 14, 2019
Blessed be God who filled my soul with fire.
Lastly, I highly recommend watching this video of one man’s experience of hell. It is long, but very worth the watch.
Picture of Church of the Visitation in Westphalia, TX that was totally lost to fire. I find this picture to be very prophetic. Our Lady has warned us time and again to turn back to God and of what will happen if we don’t.
I gave a talk at the Carmel Center on the Sanctity of Human Life. This is a transcript (with a few tweaks) of the talk I gave. Many of you have heard parts of my story before, but I hope you will still read it as it pertains to the Sanctity of Human Life. As we live in a world of shootings and murder, now more than ever, we need to recognize that we are the walking wounded, who have believed the accuser, and don’t know how much we are loved by God. God Himself has left us a path to true happiness and joy and we have tossed it aside and now we are clearly seeing the consequences.
Good Afternoon, it’s wonderful to be here today. I am sure you all are thinking, wow, Father Andrew Bulso looks so strange…. Unfortunately he was unable to make it today so I am here in his place to talk to you about the Sanctity of Human Life. Please pray for our Priests.
My name is Susan Skinner and I am a wife to my husband Jason and a Mother to 3 children, two teens and one tween and one child lost to miscarriage. I am also a Catholic blogger at Veil of Veronica, I have written for the National Catholic Register and I am a columnist at Catholic Stand. I am the RCIA and Adult Faith Formation Coordinator, I give Spiritual Direction and I am member of the Deliverance Ministry at my parish.
I want to begin my talk on the Sanctity of Human Life with a quote from Saint Teresa of Calcutta;
“We must not be surprised when we hear of murders, of killings, of wars, of hatred. If a mother can kill her own child, what is left but for us to kill each other.”
I begin with this statement because it is so profound and speaks to the devastation we see across our society today. And to how we as a society got where we are, where life can be tossed aside easily. And I want to share with you a personal story that may seem out of context, but I assure you it is not. I tell this story because it impacted profoundly my view of Catholic Church teachings on the Sanctity of Human Life.
I will begin by telling you a little bit of my background. I am a cradle Catholic. I grew up in a home that prayed to Rosary together. I went to 16 years of Catholic school. I was well catechized by my parents. But I also grew up in the 80’s and 90’s, a tumultuous time, a wild time. Though my parents taught me well and I valued what they taught me, I also had adopted a worldly view when it came to certain aspects of the faith. By the time I got married, I was a grocery store Catholic, picking and choosing which teachings I would follow. I was always ardently against abortion, so this made me conclude I was very pro-life, and that I very much valued the sanctity of life.
I had my first child about 18 months after my wedding, on the Feast of Saint Stanislaus of Krakow, patron of moral order, though I didn’t realize it was his feast at the time. I suffered very severe post-partum depression and anxiety. In fact, the voices in my head barraged me so badly with images that I could not control that there was a point I didn’t value my own life. I remember clearly one day sitting in the bathtub thinking I couldn’t make the voices stop so I will just put my head under the water and never come up. At that moment in time I got a very clear image in my head of my sister. I knew that she would be sad, so I instead of sticking my head under the water I looked to my left and I saw a Rosary on the side of the bathtub. I picked it up and began to pray it. I don’t think I realized the spiritual warfare that was going on around me at the time. I thought I was suffering a physiological response to a drop in estrogen, or at least that’s what the Doctors told me.
The journey from there was one of many ups and downs. The doctors wanted to help me get better giving me the best advice they knew. I went to counseling. I took medication, I exercised, tried to sleep as much as you can with a new baby, and of course, took birth control because they told me, as the world tells you, you cannot have another baby who will be such a burden. And I believed what they told me. I didn’t see or realize at all what was happening.
I followed the advice and within a year I would feel almost normal. I got to a place of “good enough” but that place was filled with ebbs and tides of high anxiety mixed with some depression. But I was functioning. I prayed on and off, mostly begging God to stop my anxiety.
I remember when I went off birth control and was pregnant with my second son how upset my doctor got with me, verbally reprimanding me in a very hostile tone telling me how I was putting myself in jeopardy. As I hung up, I felt sad that she was not happy for the new life that had been created.
