The John-Henry Westen Show - Marian Devotion： The Secret To Protection, Joy In A World Full Of Chaos

00:00:00.000 You know, I had a priest tell me one time, I went in, I said, I just don't feel very happy.

00:00:04.040 He said, but are you joyful? And I went, I don't know what you're talking about.

00:00:07.520 I said, I'm not happy. He said, yeah, but are you joyful? Are you living in a state of grace?

00:00:11.380 Do you know that you're living the life that God wants you to be living? He says, then you're

00:00:14.800 joyful. Don't worry about being happy. You're not going to be happy all the time, but be joyful.

00:00:19.120 And so even in the midst of depression, we have no doubt that God loves us. We have no doubt that

00:00:23.380 we're on the right path, that he's going to take care of us, our marriage, our children,

00:00:26.880 and this apostolate.

00:00:30.000 Hey friends, I just had a fascinating conversation with Greg and Jennifer Willits. They are probably

00:00:40.800 some of you know them, but they are some of the original podcasters, some of the original

00:00:46.140 Catholic podcasters ever. Now they're not a hundred years old. Podcasting is not that old,

00:00:52.640 but they are senior at this game like no one else. And they're just awesome.

00:00:58.140 It's a great conversation because when you work with pros, it's really easy to talk and

00:01:04.280 these guys talk and they are just incredible. It's going to be a great conversation. They're

00:01:08.360 going to tell us about their love for a lady, their love for one another. And there's a very

00:01:15.080 special thing that the two of them are related to LifeSite about, and that is we employ their

00:01:20.320 son. For whom we're very grateful. You don't know him because he's not often in front of the

00:01:24.600 camera. He's behind the scenes all the time. His name is Walter Willits. This is the John

00:01:29.340 Hunter Weston Show. You're going to want to stay tuned for this one.

00:01:33.740 Hey there, friends. I just wanted to tell you about something in case you didn't already know

00:01:37.640 it. LifeSite is in partnership with a group called St. Joseph's Partners, because in today's day and age

00:01:42.920 where things are getting more and more strange out there, we want to be sure that we have some

00:01:49.440 reserves of gold and silver so that if debanking happens, which has happened before and seems to

00:01:56.560 have gone on with the truckers and everything else, that we at least have some backup. And so

00:02:01.620 there's been a lot of investing in gold and silver. We wanted to find a company, though, that we could

00:02:06.020 trust with our investments like that. And St. Joseph's Partners is such a company. Obviously,

00:02:11.740 by their name, you know that they're Catholics and we know that they're very, very faithful.

00:02:15.580 Indeed, you can go check out the shows I did with Drew Mason, who is the founder of St. Joseph's Partners.

00:02:21.100 But also I wanted to tell you about a neat little project we did. And this is really for both support

00:02:27.520 of LifeSite News, but also for gifts for those people who sort of have everything and you wonder

00:02:32.480 what you can get for them. Well, we minted a coin, a silver coin, and it's a one ounce silver round,

00:02:41.260 they call it. It has LifeSite on the front for our 25 year anniversary that we're celebrating.

00:02:46.300 But also on the back, it commemorates the overturning of Roe v. Wade with the Dobbs decision.

00:02:53.020 So it's a collector item coin and encourage you to grab one for yourself. Grab one as a gift for that

00:02:59.880 person who seems to have everything else. They might like it very much. And please support us

00:03:04.140 at LifeSite News by getting our coin. We've just printed under 10,000 of them. So it's a collector

00:03:10.880 item, a limited edition. God bless you and thank you. Greg and Jennifer Willits, welcome to the

00:03:17.420 program. Thank you so much. Super glad to be here. So great to be here. We're very excited.

00:03:22.300 Let's begin as we always do with the sign of the cross. In the name of the Father and of the Son

00:03:26.140 and of the Holy Ghost. Amen. Amen. Amen. So, as I said in the intro, I'm speaking with some of the

00:03:34.780 originals, some of the original Catholic podcasters on the planet. Now, you don't look old enough to be 1.00

00:03:42.080 my senior even, but there you are. You started doing this decades ago. Tell us about that to start with.

00:03:50.620 Yeah, it was really funny. The first time I ever heard the word podcast was actually Patrick Madrid

00:03:57.420 used to have a blog, Envoy Magazine, and someone buried about 20 comments down said,

00:04:04.220 are you guys going to ever podcast? And I was like, what the heck is a podcast? So this was probably

00:04:08.460 February of 2005. And within a month, we had launched the very first Catholic podcast by a Catholic

00:04:16.140 organization, Rosary Army podcast. And literally to this day, I'm going to out my wife right now.

00:04:22.020 To this day, she's never heard the first episode of that podcast. It was so bad. I recorded it like

00:04:26.860 on a little tin can microphone up in my office, had no idea what I was doing, what it was. But there

00:04:33.320 were no, there weren't a lot of podcasts out there and Apple had not even added it to iTunes yet.

