13 children including 2 Latin Mass priests - How did this Mom do it？
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
181.8677
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
00:00:00.000
Human love is never enough to sustain a long-term relationship.
00:00:05.080
You can't live out marriage with just human love.
00:00:24.400
I was at this conference in Denver or near Denver, Colorado,
00:00:28.180
and it was a traditional Catholic women's conference.
00:00:33.280
At the conference, there was an emcee, really lively guy.
00:00:37.780
His name was Father Dan Nolan, and one of the speakers was actually his mother.
00:00:42.460
And I had the great grace to sit in the back room and talk with his mother for a long time
00:00:53.520
Now, this woman has 13 children, two of whom are priests in the Fraternity of St. Peter,
00:01:02.940
And of course, like every dad or mom, I went up and said to her,
00:01:08.120
so about the how did you get the two priests, let alone the 13 children?
00:01:11.800
I've only got eight, but it's one of those questions you have to ask.
00:01:18.800
because you are going to have your socks blown right off your feet.
00:01:22.340
Stay tuned for this episode of the John Hedder Western Show.
00:01:26.080
This October 17th and 18th, we are going to be running Rome Life Forum in Exile.
00:01:35.080
This fine bishop, Bishop Joseph Strickland, sort of in exile,
00:01:37.960
is going to be joining us there, as well as Dr. Janet Smith,
00:01:41.560
as well as prophecy expert Xavier Aral, and many more, including a special guest.
00:02:00.560
So let's begin as you always do, with the sign of the cross.
00:02:02.700
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.
00:02:08.820
Trisha, first of all, if you could start, tell us a little bit about your background.
00:02:12.380
I mean, it was such a fascinating talk, and talking with you behind the scenes was also fascinating.
00:02:17.340
Tell us a little bit about yourself, so people get to know who you are.
00:02:28.140
It was considered a neighborhood, although we weren't necessarily poor.
00:02:32.500
But like when I was growing up, there were 72 children on our block under the age of 12.
00:02:38.120
We lived about a block and a half or two blocks from the church, so I could walk.
00:02:42.480
Being Catholic, there was a lot of Catholicism that surrounded it.
00:02:48.880
He was very, very loving, but he had a bit of an anger issue.
00:02:53.340
And I had an older sister and three older brothers.
00:02:59.440
It was because as an infant, I'd spent about my first nine months in the hospital.
00:03:11.620
And children that have abandonment issues, they're difficult to raise.
00:03:17.640
And if not properly approached, you know, can be pretty hard.
00:03:27.180
I mean, I had a sibling once when I came home from camp said, you know, what are you doing here?
00:03:32.760
And I said, well, I just got home from two weeks of camp.
00:03:35.560
And he said, yeah, well, why don't you just go back?
00:03:38.400
And even my dad, you know, one time I confronted him and he said, well, you know,
00:03:44.000
there's a reason why everybody in the family hates you.
00:03:47.680
I grew up with a feeling that, I mean, basically, I accepted the message my brothers told me.
00:03:55.260
You have a lousy personality and nobody's ever going to marry you.
00:04:00.780
So I grew up thinking that marriage was out of the question.
00:04:05.800
The truth of the matter is, I was very beautiful.
00:04:10.640
And there were probably tons of guys that would have been happy to marry me.
00:04:17.300
But the day came when the Lord introduced me to my husband and we met at a prayer meeting.
00:04:24.700
Actually, actually, it was at a rehearsal for a prayer meeting.
00:04:27.960
My older sister was also involved in the charismatic renewal.
00:04:33.240
And one day when I was up in Spokane, I asked her, why wasn't she at the prayer meeting I was going to?
00:04:38.660
And she said, well, there's another one that I attend.
00:04:40.780
And then she said, yeah, you know, you might want to come.
00:04:45.220
As soon as she said that, it was like every fiber of my body was alert.
00:04:54.460
In a voice that I was having to control so that it didn't sound breathless, I said, oh, really?
00:05:05.720
And it was like guitar string broke in my heart.
00:05:11.240
I knew that he was going to become important in my life.
00:05:15.620
And I pictured him as this great, big, tall, six foot three bearded Santa Claus type because she said he's an older gentleman.
00:05:24.160
So I wasn't really thinking in terms of marriage.
00:05:27.400
I wrangled an invitation to the prayer meeting and I also played guitar.
00:05:32.380
And so I got a ride and got out there and I was waiting and he was a little bit late.
00:05:37.240
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.
00:05:43.500
And then we hear his steps, you know, like that where somebody's running down the stairs and that's the second flight.
00:05:50.880
And then we hear a thump because he had just jumped over the ledge instead of finishing the stairs.