I hung up the phone and I prayed to God and I told him, “Jesus, I trust in you.” After a pregnancy filled with complications. I gave birth prematurely to a healthy baby boy on September 29, the Feast of the Archangels. I didn’t know that at the time either, even as I named him after one of them.
My husband and I decided, myself somewhat reluctantly, we were done having children.
I went back to my comfort zone of praying sometimes, going to church regularly, and using birth control. At some point, I decided the birth control was making me fat, so I went off of it. In hindsight, my worldly view was still used by God to bring us the great blessing of our daughter, born of the feast of Saint Polycarp. Little did I know what was about to happen in my life that would make me hear the words of Saint Polycarp, when he went before the Roman proconsul, “hear me declare with boldness, I am a Christian and if you wish to learn what the Doctrines of Christianity are, appoint me a day, and you shall hear them.”
Those words mean a lot to me, as I stand here before you today to proclaim them myself.
About a year and a half after my daughter was born, I got a call from my friend Veronica, who was the mother of my oldest’s son’s best friend. Veronica wanted to know if my son could sleep over. I got sick to my stomach, and I didn’t know why because my son had slept over her house plenty of times before. I told her he couldn’t sleep over but that I would bring him over and let him play for the day and I would pick him up before dinner. At 4 o’clock I drove out to her house to pick him up. I chatted with her about how wonderful our boys were. She was so positive, pouring life into them about what blessings they were. I drove home for an uneventful evening.
I got a call the next morning from another friend who was distraught and crying. It seems, she told me, that someone shot and killed my friend Veronica in her home and she lay dead right there where I had stood talking to her less than 24 hours before. I found out later there were 4 bullets in her head.
In all the sufferings of my life I don’t think anything could have prepared me for this. I felt like I had been punched in the stomach. I couldn’t breath and I couldn’t stop crying. I actually laid down on my bedroom floor and wailed. It seems that Veronica and her husband were going through a divorce and he decided to hire a hit man to kill her. I couldn’t understand. I couldn’t fathom it.
I cried out to God. I screamed at him. How could you let this happen? Why Lord? And in the middle of my fit of rage at God, He answered me.
He said, “I don’t want this, people choose this.” He had been waiting a long time for me to talk to him, really talk to him. I asked God, “what, what in the world can I do, in this awful place?” He answered me. He said, “Susan, good in the world starts with you.” I began to think. I thought about how I had seen Veronica and her husband in church together and I wondered, how can a person who would murder sit in church? God answered me again. He told me that her husband did not start out a murderer, but that his sin had grown in his heart and gone unchecked, and had lead down a long dark path. I remembered the bible verse that stated, “But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”( Matthew 5:28) That was the moment that verse made sense to me. I never had understood it. I had always thought, “how can a thought be a sin?” But after her murder it made sense to me. Sin starts with a thought, a suggestion thrown your way, it moves to your heart and takes over until you act on it with your hands, sin helps you to justify and dehumanize. And if we never take the time to examine our conscience, or think about what is right and what is wrong, well then, we can really go down a wrong path.
So Lord, “what can I do?” He told me that the only person I could control was myself. That I can choose to love and spread that love outward. For me this meant examining my own conscience and trying to become a better person. Did I love my enemy? or even my neighbor, for that matter? The answer was a resounding, NO. Oh my, I thought, I have not always spread love and left people better off for knowing me. I realized too in these personal moments of conversation with God how I had compromised on the things that he had asked of me.
In the months to follow I came across Pope Paul the VI encyclical, Humae Vitae and I was astonished at the words I read. He spoke of the consequences of contraception, divorce, adultery, abortion, the general lowering of moral standards, the government becoming involved in promoting contraception and involved in the most intimate decisions of husband and wife, a place where God should actually be the center of their decisions.
I was shocked and ashamed as I read these prophetic words. I had considered myself a good Catholic. I was not. As I laid crying in my room realizing all of the ways I had been blind, I thought about confession. I had always hated this Sacrament, but here in this place, I found it to be a gift. A gift I was grateful for.
I went and made the biggest confession of my life. In telling my sins, I was able to encounter Christ. In this Sacrament, I received the grace that Jesus offers to us when we choose to ask for it. I took a good hard look at myself and my selfishness started to burn away because of the love I encountered in confessing.
