Immaculée Ilibagiza： How Meditating On Our Lady's Sorrow Heals My Sorrows
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Summary
The Seven Souls Rosary is a devotion to Our Lady of Sorrows and her seven sorrows. This devotion has been around for a very long time, but has not been widely known. In this episode of the John Henry Wesson Show with none other than Immacule Iribigeza, author of the book "Blessing in disguise" shares the story of how this devotion came about.
Transcript
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Ave Maria Mutual Funds, seeking the moral high ground for 20 years.
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Pro-life, pro-family, and Catholic values have guided us to the top.
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And Our Lady, when she told Marie Claire, she said it always existed, but people have forgotten about it.
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And the way she spoke about it, she said, I want to give you a new gift to the people, all of us in the world,
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a new gift to reach the heart of God, for our healing, for many blessings will come to people through this devotion.
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Hey, my friends. September is actually the month of Our Lady of Soros.
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But most people don't know what Our Lady of Soros is, nor that there's a very special rosary associated with Our Lady of Soros,
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for which there's many, many promises. And here's a really neat thing.
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The resurgence of this devotion from the Middle Ages came about through Our Lady of Kibeho,
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an apparition in Rwanda, which predicted the Rwandan genocide.
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But the most famous person to come out of the Rwandan genocide, who has told her story
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and has gone absolutely viral throughout the whole wide world, is Immacule Iribigeza.
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And in fact, she now has taken it upon herself to promote this very devotion.
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Stay tuned to this episode of the John Henry Wesson Show with none other than Immacule herself.
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Let's begin, as 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. Amen.
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The very visionary who you were in touch with sort of, well, I mean, was killed in this horrific massacre that the whole wide world knows about.
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In a way, you've been handed on the mantle of promoting this devotion to Our Lady of Sorrows.
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You've got a recent book out called Blessing in Disguise.
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Tell us about where this came from in the first place.
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It is really a joy to be able to speak about the Seven Souls Rosary.
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And, yes, I know, I truly feel like one of those people.
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Our Lord and Our Lady want to spread the message, because I was given a chance to meet the visionary, to hear it first-hand from the visionary.
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Marie Clea, who was given this task to spread the message of the Seven Souls Rosary.
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Our Lady called all of us to be able to help her.
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She used to appear to her, and she would say, my children, help me, help me to teach the whole world.
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And I still remember, in the beginning, I was 11 years old.
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I mean, she lived 12 years more after that, after the beginning.
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And I never knew that I would get the chance, you know, to write books, to meet many people, to speak in front of thousands of people.
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And then when I did the first time, I said, hmm, maybe this is my chance to help our Lady.
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So it feels so good to be able to share this beautiful devotion of the Seven Souls Rosary to help our Lady gain her children.
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So the Seven Souls Rosary was given to Marie Cleia in Ikibeho since 1982, when she appeared to her for the first time.
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She was actually the head of the crew that was persecuting other visionaries before they, you know, they were accepted by others in school.
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So our Lady told her she wanted her to be the one to spread the Seven Souls Rosary.
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So it's really a rosary that has seven head of Mary's and have seven sorrows of our Lady.
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Many people knew about the Seven Sorrows, but not the Seven Sorrows Rosary.
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And our Lady, when she told Marie Cleia, she said it always existed, but people have forgotten about it.
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And the way she spoke about it, she said, I want to give you a new gift to the people, all of us in the world.
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A new gift to reach the heart of God, for our healing, for many blessings will come to people through this devotion.
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So she explained to her what it was because, of course, many people didn't know anything about that.
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And we would hear her tell our Lady, Oh, Mother, that is, why does it have seven hair Mary's?
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And she also told her, it does not replace the other rosary.
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It is a new gift she's giving us for new blessings.
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And how appropriate, because our country was going to go through a genocide against Tutsis and the suffering that Rwandans went through.
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Seven Sorrows Rosary was just a gift to us, especially for what we went through.