00:05:56.120
And then he shows up right in the middle of the doorway.
00:06:14.500
And later I said, what were you thinking when you saw me?
00:06:19.460
And he said, oh, my gosh, there she is, my angel.
00:06:24.780
And I'm just not going to tell you what I thought, because mine was not nearly as as chased as that.
00:06:38.100
He was five foot, about five foot, four and a half, five foot five.
00:06:48.400
He could lift 300 pounds of an engine just doing, you know, a hand press thing.
00:06:56.880
And it's interesting because it wasn't just our experience.
00:07:00.100
One of the people that were in the room came up to him afterwards and said,
00:07:03.060
have you ever had an experience where you see somebody and the world seems to fade away and all you can see is them?
00:07:12.460
And my husband said, oh, no, I've never had that kind of experience because he didn't want to admit the truth.
00:07:21.020
It was really the Lord who made clear that he wanted us together.
00:07:25.880
I think I told you the story that he was a very shy man.
00:07:32.520
And so playing at the meeting was stressful for him.
00:07:35.680
When he would play, he'd get severe headaches and he had a tendency to get migraine headaches.
00:07:39.700
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?
00:07:50.080
And Bob said, no, I don't, I'm not going to be able to go.
00:08:03.460
You're serving the Lord and you get migraine headaches?
00:08:07.520
So I called everybody around and said, come on, guys, we got to pray.
00:08:10.520
And so we put our hands on him like charismatics do to pray for him.
00:08:13.940
And as soon as my hands touched him, I had a vision.
00:08:28.560
It was a diamond, but it was all crusted over with dirt and barnacles.
00:08:32.460
And you couldn't really see and it couldn't shine its light.
00:08:35.640
And what I found amazing was the love that was coming from Christ for this thing.
00:08:43.620
It struck me like a little five-year-old that has a treasure that he's never shown anyone.
00:08:49.680
And he has it under his bed and he's finally found a friend and he's going to share it with
00:08:55.480
And he takes it out, you know, and he holds it up and he's holding it so tenderly.
00:08:59.460
That's exactly how I felt about the Lord with this.
00:09:07.240
And the Lord looked at me and he said, if I give this to you, will you treasure it like
00:09:14.160
And I said, I don't know, Lord, in as much as you give me love, then I suppose I can.
00:09:20.380
And he said, and if I give this to you, when your life ends, will you give it back to me
00:09:25.560
cleaned up and sharpened and it's light shining?
00:09:30.120
And I said, I don't know, but if you give me the grace, then I will do the best that I
00:09:40.280
And with this motion of just love and tenderness, he puts it in my hands.
00:09:53.760
Now, a normal person might think, oh, I'm going to end up marrying this guy.
00:09:58.760
I mean, marriage, after all, it was kind of out of the question.
00:10:01.660
I just thought, okay, we're going to be friends for the rest of our life.
00:10:05.560
For whatever reason, now this person's going to be important that I watch over him.
00:10:09.780
So I started praying for him and just thought, you know, but as it would have it, he did eventually
00:10:16.560
call me up and sort of, in the way that shy guys ask you out, he sort of asked me out.
00:10:24.460
Believe it or not, our very first date was to go to Archbishop Sheen's last public talk,
00:10:33.840
And he was responsible for the amplifier equipment, all the sound equipment.
00:10:41.700
And he was responsible for picking it all up after the talk and taking it back to the
00:10:47.440
And so he wanted to know if I wanted to come with him and he was, you know, he had to wait
00:10:55.020
And I wasn't sure because I'd been accepted to the missionaries of charity and was trying
00:10:59.860
to get my debt paid off and wasn't really sure I should go out.
00:11:02.800
And he said, well, I mean, you know, we're just going to go maybe get something to eat
00:11:09.620
And I said, all right, I'll tell you what I'll do.
00:11:11.480
Let's take the first hour and we'll go to the perpetual, the chapel of perpetual adoration
00:11:19.480
I said, let's spend an hour in prayer and let me discern whether or not being with you
00:11:27.680
And if the Lord tells me, yes, then I'll, I'll go with you.
00:11:31.320
But if he doesn't, then I want you to bring me right back home.
00:11:36.440
So we went to the chapel and we spent an hour in prayer and I had no sooner knelt down and
00:11:42.500
said, Lord, he said, my daughter, um, I, I do not want you to, to discourage a relationship
00:11:50.580
with this man for, I will be using this man to bring to fulfillment my plans for your life.