I also realized the way I had judged others, and how much I had bought into a view of the world that promoted myself and didn’t reach out to others. I thought of Veronica. In Catholicism while Jesus is in His Passion, walking His way to Golgotha, bloodied and beaten, He comes across a woman named Veronica. Veronica wipes the face of Jesus. A small kindness. This man, this God man, was bloodied, beaten, tired, in agony, and this women, Veronica, provided a brief respite, if you will. A few seconds where the sweat and blood were wiped away, and for a moment, however brief, He felt love from this woman. It did not stop His Passion, His suffering, but in a world that was mocking Him, scourging Him, that woman’s touch with the cloth must have felt glorious. So He imprinted His image on her cloth. Veronica, means “True Image”.
I understood what it meant to value the sanctity of life that God creates, and I knew in a moment that the Doctrines of our Church are true.
When this veil is lifted, it is like coming out of a fog. Life is a gift, from conception to natural death. I realized that there is an active entity seeking to steal, kill and destroy. And Satan has done a very good job. By convincing us that contraception is okay he has stolen our fertility. He slaughters our children in abortion. 56 million a year worldwide, more than all other causes of death combined. He is destroying marriage and the family. And we have been trained to think by him. It’s why Saint Paul tells us to take captive every thought.
But Jesus told us;
… from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female. For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother [and be joined to his wife], and the two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, no human being must separate.”
It’s no wonder that Satan wants to distort even what it means to be male and female these days. We know as Catholic’s that what God made is good, made in His image and likeness. Yet Satan wants to convince us otherwise. He does everything he can to get people into bed before they marry and everything he can to stop them in bed after they’re married, and we have listened. Listened to a voice that serves the wrong kingdom. And we as a society have created laws to serve the wrong kingdom. I am very much aware as a child born in 1972 how my life was protected by LAW. In fact, when I look at my ancestry, it doesn’t require me to look very far before I find a scenario where today I may not exist if we had had today’s laws back then.
When my Grandmother was in her 60’s she found out she was adopted. Her mother, the woman who raised her, never told her she was adopted and the father she thought died in a war, may never have actually existed. What she did find out was that she was born with a different name than the one she had, and that the woman who she thought was her mother was not. Many of my family members have tried to investigate her ancestry, and have pieced together some scenarios, but due to the death of the woman who raised my Grandmother as her own, and a lack of the birth records, we will perhaps never know the full truth, though we have a good idea.
The thought that has struck me time and again is that because her birth seemed so shrouded in secrecy, there was shame attached to it. In today’s day and age that kind of shame, the kind that breeds secrecy like that, would make a woman abortion minded. Some of the scenarios that I have been told that surround my Grandmother’s arrival on this earth are scenarios today where people would have an abortion. Whatever the case, I can’t help but think if my Great-Grandmother had been pregnant today, she may have been a woman at huge risk for aborting her child. That my Grandmother lived, I can perhaps attribute to the fact that the LAW protected her life. I often think about this. That if abortion had been acceptable back then, I may not exist. Though I know there was probably much suffering surrounding the birth of my Grandmother, the joy that was brought forth into the world by her and her family line has been boundless. There is no shame in that.
The impact of this on my family personally is profound. My grandmother, with her murky story of coming into existence, had 12 children. I there are at least 54 grandchildren, and many, many more great-grandchildren. We are doctors, lawyers, engineers, teachers, firemen, policemen, mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters. If my grandmother had been aborted there are literally now hundreds of us who would not exist.
I was once told online that if my ancestor had been aborted, I wouldn’t be around “to give an (expletive),” so I should just be pro-abortion. That statement presupposes that my life has no meaning, that my brother and sisters, that my cousins, my nieces and my nephews, we don’t matter to the world. I know for a fact that is not true. We matter. We matter to those who love us, to those whose lives we have impacted and most importantly to God, who knew us before He formed us in the womb. Every life is precious.
The impact of abortion goes far beyond mother and child, it impacts generations, generations that are lost. We often seem to narrowly look at the specific person who is in an unplanned pregnancy situation – even more so only the woman and not the man. But what I found to be true in my own family made me pull way back and see the countless lives that were affected by the one choice of my great grandmother. This is something we need to be talking about. We need to help others pull back and see the generations of human lives that are cutoff from life by this one choice.