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But our Lady said, if I am here, it does not mean that my message only concerns Rwanda, not even just Africa.
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So what I'm teaching here, I want the whole world to know.
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So she, she came to keep her hope, but that was the place of God, as she said.
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It have seven hair, I mean, seven hair Mary's, as you can see, and have seven sorrows.
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And the best thing is that our Lady was speaking about it in the first person.
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So she would say, for example, the first sorrow, the prophecy of Simeon.
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So when she, you know, as you know, the custom that time, when a firstborn male was consecrated to God 40 days after they are born.
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So when Jesus was the firstborn and the only born of our Lady, as we believe in our church, she went to, they went to consecrate him.
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And Simeon turned to Mary and say, I will pierce your heart.
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So our Lady said, I want you to put yourself in my shoes.
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I want you to ask yourself, what would I feel if I was her?
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And she said, don't rush through these sorrows.
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When you pray through the seven sorrows, always put yourself in her shoes.
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And what I have realized is that whenever I have to, which I do every day, when I pray this rosary.
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And I put myself in the shoes of a lady, try to understand what she felt.
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I can't help but open my own heart to, to say, hmm, what did I feel?
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Would I understand what somebody would feel when you have bad news?
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Of course, everybody have gone through something.
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When you receive bad news, somebody who is sick or somebody you love who received bad news.
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So the second sorrow, as she spoke to our Lady.
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I mean, our Lady spoke to Mary Clea, was the flight into Egypt when Herod wanted to kill baby Jesus.
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The third, when Jesus was in a state in a temple for three days.
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But again, we are taking from the eyes of his mother, three days, a mother without seeing her child.
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She suffered, as she said, more than any mother can ever suffer.
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So again, the genius about this rosary in so many ways, supernaturally, of course, but also there is something really beautiful is that you open your heart.
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You think about her, what she felt, and then you start to think about what is going on in the world.
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I mean, I saw the movie The Sound of Freedom, what a beautiful movie.
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And to see that such a crime can be happening in our world.
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But anytime I send out the seven sorrows rosary, I reach especially this sorrow, I think about those kids.
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And I think about the criminals who do it too, to pray for them, that they may convert, you know, and not do such a thing.
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For the parents who are losing their children, because it just brings you to offer a lady anything around that kind of suffering.
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And the fourth sorrow, when Mary met Jesus on the way to the cross.
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And again, our lady wants us to take it from her perspective.
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Like the third sorrow, our Lord was in a temple.
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He was excited to speak about his father teaching and encouraging people, answering questions, and increasing people's faith.
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That's why again, it is through the perspective of Our Lady, the sorrows she went through.
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Because again, we're able to open our hearts, but we become really good friends.
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Because I always say, you know, I wrote Left to Tell, as you know, and my experience, I went through the genocide.
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And many people said, you know, you lost your parents, but they really loved you.
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I mean, my mom, my dad, they were good parents.
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Before I taught you, of course, you're supposed to do that.
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Your parents, your parents, you're supposed to be good.
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But anytime I think about their love, what convinces me that I was loved is the sacrifices they made.
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When my dad didn't go to work because I was sick.
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When he sold his land and his cows so that I can go to school.
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When my mom couldn't go to bed because my brother was sick.
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So I love the seven sorrows because I just look at Jesus, look at his mother, and I just feel like this closeness we have, you know, with them, because I'm contemplating what they went through for me.
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Our Lord went through it willingly and brought his mother into that so that they can suffer for both of us.
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So the fourth sorrow, when Mary met Jesus on the way to the cross.
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And again, Our Lady Nikibeho, she was speaking about, many times she spoke about this again.
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I felt my body aching, where he was aching, how he suffered.
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So her heart with his, they were united in this suffering.
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And the fifth sorrow, when Mary was standing under the foot of the cross.
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I still remember when Marie Claire saw this, the visionary, because one time Our Lady spoke about it, but also showed her what she went through.
