13 children including 2 Latin Mass priests - How did this Mom do it？
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Summary
Trisha Nolan is a woman who has 13 children, two of whom are priests in the Fraternal Order of St. Peter, a Latin Mass Fraternal order. She was born in a Catholic ghetto in Seattle, Washington, and grew up in a family of seven adults and ten children. She talks about the challenges of raising her 13 children and how she managed to raise them.
Transcript
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Human love is never enough to sustain a long-term relationship.
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You can't live out marriage with just human love.
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I was at this conference in Denver or near Denver, Colorado,
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and it was a traditional Catholic women's conference.
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At the conference, there was an emcee, really lively guy.
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His name was Father Dan Nolan, and one of the speakers was actually his mother.
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And I had the great grace to sit in the back room and talk with his mother for a long time
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Now, this woman has 13 children, two of whom are priests in the Fraternity of St. Peter,
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And of course, like every dad or mom, I went up and said to her,
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so about the how did you get the two priests, let alone the 13 children?
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I've only got eight, but it's one of those questions you have to ask.
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because you are going to have your socks blown right off your feet.
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Stay tuned for this episode of the John Hedder Western Show.
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This October 17th and 18th, we are going to be running Rome Life Forum in Exile.
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This fine bishop, Bishop Joseph Strickland, sort of in exile,
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is going to be joining us there, as well as Dr. Janet Smith,
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as well as prophecy expert Xavier Aral, and many more, including a special guest.
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So let's begin as you always do, with the sign of the cross.
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In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.
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Trisha, first of all, if you could start, tell us a little bit about your background.
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I mean, it was such a fascinating talk, and talking with you behind the scenes was also fascinating.
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Tell us a little bit about yourself, so people get to know who you are.
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It was considered a neighborhood, although we weren't necessarily poor.
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But like when I was growing up, there were 72 children on our block under the age of 12.
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We lived about a block and a half or two blocks from the church, so I could walk.
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Being Catholic, there was a lot of Catholicism that surrounded it.
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He was very, very loving, but he had a bit of an anger issue.
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And I had an older sister and three older brothers.
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It was because as an infant, I'd spent about my first nine months in the hospital.
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And children that have abandonment issues, they're difficult to raise.
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And if not properly approached, you know, can be pretty hard.
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I mean, I had a sibling once when I came home from camp said, you know, what are you doing here?
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And I said, well, I just got home from two weeks of camp.
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And he said, yeah, well, why don't you just go back?
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And even my dad, you know, one time I confronted him and he said, well, you know,
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there's a reason why everybody in the family hates you.
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I grew up with a feeling that, I mean, basically, I accepted the message my brothers told me.
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You have a lousy personality and nobody's ever going to marry you.
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So I grew up thinking that marriage was out of the question.
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The truth of the matter is, I was very beautiful.
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And there were probably tons of guys that would have been happy to marry me.
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But the day came when the Lord introduced me to my husband and we met at a prayer meeting.
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Actually, actually, it was at a rehearsal for a prayer meeting.
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My older sister was also involved in the charismatic renewal.
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And one day when I was up in Spokane, I asked her, why wasn't she at the prayer meeting I was going to?
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And she said, well, there's another one that I attend.
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And then she said, yeah, you know, you might want to come.
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As soon as she said that, it was like every fiber of my body was alert.
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In a voice that I was having to control so that it didn't sound breathless, I said, oh, really?
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And it was like guitar string broke in my heart.
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I knew that he was going to become important in my life.
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And I pictured him as this great, big, tall, six foot three bearded Santa Claus type because she said he's an older gentleman.
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So I wasn't really thinking in terms of marriage.
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I wrangled an invitation to the prayer meeting and I also played guitar.
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And so I got a ride and got out there and I was waiting and he was a little bit late.
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And we were sitting downstairs in the basement room at the retreat house and we were waiting for him to show up so we could start practice.
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And then we hear his steps, you know, like that where somebody's running down the stairs and that's the second flight.
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And then we hear a thump because he had just jumped over the ledge instead of finishing the stairs.