00:11:58.460
And I kind of had a vision of him and he said, oh, by the way, and he went over and he turned
00:12:05.800
Now that was very significant because three years earlier when I was struggling with my
00:12:13.960
past and I'd first come to the Lord, I said, Lord, look, you're going to have to do something
00:12:19.520
about these passions in me because at this point, my self-esteem is so low.
00:12:26.000
I let any man that comes along, take advantage of me and I can't handle it anymore.
00:12:30.460
You, if you don't do something about it, I'll lose you again.
00:12:35.760
As far as I'm concerned, I can't afford to lose you.
00:12:41.560
And he walked over to the wall and he, he said, see this, this is the switch to your
00:12:50.360
And I never had any interest in any man after that.
00:12:54.020
Guys could try all the tricks and it was like, ew, get away from me.
00:13:05.020
It was wonderful because I was free to just love the Lord and pray and whatnot.
00:13:09.660
So when he walked over and turned on the switch, my heart went, oh, you know, where's
00:13:17.720
So anyway, and then time passed and, you know, we did get married on the 4th of July of 1974.
00:13:27.900
And it was so cute because the day before, or actually it was just hours, we were living
00:13:34.400
in Spokane and we were going to have to drive to Seattle to get married because that's
00:13:44.860
So getting married, I called the priest and this was the time of innovation.
00:13:49.400
I said, look, I didn't send out any invitations.
00:13:55.320
Um, I used to go to Davey mass there and I said, so the nine o'clock mass that I always
00:14:05.040
And then when it's time to pronounce our vows, you call us up, we'll pronounce our vows, go
00:14:09.820
And he said, not even the priest said, I said, okay, fine.
00:14:15.440
I'll arrange it any way you want, but we're getting married the 4th of July.
00:14:21.520
The only weekend we have all summer about three or four hours before we're going to leave
00:14:26.560
My husband calls me future husband and he goes, honey, honey.
00:14:34.200
He said, I went to the doctor today and they said, they're going to have to do an operation
00:14:46.960
I'm going to have to have my independence removed instead of appendix.
00:14:53.500
He said, my independence, of course I held with laughter.
00:14:57.020
It's one of the things he's really funny and witty.
00:14:59.240
It's one of the things that's kept me loving him all these years, but anyway, so then we got
00:15:05.200
And then our relationship, it was just hard from the beginning.
00:15:09.820
And his idea of a good husband was someone that had his wife under complete control.
00:15:20.440
I asked him one, what's your picture of a perfect woman?
00:15:24.640
And he described basically a Korean, you know, geisha, you know, whatever.
00:15:31.140
And I looked at him and I said, why did you ever marry me?
00:15:40.920
You're looking for someone that's going to be obese and obey you and, and just, oh, you're
00:15:53.600
I mean, I was wild and my whole life I'd survived by saying, I don't have to be the person you
00:16:08.360
I mean, I had to fight just for my self-identity.
00:16:11.900
And here's this guy that thinks he's going to control me.
00:16:16.660
So you can imagine the first few years were pretty wild.
00:16:21.860
And, and, uh, I think I told you this story that to give you an illustration of how much
00:16:27.980
we were not matched in our basic character, there are three things.
00:16:35.320
One, Bishop Topol, uh, was the Bishop of Spokane and he and Bob were pretty close and Bishop
00:16:42.500
Topol told him, he said, and it was after we were married and Bob was working in the
00:16:48.080
shop, in a shop, he was a mechanic and Bishop Topol came down to speak to him and Bob was
00:16:53.600
And then Bob fell apart, just fell into his arms, crying and weeping.
00:16:57.180
And Bishop Topol said, yes, marriage is very hard, isn't it?
00:17:01.240
You know, you have to let go of who you are in order to be able to become who God wants
00:17:11.520
Marriage is about death to self so that the saints that Christ wants to make you can rise
00:17:21.600
And then he said, I will tell you that if ever there was a marriage that I didn't think had
00:17:32.860
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
would submit once more to the rule of their savior.
00:17:56.940
And that is why LifeSite News is raising up the image of Christ the King across the United States.
00:18:06.380
Please pledge your support today for these billboards at lifefunder.com slash Christ is King.
00:18:16.740
Her name was Sister Patricia, I think was her name, but I'm not sure.
00:18:20.660
Anyway, she was a nun that worked at the hospital there.
00:18:24.780
And she, one day I was talking to her and she said, honey, I want to give, and I was expressing
00:18:30.540
a little bit about how hard life it had been, you know, with him and this whole thing of
00:18:37.620
And, uh, and I didn't feel loved by him at all, really at all.
00:18:45.100
And she said, first of all, don't listen to his words because he ain't going to say any.