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Like a movie, like in front of her, they're watching these people.
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When they reached when Our Lady was under the cross, she fell down.
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Her teeth were like shivering, like, you know, touching each other like this, like a really great pain she was going through.
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But she was able to explain, express what was going on.
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Everyone was just scared to see the pain in the eyes of this girl.
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But sadness, not just like a terror, but sadness, that deep sorrow.
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So then the sixth sorrow, when Our Lady received the body of our Lord.
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And again, she was speaking in the first person.
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After, you know, many years, after almost 30 years, I still just get my heart.
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And many times I'm crying when I'm meditating on this.
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So Our Lady said, when she was watching Jesus, she taught about every stage of his life.
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When the angel Gabriel came to her, you know, the joy she had, when he was born, when he started to walk, to talk.
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And now she said, I had him in my hands, lifeless.
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He have done nothing wrong, just because he loved us.
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So it just gets you when you feel what this mother had felt.
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And the seventh sorrow, when they placed him in a tomb.
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And she said, the new source of her suffering was the loneliness she felt.
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And because they killed him, placed him now in the tomb.
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So she taught us so much to really get close to her, to get close to him, to our Lord, but also to open our hearts.
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That's why I call my book a blessing, these guys.
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Anytime I'm praying the seven sorrows, which I did this morning, I open my heart.
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And then, at the end, I have nothing to suffer.
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Every time I finish the rosary of the seven sorrows, I'm like, I'm done.
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A lot of people are going to think that's weird.
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Because how, when you're meditating upon sorrow, how is that supposed to bring you joy?
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I think you've explained very well how that works, that you recognize in Our Lady suffering something beyond that which we could ever suffer.
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And hearing you say that is striking, because I think most people know, but you had to experience the deaths of all of your family members while you were hidden away.
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You experienced your own sort of purgatory in their starving, nearly starving to death.
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But you see in Our Lady's suffering even more than that which you suffered.
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You see in Our Lady's willingness and ability to forgive those who killed her own son, who killed God Almighty, forgiveness from her.
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And you were able to forgive in that kind of same way.
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Listen, dear friends, long gone are the days where you and I could just simply trust what the nightly news broadcasted or consider what we read in the local newspaper as the truth.
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The mainstream media deceives the world telling them bold-faced lies and often using fear to scare and control the masses.
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Now, how many of you are already seeing your friends and family back to grabbing their masks or scheduling another vaccine due to the uptake the media's covering about COVID or something else?
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We can't let the mainstream media shape our culture and influence our family and friends.
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We must make sure that the truth is available to all to remind and warn the world of the lies that are continuing to be spread.
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So today at LifeSite we kick off our fall campaign and I need your help to strengthen LifeSite's voice for truth.
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To keep LifeSite News fully operational in the United States, Canada and around the world, we must raise $500,000 by October the 1st.
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Pray right now about making a contribution and then do as you are called to do by the Lord.
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It is truly the sorrows that saved, helped me to forgive.
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Because again, when you go through that, watching what our Lord have gone through, out of love for me.
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I remember during the genocide, I used to pinch myself.
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And I don't want to say through his sorrow and his sorrowful mysteries and his seven sorrows, just like words and keep going.
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No, this is somebody I love, somebody like my brother, my father.
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I want to think about him as my family and he is.
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And when you pinch yourself, you're like, what?
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Many people suffer because they don't know how much they are loved.
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Many people suffer because they think nobody cares.
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But it is through those sorrows you realize, wow, somebody loves me to death.
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I was explaining to the pilgrims, you know, really, the blessing we receive, it goes with the heart we put in.
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Or you can go to mass and have your Savior in you.
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Receive him with all your heart and all the blessings because you decide to be present.
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So the seven sorrows has a way our lady taught us, always put yourself there.
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And once, as I said, you put yourself there, you also are able to open your heart to some of the suffering you have had.
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And what the therapists do, what they do for people to heal, they just make you talk.
