Jeff Bezos Was Given A Rosary. Here Is What He Said ｜ Christine Kengott
Summary
Christine Kengott shares the story of how she met Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon and the richest man on the planet, and how they became friends. She talks about how she got to know him, how she became friends with him, and what it was like to pray for him.
Transcript
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I just called him by his first name, since we had already met.
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And he turned around, and I held the rosary out for him, and I said, this is for you.
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Let's begin, as we 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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As I said at the beginning, I think a lot of people, obviously everybody knows Jeff Bezos,
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and one of the richest men on the planet, owner of not only Amazon, founder of Amazon,
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but also, influentially, the Washington Post, and many other ventures.
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So, start off, tell us a little bit about yourself,
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and how in the world did you get to meet Jeff Bezos in the first place?
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I did a trip around the world in 1988-89 by myself,
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and there were a lot of precarious situations where I thought I was going to die,
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and I prayed pretty intensely, and a lot of things transpired.
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And so, I guess in essence, I'm not afraid to talk to anybody, anywhere, anytime.
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It was very conducive to meeting a lot of people for over a year.
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And then, my daughter was living in L.A., and I met this priest whose father,
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his ministry is to make rosaries, and he was looking for some place to give these rosaries.
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I said, well, I love to travel, and I could disseminate those rosaries to people that I meet.
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And so, the father gave me all those rosaries, and then the son, who's the priest, blessed them all.
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So, anytime I would travel, I would take these blessed rosaries and give them to anybody,
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a waitress, a pilot, a flight attendant, anybody I meet, homeless people.
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Well, my daughter living in L.A., there's a lot of homeless people.
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And that was my primary objective, was to disseminate the rosaries to them and pray with them
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and hear who they needed prayers for, what they needed prayers for.
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So, that was very, it seemed very necessary work and very rewarding.
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Well, it was my daughter's birthday, so we were in a restaurant of her choice called Nobu out in Malibu.
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And we're sitting there, and I look over, and I see Jeff Bezos standing with a group of friends.
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They had already eaten, and they were saying their goodbyes.
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So, my initial intent was to introduce my young daughter to him.
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She was like 29 at the time, and in the business world.
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So, I thought they may cross paths again, and this way they'd be on a first-name basis,
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and it may be conducive to some business transactions in the future.
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So, that was my first thing, was to introduce the two of them.
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And I told him the business she was in, and he was very supportive and encouraging.
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And I asked him if he had any advice for her, and he gave her some advice, you know, just to go for it, not to be afraid.
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So, we said our goodbyes, and we went back to our table, and I saw my rosary sitting on the table.
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So, I grabbed it, and I said to my daughter, do you want to give this to him, or should I?
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So, I walked over, and I just called him by his first name, since we had already met.
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And he turned around, and I held the rosary out for him, and I said, this is for you.
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Took it, and he looked at it like I had given him a pot of gold or something.
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So, we embraced a, you know, really heartfelt hug.
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And I really do pray for him every day, John Henry.
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I do the stations every day after Mass, because we're told we're supposed to meditate on the
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passion of Jesus every day, and the sorrows of Our Lady every day.
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So, I figured something is better than nothing.
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I don't go through a standard book when I do the stations, but they all kind of inspire
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When I see Jesus being stripped, for example, it makes me think of the terrible atrocities
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of the human trafficking and people being disrobed against their will.
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When I come to Jesus being crucified, invariably, I kneel there because it's one of the most sacred
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And I do pray for 12 million conversions as a result of my time meditating on Jesus' passion.
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And I specifically name Jeff Bezos, Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, the Clintons, the Obamas, the
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Rockefellers, the Rothschilds, Klaus Schwab, the Royal Family, Noah Harari, just all these people
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that are really in positions of power that could really make a difference.
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And if they had a conversion, it could really impact our world in a positive way.
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So, I sincerely do pray for Jeff Bezos every day.
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Well, it's so unbelievable that, you know, here you, I mean, he's one of the most powerful
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people on earth, one of the richest men in the world.
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Did you ever think in your life you would bump into Jeff Bezos?
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You know, because I am not shy, I travel around the world by myself.