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And then he shows up right in the middle of the doorway.
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And later I said, what were you thinking when you saw me?
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And he said, oh, my gosh, there she is, my angel.
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And I'm just not going to tell you what I thought, because mine was not nearly as as chased as that.
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He was five foot, about five foot, four and a half, five foot five.
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He could lift 300 pounds of an engine just doing, you know, a hand press thing.
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And it's interesting because it wasn't just our experience.
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One of the people that were in the room came up to him afterwards and said,
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have you ever had an experience where you see somebody and the world seems to fade away and all you can see is them?
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And my husband said, oh, no, I've never had that kind of experience because he didn't want to admit the truth.
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It was really the Lord who made clear that he wanted us together.
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I think I told you the story that he was a very shy man.
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And so playing at the meeting was stressful for him.
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When he would play, he'd get severe headaches and he had a tendency to get migraine headaches.
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And so at the end of the meeting, someone said, how about someone, another single man was there with a date and said to Bob and I, how about we go and get something to eat?
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And Bob said, no, I don't, I'm not going to be able to go.
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You're serving the Lord and you get migraine headaches?
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So I called everybody around and said, come on, guys, we got to pray.
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And so we put our hands on him like charismatics do to pray for him.
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And as soon as my hands touched him, I had a vision.
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It was a diamond, but it was all crusted over with dirt and barnacles.
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And you couldn't really see and it couldn't shine its light.
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And what I found amazing was the love that was coming from Christ for this thing.
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It struck me like a little five-year-old that has a treasure that he's never shown anyone.
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And he has it under his bed and he's finally found a friend and he's going to share it with
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And he takes it out, you know, and he holds it up and he's holding it so tenderly.
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That's exactly how I felt about the Lord with this.
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And the Lord looked at me and he said, if I give this to you, will you treasure it like
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And I said, I don't know, Lord, in as much as you give me love, then I suppose I can.
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And he said, and if I give this to you, when your life ends, will you give it back to me
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cleaned up and sharpened and it's light shining?
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And I said, I don't know, but if you give me the grace, then I will do the best that I
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And with this motion of just love and tenderness, he puts it in my hands.
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Now, a normal person might think, oh, I'm going to end up marrying this guy.
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I mean, marriage, after all, it was kind of out of the question.
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I just thought, okay, we're going to be friends for the rest of our life.
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For whatever reason, now this person's going to be important that I watch over him.
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So I started praying for him and just thought, you know, but as it would have it, he did eventually
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call me up and sort of, in the way that shy guys ask you out, he sort of asked me out.
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Believe it or not, our very first date was to go to Archbishop Sheen's last public talk,
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And he was responsible for the amplifier equipment, all the sound equipment.
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And he was responsible for picking it all up after the talk and taking it back to the
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And so he wanted to know if I wanted to come with him and he was, you know, he had to wait
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And I wasn't sure because I'd been accepted to the missionaries of charity and was trying
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to get my debt paid off and wasn't really sure I should go out.
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And he said, well, I mean, you know, we're just going to go maybe get something to eat
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And I said, all right, I'll tell you what I'll do.
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Let's take the first hour and we'll go to the perpetual, the chapel of perpetual adoration
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I said, let's spend an hour in prayer and let me discern whether or not being with you
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And if the Lord tells me, yes, then I'll, I'll go with you.
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But if he doesn't, then I want you to bring me right back home.
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So we went to the chapel and we spent an hour in prayer and I had no sooner knelt down and
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said, Lord, he said, my daughter, um, I, I do not want you to, to discourage a relationship
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with this man for, I will be using this man to bring to fulfillment my plans for your life.
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And I kind of had a vision of him and he said, oh, by the way, and he went over and he turned
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Now that was very significant because three years earlier when I was struggling with my
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past and I'd first come to the Lord, I said, Lord, look, you're going to have to do something
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about these passions in me because at this point, my self-esteem is so low.
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I let any man that comes along, take advantage of me and I can't handle it anymore.
