The John-Henry Westen Show - Nuns Reveal the Secret Wisdom of Motherhood

00:00:00.000 Every time I find myself in the back with a kid that really does not want to be

00:00:03.480 there at church, I try to remember nowadays, you know, what the nuns have said, like,

00:00:08.840 this is where I am meant to be. This is my vocation. This is my call to prayer.

00:00:20.740 Hey, my friends, you know, there's a lot of books written on motherhood,

00:00:24.700 but you really want to, especially moms who are homeschooling moms and, or, you know,

00:00:31.160 have been homeschooling moms, traditional moms, they really want to know good advice on mothering.

00:00:36.700 How do you find it? You definitely don't look in your Today's Parent magazine or something like

00:00:40.560 that. There is a new book out by Dr. Mary Elizabeth Cuff. She's a homeschooling mom,

00:00:46.220 but she's also a PhD in American literature and classic rhetoric from the Catholic University

00:00:52.020 of America. Now she had a really interesting idea for doing a book on motherhood. And that was to

00:00:58.780 talk to the heads of religious orders about motherhood. Now you might think that's a little

00:01:04.640 bit weird, but what can the mothers of religious orders share with moms? We're going to find out

00:01:09.020 right now. Stay tuned for this episode of the John Henry Weston show. This October 17th and 18th,

00:01:16.640 we are going to be running Rome Life Forum in exile. We're doing that in Kansas City, Missouri.

00:01:22.980 This fine bishop, Bishop Joseph Strickland, sort of in exile, is going to be joining us there as well

00:01:27.760 as Dr. Janet Smith, as well as prophecy expert Xavier Aral and many more, including a special guest.

00:01:37.000 Hope to see you there.

00:01:37.980 Hope to see you there.

00:01:39.280 God bless you. RomeLifeForum.com. Sign up now.

00:01:42.340 Dr. Mary Elizabeth Cuff, welcome to the program.

00:01:47.440 Thanks for having me.

00:01:48.360 Let's begin as we always do with the sign of the cross. In the name of the Father,

00:01:53.000 and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

00:01:56.660 Let me ask you just right off, what inspired you to do this kind of thing? It's a very interesting

00:02:03.420 concept, but how did you get there?

00:02:04.800 It actually began at a playground a couple years ago. I was at a playground in town with a bunch of

00:02:11.480 my mom friends. Kids are running around having fun, and we're standing around talking. All of a

00:02:18.400 sudden, a Capuchin nun walks over. You never see a Capuchin nun at a playground. I went over, said hi.

00:02:27.360 We started talking. It turns out she's the sister-in-law of one of the moms who was there,

00:02:32.080 and she was back in for a very brief visit. We started talking about contemplative religious life

00:02:36.640 and motherhood and all these things that are just suddenly thrown into conjunction together,

00:02:43.660 the playground. She stops and says, contemplative nuns are the stay-at-home moms of the religious

00:02:49.400 vocation. I thought, oh my gosh, I never thought of that before. That's so true. What else do we have

00:02:56.860 in common? I started thinking about, you know, what else do we have in common between those two

00:03:03.140 vocations? Next thing you know, I have a list of questions I want to ask the contemplative stay-at-home

00:03:10.800 moms about, and the book was born.

00:03:12.880 Tell us about some of the orders. I understand one of them that you interviewed was the order

00:03:17.440 that's been in the news of late because of Sister Wilhelmina, who is a cause up for sainthood and stuff

00:03:25.240 like that. And if anybody doesn't know, the one whose body was exhumed found incorrupt. And it was

00:03:32.200 interesting for our viewers, especially because she was from a traditional order, and she actually

00:03:38.080 started her order as a traditional order. And that, of course, was a big hoopla while all the battle

00:03:43.120 between tradition and non-tradition was going on. But tell us about the orders that you interviewed.

00:03:48.320 I worked with five different monastic communities. I kind of wanted to get the width and breadth of

00:03:54.500 what the contemplative charism can look like. So I have the Gower Benedictines, you know,

00:04:03.180 as you said, famous for their incorrupt foundress, Mother Wilhelmina. I actually got them involved in 0.98

00:04:08.720 the project before they exhumed her. And then halfway through the project, their mother superior

00:04:14.240 sends me a letter and goes, sorry, it's taking me so long to get to your questions. I have an

00:04:19.520 incorrupt foundress on my hands. And I've never had to deal with that before. And I said,

00:04:25.600 take all the time you need. That sounds way more important than my questions. But so they're involved

00:04:32.220 in the book. I also have Cistercian nuns from up in Wisconsin. I believe they're the only Cistercian 1.00

00:04:40.200 nuns in North America. That was very exciting to get them involved. And then I have the Capuchins