00:04:39.440 So did iTunes exist yet?

00:04:41.100 Well, iTunes existed because that's where the iPod idea came from, but recorded it,

00:04:46.400 put it out there, had no idea what would happen. That was, excuse me, just the month before

00:04:51.460 Pope St. John Paul II died. So suddenly, you know, if you're a Catholic podcaster at that time,

00:04:58.660 you wanted to hear other Catholic podcasters. So you had a choice of about five other people

00:05:02.860 at that time. And so we all banded together. There was a group actually at that time called

00:05:07.900 Disciples with Microphones is what we were calling ourselves. And we all did tributes to

00:05:12.180 John Paul II at the time. When the Terry Schiavo incident was happening back in 2005, we all recorded

00:05:18.480 podcasts for Terry. And we're all just trying to figure out how do we do this? And then around the,

00:05:24.100 I think, seventh or eighth episode, I was still working in the IT industry at the time. And I got

00:05:28.520 laid off and I was really angry. And I took my recorder and I just podcasted about it and put it out

00:05:33.840 into the ethernet. And that's when things really changed because suddenly we started hearing from

00:05:38.700 other Catholics and other non-Catholics saying, I heard that podcast and listening to you was like

00:05:44.300 hearing my own thoughts brought out. And it just gave me so much peace to know I'm not alone. And

00:05:49.800 that really is what started resonating with us. And Jennifer soon joined the program shortly after

00:05:55.020 that. We ended up, I don't know, within the first 20 plus episodes, having our first miscarriage.

00:06:01.280 And again, we had people praying for us that were listening. And so we podcasted about that

00:06:06.420 experience literally the day that we lost that child. And for years, literally years after that,

00:06:13.020 we kept hearing from people saying, thank you for sharing that because I just lost a child.

00:06:17.440 Thank you for sharing that because I've struggled with this in the past. And so we really learned

00:06:22.040 the power of podcasting. And in those early days, really what it was, was community. And so many

00:06:27.480 people wanting to grow deeper in their faith, but not knowing who they can reach out to, to share

00:06:32.260 that journey with. And so that was the early days of podcasting for us and finding just so many

00:06:37.680 comrades in arms in the church militant, you know, of Catholic podcasting in those early days.

00:06:43.320 We had everyone from a priest in the Netherlands to a neurosurgeon in Kansas City to another priest at

00:06:48.520 Franciscan University. We're all banded together. And our friendships still to this day are very strong

00:06:54.500 from that experience of being very blessed to have been among that initial crowd of people just

00:07:01.300 trying to figure out how does this technology work and how could it help the church?

00:07:05.880 We're very grateful to you at LifeSite because you've trained and brought to us someone who's

00:07:10.820 very special to us. Behind the camera, behind the scenes, in fact, behind the computer most of the

00:07:15.760 time is your son, Walter Willits, who has just been fabulous for us. He was able to bring us the vast

00:07:23.980 experience that comes from you. So thank you.

00:07:26.740 Our pleasure.

00:07:27.240 We're very proud of that. Well, of all of our kids, of course, but it's really been amazing

00:07:32.500 watching Walter choose the path that he chose and to see it go down a pathway that leads him to

00:07:38.220 serving Jesus in this way. It's been a pretty amazing thing to see. So thank you for employing our son.

00:07:45.260 It's our great privilege. You guys have been doing this many, many years,

00:07:48.260 but you've chosen to focus right now on Our Lady. You did Rosary Army. Well, tell us about

00:07:53.180 Rosary Army, first of all.

00:07:54.520 Well, that's another, you know, stumbling into an amazing thing that could never have planned it.

00:08:00.400 Literally went to confession one day. The priest was sitting there in the confessional. No one

00:08:04.000 was waiting to go to confession. So I walked in, the priest was praying the rosary, and he had a

00:08:08.700 single decade knotted rosary using really thick rope. I just remember seeing it, thinking that's

00:08:13.920 really kind of cool, forgot all about it. And then literally two months later, I was sitting in my

00:08:18.420 little cube in my IT job and remembered that and looked all over online trying to find instructions

00:08:24.900 for making one of those things. I found some printed instructions. I need pictures. I'm not the

00:08:30.180 smartest guy when it comes to trying to figure out stuff like that, but I found some written

00:08:34.060 instructions. I went to every craft store around, finally found some ugly macrame cord and cobbled

00:08:39.520 together one of the ugliest rosaries that you've ever seen in your life. It was my first

00:08:43.360 all twine knotted rosary, but I was hooked instantly and started making them, got better

00:08:48.580 twine that we have been recommending people use for all these years, started making them

00:08:53.500 and going to church and just would see someone and feel compelled by the Holy Spirit to give

00:08:58.240 them that rosary and just kept giving them and giving them and giving them. And then people