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You, if you don't do something about it, I'll lose you again.
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As far as I'm concerned, I can't afford to lose you.
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And he walked over to the wall and he, he said, see this, this is the switch to your
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And I never had any interest in any man after that.
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Guys could try all the tricks and it was like, ew, get away from me.
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It was wonderful because I was free to just love the Lord and pray and whatnot.
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So when he walked over and turned on the switch, my heart went, oh, you know, where's
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So anyway, and then time passed and, you know, we did get married on the 4th of July of 1974.
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And it was so cute because the day before, or actually it was just hours, we were living
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in Spokane and we were going to have to drive to Seattle to get married because that's
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So getting married, I called the priest and this was the time of innovation.
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I said, look, I didn't send out any invitations.
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Um, I used to go to Davey mass there and I said, so the nine o'clock mass that I always
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And then when it's time to pronounce our vows, you call us up, we'll pronounce our vows, go
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And he said, not even the priest said, I said, okay, fine.
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I'll arrange it any way you want, but we're getting married the 4th of July.
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The only weekend we have all summer about three or four hours before we're going to leave
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My husband calls me future husband and he goes, honey, honey.
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He said, I went to the doctor today and they said, they're going to have to do an operation
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I'm going to have to have my independence removed instead of appendix.
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He said, my independence, of course I held with laughter.
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It's one of the things he's really funny and witty.
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It's one of the things that's kept me loving him all these years, but anyway, so then we got
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And then our relationship, it was just hard from the beginning.
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And his idea of a good husband was someone that had his wife under complete control.
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I asked him one, what's your picture of a perfect woman?
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And he described basically a Korean, you know, geisha, you know, whatever.
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And I looked at him and I said, why did you ever marry me?
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You're looking for someone that's going to be obese and obey you and, and just, oh, you're
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I mean, I was wild and my whole life I'd survived by saying, I don't have to be the person you
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I mean, I had to fight just for my self-identity.
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And here's this guy that thinks he's going to control me.
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So you can imagine the first few years were pretty wild.
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And, and, uh, I think I told you this story that to give you an illustration of how much
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we were not matched in our basic character, there are three things.
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One, Bishop Topol, uh, was the Bishop of Spokane and he and Bob were pretty close and Bishop
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Topol told him, he said, and it was after we were married and Bob was working in the
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shop, in a shop, he was a mechanic and Bishop Topol came down to speak to him and Bob was
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And then Bob fell apart, just fell into his arms, crying and weeping.
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And Bishop Topol said, yes, marriage is very hard, isn't it?
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You know, you have to let go of who you are in order to be able to become who God wants
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Marriage is about death to self so that the saints that Christ wants to make you can rise
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And then he said, I will tell you that if ever there was a marriage that I didn't think had
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And so I am devoting all of my suffering for the rest of my life to the success of your marriage.
00:17:41.520
Pope Pius XI said, men must look for the peace of Christ in the kingdom of Christ.
00:17:48.820
And he urged that the faithful give public honor to Christ the King so that individuals and states
00:17:53.780
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00:17:56.940
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00:18:06.380
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00:18:16.740
Her name was Sister Patricia, I think was her name, but I'm not sure.
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Anyway, she was a nun that worked at the hospital there.
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And she, one day I was talking to her and she said, honey, I want to give, and I was expressing
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a little bit about how hard life it had been, you know, with him and this whole thing of
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And, uh, and I didn't feel loved by him at all, really at all.
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And she said, first of all, don't listen to his words because he ain't going to say any.
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You'll never hear him say kind words or nice words because he's not that kind.
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And if you want to be able to know that you're loved, you look there to what he does.
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And he said, but other, other thing I want to tell you is of all the marriages I've known,
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as far as I'm concerned, yours has no hope of succeeding.
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So every step I take is like a knife going through my foot.
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And I've offered all of the pain for the rest of my life for the success of this marriage.
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I mean, that is really, first of all, it's a testimony to the fact that everybody saw how
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ill, you know, what is the word, you know, ill matched.