00:04:48.720 over here in Pennsylvania. They are involved in the book. They call themselves evangelical

00:04:54.720 contemplative. So the different monastic traditions have different levels of cloister. And they have

00:05:02.200 one of the lightest forms of cloister because they also do a lot of sort of teaching work,

00:05:09.040 not as nuns in schools, but they sort of bring contemplation to parish life. So they're involved

00:05:16.480 in the book as well. Then I also have the Roswell Poor Clares. Maybe some people will recognize them

00:05:24.180 from Mother Mary Frances. And if they don't know Mother Mary Frances, they need to get to know Mother

00:05:28.600 Mary Frances. She was one of their foundresses in the 30s, 40s. She was very famous in the 50s. She 0.98

00:05:35.040 wrote a bunch of amazing and hilarious books about religious life. Then I also have the

00:05:41.140 Byzantine Carmelites in the Pocono Mountains involved. An amazing order. Only Byzantine Carmelites 1.00

00:05:48.720 in the world, sort of at East meets West. Magnificent, magnificent place.

00:05:54.300 It's an interesting concept, the whole thing of going to nuns to learn about motherhood.

00:06:00.260 Think, OK, in some ways you'd think, well, you'd go to the active orders because they're the ones

00:06:06.940 out there in the community. You know, they'd be doing hospitals and stuff like that and teaching.

00:06:11.680 And so moms would be really relating to that. But you chose the contemplative orders. Why is that?

00:06:16.740 So both the contemplative and the active nuns have a call to spiritual motherhood.

00:06:21.640 That call looks very different. I was drawn to the contemplative nuns, partially because

00:06:27.720 we know so little about contemplative nuns in the modern world. It's very rare to encounter them.

00:06:35.680 You have to go to their monasteries most of the time in order to meet them. So a lot of people kind

00:06:41.020 of forget that they're there. And yet they underpin the church because they are the ones praying

00:06:47.220 unceaselessly for all of us, for the whole world. So it's a hidden motherhood. And that really appealed

00:06:54.700 to me because motherhood in the modern world is increasingly sort of isolated and hidden. People

00:07:01.980 don't like to talk about it. People don't like to advertise it or promote it. You know, if you are

00:07:08.820 a woman, people want to know about your career. They want to know about what you're doing other than 1.00

00:07:14.240 being a mom. And motherhood kind of gets short shrift. And especially for women who have chosen 0.97

00:07:20.240 that's sort of a hidden motherhood as well these days. And so I thought that there was a lot of

00:07:30.460 sort of confluence there, a lot that they could offer us. It's also a lot easier to talk to active

00:07:35.820 nuns as a lay person. So I feel like a lot of people have access to talk to active nuns about

00:07:43.620 the wonderful contributions that they can give to us in our pursuit of our vocations. So this book was

00:07:51.800 giving people a chance to look into the contemplative life and see the wealth of wisdom and advice

00:08:02.040 that they have for us. Maybe the only place that most people could encounter that unless they

00:08:08.660 literally packed up and drove to a monastery thousands of miles away to say hi to the nuns.

00:08:13.280 You made that beautiful comparison right in the beginning when you first were inspired where

00:08:17.040 that nun came and told you, the contemplative nun, that they were sort of the stay-at-home moms

00:08:22.840 of the religious community. I think that's beautiful. One of the other things that happens

00:08:26.980 is, or at least in your book, Father John Harden's quoted, talking about these families as sources of

00:08:35.540 good vocations. What did he say there? From the experience you got from that, or the advice you got from

00:08:41.120 the contemplative sisters? How can families encourage vocations? I think a lot of people

00:08:48.180 today would love to have their children, especially in big families, have their children take on

00:08:56.000 religious life of some sort. How do we get there? Any advice from the book?

00:09:00.360 The sort of ending few sections, there's many little tiny chapters throughout the book that

00:09:05.540 deal with different, you know, common topics. I introduced the topic, I asked questions to the

00:09:11.460 nuns, and then I record the nuns' actual responses. So it's their words and their voices throughout the

00:09:17.520 book answering the various questions that I have. The last few sections, I actually tackled this

00:09:22.620 question directly. I asked the nuns, you know, what can parents do, especially, you know,

00:09:28.040 what can mothers do, because the book is, you know, sort of focused on mothers. What can we do to

00:09:33.260 cultivate our children's vocations? And sort of what about their own family life did they see as

00:09:41.220 sort of instrumental to their own vocation? Lots of really good insight there. Father John Harden connects

00:09:48.320 the religious life to good family life. You need to have, you know, every once in a while, you can,

00:09:55.500 you know, kind of be the exception that proves the role that someone who had an absolutely terrible

00:09:59.400 family life, you know, manages to push past that, you know, in this amazing, you know, individual act