00:09:01.700 started asking, well, how are you doing that? And how are you making them? So started making

00:09:06.220 them, I was praying it more and then giving them away. And that became the motto of Rosary

00:09:10.660 Army, gave a talk to a bunch of teens, literally it was 20 years ago this month. And during that

00:09:17.580 talk about the rosary, about John Paul II, talked about this compulsion I had just a few months

00:09:23.460 before in September of 2002 to start making these rosaries. And then literally the next

00:09:29.520 month, John Paul II declared the year of the rosary. And it just rocked my world that these

00:09:36.240 two things were happening at the same time. And then a few months later, I'm teaching these teens

00:09:39.680 and I told them that when I started making them and then the year of the rosary was declared,

00:09:44.660 and then I started seeing these other rosary ministries popping up all over the world,

00:09:48.960 I started to realize this isn't just something that I'm doing, but it's literally like an army

00:09:54.620 that's being brought up. And those kids, I taught them how to make these rosaries that weekend

00:09:59.380 and taught them the initial knots. And then they went off and worked on it their own.

00:10:02.700 And all weekend long at that retreat, those kids kept coming up to me with their finished

00:10:05.880 rosaries and saying, look, I'm in the army now. Look, I'm in the army now. I went home that night,

00:10:11.500 March of 2003 and registered rosaryarmy.com. It's 20 years ago. Millions of rosaries have been

00:10:18.700 distributed either directly from our apostolate since then, or from the countless thousands of

00:10:22.960 people that have learned how to make them since then. You see them on college campuses, youth groups

00:10:27.160 make them all the time now. And it's just been an amazing thing for us to see. So that's the

00:10:31.800 beginning of rosary army. But it just led to so many other things over these last 20 years.

00:10:37.520 It's amazing. 20 years to the date right now. That's really providential for us to be talking

00:10:41.840 now. That's a very significant anniversary of being able to share. My dad referred to the rosary

00:10:48.080 as the umbilical cord to your heavenly mother. And beautiful, beautiful thing. You are embarking on

00:10:54.760 a new project called School of Mary. What is that?

00:11:00.480 Well, School of Mary is actually another one of my husband's great loves. And it really, it all

00:11:04.620 starts with him. And I have just tried to be a responsive and attentive Catholic wife and pay 0.60

00:11:11.680 attention to the work my husband is doing, because one of my prayers is to be married to a holy man at

00:11:17.640 all times. And my husband is really growing in this area. And he was very quickly drawn to St. Louis

00:11:23.980 Montpert and this total consecration, which also got on our radar about 20 years ago, right around

00:11:29.840 the years of the formation of Rosary Army. And everything kind of began with my husband. But I

00:11:34.740 very quickly saw that I needed to join him in these initiatives. I needed to grow with my husband in this

00:11:41.240 spirituality of our Catholic faith. And so 20 years ago, we both decided to just take a leap of faith

00:11:48.140 and try this total consecration discipline of prayers of which we didn't know much about.

00:11:54.780 But we had a really good priest at the time saying, you need to do this. You need to trust Mary and

00:12:00.280 just wait and see what will happen when you do. And so we just trusted and we started praying and

00:12:07.140 surrendering. Again, not really knowing a whole lot about what we were doing because we're kind of

00:12:11.980 young. We were early 30s.

00:12:15.000 We were 15 at the time.

00:12:16.080 No, we're just 15 years old.

00:12:18.120 Okay, we're in our 30s. All right. So you think about when you were 30 and where you were in your

00:12:23.180 faith life. Okay, you know a whole lot more now than you did 20 years ago. So Mary worked with that,

00:12:29.000 you know, with how immature we were in our faith. And we realized this was something really special.

00:12:34.880 And it started to transform our lives for the next 20 years. And so we realized we needed to

00:12:41.240 somehow promote this, that we, as we looked at the state of our world, just spiraling downward and

00:12:47.020 its morals and impurities. And the world needs to remember Mary and get back to her. So it's like,

00:12:53.860 all right, well, let's promote total consecration. So how do we bring this into our modern audience?

00:13:00.120 Because we don't want to water down or modernize something beautiful in its traditional state.

00:13:05.260 It needs to lift people up and bring you to the higher place. So we need to keep it intact. That

00:13:10.240 was really important to us. And we love how St. Louis de Montfort was challenging. And it's classical

00:13:16.280 in the way that it's written. And it's like written centuries ago. And so you really have to wrestle with

00:13:20.240 his language and use of words. But that's part of the appeal. And that's part of what calls you up to

00:13:25.460 that higher standard. So we wanted to do this. And we thought, School of Mary is a term I believe

00:13:31.240 that St. Louis de Montfort had used often in his writings. And we really loved that phrase,

00:13:36.280 sitting at the feet of Mary. And so we knew that the phrase was very special. It's very inviting and

00:13:41.500 comforting. And so we wanted total consecration to have a really good place to sort of exist,

00:13:46.680 to appeal to a wider audience. And so that's really where the School of Mary is right now. It's not

00:13:53.020 completely ready to launch to the public, but it is actively being fleshed out and built right now.