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I spend time with the homeless person on the street and every, every person in between on
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My daughter and I kind of talked our way in there.
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And my primary objective was to tell him about Father Rookie, who had the gift of healing.
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And so I did talk to him about Divine Mercy Chaplet, because I thought if he could have
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a major healing through the chaplet, he could really positively impact the world if he had
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And I was, the secretary said, I'm going to let you in to talk to him.
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I don't know why I never do this, but I'm going to let you in.
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And she forbid me to talk to him about this priest with the gift of healing.
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So now I had to carry the conversation with an astrophysicist, a topic I know nothing about,
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and not talk about the very thing I'm there to talk about.
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So I got back to the States, and I felt really guilty that I didn't expound more on the Divine
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So I went to confession, and the priest was so funny, you know, instead of just kind of,
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you know, negating the impact that could have had, he took me very seriously.
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He said, okay, Christine, now for your penance for not telling Stephen Hawking about the Divine
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Mercy Chaplet more in depth, go say three Our Fathers and three Hail Mary, or whatever.
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It was, I got a kick out of how that priest took my, you know, my feeling so, like I really
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neglected to take that opportunity that I should have.
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Because you've got a very deep faith that's very lively.
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I will have to say, I had great parents, but I think of specific things that my dad did.
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You know, we think of the father in the family kind of being representative of God the Father.
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And he did some things that were just incredible.
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I remember a nun telling us that we really should live every day to the fullest because we could
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So I couldn't wait to trip up my dad and tell him, you know, say, Dad, what would you like
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And have him say, oh, I'd like to travel to the far ends of the earth, or I'd like to
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get my, you know, he had his pilot's license, but, you know, whatever he wanted to, whatever
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And as a seven-year-old, I couldn't wait to say, oh, Dad, then you should do it because
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Well, instead of getting an answer of something he aspired to do, and he and I were together
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in the car, and we had just cut the grass at the funeral home that he owned in a small
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And I said, Dad, what would you like to be doing now if you could do anything at all?
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And it just took me aback because what he was doing right then was he was with me doing
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And I said, no, no, no, Dad, anything, anything you could do, he said, what I'm doing right
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You know, so I think back at moments like that.
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There was another time when I was four, I had to run away from my mean babysitter, and
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I ran to my dad's hardware store, and I put my arms around his neck, and I said, Dad, remember
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you said I could come to the hardware store with you today?
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And right at that moment, John Henry, he could have said, what are you talking about?
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But instead, he looked in my eyes, and he said, yes, I do remember that.
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And from then on, I went to my dad's hardware store every day.
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So I got to know all the customers, and he also would fix the heaters and the furnaces
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in the basement of people's homes, and he'd call me his little helper, and I'd hold the
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Well, invariably, I'd make my way upstairs with the lady where the pound cake was and the
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And so, you know, it all is kind of incremental steps of talking with people at a young age.
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And then this trip around the world, of course, was a pivotal part.
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I used to sell ads and win trips for a youth camp in Southern Illinois, a Catholic youth
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And they would reward us with these trips, primarily to Rome and be with the Pope.
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We had an audience with Pope Paul VI also, and we'd go to Israel and, you know, the Holy
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They were always kind of geared around Catholicism.
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It was kind of like putting the cart before the horse.
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Like I went to all the places Jesus went, and I think that that enhanced my Catholicism.
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I mean, I didn't even know what transubstantiation was, you know, until I was in Medjugorje.
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So it's kind of just a culmination of experiences, I think, that brought me to where I am now.
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It was my 50th birthday, and my family and I were in Aspen skiing.
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We were on a gondola that was all made of glass.
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And I very sheepishly said to my family, I said, it's my birthday.
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And I had been praying the rosary maybe five years or so at that point, but never brought
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But I pulled the birthday trump card, and they said, yeah, we can pray the rosary.
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We didn't feel, we just looked up in a glass roof, and the cable had become like a gigantic
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ribbon extending like 150 feet up above our gondola.
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And because we didn't feel the abrupt stop, we felt peace praying this rosary.
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And with that, the cable went downward, and it shot our gondola straight up to where the
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So we exchanged places, and it was just surreal.
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And later, I talked to a ski patrol about what transpired.