00:10:07.280 and be able to cultivate a good religious vocation. You know, God's capable of everything. But more often

00:10:14.360 than not, in Father Harden's writings, and as the nuns say, you know, good, strong, faithful families

00:10:22.680 are sort of the, the nursery for a good religious vocation. The two vocations need each other. It's

00:10:31.120 good families that create, for the most part, strong religious vocations. And the nuns said that

00:10:38.460 that really bears out in their experiences. Most of the nuns that I spoke to are mother superiors. They're

00:10:43.300 the ones that meet prospective vocations and sort of shepherd their, their, you know, vocational

00:10:51.320 discernment, both before the young woman enters the convent and also through that process as they

00:10:57.420 determine, like, is this for her or not? And they said time and time again that, you know, the vocations

00:11:04.000 that they're getting are from large Catholic, often homeschool families, not necessarily homeschool

00:11:10.360 families, but they said that homeschool really helps with religious vocations because the monastery

00:11:17.240 is this collection of people of all ages, right? And a homeschool family is also a collection of many

00:11:26.900 people of all ages working together on a common goal, right? So the, the structure of the homeschool

00:11:34.100 life is in many ways sort of similar to the monastic life in that there is this vast age range all

00:11:41.880 working towards a particular project together. So I thought that was kind of cool. Um, something I

00:11:47.800 didn't really think about before I started the book. Um, other nuns said things like, well, one mother

00:11:54.100 superior in particular said that what is so key to a good religious vocation, uh, flourishing is a young

00:12:03.160 person's relationship with their parents. When a young woman enters a monastery, she is entering as a 0.81

00:12:10.300 daughter, a real daughter, you know, not just, you know, it's a term of endearment, right? It's a real

00:12:15.640 daughter underneath a real mother in the monastery. And if she had a bad or competitive or fraught

00:12:22.860 relationship with her own mother, uh, before entering the convent there, that's going to sort of

00:12:29.660 impact her relationship with her mother's superior. So she said, you know, mothers work very hard to

00:12:36.880 foster a good, you know, collaborative, loving relationship with your daughters because it,

00:12:44.740 it carries on into their vocation, you know, once they, once they leave, you know, the, the home,

00:12:51.820 um, of the family. And she said that that holds true too with father. She said that young women,

00:12:58.140 um, entering her monastery who struggle in their relationship with their fathers. She said that

00:13:05.580 that our father is a painful prayer. She said, it's very important for mothers and fathers to

00:13:12.600 cultivate the sort of relationship with their children that models, you know, our, our heavenly

00:13:19.820 mother, Mary and our heavenly father, God, because it is so important in a young person's ability

00:13:29.860 to encounter and fulfill their vocation. It's interesting too. You you've got, um, this book

00:13:36.260 is directed at mothers. I mean, today our culture is such that parents, yeah, whatever. It doesn't

00:13:42.000 matter. It can be two men can be two. You're focusing here specifically on mothers. Tell us the

00:13:46.720 importance of mothers while society is saying, nah, it doesn't really matter. Society likes to talk about

00:13:51.380 the parents, right? Right. Um, and no, it's, it's a mother and a father and we cannot do each other's

00:13:58.160 roles. Um, we talked, the nuns and I talked about this at the, actually at the beginning of the book,

00:14:02.100 the, the unique nature of motherhood, um, the unique feminine quality of motherhood, um, motherhood

00:14:11.240 and fatherhood are different. They're both necessary, but they're different in that motherhood takes

00:14:18.660 the unique nature of a woman and asks her to provide, um, for those in her family, whether

00:14:28.360 that's the spiritual, um, family of the monastery or the physical family of the, of the home, we are

00:14:37.480 called to use our feminine genius in a way that a man just can't, right? And, and, and conversely,

00:14:43.560 a man is called to use his masculine genius in a way that, that a woman can't, right? And 1.00

00:14:48.520 for motherhood, what that means is that we are called to foster this nurturing world of love,

00:14:58.220 right? Um, in a way that that's hard to describe in words, but when you see it in action, you can see

00:15:06.540 it, it's there, right? The way that a woman fosters, uh, love in, in the home is a uniquely feminine 1.00

00:15:16.480 aspect. Um, it's something that only a woman can give, right? If you think about how that, that comes 1.00

00:15:23.140 about, right? Where women literally provide a room for a baby to develop, right? This all surrounding 1.00

00:15:31.120 comfortable environment, right? And, and we are uniquely gifted with the ability to do that. Um,

00:15:40.260 and, and, you know, some of them will say, Oh, I'm not maternal. I can't do that. You know,

00:15:44.600 we all have it in us somewhere, right? And if we focus on developing that according to our calling,