When it comes down to it, the mentality that accepts abortion, is a mentality that devalues. It is a very narrow view, thinking of only the immediate situation and not considering others that may be affected. This devaluation of human life spreads from being pro-choice, eventually permeating all aspects of society. This is because the source of the pro-choice argument is a lie. Although a lie can sometimes seem like it is in the best interest of the person, as you logically follow that lie from its source, we eventually find ourselves in a place where starving a person in the hospital becomes acceptable, or eliminating the life of a healthy baby who may have an unfavorable genetic makeup is the recommendation of the doctors. Moreover, the elderly are deemed unnecessary once they need so much of our care and help and so we find ourselves tossing them aside, in the name of mercy. Where we end up by following the lie is where good is called evil and evil is called good. This is what Saint Teresa of Calcutta means by what she said. But she and Pope Paul VI take it even further when they include the mentality of the acceptance of contraceptives, this is where the real breakdown began. Contraceptives allowed sexuality to become twisted, and children become commodities to be bought and sold and created in a lab.
ArchBishop Fulton Sheen stated; Once the idea is introduced that one may take the life of a person because he is not useful to the state, then it will not be long before we are taking his life because his ideas are not the same as those of the state. In 1936 Hitler introduced the idea of mercy killing under the lying title of ‘Charitable Foundation for Institutional Care.’ The basic principal was that those who could not be of benefit to society should be killed. Up to the outbreak of the war 275,000 people were put to death. Once the door was opened for destroying the sanctity of a single personality, there was nothing to stop wholesale slaughter.”
The path of Truth is a straight line. A narrow road. If you follow that path it will bear fruit in all aspects, as long as you remain on the path of Truth. Oftentimes at the onset of this path it does not look favorable. But the final destination is a clear promise from the Father to His Beloved child that he will rest with the Father for all eternity. While walking on the path of Truth, if you look back to where you have been along the way, you will be able to see the good fruit that this path bears. The stories of triumph over suffering and an ever leading deeper spiritual union with the Father will be the stories of those upon the path of Truth.
Conversely, the path of lies always leads to destruction. It is a path that may look beautiful at first, or there may even be beauty along the way. It may contain parts of Truth. You may meet very loving and kind and generous people along this path, but we must remember that the final destination of the path of lies is destruction. If you look back on the path of lies you will see the traces of destruction that it has left in its wake.
If we look at these two paths with the example of abortion, a clearer picture may be seen. First of all, we know that the majority of men and women who find themselves in an unplanned pregnancy situation are faced with an uphill battle. Often times they themselves are not equipped to face this battle on their own, whether that be financially, socially, emotionally, physically, mentally or spiritually. By choosing to walk the path of Truth, we know that it will not an easy path, but neither was Jesus’ passion. By placing our trust in God and taking that first step along the path of Truth, not knowing the outcome, but surrendering our lives to the Will of the Father, we are SAVED. Oftentimes it is our own selves standing in the way of letting Jesus SAVE us.
As we move along this path of Truth, we begin to see God place people (his hands and feet) along this path in order to help these men and women who are struggling. This is a reflection of Simon of Cyrene who helped Jesus carry the cross. Even Jesus needed help! And what joy to know that we are able to participate in God’s great work by loving and helping others along the way. In this act, God reaches down from heaven, through you and me, to be incarnate in this world. The path of Truth, when we continue on this path, although it is not an easy path, eventually shows us the light of Christ’s presence in the world. It shows us His love and mercy and action that is able to conquer the world. The fruits of the path of Truth are what we look back upon in order to encourage us on further. It is the strength for the journey when things get tough.
In this same situation of abortion, we can see that there is also a path of lies. This path is no doubt full of love and concern for the men and women in these situations. There are many people who are there at the entrance of this path to help and support them just as they are on the path of Truth, but their love and support only goes skin deep. By leading the man and woman to have an abortion, these people are able to remove the immediate circumstance and alleviate them having to continue on in their uphill battle. But it is a false help. It is a lie. The men and women who have chosen an abortion are left in their pain. They are like the thief who chose to walk the passion alone.