00:18:50.120
You'll never hear him say kind words or nice words because he's not that kind.
00:18:59.460
And if you want to be able to know that you're loved, you look there to what he does.
00:19:04.340
And he said, but other, other thing I want to tell you is of all the marriages I've known,
00:19:10.400
as far as I'm concerned, yours has no hope of succeeding.
00:19:14.460
So every step I take is like a knife going through my foot.
00:19:22.000
And I've offered all of the pain for the rest of my life for the success of this marriage.
00:19:29.980
I mean, that is really, first of all, it's a testimony to the fact that everybody saw how
00:19:34.480
ill, you know, what is the word, you know, ill matched.
00:19:39.560
But it was so clear that this was the match the Lord wanted.
00:19:44.220
The other thing is, is that for our own personal experience, I don't know how far, first of
00:19:48.180
all, we didn't take a very long honeymoon because we knew we'd be arguing before too long anyway.
00:19:53.180
And we were, by the time we came home and we'd been gone maybe three, four, five days, I don't
00:19:58.400
know how long we weren't talking to each other and, you know, we got mad and, uh, you know,
00:20:06.440
And so it was about, I don't know, a month, two months into our marriage.
00:20:17.600
Normally when we prayed together, we started fighting.
00:20:20.780
He'd take rejection to something I prayed or I, and then we'd get into an argument.
00:20:25.240
Oh, we couldn't even pray the rosary together when we first got married.
00:20:37.140
So he said, come on, just kneel down and hold hands.
00:20:40.700
And he said, dear Lord, while we're sleeping tonight, please take one of us because the other
00:20:52.780
Of course he didn't, but it was interesting because the prayer did not go unanswered.
00:20:58.300
Instead, when we woke up, we both immediately saw what the problem was.
00:21:03.120
We both immediately saw how to resolve the issue that had caused this prayer in the first
00:21:10.560
And so our life has unfolded where God has just, you know, we go along and we just feel
00:21:19.600
And then the Lord intervenes usually with me because it was usually me.
00:21:24.420
That was the one that felt that I couldn't handle it anymore.
00:21:29.840
And while Bob was a fabulous father, he had no clue what being a husband meant or how to
00:21:42.040
And he felt that if he gave in to me in any way, that was weak.
00:21:49.100
So if he gave me a compliment, that was just being weak.
00:21:52.500
If he told me, well done, or if he conceded that I'd made some kind of a point.
00:22:00.140
God's really worked miracles with him, but that's how it was at the beginning.
00:22:06.500
And one of the first, well, I can't really say it's the first thing, because I remember
00:22:11.140
when I had two kids, I know I was driving home from a meeting I'd been to, kind of a prayer
00:22:16.160
meeting, but it was a Protestant prayer meeting.
00:22:20.960
What's so bad about me that I have to change and change and change for my husband's sake
00:22:29.700
Isn't there in all this world, all the people that are out there, there wasn't one man that
00:22:37.220
might've loved me as I was, that could just love me for who I was.
00:22:42.540
I mean, really, this is the best that you were able to find out there.
00:22:47.640
And the Lord left and he said, yeah, there are men out there that would have loved you
00:22:55.660
They would have given you the adoration that you'd love to have, but that wasn't the father's
00:23:01.820
The father's plan is that you're married to the man that you're married to.
00:23:05.160
And if you're going to stay married to him, you're going to have to do all the changing
00:23:11.200
But that doesn't mean there's something wrong with you.
00:23:13.520
It means that this is what your marriage requires.
00:23:22.080
And if you're going to stay and make this marriage work, you're going to have to be
00:23:27.540
But the father gave you an abundant ability to change.
00:23:31.740
And I said, and Lord, he goes, well, if you don't like it, then tell me so.
00:23:37.440
And I said, well, I don't want to leave this marriage because then I know I won't have your
00:23:41.080
blessing and I don't want to live without your blessing.
00:23:42.860
He said, if you decide, you tell him you'd make a decision right now.
00:23:47.080
If you decide you don't want to do it, I'll bless you, whatever you choose.
00:23:51.200
But you will know that this is not the plan the father wanted for your life.
00:23:56.060
You'll be choosing a plan that was not ordained by him.
00:24:01.300
And I said, well, of course, of course, of course, I'm going to choose this plan because
00:24:04.560
I'm not going to go against the will of the father.
00:24:06.700
He said, fine, then just resign yourself to the fact that the majority of change is going
00:24:15.520
I had a two-year-old and a one-year-old in the car and I was pregnant again.
00:24:18.680
And it was very important because it settled my spirit down.
00:24:22.320
It's like God, Christ had kind of outlined, OK, here's the parameters.
