Nuns Reveal the Secret Wisdom of Motherhood
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Summary
In this episode of the John Henry Weston Show, Dr. Mary Elizabeth Cuff talks about her new book, "The Stay-at-Home Mommas of the Religious Vocation: What Do They Teach Us About Motherhood in the Catholic Church?" She talks about the role of the contemplative nuns in the religious vocation, and why they are so important.
Transcript
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Every time I find myself in the back with a kid that really does not want to be
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there at church, I try to remember nowadays, you know, what the nuns have said, like,
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this is where I am meant to be. This is my vocation. This is my call to prayer.
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Hey, my friends, you know, there's a lot of books written on motherhood,
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but you really want to, especially moms who are homeschooling moms and, or, you know,
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have been homeschooling moms, traditional moms, they really want to know good advice on mothering.
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How do you find it? You definitely don't look in your Today's Parent magazine or something like
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that. There is a new book out by Dr. Mary Elizabeth Cuff. She's a homeschooling mom,
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but she's also a PhD in American literature and classic rhetoric from the Catholic University
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of America. Now she had a really interesting idea for doing a book on motherhood. And that was to
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talk to the heads of religious orders about motherhood. Now you might think that's a little
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bit weird, but what can the mothers of religious orders share with moms? We're going to find out
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right now. Stay tuned for this episode of the John Henry Weston show. This October 17th and 18th,
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we are going to be running Rome Life Forum in exile. We're doing that in Kansas City, Missouri.
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This fine bishop, Bishop Joseph Strickland, sort of in exile, is going to be joining us there as well
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as Dr. Janet Smith, as well as prophecy expert Xavier Aral and many more, including a special guest.
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Dr. Mary Elizabeth Cuff, welcome to the program.
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Let's begin as we always do with the sign of the cross. In the name of the Father,
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Let me ask you just right off, what inspired you to do this kind of thing? It's a very interesting
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It actually began at a playground a couple years ago. I was at a playground in town with a bunch of
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my mom friends. Kids are running around having fun, and we're standing around talking. All of a
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sudden, a Capuchin nun walks over. You never see a Capuchin nun at a playground. I went over, said hi.
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We started talking. It turns out she's the sister-in-law of one of the moms who was there,
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and she was back in for a very brief visit. We started talking about contemplative religious life
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and motherhood and all these things that are just suddenly thrown into conjunction together,
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the playground. She stops and says, contemplative nuns are the stay-at-home moms of the religious
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vocation. I thought, oh my gosh, I never thought of that before. That's so true. What else do we have
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in common? I started thinking about, you know, what else do we have in common between those two
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vocations? Next thing you know, I have a list of questions I want to ask the contemplative stay-at-home
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Tell us about some of the orders. I understand one of them that you interviewed was the order
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that's been in the news of late because of Sister Wilhelmina, who is a cause up for sainthood and stuff
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like that. And if anybody doesn't know, the one whose body was exhumed found incorrupt. And it was
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interesting for our viewers, especially because she was from a traditional order, and she actually
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started her order as a traditional order. And that, of course, was a big hoopla while all the battle
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between tradition and non-tradition was going on. But tell us about the orders that you interviewed.
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I worked with five different monastic communities. I kind of wanted to get the width and breadth of
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what the contemplative charism can look like. So I have the Gower Benedictines, you know,
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as you said, famous for their incorrupt foundress, Mother Wilhelmina. I actually got them involved in
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the project before they exhumed her. And then halfway through the project, their mother superior
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sends me a letter and goes, sorry, it's taking me so long to get to your questions. I have an
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incorrupt foundress on my hands. And I've never had to deal with that before. And I said,
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take all the time you need. That sounds way more important than my questions. But so they're involved
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in the book. I also have Cistercian nuns from up in Wisconsin. I believe they're the only Cistercian
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nuns in North America. That was very exciting to get them involved. And then I have the Capuchins
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over here in Pennsylvania. They are involved in the book. They call themselves evangelical
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contemplative. So the different monastic traditions have different levels of cloister. And they have
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one of the lightest forms of cloister because they also do a lot of sort of teaching work,
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not as nuns in schools, but they sort of bring contemplation to parish life. So they're involved
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in the book as well. Then I also have the Roswell Poor Clares. Maybe some people will recognize them
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from Mother Mary Frances. And if they don't know Mother Mary Frances, they need to get to know Mother
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Mary Frances. She was one of their foundresses in the 30s, 40s. She was very famous in the 50s. She
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wrote a bunch of amazing and hilarious books about religious life. Then I also have the
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Byzantine Carmelites in the Pocono Mountains involved. An amazing order. Only Byzantine Carmelites
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in the world, sort of at East meets West. Magnificent, magnificent place.