00:13:58.500 And I just have to give credit to my husband for really seeing this mission through. It's been a

00:14:04.660 long, long time that he has loved this idea of School of Mary. And we're so close to being able

00:14:10.560 to launch it to the world. Yeah. And so what we envision it to be is a learning platform and a

00:14:15.760 community. And because we hear from people all the time that while we already have total

00:14:19.960 consecration resources on our website, they oftentimes feel alone or they feel lost. We

00:14:25.040 encourage them to stick with St. Louis Marie de Montfort's words and his instruction. But we

00:14:32.320 also understand, like Jennifer said, that difficulty sometimes to understand it. So right now we're

00:14:36.740 rerecording not only the prayers, but we're doing a daily reflection and commentary on it to help people

00:14:42.340 to have a better understanding of what does this mean in the 21st century and to not be afraid of words

00:14:47.640 he uses like slavery to marry. Or when we say that we're going to completely give up all that we

00:14:53.280 have, our family, whatever it might be, it can be terrifying if you think about it in modern day

00:14:58.600 definitions. But it shouldn't be a scary thing because we also see very clearly where he talks about

00:15:05.000 how she who is full of grace is going to completely take care of our needs and we have nothing to be

00:15:11.500 afraid of. And so really making sure that people are seeing that and that we also are providing a

00:15:16.460 community place so that other people that are going through not only total consecration,

00:15:21.320 but many of the other programs that we have planned for down the road, many of which will deal with

00:15:26.140 other works of St. Louis Marie de Montfort, as well as we do another podcast called Catechism Class.

00:15:31.200 That's going to be incorporated into School of Mary and other things that we'll announce over time.

00:15:36.320 But all these things for people to come in and find a place where they can grow in their faith,

00:15:40.820 know that they're going to have traditional reverent materials. That's also fun. I mean,

00:15:44.740 we can't help it, but to joke around and laugh and we enjoy, we enjoy our faith. We actually find it

00:15:50.680 fun and interesting. And sometimes we'll hear something and we'll make a joke about it, but

00:15:55.380 people know how seriously we take the faith at the same time. We'll die for our faith. We would do

00:16:00.400 anything for our blessed mother and for her son. And we want to help other people to get to that

00:16:05.240 place. And so that's what we envision School of Mary being. Truly, Rosary Army is the entry point.

00:16:09.400 The rosary being, here's this core way for you to meditate on the life of Jesus Christ on a daily

00:16:14.420 basis. We all need the rosary, but you can't help but to want to go even deeper when you pray the

00:16:20.260 rosary. The more you pray the rosary, when you make it a daily practice, you're going to be pulled in

00:16:25.320 to want more from the faith. And so we hope the School of Mary is going to be able to do that.

00:16:30.320 We're working very hard to try to make everything that we're going to make available for free to

00:16:34.440 people because this is so critical for them to have access to these resources. And so we're just

00:16:40.380 trusting Mary. I mean, we've been living on loaves and fishes for the last few years. We keep telling

00:16:44.100 people, God has never let us down. We're trusting him to provide everything that we need. And so far,

00:16:49.460 we're exactly where we need to be in making this project happen. So praise God for those things.

00:16:55.080 One of the neat things about you too, if I might say, is that that joy aspect is really evident.

00:17:00.620 And watching you interact on your show brings a lot of joy. It really does inspire. If you ever

00:17:07.800 wonder at people thinking to talk to you, don't, because your joy, your interaction with one another

00:17:14.420 is so loving. It's infectious. So that's a great witness all by itself right there. What brought you

00:17:22.800 to that place? Obviously, I mean, married couples go through a lot. And, you know, it's sometimes hard.

00:17:32.840 But you share an evident love and joy with one another that's really touching.

00:17:39.960 Where do you think that came from? Or how do you keep that going?

00:17:43.620 Well, I think I would attribute it to the early podcasting days. That was our first real

00:17:49.220 venture into communicating in this very unique way. Okay, so you have to go back 20 years. And just

00:17:56.820 to even unwind the technology clock a little bit, it's, you know, Facebook wasn't around,

00:18:02.540 YouTube was just starting to like get out there, but nobody really knew what it was yet. So this is

00:18:07.920 kind of the world we're in. And so my husband and I are trying to podcast and it like nobody would know

00:18:15.200 what we were doing. But we're talking to this plastic microphone in our closet. And we're sharing

00:18:21.160 really deep things to this unknown void of whatever. But in doing that, we were sharing so authentically

00:18:30.640 from our hearts. But how could we not benefit from that as a married couple, we were practicing

00:18:35.980 communicating in a very safe and intelligent and in a considerate way. I highly recommend married

00:18:42.780 couples if you want to get into an argument, put microphones in front of you and then start talking.