00:15:53.040 it will come out, right? We have to, to find that in ourselves because it is there. It is an essential

00:16:00.360 part of who we are. Um, and we are called, you know, in, in however God calls us to fulfill

00:16:08.180 that universal call to motherhood. We are called to, to offer that gift, um, for those in, you know,

00:16:16.560 the community that he has given us, whether that be, you know, the children and the husband and the

00:16:21.140 home or within the church, um, at, at large. If you can give us an example of that outside of the,

00:16:29.280 um, you know, the birthing context, which, which where it's obvious, but more in the home example of

00:16:36.320 what that looks like. And there's an example that I use in the book that I think is very

00:16:40.980 beautiful. Um, where a mother and a father, not exclusively, but our emphasis is more, um,

00:16:51.260 a father is more sort of doctrinal in his emphasis, right? He's more logos centered,

00:16:59.700 whereas a mother is more, it's more of an intuitive sort of, um, presence centered.

00:17:06.320 Um, and, and, and how that impacts us in the home is that, you know, a father's role is very sort of,

00:17:15.300 I would say pointed or should be more pointed and more directed in, you know, in, in this way,

00:17:22.100 that way, you know, children often model their father's religious or lack of religious, um,

00:17:29.100 ideals. They more likely will model the father's than the mother's, um, for a mother. I think what 0.56

00:17:37.260 that means is that we have to create a presence, right? And, and that's why, you know, various

00:17:43.800 popes have talked about how it's wrong for societies to create a sort of environment where women are forced 1.00

00:17:49.320 out of the home to work because we are very much the heart of the home, right? And us being at home,

00:17:58.780 not all the time, right? But, but us like focusing on the home to create a comfortable home,

00:18:05.180 to create a welcoming home for those who live there, that is, I would say,

00:18:11.260 sort of bringing the concept of the wound into the, the, the home, right? The sort of the lifeblood,

00:18:19.600 the beating heart of the home needs to be there at the home to cultivate it, right? Um, so the home

00:18:27.260 isn't simply like a house with beds and furniture, um, and food, but, but has that sort of life pulse that

00:18:35.160 only a mother can give? It just occurs to me and maybe it's peculiar to us, but I don't think so.

00:18:43.020 The mom has it together for, it's like having it together for everybody. And we're, you know,

00:18:48.780 we were a large family with eight kids, but the mother's able to somehow provide for all in the

00:18:56.600 family and know about what's going on with all. It is sort of like your example of the womb in that

00:19:01.800 it's surrounded in the mom somehow knows what everyone needs. Um, and, uh, more like informs

00:19:10.220 when, when I needed to get something for someone, um, I'll do it, but I'm, I'm sort of told what,

00:19:17.500 what it is. And it's very much, I think, uh, pertinent to your example, at least for that was my

00:19:23.580 experience of it anyhow. Well, if you think of our lady at Cana, right. And she tells Jesus, Hey,

00:19:28.620 you're out of line. That's what a mom does. Pope Pius XI said, men must look for the peace of Christ 0.84

00:19:39.360 in the kingdom of Christ. And he urged that the faithful give public honor to Christ the King

00:19:44.700 so that individuals and States would submit once more to the rule of their savior. And that is why

00:19:50.400 LifeSite News is raising up the image of Christ the King across the United States. And you can help us

00:19:57.040 reach millions more. Please pledge your support today for these billboards at lifefunder.com slash

00:20:04.300 Christ is King. One of the things you must have learned from the nuns is how to pray for your

00:20:11.900 children. And I think this is a big one for us, but because everybody is wondering, like, you know,

00:20:17.100 as, as the kids grow up, that's our state of life right now. A lot of them out of the home.

00:20:21.880 Um, that's, that's huge. And the, these nuns say that that's their focus. What'd you learn from them

00:20:29.340 on praying, praying for our children? And, and yeah, what, how do you argue with God saying,

00:20:36.080 hello, you can't let go that, that quickly.

00:20:38.500 Prayer takes a large part of the book. Um, naturally, um, we talked about praying with children,

00:20:44.720 praying, praying distractions of, of children and of family life, right. Um, and praying for our

00:20:52.720 children. One thing that I thought was very powerful, um, I have five kids, they're all eight

00:20:58.220 and under. Um, one thing I thought was very powerful was the, the idea that praying unceaselessly,

00:21:05.840 unceasingly, right. We think, oh yeah, nuns, they do that. You know, they've got five hours of prayer

00:21:11.480 each day, or sometimes nine hours of prayer each day, depending upon the monastic tradition,

00:21:15.860 you know, they're always praying and they always have the opportunity for prayer because that's

00:21:20.340 literally their job. Right. Um, but they are also very surprisingly busy in the monastery. There's

00:21:27.320 lots of things they have to do. And in between those hours of prayer as well, they are still called

00:21:33.540 to pray unceasingly. And I always think to myself, or I did before I talked to the nuns, like,

00:21:38.400 well, that sounds nice. Who actually does that? Right. Um, who, who can actually do that? Um,

00:21:45.400 the nuns advice was really cool because it takes little things in your day that you didn't realize

00:21:52.620 were an opportunity for prayer. And they sort of reorient your conception of prayer so that you find

00:22:00.260 more opportunities that are already there that are kind of banging on the doors of your head.