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But it was so clear that this was the match the Lord wanted.
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The other thing is, is that for our own personal experience, I don't know how far, first of
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all, we didn't take a very long honeymoon because we knew we'd be arguing before too long anyway.
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And we were, by the time we came home and we'd been gone maybe three, four, five days, I don't
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know how long we weren't talking to each other and, you know, we got mad and, uh, you know,
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And so it was about, I don't know, a month, two months into our marriage.
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Normally when we prayed together, we started fighting.
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He'd take rejection to something I prayed or I, and then we'd get into an argument.
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Oh, we couldn't even pray the rosary together when we first got married.
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So he said, come on, just kneel down and hold hands.
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And he said, dear Lord, while we're sleeping tonight, please take one of us because the other
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Of course he didn't, but it was interesting because the prayer did not go unanswered.
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Instead, when we woke up, we both immediately saw what the problem was.
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We both immediately saw how to resolve the issue that had caused this prayer in the first
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And so our life has unfolded where God has just, you know, we go along and we just feel
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And then the Lord intervenes usually with me because it was usually me.
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That was the one that felt that I couldn't handle it anymore.
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And while Bob was a fabulous father, he had no clue what being a husband meant or how to
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And he felt that if he gave in to me in any way, that was weak.
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So if he gave me a compliment, that was just being weak.
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If he told me, well done, or if he conceded that I'd made some kind of a point.
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God's really worked miracles with him, but that's how it was at the beginning.
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And one of the first, well, I can't really say it's the first thing, because I remember
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when I had two kids, I know I was driving home from a meeting I'd been to, kind of a prayer
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meeting, but it was a Protestant prayer meeting.
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What's so bad about me that I have to change and change and change for my husband's sake
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Isn't there in all this world, all the people that are out there, there wasn't one man that
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might've loved me as I was, that could just love me for who I was.
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I mean, really, this is the best that you were able to find out there.
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And the Lord left and he said, yeah, there are men out there that would have loved you
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They would have given you the adoration that you'd love to have, but that wasn't the father's
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The father's plan is that you're married to the man that you're married to.
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And if you're going to stay married to him, you're going to have to do all the changing
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But that doesn't mean there's something wrong with you.
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It means that this is what your marriage requires.
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And if you're going to stay and make this marriage work, you're going to have to be
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But the father gave you an abundant ability to change.
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And I said, and Lord, he goes, well, if you don't like it, then tell me so.
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And I said, well, I don't want to leave this marriage because then I know I won't have your
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blessing and I don't want to live without your blessing.
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He said, if you decide, you tell him you'd make a decision right now.
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If you decide you don't want to do it, I'll bless you, whatever you choose.
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But you will know that this is not the plan the father wanted for your life.
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You'll be choosing a plan that was not ordained by him.
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And I said, well, of course, of course, of course, I'm going to choose this plan because
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I'm not going to go against the will of the father.
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He said, fine, then just resign yourself to the fact that the majority of change is going
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I had a two-year-old and a one-year-old in the car and I was pregnant again.
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And it was very important because it settled my spirit down.
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It's like God, Christ had kind of outlined, OK, here's the parameters.
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I did have a capacity to change that my husband didn't have.
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But the one the story I told you about was when it was about at this point, I had my oldest
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And I had just had a newborn and I was sitting at the kitchen table one day.
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My human love, my love for Bob, I felt was just gone, gone.
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Nothing I did mattered because I never got compliments.
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And actually, you know, I had really loved my husband.
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But now it was like he had done everything he could to destroy it.
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You know, one time early on in our marriage, he said, I know you're going to leave me sometime.
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Nobody is really going to be able to love me and stay with me.
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I think there's a lot that's worth loving and I'm not going to leave you.
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And when we get angry, he pushed me and say, I know you're going to leave me.
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You know, he didn't ever hit me or anything because I warned him if he ever hit me, you
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I told him at the beginning, I said, there are two things you cannot do if you ever want
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Don't ever punch me and don't ever be unfaithful.
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You ever you ever mess around, honey, it's over.