00:18:47.420 And imagine there's an audience right there. You're going to play nice automatically. And you start

00:18:52.460 automatically just nicer. You will play nicer. It just tempers your passions. And that is key to

00:19:01.020 growing in holiness. It's about controlling those passions and looking out for one another. But still,

00:19:08.240 we're human. There were times when we were working for the Catholics next door for the Catholic

00:19:12.760 channel a few years ago, where we were doing live radio. So this is three hours of live radio,

00:19:18.700 five days a week. Things can get a little unpredictable in that format of broadcasting,

00:19:23.200 where we had live callers. And there were times when we would step on each other's toes,

00:19:29.440 live and on the air. And there was no way out of those situations. And there were times,

00:19:35.400 because I'm a female, I'm just saying, I would be sensitive. He would step on my toes.

00:19:41.560 Now, thankfully, there was no video component. So I could use sign language. And I would just go like,

00:19:47.500 but there were tears, you know, there were tears at times on the radio, you know, and he was like,

00:19:55.080 okay, don't look at my don't look at her. I just can't look at her right now. And that was but we

00:19:59.380 got through it. And we grew through those struggles. And we know that we love each other. And we know that

00:20:05.960 we want the best for each other. And so doing this, literally weekly, for almost 20 years has

00:20:13.040 made a difference. We are in it now. We are so committed to our work. We're so committed to

00:20:18.020 serving our Queen, our Lady, that we're all in. It's like, I don't care. She's got it. What do we

00:20:22.700 have to worry about? We're all in now. And it feels so wonderful to be united in this calling as husband

00:20:28.740 and wife. It's amazing. I remember in the very early days of Rosary Army, there was news and in

00:20:35.920 the Catholic world, and just a couple of there were some Catholic couples that got divorced. And it was

00:20:41.140 just such a shock. And it really hurt our hearts. And as Rosary Army was starting, it became a cautionary

00:20:48.180 tale for us as well, that we really have to make our marriage strong. The devil would love to rip us

00:20:54.660 apart. The devil, it would just be such an incredible victory if Greg and Jennifer Willits,

00:20:59.860 who, like she said, on The Catholics Next Door, on SiriusXM for all those years, the Catholics Next

00:21:03.940 Door, if they got divorced, if the devil could tear us apart, if here's this family that has been

00:21:09.220 promoting being open to life and following the church's teachings in that regard, if the devil could

00:21:14.960 rip them apart, how glorious that would be for the devil, right? And so we've always had that

00:21:19.780 cautionary, you know, devil sitting on our shoulder and that warning. And I think so much about one

00:21:27.900 marriage in particular that I remember reading about in those early 2000s, and just feeling so

00:21:32.900 sad for that situation, because it was a devoted Catholic couple, and then this happened to it. And

00:21:36.840 then we saw, you know, even some priests that we loved dearly fall and give up their priesthood,

00:21:43.400 and so they gave up their vocation. And to see those kinds of things, so we know that it can happen.

00:21:48.580 And so we've worked very hard to make this commitment, this sacramental marriage. This

00:21:55.240 isn't just marriage. This is the sacrament. This is holy matrimony that we're engaged in.

00:22:01.780 And we have to keep that at the forefront of our personal lives. And as long as we do that,

00:22:07.880 as long as we, I mean, listen, we're going to receive graces from this amazing holy sacrament,

00:22:12.380 right? We receive graces. We need to take advantage of those graces to be able to do this work and to

00:22:18.180 trust Jesus and Mary to protect it, protect our marriage as well. So thank you for making that

00:22:23.400 comment about the joy. It's not easy. I mean, people that listen to our show know, particularly

00:22:27.840 in the last five years, a topic that we never talked about was mental health issues. And in

00:22:33.040 the last five years, that's something that I've had to be transparent about, that I have suffered

00:22:37.300 from that for most of my life. But it has been God that has seen us through, and our marriage has,

00:22:42.940 I think strengthened as a result of her struggles, Jennifer's struggles with having to deal with me

00:22:47.480 in periods of really deep depression and anxiety. And then how thankful I have been for her and try

00:22:54.600 to lift her up when I can, because of the way that she takes care of me in those times. And so again,

00:23:00.660 in sickness and in health, you don't always think about mental issues, but that I actually think

00:23:05.360 that God has blessed us by giving us that cross, that illness for these last almost 28 years of 1.00

00:23:12.060 marriage, that when she came into this, she didn't realize that was there. And it became really evident

00:23:17.000 when two couples living together after marriage, and you can't hide that kind of stuff anymore.