00:22:06.220 And, and you just don't notice that their prayer. So for instance, one of the nuns told me like with,

00:22:12.460 with little kids and with, you know, praying unceasingly, unceasingly, she said the great

00:22:17.160 benefit of, um, monastic prayer is that they're constantly repeat repeating the Psalms, right?

00:22:23.000 Over and over and over again. She said, the great benefit of that is you get an ear bug and, you know,

00:22:27.920 you're doing the dishes or you're, you know, doing whatever. Um, in my case, you know, I'm cleaning up

00:22:33.760 the toys with my kids. And all of a sudden I realized, you know, I'm humming a hymn, you know,

00:22:40.480 cause it's an ear bug because I've been repeating it. I've been trying to incorporate this in our

00:22:45.480 family life. So we've, we've all been every single night saying Psalm one together as a family.

00:22:51.180 And my three-year-old the other day was picking up his, you know, his toys and I overheard him.

00:22:57.000 He had an ear bug. It was Psalm one was his ear bug. And he didn't have all of the words in quite

00:23:02.640 the right order, but that doesn't matter, right? That's another thing that, that the nuns, um, 0.85

00:23:08.620 emphasized was never pass judgment on the quality of your prayer, because what you think might be

00:23:15.200 a poor showing on your part might be a treasure in God's eyes. It depends upon all sorts of factors

00:23:23.020 that we aren't necessarily paying attention to. Like if we are desperately trying to pray and,

00:23:28.980 you know, there's a lot of distractions around, but we are trying to, you know, maintain the prayer

00:23:34.060 or, you know, it's really a prayer from the heart that maybe kind of got scattered around,

00:23:39.540 um, you know, as you're trying to do something and, and, and you keep losing focus, but you're,

00:23:44.640 you're, because you're trying to maintain order in chaos and you're trying to pray, you know,

00:23:50.120 that can be an absolute treasure in God's eyes. Whereas, you know, a perfectly articulated

00:23:57.320 rosary that, you know, you didn't really put your heart into, not as much maybe, right? You know,

00:24:04.620 sort of looking for moments where prayer is sort of standing there waiting, ready for you, um,

00:24:11.520 and, and pouncing on it, right? Um, cause it's not a prayer if it just sits there and you don't do

00:24:16.980 anything to it, right? So when my three-year-old is, is, you know, jumbling through Psalm one and

00:24:23.220 picking up his toys, I'm over there in the kitchen doing the dishes and I hear him, that becomes a

00:24:27.860 moment where I can pray Psalm one, two, because his bug has called me to a moment of prayer. Um,

00:24:36.700 and we're united in our prayer, even though the three-year-old hasn't noticed that, right? I have

00:24:41.320 noticed that. And God has noticed that. So praying with our children in little moments,

00:24:46.460 I think is very important. Something the nuns emphasized, you know, the community should pray

00:24:51.720 together. The family should pray together, right? And then, you know, when children grow up and leave

00:24:57.700 the home, hopefully they continue that gift that we have given them. Um, I'm still many years away from

00:25:05.260 that, but we did talk about, you know, praying for our children too, is very important because,

00:25:11.720 you know, God, God directs their steps and, you know, the nuns in the contemplative life,

00:25:19.880 their purpose as spiritual mothers is to pray for, you know, the children of God. And that means

00:25:27.120 they're praying for our children, they're praying for us. Um, and we can join our prayers to their prayers,

00:25:33.420 um, as, you know, as we pray for our children. Here's an interesting thing. I heard once from a,

00:25:39.480 from a priest, I believe, I can't remember now, but he said, um, Jesus said in the scriptures,

00:25:46.600 you know, bring little children to me. One of the things that happens when you go to mass

00:25:49.700 in your situation, it's, it's, it's hard. Uh, in fact, I used to joke with my wife, you know,

00:25:54.420 by the time, uh, the kids have finished fighting in the aisle and she's going up for a holy community,

00:25:58.980 she feels, she's been so angry. She perhaps should just ask for a blessing instead.