When we choose to walk our passion WITH Jesus, we find healing and peace through our surrendering ALL of who we are to Him. We cannot hold anything back, not our hidden pregnancy, our sexuality, our sins, our fears, our pain, not anything! On a more global level we are seeing where this path of lies in regard to abortion has lead. At this point in some states, abortions are legal up to 40 weeks, up to the point the mother is pushing the baby out of the birth canal, up even to the point of the baby being born alive and then giving the mother the option, after birth, to deicide the baby’s fate. Here we can see clearly that the upfront concern for women and men in the situation of an unplanned pregnancy, the loving concern that we find at the beginning of the path of lies, has clearly led to destruction.
In further pondering this, I realized God is all about the pure and loving relationship. Satan wants to destroy relationship. It made me profoundly understand that the post-partum depression I suffered wasn’t just physical and emotional, it hit the deepest core of who I am, my soul and it was an attack on the essence of my motherhood. This made me think of Mary, who is the daughter of God the Father, the spouse of the Holy Spirit, and Mother of the Son, all things related to God, but the preeminent definition of who she is in relation to God is Mother. That is the essence of who she is and is a defined dogma.
Our existence is about our very relationship with God and how we relate to God extends outward to our fellow man. When we recognize our source, and that it is a source outside of ourselves, but that dwells in us, we become Christ-like.
The very first relationship we have is that of daughter or son. This is a relationship of receiving. We are young, weak, unable to care for ourselves, and so we must receive what we need in order to flourish. A child that receives from his or her parents what is needed is a child that flourishes.
The next relationship we have is two-fold – it can be brotherly or sisterly – or it can be spousal. These relationships are giving and receiving. These relationships are intimate, not in a sexual way (though with spouses that intimacy is also physical), but in a way, that when the good of the other is sought, these people can know who you are and continue to give love and receive love from you.
The relationship with a mother or a father has with their children is one of giving. When a child is in the womb and later born, they are completely weak and helpless. They cannot give of themselves. Mothering and Fathering require much sacrifice.
This is the ultimate expression of God in us because it requires total giving. Satan has convinced us that sacrifice is about suffering and that suffering is worse than sin. We make laws intended to stop the suffering, which is only counter-intuitive and brings more suffering, when we should be working to purify our hearts to stop sin, recognizing that love of the other is life giving. It is no wonder Satan attacks Motherhood so much.
Motherhood is life-giving. The other place that is Life-Giving is the Eucharist, which necessarily needs the Priests, who we call Father. Women give life from their wombs and men, as Priests, give life to us in the Eucharist. There is an attack on the womb, which in Hebrew came to mean mercy. Whether it be the physical womb of a mother, or the Tabernacle that houses the Eucharist. There is an attack on the Mercy Seat.
The relationship cycle is meant to purify us and draw us closer to God. Throughout our lives, it is an ebb and flow of these relationships, but union with the will of God is a life-giving, self sacrificing love.
We need first to receive, and then give and receive, in order to be brought to this union of giving the way that God did. When we walk this path, when we walk in the authority God gave us, we become confident Mothers and Fathers that the devil will flee from. This self-giving love does not require actual Motherhood or Fatherhood, it requires the recognition that the Love of God is sacrificial and giving and can dwell within each of us. It is true charity and does not expect a reward.
Mary as Theotokos is the ultimate expression of the love of God. Defining Mary as the Mother of God defines who Jesus is and how He wants to fill us and what we are to become.
If a society looks down upon Motherhood and Fatherhood the society will collapse because it is a society that doesn’t know how to give. We have reached that point.
Jesus came as the Divine Child to show us the source of charity, to show us how to give.
Mary and Joseph were essential to this plan because they had to give of themselves in order for the rest of us to receive Him and grow into Mothers and Fathers whether literally or spiritually.
He started as a child to show us who we are to become. To show us our own dignity.
Looking at the Divine Child you are looking at the source of dignity.
In a twisted diabolical form, Satan has convinced by getting us to accept contraception and abortion, that we are uplifting women by attacking the very essence of what forms her in Love.
The other place Satan attacks life-giving is in the Eucharist by attacking Priests. They take what Jesus said about calling no man Father and twist it to destroy what Christ is trying to teach us about Love.