00:23:22.000 And it's just amazing how God can take even this huge thorn of mental health issues that I'd carried

00:23:27.320 my whole life and can help us become stronger, a stronger couple, and actually still do amazing

00:23:32.200 things for the church. And so we add that mental health topic. You know, we mentioned when we had

00:23:37.740 a miscarriage, people responded to it, or unemployment, people respond to it. Since we

00:23:41.600 started talking about mental health issues a few years ago, it's amazing not a week goes by where

00:23:45.020 we don't hear from a Catholic who's dealing with it or has a spouse that's dealing with it. And it's 0.96

00:23:49.480 an area that we just need to talk more about. But that's a roundabout way of saying we're very aware.

00:23:54.540 It's not always joyful. But, you know, I had a priest tell me one time, I went in, I said,

00:23:59.620 I just don't feel very happy. He said, but are you joyful? And I went, I don't know what you're

00:24:03.420 talking about. I said, I'm not happy. Yeah, but are you joyful? Are you living in a state of grace?

00:24:08.200 Do you know that you're living the life that God wants you to be living? He says, then you're joyful.

00:24:12.440 Don't worry about being happy. You're not going to be happy all the time, but be joyful. And so even

00:24:16.400 in the midst of depression, we have no doubt that God loves us. We have no doubt that we're on the

00:24:20.580 right path, that he's going to take care of us, our marriage, our children, and this apostolate.

00:24:24.580 But working in active apostolate has often been said to be able to transfer the faith to your

00:24:31.580 children much more easily. It's somehow, that's why pro-life activists have a better success rate

00:24:38.420 with their children in terms of raising them in the faith, because that the very activism in the

00:24:43.840 faith tends to do something for the faith of the kids. Have you found that yourselves?

00:24:48.460 Well, yes. And I would have to say that all of our children are still active in their Catholic

00:24:55.680 faith. So praise be to God. But I'm always, as mother, I'm always watching and praying. And if I

00:25:02.500 see a concern, then I just pray harder for that particular child. But we have four boys and our

00:25:11.020 youngest child is actually a girl. So we're very blessed to have finally experienced the joys of

00:25:14.820 having a daughter. And she's 14 right now, but already there's conversations about the possibility

00:25:21.980 of a vocation into religious life. And that is a fruit that I never thought I would even witness

00:25:28.280 this early on in the parenting, you know, life. And I really had to come to terms with that because

00:25:34.040 selfishly, when I first had her and I loved her so intensely as mother and daughter, I was like,

00:25:39.960 yes, finally, I'm getting the daughter. You know, when I entertained the thought of her being a nun, 0.91

00:25:44.920 I bristled in my selfishness. I was like, but no, but I, I want her. I want her to follow my foot. 0.99

00:25:52.280 So I mean, the I and the me, it's like, oh, it's awful. Now I'm like, oh, what a gift it would be.

00:25:57.380 What a gift it would be for the church if she would fulfill that desire and dream. And if the Lord calls

00:26:03.560 her to be a nun, that would be such an honor. But seriously, all of our children, we're so proud of them.

00:26:08.940 They're, they're very active in their faith. And, but I know it's not, you know, their lives are not

00:26:14.000 over yet. There's still, I think a lot of seeds that we planted. Our home, we've tried very hard

00:26:19.720 to make it a very Catholic looking home so that there's no doubt of our Catholic faith. When you

00:26:25.060 walk into our home, there's always pictures, there's Mary, rosaries, you know, there's just an

00:26:28.880 exterior signs everywhere. I know that's doing something too. So then when they go and they start their

00:26:34.760 own homes, they'll have that as a reference point where they can maybe want to draw upon that and,

00:26:39.720 and take that in their futures as they build their families. So it's interesting to see what will

00:26:45.020 happen. I appreciate what has happened, but I know life is so full and long. But my prayer is that they

00:26:51.800 always stay on the righteous path no matter what.

00:26:53.960 Now, if you don't mind, I'm going to try and get you guys to rewind even further because your faith

00:27:00.380 is so strong. Where, how did you get there even? Because this is a struggle. I mean, you guys are

00:27:07.920 probably around my age. Wasn't an easy time to have the faith, let alone maintain it.

00:27:16.080 Well, I know what's really helped in the last year and a half. That was, we made a big switch on

00:27:24.380 where we went to Mass. And it actually, I mean, talk about providential, like a timeline of events.

00:27:34.680 During the early months of the pandemic, I watched you interview Dr. Scott Hahn about his book,

00:27:42.140 Hope to Die. I, I don't think I ever saw you before that day. I didn't know who you were.

00:27:48.160 And this is before Walter, you know, started working with you. But I was so drawn to that

00:27:54.040 interview. And then in that interview, Dr. Scott Hahn made a reference to Bishop Athanasius Snyder.