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And he said he had never heard of something like that happening.
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And he said that we're lucky that the gondola didn't come off of that cable the way it shot
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So that was really the first time I remember being so devoted to the rosary with my family.
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Now we pray a family rosary every day, and they're receptive to it.
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But we've had, you know, as a family, I've passed on the love of travel to them.
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So consequently, we've had some very scary experiences together.
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But we always go to prayer when we're so scared.
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And, you know, very scary, life-threatening kind of things.
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Miracles just happen all around us all the time.
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So it's kind of been a gradual sequence of events that has led me here.
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And now I love being the age that I am that, you know, now I can really talk to anybody I want.
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And, you know, like my daughters can't do that because it's looked at, could be taken the wrong way.
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I love how, you know, the genius of the priesthood because, you know, I'm like a mother figure to them.
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And so that's beautiful to have this friendship with so many priests that need that in their lives.
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And so, anyway, life, it just gets more and more enjoyable.
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And the beauty of prayer and mass and we just have a plethora of information to study.
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We can't possibly learn it all in one lifetime.
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When I was in seminary, I was reading a book by Henry Nouwen.
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He talked about a nuclear man, you know, and people who grew up in the 1980s were kind of formed by that immediate and constant threat of nuclear annihilation.
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And my generation has grown up, you know, under the specter of priestly sexual abuse.
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What say you, Mr. Foreperson, is the defendant guilty or not guilty?
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I think that for many of us, that has also been all-encompassing.
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You know, I mean, I entered the seminary in January of 2004, and it's basically been there for me from the beginning.
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Would you mind telling us one of those stories, one of the stories where, if you're able to, where it was kind of life-threatening?
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Whichever one you remember the most or means the most to you.
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You know, and the other thing, I've had unbelievable, miraculous events happen to me.
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And I'll just jump ahead to this one, because this one's just so amazing.
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My brother-in-law traveled a lot, and he had a coupon for an airline that was going to expire.
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And I heard all this commotion with, you know, December 12.
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And in somebody's broken English and my limited Spanish, I said, what is going on?
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And they said, it's our blessed mother's birthday.
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I said, okay, God, if it's your mother's birthday, why don't you show me something?
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So I noticed the sky that day was just cloud cover, no blue sky at all, just major cloud cover.
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I had, like, you know, a list of quite a few people to pray for.
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And so 20 or 30 minutes, I had my eyes closed in prayer.
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There was not a cloud in the sky, no clouds at all.
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The sky was the most beautiful color of blue I have ever seen.
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And right in front of me was a gigantic cross made out of white, fluffy, fluffy clouds like cotton balls, like just very, very deliberate.
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And it was the size of about three football fields.
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Gigantic, white, fluffy cross right in front of me.
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And I just instinctively, I fell to my knees, threw my arms dramatically in the air and said, for the glory of God.
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So, you know, just so many things like that have happened.
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But getting back to some of the scary times, my family and I, my three daughters, my husband and I were in the Amazon.
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And we were supposed to see the giant anaconda and the, what's the fish?
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And we were in a small boat and another family was on there and it started just raining, just incessant rain, just unbelievable amounts of rain and lightning.
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Well, I was a lifeguard and I knew you were not supposed to be on water when it's lightning.
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And the woman, the other family, the woman kept standing up and you were not supposed to stand up in a small craft or you could capsize.
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And the guide, I kept begging the guide, just take us back, take us back.
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He said, no, no, you haven't seen the giant anaconda yet.
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And we really just broke out all the stops as a family.
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We just prayed intensely with that lightning crashing all around us.
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So many things like that have happened that it just really reinforces the notion that prayer is powerful.
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They didn't seem to really notice or, you know.
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And, you know, do you ever get inspired to, you know, follow up on the lights that our Lord gives you to do certain things?
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But do you have an experience of, you know, you're called to go out and do something?
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And how do you hear the Holy Spirit asking you to do something?
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You know, John Henry, I kind of feel like it's like when we make a deposit in the bank and we have interest that we get later, I spend I try to spend an hour a day in adoration, if at all possible.
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And so, you know, I don't have any like lightning claps hit me when I'm in adoration.