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So this, again, is a blessing in disguise because every sorrow, you touch a different suffering in your heart.
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But then after you open the door, you can breathe.
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You know, these tears that comes from love, but also crying to your mother, someone who cares.
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I remember one of the sorrows I have taught over and over so many times.
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Some sorrows, of course, I lived through the genocide, but I go through other suffering like everybody.
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Other sufferings, you have to go through them yourself.
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Or you go through that with, you know, a family member or, you know, like a best friend.
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But when you speak to a lady, you can't hide her anything.
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So one of the things, for example, I didn't even think about, but yet was there that have healed slowly.
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After the genocide, about six months later, I went to look for the bodies of my parents, my brothers.
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But I found my brother, who was my best friend, Tamasen.
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I found his bones where they put him just under the ground a little bit.
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And I was able to recognize him from his teeth.
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But the shock of seeing your brother as bones, his ribs, it is hard to put in words.
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But then you don't go to tell people like, oh, by the way, I suffered when I saw my brother's bones.
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But every time I've gone through Our Lady washing the body of Jesus, seeing every wound be caused on his body.
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To try to understand her, I always go back to my brother, what I was able to see, his bones.
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And then I have to say, what? You know that kind of pain of having somebody you love?
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And not in the same way necessarily, but still almost the same in that way.
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So I always have revisited that pain and I cried for years.
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But now I can revisit it without having to really cause me, you know, trembling inside.
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Like my brother, I saw his feet, bones, not the body.
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So Our Lady sorrows are meant to help us heal, to invite her in those pain, to invite her.
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But when you bury them is a new type of suffering.
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Recently, recently, I was in Fatima, and I heard how Lucia died.
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And a year later, they have to move her in the Basilica, just like Jacinta and Francisco.
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And then they said how when they moved her body very slowly, you know, and buried her, got to bury her.
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The whole village was everyone in the city was on the street crying, crying like she just died.
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There's just some suffering you have only between you and God.
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And you can't just go to tell people what it is.
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But seven sorrows allows us to go deep in those.
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I've seen people who have prayer groups of seven sorrows rosary, which Our Lady told us.
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Pray it every day, if you can't, at least Tuesdays and Fridays.
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And the people who have these prayer groups, there is just a joy, like a child.
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Because when you cry to your mother, after that, you're just relieved.
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The seven Hail Marys only because of the seven sorrows?
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And on my website, you can also have the booklet, Immaculate.com, the booklet about the seven
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She said, in the beginning, say, Oh my God, I offer you this rosary for your glory, and
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to honor your Holy Mother, the Blessed Virgin, so that I can share and meditate upon her suffering.
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I am going to beg you to give me true repentance for all my sins.
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Give me wisdom and humility, so that I may be able to obtain all the indulgences contained
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And then another beginning prayer before every sorrow.
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And again, I mean, this may tell us, like, people who are hurt are the ones who hurt other
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If only people can just meditate and think of their sorrow around Our Lady, be in her mantle,
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Because we are able to understand other people's pain, not hate them, but to understand them.
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And then we are able to heal through these sorrows.
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So then the ending, the second sorrow, the seven Hail Marys.
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I mean, we took it just as Our Lady was teaching it.
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And then the last sorrow, the seven Hail Marys, our Father, and then the ending prayer.
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And the ending prayer, Queen of Martyrs, I beg you.
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Yeah, Queen of Martyrs, by the merits and the tears you shed in these terrible sorrowful times,
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I beg you to obtain from me and all the sinners of the world the grace of complete sincerity and repentance.
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Mary was conceived without sin and who suffered for us.
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Mary was conceived without sin and who suffered for us.
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And then she gave us graces that come out of that.
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She said she would hear the tears, especially of mothers.
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As you think of her sorrows, she would also hear yours.
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Mothers who are suffering because of their children in addictions.
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What a terrible thing that is happening and actually can be accepted by the leaders of countries.
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However, there are many couples that are suffering for not having children, too, not being able to conceive.