00:28:01.360 And I was like, well, who's that? Because he really impressed Dr. Scott Hahn. And I don't know who

00:28:05.220 this, this bishop is. And so I was led to him and that Christus Vincent book. And then,

00:28:09.900 you know, it was just a cascade of events. And then I started realizing that my reception of

00:28:14.780 the Eucharist could be more reverent. And I didn't realize that receiving in the hand was improper

00:28:19.780 and that what's this about wearing a veil? I mean, like I was totally waking up. I was like,

00:28:25.520 just coming alive to this deeper reverence option during the pandemic, you know, the early time of

00:28:32.080 the pandemic. Are you going to tell the story about the email that you sent?

00:28:35.400 To Bishop Snyder? Yeah. So my wife wakes up in the middle of the night.

00:28:39.900 And she does what most wives would do, right? She's concerned about her reception of the 1.00

00:28:45.680 Eucharist at the church that we go to. It was an unusual situation. I won't go into that.

00:28:49.240 So here we are in the state of Georgia, the United States, and my wife just

00:28:52.820 goes into the closet or whatever and gets her computer and writes out an email to Bishop

00:28:58.880 Athanasius Snyder asking for clarification on something.

00:29:01.640 In my defense, I will say that I wanted an authentic answer that I could trust on the

00:29:09.040 reverence of the Eucharist. And I thought, who do I know in the entire world that I would

00:29:14.640 trust the answer? And he was the only man to come to mind was this man, Bishop Snyder.

00:29:20.360 He's holy. He's reverent. It's him. It's got to be him. So I'm just going to send this email.

00:29:25.180 I'm just going to Google whatever. How do I find him? And if he answers, he answers. If not,

00:29:29.740 if I'm one of a million emails he gets, then he won't answer. No harm, no foul.

00:29:34.120 Within 10 hours, he responded like a good father, just so kind and loving. And he set me straight.

00:29:40.820 He did not mince any words and he gave me the truth. And I'm like, okay, that's what I needed

00:29:45.480 to hear. And he corrected me lovingly like a good father. And it's like, all right, now I know.

00:29:49.620 But that was the beginning of chasing reverence. And very soon after we discovered the Latin mass.

00:29:57.040 And that was, that put us on a whole new trajectory of reverence. And I feel like I'm

00:30:03.200 trying to live an ad orientum life. That's my goal now, just to always face God, no matter what.

00:30:08.920 But going back before that, you know, like you were mentioning, we're probably about the same age,

00:30:13.380 70s and 80s. I have lived in eight different states, many parishes in many other states.

00:30:19.620 And I would say that it wasn't until the last few years that I did find a parish where I was truly

00:30:26.700 at home, where I felt like the reverence I've been seeking for all these years was there.

00:30:31.120 I oftentimes lament that it wasn't until after I was married. Jennifer, I think Jennifer was pregnant

00:30:37.600 with Walt the first time I ever went to Eucharistic adoration. And how in the world did I attend all

00:30:45.060 these parishes in all these different states? And that was never introduced to me until that

00:30:49.560 time. So that would have been 1998, 99, sometime around that timeframe. How have I been Catholic

00:30:55.920 my entire life? But, you know, growing up, because catechesis was so loosey-goosey, I remember

00:31:02.220 very clearly when I was in first or second grade, seeing the priest explain how we're going to switch

00:31:09.120 and everyone's going to start receiving in the hand. That same parish, I remember on Palm Sunday one

00:31:13.940 year, they had us throw streamers in the middle of mass. And we went to another parish where for Palm

00:31:19.540 Sunday, they had us with those giant balloons you see at concerts and literally throwing the balloon

00:31:24.760 around during mass. And so that was kind of my idea of the mass is supposed to be like this. And then

00:31:30.800 I'd go somewhere else and it'd be something different. And so I was very confused. And then I also would

00:31:36.700 hear a teaching of the church, like not using contraception, but then know what I considered to be very

00:31:42.760 solid, good Catholics that were using it or had even been sterilized. And so a lot of confusion.

00:31:48.880 It's like, what am I supposed to believe? And what am I supposed to do? All these things. And then when

00:31:53.940 Jennifer and I met in our mid twenties, it was really important to me to go to Sunday mass, but I would

00:32:00.420 say I was not a good Catholic at all at the time. I joke, but it's a truth. I remember one time that when 1.00

00:32:07.700 I was in college, the college I went to, the team made it to the final four in basketball. I'm not really

00:32:12.720 a sports fan, but I knew I was going to go to someone's house on that Saturday night and watch

00:32:16.760 that game. So I made sure that I went to the Saturday evening vigil because I was going to be

00:32:21.620 too hung over the next day to go to mass. I mean, that was my thinking. I went to mass, but I'm going

00:32:25.640 to get really stinking drunk tonight. I mean, so it's like, what was I thinking? Right. I had no real

00:32:31.840 solid idea of how to live out my faith. And it was after we got married. And, you know, this is the

00:32:37.740 great thing about the sacraments. I mean, when you receive the sacraments, the graces of the

00:32:41.840 sacraments start going to work. And so when we got married, when Jennifer was younger,

00:32:48.960 her parents actually left the Catholic church just a couple of weeks before her first communion.