00:26:03.420 Um, it's hard, but the priest is said in, I think it was so consoling. He said, no, no,

00:26:11.580 no, no, no, no. Jesus wants you to bring little children. And with all that suffering and stuff

00:26:17.540 you go through, he said, our Lord takes it as if you had the devotion of St. Teresa of Avila.

00:26:24.580 If you bring the kids, I thought, Ooh, that was beautiful. Did that sort of resonate with

00:26:29.600 what you heard from the nuns? Absolutely. Absolutely. The nuns said that, you know,

00:26:34.880 the, the key is to keep trying to find yourself in the presence of God in, you know, to, to enter

00:26:42.200 into the presence of God in whatever God has called you to do, right. As part of your vocation. And we

00:26:49.000 are most truly in his presence when we are, you know, in, in church, but we can also find ways to

00:26:55.300 enter into his presence throughout the day as we do the tasks that he has assigned us. And, you know,

00:27:02.220 especially for, you know, trying to bring little kids to church and hoping that they, you know,

00:27:08.640 I feel like sometimes I'm dragging them to God, kicking and screaming. Um, but that's, that's what

00:27:15.260 I'm called to do as part of my vocation. So even if I'm not really experiencing mass the way that I

00:27:22.660 would like, or my ideal, right. Um, being in the back with the, with the little kid that I am,

00:27:31.520 you know, attempting to show God to, that is what I'm called to do in my vocation and doing that in

00:27:40.820 charity and in hope, um, that it will get better, um, is entering into the presence of God, right.

00:27:48.820 Every time I find myself in the back with a kid that really does not want to be there at church,

00:27:53.600 I try to remember nowadays, you know, what the nuns have said, like, this is where I am meant to be.

00:27:59.600 This is my vocation. This is my call to prayer. Imagine flipping the viewpoint for a second

00:28:07.740 time and you're taking God's place for a minute. So instead of like, um, you know, being the attendee

00:28:16.700 at the party where you have to deal with your kid, you are there on the other end of the host of the

00:28:23.500 party who's called you all there and is happy you're there. And he wants everybody to be there

00:28:28.260 and he sees you at the back struggling to be there yourself, but also one of his most precious little

00:28:37.080 ones with you. And he knows the struggle cause he's God, he can see everything. Who is he most

00:28:42.120 pleased by the guy in the front sitting there, you know, like happily alone and whatever, able to do

00:28:49.500 whatever, or you who is there trying your heart out to be there. Right. At least from my perspective,

00:28:59.520 you'd be like, wow, that one back there, that one really loves me. So I think that's, yeah,

00:29:05.940 that's super beautiful. In your book, you talk about three types of martyrdom. Now everybody's

00:29:12.560 heard of, you know, martyrdom of blood and that's what makes sense. Uh, some people have talked,

00:29:17.400 especially recently about a white martyrdom. What's this three types of martyrdom?

00:29:22.840 Yeah. So it actually comes from an early medieval Irish homily called the Cambrai homily. Um,

00:29:29.400 and the way that they divide this up, um, you know, obviously red martyrdom, we all know what

00:29:36.620 that is. Needs no introduction. White martyrdom traditionally in the early medieval, um, understanding 0.66

00:29:42.880 of martyrdom is dying to the world and embrace of contemplation, right? So a white martyr, according to 0.90

00:29:50.820 the, to the medieval conception is the martyrdom of a monk or a nun or a priest, you know, giving up

00:30:00.540 the world in order to pursue God. Um, so a white martyrdom is a good fulfilling, uh, religious vocation. 0.95

00:30:13.860 And then the Cambrai, uh, homily, old Irish, which is what it's written in doesn't have a distinction

00:30:19.140 between blue and green. Um, so they use whatever that word was, um, to describe this third type of

00:30:26.020 martyrdom. And some people call it a blue martyrdom. That's kind of more common. Uh, some people, I think

00:30:30.460 the Irish who like green, they say the green martyrdom, um, that's for lay people who want to follow

00:30:39.720 God within the setting that he has given them, right? So a radical dying to my desire for the, um,

00:30:50.480 upholding of his will, right? So that is the martyrdom that is offered to lay people who have

00:30:59.260 to be in the world, right? It would be wrong of me in my vocation to attempt to model too literally

00:31:06.920 a monastic vocation. That isn't my vocation. My vocation is to be in the world, right? Um,

00:31:14.760 but I can still have a radical martyrdom, um, by following my vocation. Um, in that particular

00:31:23.380 chapter, I talk about, um, wedding crowns. Um, it's an Eastern practice to, to be crowned with a,

00:31:32.700 uh, wedding crown by the priest and it's a crown of martyrdom or dying to yourself by the embrace

00:31:38.400 of your vocation. A lot of nuns also, when they take their, uh, final profession, they also receive

00:31:45.120 a crown much more common in the middle ages, but there's still a lot of monastic communities.