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I'm walking out the door and I'll probably if we have a bunch of kids, leave them all with
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I didn't need to worry because that wasn't something that he'd be inclined to do.
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He never hit me, but he would push me and he'd get angry, you know, he'd be frustrated.
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I don't know what was in your past, but whatever it is, I'm not leaving.
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But at this point, when I was sitting at the kitchen table, I was exhausted and I just
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felt I didn't have anything left and I just wanted out and I wanted it to end.
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And I was at the end of my rope and I said, Lord, I'm all done.
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And he said, I'm glad I've been waiting for this day.
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I mean, and he said, human love is never enough to sustain a long-term relationship.
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You can't live out marriage with just human love.
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And so you will never be able to love in the way that's needed to be able to make the marriage last.
00:28:02.700
He said, so I've been waiting for you to say this so that I could, I could move in.
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How about I take a flame of divine love, the love I have for Bob, for your husband,
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Now the love that will burn in your heart will be my love.
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And everything you do will be my love acting for your husband.
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And then in my mind, you know, I saw Christ reach over and he put in my heart, my chest,
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You know, kind of one of those flames you see on those church candles, those little church
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candles, you know, church, they're just barely, that's what it was.
00:29:01.640
But as soon as he inserted it, there was a difference.
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And it grew into a very settled, hot, you know, fire of love for my husband.
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And I'm not going to say passion in the human sense, but passion in the divine sense.
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So I was thinking, I've been, I've had a chance to think more about your question.
00:29:33.080
I don't know that I felt necessarily anything really hot immediately, but there was a change.
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But one of the things I did notice is I realized that from that moment, anywhere Bob was, I wanted
00:30:04.880
If he was worried about something, I wanted to share it with him.
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It was like, now, instead of loving him for what he could do for me, or loving him because
00:30:15.360
it was nice to be able to love somebody, now it was all about him.
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Now, I wanted to be able to love him as a companion, as, you know, for his sake.
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Now, he, I knew from that moment, I knew no matter where he was in the world, I would want
00:30:38.440
And that was really important because, again, like the other one, where I get the parameters
00:30:44.060
of change, or that I'm going to have to do the changing, it was a recognition that, okay,
00:30:49.580
this is for the rest of his life, because now my passion was to see to his good.
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And there wasn't really what was in it for myself.
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And it sustained me a lot through a whole lot, because we had a lot more hardships yet
00:31:12.520
And it was, and I meditated a lot on what Christ said, that marriage is a state.
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You know, Fulton Sheen has a book that he wrote that said, Three to be Married.
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And he says in there, you have to have Christ in your marriage.
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Marriage is a commitment that natural, on the natural level, we wouldn't be able to do.
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He wants to be able to love my husband through me.
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And I'm certain that he gave, because I asked him to, to give my husband the same thing.
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And maybe my husband had to come to a point where he asked for himself.
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It's interesting that in spite of all the turmoil and the fighting and the disagreements
00:32:10.500
that we had, although we never fought over the children.
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And a rule that we made early on is because we both hated this.
00:32:19.380
We hated it when spouses be mad at each other and then they take it out on their kids.
0.94
00:32:26.880
So we said, look, we're going to keep our anger between ourselves.
00:32:34.520
But we're going to continue to be loving and gentle to our kids.
00:32:41.000
For the most part, we tried to keep our arguments behind closed doors, which we did.
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We lived in such poor housing, you could hear everything anyway.
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But we also made sure that, you know, the kids, we'd say, this isn't your fault.
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Daddy and I are just having a disagreement, you know.
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And we also agreed with our disciplining that we would support one another so that we wouldn't
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So I'd say the kids would come in and go, mommy, daddy said, and I'd go, well, if your dad
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And he'd do the same for me, you know, and we subscribe to the thing, okay, if you have
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But that doesn't mean we're going to let you off.
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So then all the arguments about other things, those things we were very, very much united
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And I'm sure it's part of what held our marriage together as well as our love for the Lord.
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00:34:25.260
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