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But I feel like it's an investment, like I'm praying now, but then later I'm inviting the Holy Spirit to come through me.
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And I feel like confession is kind of like a Roto-Rooter getting the sludge out to allow the Holy Spirit to work through us.
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So then we're able to say and do the right thing more often.
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So when I'm in those moments, I can be spontaneous because how many times have we been to a restaurant?
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We go, oh, my gosh, I should have given him that my carry out.
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I was tired of not being able to think spontaneously because it's just like a very quick moment that we're able to react in a situation.
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There's so many amazing stories, but this is one of my favorites.
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It's a priest was tired of not being able to be spontaneous.
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From now on, whatever comes on my heart, I'm going to just assume it's from the Holy Spirit.
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So he was pumping gas and it came on his heart to do a cartwheel.
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If it's not hurting somebody else and it's not against the Ten Commandments, he's going to do it.
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She said, oh, father, I've been an atheist for 25 years and I saw your collar that you were a Catholic priest.
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And I said, God, if you exist, make that priest do a cartwheel.
00:25:45.820
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And you know, that's so powerful because it does speak.
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We get this sometimes seemingly crazy idea, just do this.
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I will often dismiss it as, oh, that's just weird.
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Well, if it's not sinful in any way, and it's not going to hurt anybody, why not do it?
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And God writes, he writes straight with a crooked line.
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How many times we have our own ideas and something goes totally different.
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And then we cross paths with somebody who needs our prayers or we need their prayers.
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I was asked to give a retreat for women at my church.
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I invited Jesus and the Blessed Mother to attend.
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So the woman who does the pictures for the newsletter said, Christine, I can't be there.
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But a picture showed up with, you know, the Divine Mercy Jesus with the red and white rays
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Well, finally, I ran into a woman who had attended that seminar, that retreat.
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And I said, oh, Christina, look, Divine Mercy Jesus showed up.
00:28:42.140
Somehow I got my own fingernail in the picture.
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I said, well, at least I had my nails painted red that day, you know.
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But that has worked well because then I can just, in passing, talk to atheists or agnostics.
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And I can say, you know about Divine Mercy Jesus?
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I'm like, well, he's got rays coming out, meaning unlimited love and unlimited forgiveness
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And I pass over that and I get to the punchline.
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So that's how God works, too, sometimes, you know, in a funny way.
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And that story has allowed me to, I think, touch some hearts and introduce Divine Mercy
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Christine, thank you so much for sharing everything with us.
00:29:40.980
Well, what I'm doing now is learning about the gift of living in the Divine Will.
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And kind of an analogy, I used to think when we died and went, if we, you know, luckily
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make it to heaven someday, that it's one and done.
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You know, there's going to be unbelievable colors and pictures and smells and experiences,
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And then recently, I read that it's exponentially better every single day.
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So think of, you know, exponents, how, you know, what that means every single day for all
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of eternity, that that's what you're experiencing.
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It's just unlimited, and that's what the bit of information about this gift of living in
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And that is one thing I told Stephen Hawking, the only bit of science or astrophysicist that
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I could even think to say, and I love this, though, there are more stars in our galaxy
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than grains of sand on our planet, and more galaxies in our universe than stars in our
00:31:17.860
And that's what heaven, I think, is going to be like, and also this gift of living in
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So it's very exciting to have that gift, and of course, the gift of the Divine Mercy Chaplet.
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And we know one drop of Jesus' blood is more powerful to eradicate all the sins from the
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beginning of time to the end of time, including murder.
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So that gives me a lot of hope when I pray, you know, I just drop that one drop of blood
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on Jeff Bezos, the precious blood of Jesus, Jesus for a complete conversion for him and
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You know, Jesus is so loving and so forgiving, and he wins.
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And we have our Blessed Mother and all the wonderful things she does, just embracing
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Do our little bit, and they repay us a million-fold with our little efforts, right?
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I think a lot of people, hopefully, who are watching this, are going to join you in praying
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He showed openness to, you know, the rosary and to your gift and to your praying for him.
00:32:44.360
And I'm going to send you that holy fingernail.
00:32:55.420
I love Father and Liz, and you're just really stellar in your work and what you do.
00:33:23.820
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