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So through the seven sorrows I have maybe made.
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I mean, I speak about this every every week somewhere.
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I have maybe more than 100 emails of people who told me they were trying to get pregnant for five years.
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They couldn't or 10 years and they started this devotion, caring for a lady's pain, thinking about her, having compassion on her, you know, understanding all this pain he went through and his mother.
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And then they receive the blessing of having a child.
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I mean, I have one couple that spent 10 years trying.
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One friend of mine, actually, she didn't know much about our lady.
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She was Catholic, but who didn't practice at all, almost at all.
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She was like, which lady are you talking about?
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So we spoke about this and how she, you know, about our faith and explained about our lady, these seven sorrows.
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The way she have this heart of really feeling for Jesus and Mary, I am sure this girl is going to have a child.
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I mean, when I said this, I have to, you know, to say it carefully because I wish, of course, every miracle can happen to everybody who just say it.
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But truly also, sometimes we realize that if we pray from our heart, maybe the answer may be no, but God will give us the acceptance.
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So I've seen people who have healed from cancer.
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And she told me, give everybody my phone number.
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I want to tell them what I already have done for me.
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And of course, when people heal in the end, we die.
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So the most important thing is to gain that faith.
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So, yeah, big miracles of people who heal from sicknesses.
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Another big miracle, people who heal from addictions.
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I never knew there were so many addictions until I started to spread this seven souls rosary.
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It's to pray with your heart and be there for her and for her son.
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What are the actual promises from our lady about the rosary?
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But one comes to mind is that she will give us.
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Another thing, we will be able to defeat the infernal enemy, like the devil.
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And, you know, she believed it was an attack from the devil.
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But she said after she read those promises, she started to say the seven souls rosary before
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And she said the nightmares came, but she never was scared once again.
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So our lady promised that she would protect us.
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I don't have the booklet with me now, but there are many promises our lady gave to give
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Of course, as long as we don't, it doesn't contradict the will of God.
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We are not going to pray for somebody to die, you know, for someone to get hurt.
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But if it does not contradict the will of God, it will receive whatever we pray for to protect
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Also, she promised for those who propagate this rosary, she would take them from this
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So, of course, if we are doing it sincerely and if we are doing a part in the most honest
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Our lady gave this rosary to basically a child.
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I think it was 12 years before the massacre happened in the rosary.
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At the end of it, she's talking about, she addresses herself as the Our Lady of Martyrs
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What do you think of having learned that back then before the massacre happened?
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And you're calling now for this to be done in the Hawaii world.
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And it's received more spread from you than it had even from the original visionary.
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Do you see any meaning in that and a warning for what we are living through right now and
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You see, one of the messages Our Lady has given us, obviously from what she has lived
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And every single person will go through suffering, the good and the bad.
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However, the good and faithful to God, they suffer actually less, not that they don't
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go through trouble, but they are able to accept their suffering and have help from God.
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So one of the things, for example, I remember my brother when he was killed and he wrote
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And he told me, this is my brother who was scared of dying.
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If you left him in the darkness, he will scream like, oh my God, you know, I'm dying and we
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The day before they killed him, my brother wrote to me a letter and he said, if I die,
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I will go to heaven because I'm prepared for that.
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So people who die, yeah, he told me that the letter is in my book left to tell as a copy
00:31:39.000
So people who live with God, even dying, it's like God prepares you.
00:31:45.000
I saw people who were there when they killed my brother.
00:31:49.000
And he was telling them, you are going to go to, you know, you can end up in hell for
00:32:01.000
My brother was about to be killed with machetes and he was talking, preaching before they
00:32:08.000
That is the strength that comes from these prayers, from the seven sorrows, from the
00:32:16.000
And when, you know, I truly believe that people who die when they love Waledi, when they pray
00:32:21.000
the seven sorrows, they are given the grace to know that is coming and to be strong.
00:32:27.000
I mean, people who lived in 1800, they all died.