The Fatherhood of the Priest is not a Fatherhood of man. Remember no one is good but God alone (Mark 10:18). The Priesthood is the Fatherhood of God, a Fatherhood of giving, a source of charity. Priests are giving us divine life very literally. The devil wants nothing more than to destroy this. And he is working inside the church.
God calls each of us as the Body of Christ to actively partake in the building of His Kingdom. Living a Sacramental life from the heart, helps us do this. Each of us has a different role but we should all be working together, in love towards our fellow man, to create laws that breathe life, and to help those who are suffering. To help people walk out of a life of sin. We need to be doing the Spiritual and Corporal works of mercy. These actions are birthed from our prayerful relationship with God.
If we want to change our society and help her to recognize the Sanctity of Human Life we must purify our interior in prayer from which action can flow. We can turn to the Mother of God who is so needed right now. And her sons, the Priests, who are also Fathers of God because they give us the source of charity in the Eucharist. We need to build them up and pray for them. We must look at the Divine Child. When we recognize the Divine Child mirrors Christ on the Cross and the Christ in the Eucharist; He is person totally in the hands and control of others. We must ask ourselves how will we love Him? How will we love others? We must recognize the dignity of every human person from conception to natural death, and for me this means even the dignity of the person who murdered my friend.
Romans 16:20 tells us, “The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. The
grace of our Lord Jesus be with you.”
Our lady and Saint Michael are always depicted with the devil under their feet. For us to truly embrace the Sanctity of Life, we too need to put the devil under our feet and say no to the culture of death and embrace that each and everyone of us is made in the Image and Likeness of God. We as a society need an illumination of conscience to life the veil of confusion and help us recognize the Sanctity of Human Life from conception to natural death. In closing, I will leave you with a prayer asking for this;
Lord Jesus, you came to destroy the works of the devil and to call us all children of God.
You sent us the Advocate so that we may know your truth and rest in the bosom of the Father.
Hear our prayers and supplications Lord as we beg of you to help us in this time of darkness and confusion.
Send us Angels in sufficient rank, number, power and authority to fight the demons off and away from us, to fight the demons off and away from our families, our communities and our nations.
We ask Our Lady and the entire Communion of Saints to intercede and pray on our behalf.
We are your Mystical Body, and we ask for healing through forgiveness and restoration.
Lord Jesus, rain down the Holy Spirit upon all of Mankind.
Illuminate and convict each of us of who we are in your eyes.
Show us how much you love us and comfort us as you reveal to us our faults.
Give us the strength and courage to surrender our sin to you, who alone can make us whole.
May we turn back to you with our whole heart and be transformed in your image.
We implore you through the intercession of Saint Michael, lift the veil of confusion that plagues us.
Lord, show us your mercy.
In this we give thanks and praise.
All Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, Amen.
“Little children, I wish that all people convert and see me and my son, Jesus, in you. I will intercede for you and help you to become the light. In helping the other, your soul will also find salvation.” alleged message from Our Lady Queen of Peace – Medjugorje May 25, 1996
My friend Ann Vucic came to visit and gave a talk at my parish.
Ann Vucic was born in a little village two miles from Medjugorge, Bosnia-Herzegovina (place of alleged Marian apparitions since 1981). Her family moved to the United States when she was two years old. Painful adolescent experiences led to destructive behaviors in her early teens. In the summer of 1981, at the age of 15, Ann returned to her homeland for a summer vacation. Shortly after she got there, a whispered conversation in an outdoor cafe led to a life changing encounter with the Lord, which forever changed the trajectory of Ann’s life. That summer, she was able to be a witness to the beginning days and months of Our Lady’s apparitions in Medjugorje. Many years later, a magazine article about Ann’s experiences in Medjugorje, called her “The First American Conversion in Medjugorje.”
While trying to discern the Lord’s plan in her life, Ann completed undergraduate studies in Theology and Psychology, and graduate studies in Social Work at Loyola University Chicago. By 1999, after many years of working in the field of Social Work, Ann discerned a call by the Lord to leave her career and begin a new life, fully committed to evangelization and ministry, which has always been her greatest passion. Since 1999, Ann has given her life fully for ministry through: coordinating and directing pilgrimages to Medjugorje, the Holy Land, and other Catholic sites; interpreting for Medjugorje visionaries and priests throughout the United States and beyond; working extensively with Fr. Zlatko Sudac (a Croatian priest with the stigmata) as his interpreter and retreat coordinator; sharing her testimony, speaking about the messages of Medjugorje and giving talks on matters of faith and spirituality at retreats, conferences, and media outlets throughout the United States.