00:24:31.840
I did have a capacity to change that my husband didn't have.
00:24:38.100
But the one the story I told you about was when it was about at this point, I had my oldest
00:24:48.260
And I had just had a newborn and I was sitting at the kitchen table one day.
00:24:53.540
My human love, my love for Bob, I felt was just gone, gone.
00:25:02.720
Nothing I did mattered because I never got compliments.
00:25:15.780
And actually, you know, I had really loved my husband.
00:25:19.020
But now it was like he had done everything he could to destroy it.
00:25:24.020
You know, one time early on in our marriage, he said, I know you're going to leave me sometime.
00:25:31.060
Nobody is really going to be able to love me and stay with me.
00:25:43.980
I think there's a lot that's worth loving and I'm not going to leave you.
00:25:48.040
And when we get angry, he pushed me and say, I know you're going to leave me.
00:25:54.420
You know, he didn't ever hit me or anything because I warned him if he ever hit me, you
00:26:01.900
I told him at the beginning, I said, there are two things you cannot do if you ever want
00:26:07.220
Don't ever punch me and don't ever be unfaithful.
00:26:11.060
You ever you ever mess around, honey, it's over.
00:26:14.620
I'm walking out the door and I'll probably if we have a bunch of kids, leave them all with
00:26:22.640
I didn't need to worry because that wasn't something that he'd be inclined to do.
00:26:26.080
He never hit me, but he would push me and he'd get angry, you know, he'd be frustrated.
00:26:36.080
I don't know what was in your past, but whatever it is, I'm not leaving.
00:26:40.500
But at this point, when I was sitting at the kitchen table, I was exhausted and I just
00:26:45.140
felt I didn't have anything left and I just wanted out and I wanted it to end.
00:26:50.640
And I was at the end of my rope and I said, Lord, I'm all done.
00:27:22.960
And he said, I'm glad I've been waiting for this day.
00:27:31.040
I mean, and he said, human love is never enough to sustain a long-term relationship.
00:27:39.400
You can't live out marriage with just human love.
00:27:53.820
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.
00:28:13.140
How about I take a flame of divine love, the love I have for Bob, for your husband,
00:28:28.360
Now the love that will burn in your heart will be my love.
00:28:31.440
And everything you do will be my love acting for your husband.
00:28:43.340
And then in my mind, you know, I saw Christ reach over and he put in my heart, my chest,
00:28:53.780
You know, kind of one of those flames you see on those church candles, those little church
00:28:57.580
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.
00:29:07.780
And it grew into a very settled, hot, you know, fire of love for my husband.
00:29:18.240
And I'm not going to say passion in the human sense, but passion in the divine sense.
00:29:23.620
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.
00:29:45.820
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.
00:30:08.440
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.
00:30:20.240
Now, I wanted to be able to love him as a companion, as, you know, for his sake.
00:30:30.980
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.
00:30:55.560
And there wasn't really what was in it for myself.
00:31:03.860
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.
00:31:17.960
You know, Fulton Sheen has a book that he wrote that said, Three to be Married.
00:31:21.680
And he says in there, you have to have Christ in your marriage.
00:31:26.200
Marriage is a commitment that natural, on the natural level, we wouldn't be able to do.
00:31:42.940
He wants to be able to love my husband through me.
00:31:47.200
And I'm certain that he gave, because I asked him to, to give my husband the same thing.
00:31:57.880
And maybe my husband had to come to a point where he asked for himself.
00:32:04.760
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.
00:32:14.420
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.
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.
00:32:47.580
We lived in such poor housing, you could hear everything anyway.
00:32:52.380
But we also made sure that, you know, the kids, we'd say, this isn't your fault.
00:33:01.420
Daddy and I are just having a disagreement, you know.
00:33:03.480
And we also agreed with our disciplining that we would support one another so that we wouldn't
00:33:12.420
So I'd say the kids would come in and go, mommy, daddy said, and I'd go, well, if your dad
00:33:27.700
And he'd do the same for me, you know, and we subscribe to the thing, okay, if you have
00:33:36.900
But that doesn't mean we're going to let you off.
00:33:43.600
So then all the arguments about other things, those things we were very, very much united
00:33:49.720
And I'm sure it's part of what held our marriage together as well as our love for the Lord.
00:33:58.020
I'm pleased to announce the launch of the new LSN TV app, which can bring all LifeSite
00:34:03.920
News' top video content direct to your phone, tablet, computer, and TV so that you can bypass
00:34:09.660
the sensors and keep fighting with us for life, faith, family, and freedom.
00:34:25.260
Know what whether it be outdoors or if it might be for you.