00:31:49.740 I think it's the, I think it's the, the poor clairs that, that, um, are in the book. They have a crown

00:31:56.640 of thorns that they are given. Um, it's their crown of vocational martyrdom. So they have their

00:32:02.320 white martyrdom. I have my blue martyrdom or I should have my blue martyrdom. If I work to fulfill

00:32:09.540 the radical call of my vocation. We don't want to dissuade people from motherhood, but so tell us

00:32:16.660 about the, the martyrdom as it plays out. Hey, it's, it's hard to be a parent. It's hard to be a mom.

00:32:23.440 It's hard to be dead. That, that much is known. What is it specific to this martyrdom? Because

00:32:28.640 martyrdom sounds, I guess, to many people, well, that's just death and that's just terrible,

00:32:33.940 but it's not, it's, it's beautiful. Tell us about the beauty.

00:32:37.560 What it is, is that you were dying to what you want. Right. And that sounds awful, right? Oh,

00:32:44.520 darn it. I can't do what I want. I can't go where I please. You know, I, I oftentimes think of my, 0.99

00:32:50.260 my little kids and their nap schedules or their, their bedtime schedules as sort of my movable

00:32:55.560 cloister, right? You're at a family gathering where the kids have to go to bed. You know,

00:33:00.120 we got to go. Right. Um, so it's, it's, you know, all these limitations and sometimes we can focus too

00:33:07.780 much on the limitations as limitations and say to ourselves, Oh, I can't do this. I can't do that.

00:33:13.260 You know, the house is a mess. If only you guys would clean up and respect my stuff,

00:33:17.040 then we could have a nice house. Right. Um, all those things that go into parenting children. Um,

00:33:23.580 and, and those are just the easy things, right? Then it gets harder from there. Um, but the,

00:33:29.500 the joy of it all is that, okay, I'm dying to myself. Who am I trying to follow instead?

00:33:35.740 God. Right. Okay. Let's think about that for a second. He is the most perfect, the most good,

00:33:44.940 the most wonderful, the most put together being ever. Right. Okay. That doesn't sound so bad anymore.

00:33:52.420 Right. I mean, okay. Not my fallen will, your perfect will. Um, if I simply try to do what he

00:33:59.660 wants, it, it's all going to come out all right in the end. Right. Because he has the perfect plan,

00:34:05.780 um, better plan than I do. Right. So if you think of the limitations and the sacrifices and the

00:34:12.700 hardships as what they're intended to be, which is radical freedom, radical joy,

00:34:21.540 and radical gift, they don't seem so dismal anymore. Um, the nuns speak to me, uh, the nuns

00:34:29.680 spoke to me a lot about how, what they give up, they get back in a way that they didn't necessarily

00:34:37.640 think they were going to, uh, when they gave it up. Right. So I am called in vocation. The nuns are

00:34:43.760 called in their vocation to surrender, to release, right? Not what I want, what you want,

00:34:50.040 but he always finds a way to give it back in a way that's going to be better for me.

00:34:56.060 And in a way that's going to use my talents or my time better than I could have used it

00:35:01.520 on my own. I just need to have the humility to recognize that, um, and to accept the gift back

00:35:07.320 when it is given. Actually, many of the nuns, they had these wonderful stories of like, you know,

00:35:11.520 when I entered the convent, I thought I can't do this anymore. And then years later, they are called

00:35:19.040 to engage in that talent again in a way that they would have never, would have never guessed. Right.

00:35:27.120 And I've noticed that as a parent, right. I have a PhD in literature, but I'm a stay-at-home mom.

00:35:32.040 Um, I'm not doing what academics typically do with their PhDs, but I use my PhD all the time,

00:35:39.880 just not in ways I thought I was going to use it. Um, but in honestly ways that are more fulfilling

00:35:44.980 than, than, than what I could have gotten up to on my own. Um, and, and that's kind of the,

00:35:51.280 the joy of the sacrifice, the, the, the joy of the martyrdom. And if we read the accounts

00:35:56.600 of the red martyrs, they don't go to their martyrdoms going, Oh man, this is going to 0.85

00:36:02.700 hurt. This is going to stink. I hate this. None of them say that they're very excited. There's,

00:36:08.240 you know, stories of martyrs running to their, to their martyrdom. Um, I admit, I don't do too

00:36:14.820 much running towards mine, but I hope to. Truth has a power of its own. It moves hearts and saves

00:36:23.920 lives. I'm pleased to announce the launch of the new LSN TV app, which can bring all

00:36:29.940 LifeSite News' top video content direct to your phone, tablet, computer, and TV so that you can

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00:36:46.400 Mary, any final thoughts for, for moms, uh, and, uh, for what they can glean from, uh, the religious

00:36:57.560 from, from sisters, from mothers, mother spirits? Yes. I think sort of the core that developed, um,

00:37:03.720 as I was, as I was asking these nuns for advice, um, is the core of our calling both mother, you know,

00:37:13.080 lay mothers and, uh, the spiritual mothers in, in monasteries is the call to model our lady. Um, 0.84

00:37:20.640 she is the source, um, and the foundation of both of those vocations. She is the perfect mother,

00:37:28.140 right? The mother of God. She models motherhood more perfectly than anyone ever has in all of history.