Ann’s powerful testimony will inspire you as you listen to the ways in which the Lord has worked in her life and led her in a direction she could never have dreamed of for herself. God indeed has bigger dreams for us than we have for ourselves. Ann’s story bears witness to that fact.
Here is her testimony;
“We must not be surprised when we hear of murders, of killings, of wars, of hatred. If a mother can kill her own child, what is left but for us to kill each other.” Saint Teresa of Calcutta
This is a talk I gave at the Carmel Center in Liberty, TN on the Sanctity of Human Life.
I wrote this piece two years ago on the Feast of Saint Mary Magdalene. My friend Eva has since passed away; I feel certain into the loving arms of a good Father. I remember my experience in the chapel that day, and I hold on to the hope because I do not doubt the infinite love of My Creator.
Mary Magdalene- Painting by Kathleen Carr, my cousin.
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Philip said to him, “Master, show us the Father, and that will be enough for us.”Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you for so long a time and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?
John 14:8-9
The post I am writing I feel is meant urgently. Urgently for us and urgently for Priests. I know I am not the only one who receives this message. Before I begin, I want to give a little background information of some things that have happened over the past couple of weeks. As always when I show you posts from my journal I record them as if the Lord were speaking to me directly. If the church were ever to come out and say anything I have written is wrong, then the church is correct and I am wrong. Know that as you discern what I write.
To begin, something happened to me before I wrote my last post. It was July 7, 2019 and I was feeling the tug to write that post, but I really didn’t want to. It was storming outside and as you know, I like to watch storms, so I decided to go outside and watch the storm and pray asking God if I should write.
Sometimes when I am intent on asking God something, it seems God wants to talk to me about something else and I will find myself overwhelmed at the immensity of God. On that particular evening God had something specific to show me. I had closed my eyes to ask about writing as the storm was blowing in front of me when suddenly, He just said to me very clearly,
“he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained.”
And then he showed it to me. He was standing in front of Philip. And Philip closed his eyes, and Jesus breathed the breath of God and Philip inhaled the breath of God, and Philip KNEW the Father. And the love and power was overwhelming…he did it to all that were there.
And I sobbed. I just sat on my front porch and sobbed. Because I felt it and saw it but I cannot adequately explain it or how overpowering it was. The immensity of the moment. The joy of it. And what it means to be a Priest…And how much responsibility it entails, and how they received it as Loved sons of a Good Father….so they could bring Mercy to the world…
And I knew Jesus weeps at those Priests who don’t understand this.
So fast forward a week and I had planned a trip to the Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament in Hanceville, AL. I realized we had planned the trip on the Feast of Saint Veronica. These things are never coincidence to me. Remember Veronica wiped the Face of Jesus with her veil.
The priest who gave the homily was AWESOME. He said what needed to be said. He touched on everything my friends and I in our prayer group have prayed for and spoken of the past year. About persecution, Priests and Bishops needing to lead more than they do. He told us he got most of his homily from this article.
As you know I veil at Mass. On this day at the Shrine I wore my favorite veil. You can see it here;
After Mass I took off my veil and put it in my purse. We ate lunch and decided to go to adoration and confession. But I could not find my veil. This veil is my favorite for many reasons. It’s Marian blue and it is the one I have touched to so many relics, including Saint Padre Pio, Saint Faustina, and the last one I touched it to was the heart of Saint John Vianney, patron of Priests. I looked everywhere in my purse where I had put it and then all over where I had been and including the lost and found but was unable to find it. I thought perhaps God wanted to speak to someone else about veiling and he would use my veil to do it. I went to to get one of my other veils to go to adoration, but I was, and am sad to lose that one. It was special to me.
After confession, I sat in adoration a little bit bummed out. I asked the Lord to speak to me. The only thing God said to me was, “Restore the Father’s Blessings”. I wasn’t sure what He meant. We left shortly thereafter.