00:32:33.000
So we will die, but the grace of acceptance and living well, suffering well, offering it
00:32:41.000
to God and uniting our suffering with Jesus and our lady.
00:32:47.000
So we maybe will be martyred, but we're not worried about that.
00:32:52.000
You saw my book, my story about, you know, I mean, I left to tell.
00:32:56.000
I still remember in the beginning of the whole time when I was in the bathroom, you know,
00:33:01.000
I hid three months in the bathroom with other seven women.
00:33:13.000
I had all these questions that were causing me more pain.
00:33:16.000
And then somewhere in the middle of that, there was the pain became worse because they
00:33:23.000
They literally stopped at the door by the grace of God.
00:33:28.000
But because of that desperation, it pushed me and the grace of God, it pushed me to start
00:33:35.000
But when I started praying, I still remember I prayed 27 rosaries every single day and
00:33:44.000
And it was through that, that I was able to find forgiveness truly by the grace of God.
00:33:50.000
And to this, they have never gone back to say, Oh, why did I forgive them?
00:33:59.000
But I still remember when the situation was a little better, I was suffering more beyond
00:34:06.000
And the situation got worse when I was praying, meditating on the sorrows of our Lord.
00:34:17.000
I was scared, but not the same way in the desperation.
00:34:22.000
I remember when I found out my whole family had been killed.
00:34:25.000
I threw the rosary on the side for a few minutes because I thought there's no way I
00:34:30.000
can lose my whole family and feel the way I'm feeling.
00:34:33.000
I am suffering, but not like crushed, not desperate.
00:34:40.000
So the grace of God, for those who pray, those who are united with a lady, it's really
00:34:47.000
Even if you are dying, you will be able to accept it.
00:34:50.000
I know a very prayerful person who died, you know, some few years ago and his wife told
00:34:59.000
And he turned against his wife like, who told you I'm looking for healing?
00:35:08.000
So dying is not the worst thing, not even suffering.
00:35:11.000
The worst thing is to die without God, to live without God.
00:35:15.000
I mean, sometimes you see in the world, people who seemingly have everything and take their
00:35:20.000
life away because they are suffering with something without God.
00:35:25.000
They are suffering in ways that they don't feel that presence of God really, you know,
00:35:31.000
So you hold on to a lady, whatever come, as long as we hold on to God, it will be fine.
00:35:37.000
Even if it is in death, then we'll be able to face it.
00:35:43.000
Something you said really struck me about your brother.
00:35:46.000
Um, you said how, um, he's the one who if left in a dark room would scream out of fear.
00:35:58.000
And, and, and tell us a little bit about that transformation.
00:36:03.000
A lot of people think to themselves now, you know, yeah, you know, I'm a Catholic now.
00:36:08.000
And I love the faith, but gosh, if somebody comes to torture me for it and they bend my finger,
00:36:13.000
I'm going to scream and go, ah, at that, that transformation.
00:36:17.000
Therefore your description of him is so fascinating because a lot of people are there.
00:36:25.000
When I bumped my toe, I scream and shout, how's it going to be?
00:36:29.000
If, if someone asked me to, to, to abandon the faith, otherwise they're going to kill me or hurt me or harm me.
00:36:40.000
You know, I have a scarf right now written pray, pray, pray, because that is really the message of a lady.
00:36:47.000
One thing she repeats, especially three times, pray, pray, pray.
00:36:53.000
I saw the grace of the prayer that comes from prayer.
00:37:02.000
Nothing in my life would have ever prepared me that I would ever even take what I went through.
00:37:09.000
If I dreamt that my mom died, then it would be like a sorrow.
00:37:15.000
And through prayer, truly not again, that I'm any strong.
00:37:23.000
So he died a month after the genocide have just started because he was hiding.
00:37:27.000
So before we went into hiding, he, I remember he looked at me.
00:37:42.000
And my brother did too, but I still remember that conversation.