00:32:53.360 So she never completed the sacraments of initiation. And so when we got married, she wasn't Catholic,

00:32:59.640 but it was important to me to get married in a Catholic church. She agreed. Our first couple of

00:33:05.200 years of marriage, we're just kind of stumbling through things. And it wasn't until after we had our

00:33:09.500 first son. And he was almost a year old before she agreed to let him be baptized in the Catholic

00:33:14.560 church. And once he was baptized, now I'm telling her story. You should feel awful for that. 0.82

00:33:20.840 That's terrible.

00:33:22.680 Once he was baptized, you know, and I'm telling your story for you. She said, you know, she felt like

00:33:28.260 she was the odd person out in our family then.

00:33:31.360 Yeah. Two out of three are Catholic.

00:33:32.740 She started to feel that pull. She needed to complete her sacraments. And so she started

00:33:38.380 going through. And I don't know if you knew you were pregnant with Walt.

00:33:42.140 No, not at the time.

00:33:43.340 But when she was confirmed, John Henry, you'll appreciate this, Walter, who works for you,

00:33:46.800 when she was confirmed, Walter was in her womb. And that's a pretty amazing thing for us to know

00:33:55.100 that. And we may not have known it at the time, but that's the case.

00:33:58.860 Easter Vigil 99. I was just two weeks pregnant with Walter, but I didn't know it for another few

00:34:05.080 weeks. But it was really fun.

00:34:07.520 But in the next few years, I mean, when we got married, we were a contraception couple 0.67

00:34:10.940 because we didn't know. We didn't understand. We thought things were optional. And it wasn't until

00:34:15.480 a very, very brave deacon gave a homily and explained the teachings of the church and explained

00:34:22.520 the immorality of contraception. And I remember going home that night and saying to Jennifer,

00:34:27.240 I said, I think we need to talk. She goes, we're not talking about anything.

00:34:29.960 Well, we talked. We listened to Dr. Janet Smith's tape, contraception, why not?

00:34:35.840 And two weeks later, she was pregnant with our third child. And since then, we've had two more

00:34:41.480 children join us on this earth. We have five kids on earth and five in heaven. And we're very

00:34:47.780 thankful for that openness to life. And going back to one of your original questions, where does that

00:34:51.800 joy come from? I think openness to life definitely has played a huge role in that. It's made us

00:34:57.080 understand the gift of sexuality that God has given us in our marriage. And it's helped us to

00:35:02.580 appreciate and respect each other more. It's blessed our children with siblings that they wouldn't have

00:35:07.700 had because we would have stopped. We would have quit having kids. The blessings have just been

00:35:12.580 innumerable. And so I really, you know, now that we're in our 50s, we don't think and talk about

00:35:18.740 that as much as we used to. But in the early days of podcasting, that was natural family planning and

00:35:23.080 that kind of topic. That was a regular conversation for us. People used to joke, anytime we would do a

00:35:28.060 podcast about natural family planning, she'd be pregnant within a couple of weeks. So that happened 0.98

00:35:34.320 a lot. Amazing. You know, what's really good about the church crisis today is that there's never been

00:35:42.320 more teaching about contraception, because as they're fighting it, it gets talked about. So

00:35:48.180 we finally got the teaching of the word out on the Catholic Church is supposed to be against

00:35:53.180 contraception. Although growing up, you'd never have known that. Any parting words for us?

00:35:58.360 We'd love to, if you don't have a rosary, we'd love to give you one. We have free audio rosaries on

00:36:03.380 our website that have been downloaded millions of times. If you need someone to pray with,

00:36:06.640 come to our website and pray with us. We'd be happy to do that. And go over to

00:36:10.520 schoolofmary.com and sign up and we'll let you know as soon as all of our total consecration new

00:36:15.320 resources are available and so much more. We'd love to accompany you in your journey to growing

00:36:19.920 closer to Jesus through Mary. It kind of sounds like we're ending one of our shows. I feel like

00:36:23.760 you need to tell everybody, don't forget to pray a rosary every day and do whatever it takes to be

00:36:28.700 holy. God bless. Goodbye. Amen. It's going to automatic mode all of a sudden. But thank you,

00:36:34.380 John Henry, for having us on your program. It's an honor to be here, to finally get to speak to you

00:36:39.140 after all this time. And we have so appreciated this. Oh, God bless you guys. Thank you. And

00:36:44.800 God bless all of you. And we'll see you next time.

00:37:09.140 with all the latest life, family, faith, and freedom news. Thanks for watching and may God bless you.

The John-Henry Westen Show - April 05, 2023

Marian Devotion： The Secret To Protection, Joy In A World Full Of Chaos

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