I got up this morning, and was going to just get cleaning done in my house because I have company coming in. But the tug on my heart to go to Mass was strong. Very strong. So I got in my car and headed off to Mass. Adoration was going on prior to Mass.
It was then God started pouring over me during adoration and then continued in Mass. I will try to relay what he said to me as best as I can and hope that it makes sense. This is also one of the most dire post pleas I have posted before and so I want to relay that in receiving this, I had God’s peace. He is in control and really truly does not want us to be afraid. The only thing we should fear is losing our salvation;
Beloved Lily of the Father,
In the beginning they KNEW the Father. They KNEW ME. They walked in union with me. They KNEW their source which came from the Tree of Life.
Once they turned to the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil as their source the unity they walked in experienced a rift. I did not withdraw the source, or they would cease to be, but the source was veiled, guarded by the Cherubim. I send angels to help you make your way back to the source to help you do My will.
The Priesthood is the bridge between heaven and earth bringing back to earth what has been veiled. Giving the sacramental life to my people so they can be brought back to unity with my will.
When Philip asked Jesus, “Master, show us the Father, and that will be enough for us.” I let Philip know that knowing ME is done through the Son who is in me.
On July 7, 2019 I showed you on your front porch the moment Philip really, really knew the Father. Jesus breathed on him and said “receive the Holy Spirit.” You sobbed understanding the gravity of the Priesthood. They are the Fatherhood of God bringing my Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity to my people, reconciling my people to me, so they turn back to the Source from whom their goodness comes.
And yet I say, woe to my shepherds. You have entered your final warnings. Rome is burning. The Mass is becoming decimated. Some leaders are a brood of vipers. It is their disobedience that calls my hand of justice upon the earth. They are withholding the Kingdom from my people. They in their unbelief. It is the only time the Son was amazed, it is because of unbelief. He could not perform miracles because of it.
My Priests restore the Father’s Blessings. But instead because of their unbelief they bring down judgment. The passion of the church.
When the Mass becomes decimated, and the bridge between heaven and earth broken I must bring the apocalypse directly. Apocalypse means unveiling. I will unveil and make transparent Good and Evil. Every action I make is to bring union back to the will of the Father. When those in the bridge refuse my will, I ACT ON A GLOBAL SCALE. Death will be a mercy for some because it will be in death that they turn back to me. Many will refuse my mercy and will lock themselves in hell for eternity. THE EARTH HAS SEEN NOTHING LIKE WHAT I WILL UNVEIL. The constructs in your mind of who I AM will be shaken to the core. But remember I AM LOVE, DO NOT DOUBT IT. You lost your veil to give out warning and let my shepherds know, TIME IS RUNNING OUT… REPENT OR SUFFER MY DIRECT UNVEILING.
Look now I will unveil the Mass for you Beloved Lily of the Father. Look and see what I see.
{At this point, I Susan, am watching the consecration. My eyes become super blurry. Everything blends together in a Bright White Light. I know where we are in the Mass by the words being proclaimed. The Priest has raised the Host, but what I see is a Bright White Light. I see the Face of Jesus, Massively large taking up the whole altar space. As he raises the chalice I see a Rainbow. God is using the surroundings of what is in the church to reveal all of this to me. He says the rainbow is a symbol of his Covenant. He tells me He is everywhere and permeates everything. I sense WRATH at the covenant symbols misuse especially when embraced inside of the church in a way that damages souls, wrath for the perversion of everything, and especially the harming of children. But in the midst of it is an overwhelming love from the altar. As I stated, “Lord I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof,” I was brought to tears at the immensity of it all.}
I will bring you to your knees and you will know who I AM. Everything that comes from me is a movement back towards my WILL which is LOVE, MERCY AND TRUTH, anything that is evil and moves souls away from this will be destroyed. The day of Justice rapidly upon you. Time is short and velocity speeds up. I will restore the Father’s Blessings. The righteous will be lifted up and my peace will be upon you. Do not be afraid of the battle. I AM with you.
Psalm 33:18
The Most Holy Trinity
To the shepherds who are fighting the battle I pray for your perseverance and I thank you for fighting for us. DO NOT BE AFRAID. To those who are not, repent and believe in the Gospel.
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Veil of Veronica 