00:37:49.000
So the man who hid him within a month, he had that transformation.
00:37:53.000
The man who hid him, he told me, your brother was praying.
00:38:04.000
And there was always a threat that they're going to find him.
00:38:07.000
But he prayed to a point where within that month, like a few days before he was killed,
00:38:16.000
And his friend told him, no, you can't think like that.
00:38:26.000
There will be victory because no one can just have the permission to kill other people
00:38:40.000
I just feel my time have come and I will work from up there.
00:38:44.000
So his friend to this day, he tells me, you brother didn't die because he was scared.
00:39:07.000
He said he was talking to us like in conversation.
00:39:16.000
You keep torturing me thinking that I'm going to change my mind, but come and kill me.
00:39:28.000
So within that month of intense prayer, he have completely accepted everything.
00:39:37.000
And again, I saw my own transformation when I was praying the rosary every day.
00:39:46.000
Another thing, whatever you fear about, instead of being scared, turn it into prayer.
00:40:04.000
They told me recently, this woman who gave a testimony how she survived.
00:40:09.000
So she was with people, a group of people, her family.
00:40:14.000
So one of the family members said, okay, this is the time we give our soul to God.
00:40:19.000
Just tell him to welcome us because it looks like they're going to kill us.
00:40:24.000
So the woman, one of them who survived, by the way, she said, not me.
00:40:37.000
She was saying, I don't want to give you my soul.
00:40:51.000
So I think I also have learned truly to trust God enough to say, of course, I'm a human.
00:41:03.000
If you truly mean it from your heart, of course you will die, but maybe another way.
00:41:10.000
I remember telling God, let me, I can die tomorrow.
00:41:13.000
I can die next week, but I just don't want to die like this.
00:41:21.000
Not the door will be open, but pray unceasingly.
00:41:33.000
Our lady used to tell us in the Kibe home, she used to say, my children, don't wear your faith.
00:41:41.000
And then you live another life that is not godly.
00:41:46.000
The way you speak, the way you live, the way you visit friends.
00:41:49.000
Let your faith be part of what you think, what you say, what you do.
00:42:00.000
And no matter how much I try to do good, I find something I do wrong always.
00:42:13.000
And it's really good to trust him and to love him.
00:42:18.000
The church is in the greatest crisis of its 2,000-year history.
00:42:24.000
The church, our mother, needs your help like never before.
00:42:38.000
You have the minds, the eyes, and the ears to save our church.
00:42:41.000
Your mission is to see that priests act like priests.
00:42:49.000
Those are the words of Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen.
00:43:17.000
As you know, the Synod on Synodality is about to launch.
00:43:20.000
LifeSite will be there reporting every day on what's taking place.
00:43:32.000
And some, especially those called by the Holy Spirit, are asked to speak boldly, to reject the falsehood and stand for the unchanged and unchangeable truth of Christ and his one holy Catholic and Apostolic Church.
00:43:51.000
If you feel that you are called to be one of those leaders, consider joining us in Rome at the end of the Synod.
00:44:01.000
To be there as a sign of resistance to the setting up of a false new church.
00:44:06.000
And as a sign of adherence to the only church founded by Christ himself.
00:44:13.000
Rome Life Forum is a two-day strategy conference for Catholic leaders defending the truths which are most under threat on sexuality, family and liturgy.
00:44:33.000
If so, go to RomeLifeForum.com and I'll see you in the eternal city.
00:44:43.000
And an army of faithful Catholics such as Michael Matt, Alexander Chugelwell, Reggie Littlejohn, Liz Yor, Christopher Ferrara, Terry Barber, Hugh Owens, and many more willing to die for the one holy Catholic and Apostolic Church of our fathers.
00:45:09.000
How do we reconcile this idea of joy and enjoying ourselves while at the same time trying to be detached from the things of the world?
00:45:24.000
It's one of those things that, you know, our Lord in the scriptures says, you know, St. John the Baptist fasted and they called him crazy for doing that.