00:37:34.560 And so much that she was made, you know, and becoming, you know, the queen of heaven and earth,

00:37:39.480 she was made the mother of us all. Right. Um, so we are called to model her motherhood. Both nuns

00:37:45.300 are called to model her motherhood and lay mothers are called to model her motherhood. We are also

00:37:50.500 called, um, to model her other perfect calling. And she was the original nun. If you think about it,

00:37:57.120 right. Her perpetual virginity and her, um, constant contemplation of God, right. In, in his presence.

00:38:06.980 And, you know, lay mothers, we model that too, or we should model that too. So nuns model it most 0.96

00:38:13.340 perfectly through their literal life, right. Lay mothers, we are called to model that according to 0.54

00:38:21.140 our vocation, right. So, you know, just as we model more concretely our lady's motherhood, right. Her

00:38:29.440 physical motherhood, um, and nuns concretely model her perpetual virginity. Lay mothers also have 0.77

00:38:36.940 to share in that part of the calling in that we are also called to contemplate God and be in God's

00:38:43.480 presence. Um, and the nuns had many beautiful things to say about how to enter into the presence

00:38:49.660 of God. Um, my favorite was one nun said, you know, if you're up late at night with a kid that can't go

00:38:59.120 to sleep, that is an opportunity to enter into God's presence by contemplating Christ in the face

00:39:06.440 of your child. Right. And that's, that's what our lady did, right. She was contemplating God in the

00:39:11.780 face of her child because in her case, it's all right there. But in our case too, it is all right

00:39:19.020 there too, right. Our children are made in the image and likeness of God. And we are called to model

00:39:25.620 our lady in contemplating God, um, where he is manifesting himself in our children. And just the

00:39:33.600 things that the nun said about how to enter into contemplation of God in, in the, the little

00:39:40.020 moments of our life, I thought was just so amazing. Um, and, and, and I find myself trying to find little,

00:39:49.500 little moments to do that now, you know, now that I have their words buzzing around in my head.

00:39:54.560 Do you remember Mother Teresa used to say, you know, how, how in the world does she go and pick

00:40:00.200 up those like people who are dying in the street and they're smelling and they're like half dead

00:40:05.200 already. And yet she's like loving to do this. She's smiling. She's cleaning them. She's such love

00:40:11.380 in her eyes. She always said, because she sees Jesus in them, we can do that with our kids too.

00:40:18.380 We can look at them in their faces and see Jesus in them and serve Jesus in them too.

00:40:23.060 And it's easier to, to, to not get too frustrated when you look in the face of your tantruming

00:40:29.380 toddler and you see Jesus there and you're like, all right.

00:40:32.520 Mary Cuff, thank you so much for being with us, sharing with us your book. Where can people get

00:40:37.240 your book? Um, and, uh, mother to mother, where, where can people pick this up?

00:40:42.700 So mother to mothers, uh, spiritual and practical wisdom from the cloister to the home.

00:40:46.780 It's available now at tanbooks.com. Um, it's available some other places too. So a lot of

00:40:53.280 Catholic bookstores will have it on their shelves. If they don't have it physically on their shelves,

00:40:57.160 they know where to order it. So if, if people are more of a, I want to go into a bookstore sort of

00:41:01.800 person and it's not at your Catholic bookstore, you can ask them and they, they know where to get

00:41:07.280 it. Um, it's also on Amazon. Someone sent me a link to it. It's apparently at Walmart. I don't know

00:41:13.220 if it's actually physically there at Walmart. I'm going to go and check because, um, cause I'm

00:41:17.780 curious, but, but tanbooks.com, Amazon, or your local Catholic bookstore. We'll, we'll know how to

00:41:23.720 get it. Beautiful. Dr. Mary Cuff, thank you so much for joining us. No, thank you for having me.

00:41:28.760 God bless you and God bless all of you. And we'll see you next time.

00:41:43.220 Hi everyone. This is John Henry Weston. We hope you enjoyed this program. To see more like it,

00:41:47.860 be sure to hit the subscribe button below to get all the latest content from LifeSite News. Check

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The John-Henry Westen Show - August 22, 2024

Nuns Reveal the Secret Wisdom of Motherhood

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