00:45:33.000
And then when our Lord came eating and drinking, they called him a glutton and a drunkard.
00:45:40.000
We're called to detach from the things of this world.
00:45:43.000
And yet there's no sin in enjoying ourselves sometimes and doing that kind of thing.
00:45:53.000
But where do you see Our Lady's vision for us in that?
00:45:59.000
I know that she is described by the saints of having basically been detached from everything.
00:46:17.000
One of the messages, again, she was telling us in Ikibeo, she said, suffering is a part of life.
00:46:22.000
As long as you live on Earth, it's a part of life.
00:46:25.000
It's like sending a kid to school and expect them to do good without having to suffer the time away from friends, the time away from just having fun.
00:46:40.000
So the true joy comes from a balance of sacrificing and, of course, enjoying.
00:46:46.000
Enjoy the company of your friends, but also go to study.
00:46:56.000
There is some what we call enjoyment that comes from sin or comes from laziness.
00:47:02.000
So there's a balance between working, between also being silent, between resting and working.
00:47:12.000
As long as you know in your heart you are not doing wrong, you are not sinning.
00:47:16.000
And if you sin, go to confession, you will be happy.
00:47:19.000
For example, in Ikibeo, when she came to appear to the visionaries, she told them about self-mortification.
00:47:33.000
I feel like we have a body and we have our soul.
00:47:36.000
And this cohabits together and they need one another.
00:47:40.000
But if I feed my body so much that I forget to feed my soul, which is prayer, sacrifice,
00:47:47.000
detach from the things that make this body too, you know, joyful or having too much fun,
00:47:53.000
and detach from that, so then there is a balance.
00:47:56.000
If I feed three times my body, if I take snacks twice, so that's five times, I need to pray
00:48:02.000
more because I want the soul to rule over the body.
00:48:09.000
We say, when the body is too satisfied, the soul is sleeping.
00:48:18.000
So in some ways, you have also to satisfy the body in a good way that is not sinful to God,
00:48:28.000
Take the time so that this body is not ruling the soul.
00:48:32.000
So it's really a balance, again, in a mystical way, in a very mysterious way.
00:48:42.000
You know, we suffer and then we are joyful as long as we are close to God.
00:48:47.000
In this world, we also have to remember that this is an exile.
00:48:51.000
The true joy, full joy will happen when we are in heaven.
00:48:58.000
But the true joy also comes from giving ourselves, accepting those suffering.
00:49:06.000
Of course, with my work, I do a lot of charities.
00:49:12.000
You know, I truly cannot just, oh, let me take care of myself
00:49:17.000
I have to take care of people I don't even know, you know.
00:49:20.000
So, however, it brings me such a joy to care for somebody I expect nothing from.
00:49:29.000
Like, let me pay interest for people in Rwanda, in this area.
00:49:33.000
And I have realized that the more I don't know them, the more happy I am.
00:49:46.000
Of something else I wrote in my book, Left to Tell.
00:49:49.000
There is a priest who told me after the genocide.
00:50:09.000
And I've been privileged to have many dreams about them.
00:50:12.000
However, when I told him right after the genocide, I was crying and I thought, okay, good.
00:50:23.000
Then this pain will not be so much, you know, of missing them.
00:50:26.000
After he heard me, he said, I don't know what happened to you, but you are not as broken
00:50:40.000
He said, no, what you are suffering from is the lack of affection of your loved ones.
00:50:50.000
And then he said, but that affection, there is a way you can get it back.
00:50:54.000
I said, how can I get back the affection of my mom?
00:51:29.000
Like, what do you know your parents will do for you?
00:51:44.000
You know, touch them how you wish your parents will touch you.
00:51:47.000
If you do that, the joy, the love will come back to you.
00:51:56.000
And I started to go to Mother Teresa's orphanage.
00:52:10.000
Like, I had to close my eyes and remember her mom would hug me.
00:53:25.000
Just do things that will really encourage people.