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It's an interesting concept, the whole thing of going to nuns to learn about motherhood.
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Think, OK, in some ways you'd think, well, you'd go to the active orders because they're the ones
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out there in the community. You know, they'd be doing hospitals and stuff like that and teaching.
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And so moms would be really relating to that. But you chose the contemplative orders. Why is that?
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So both the contemplative and the active nuns have a call to spiritual motherhood.
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That call looks very different. I was drawn to the contemplative nuns, partially because
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we know so little about contemplative nuns in the modern world. It's very rare to encounter them.
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You have to go to their monasteries most of the time in order to meet them. So a lot of people kind
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of forget that they're there. And yet they underpin the church because they are the ones praying
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unceaselessly for all of us, for the whole world. So it's a hidden motherhood. And that really appealed
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to me because motherhood in the modern world is increasingly sort of isolated and hidden. People
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don't like to talk about it. People don't like to advertise it or promote it. You know, if you are
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a woman, people want to know about your career. They want to know about what you're doing other than
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being a mom. And motherhood kind of gets short shrift. And especially for women who have chosen
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that's sort of a hidden motherhood as well these days. And so I thought that there was a lot of
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sort of confluence there, a lot that they could offer us. It's also a lot easier to talk to active
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nuns as a lay person. So I feel like a lot of people have access to talk to active nuns about
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the wonderful contributions that they can give to us in our pursuit of our vocations. So this book was
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giving people a chance to look into the contemplative life and see the wealth of wisdom and advice
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that they have for us. Maybe the only place that most people could encounter that unless they
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literally packed up and drove to a monastery thousands of miles away to say hi to the nuns.
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You made that beautiful comparison right in the beginning when you first were inspired where
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that nun came and told you, the contemplative nun, that they were sort of the stay-at-home moms
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of the religious community. I think that's beautiful. One of the other things that happens
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is, or at least in your book, Father John Harden's quoted, talking about these families as sources of
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good vocations. What did he say there? From the experience you got from that, or the advice you got from
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the contemplative sisters? How can families encourage vocations? I think a lot of people
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today would love to have their children, especially in big families, have their children take on
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religious life of some sort. How do we get there? Any advice from the book?
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The sort of ending few sections, there's many little tiny chapters throughout the book that
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deal with different, you know, common topics. I introduced the topic, I asked questions to the
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nuns, and then I record the nuns' actual responses. So it's their words and their voices throughout the
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book answering the various questions that I have. The last few sections, I actually tackled this
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question directly. I asked the nuns, you know, what can parents do, especially, you know,
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what can mothers do, because the book is, you know, sort of focused on mothers. What can we do to
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cultivate our children's vocations? And sort of what about their own family life did they see as
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sort of instrumental to their own vocation? Lots of really good insight there. Father John Harden connects
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the religious life to good family life. You need to have, you know, every once in a while, you can,
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you know, kind of be the exception that proves the role that someone who had an absolutely terrible
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family life, you know, manages to push past that, you know, in this amazing, you know, individual act
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and be able to cultivate a good religious vocation. You know, God's capable of everything. But more often
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than not, in Father Harden's writings, and as the nuns say, you know, good, strong, faithful families
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are sort of the, the nursery for a good religious vocation. The two vocations need each other. It's
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good families that create, for the most part, strong religious vocations. And the nuns said that
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that really bears out in their experiences. Most of the nuns that I spoke to are mother superiors. They're
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the ones that meet prospective vocations and sort of shepherd their, their, you know, vocational
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discernment, both before the young woman enters the convent and also through that process as they
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determine, like, is this for her or not? And they said time and time again that, you know, the vocations
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that they're getting are from large Catholic, often homeschool families, not necessarily homeschool
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families, but they said that homeschool really helps with religious vocations because the monastery
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is this collection of people of all ages, right? And a homeschool family is also a collection of many
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people of all ages working together on a common goal, right? So the, the structure of the homeschool
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life is in many ways sort of similar to the monastic life in that there is this vast age range all
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working towards a particular project together. So I thought that was kind of cool. Um, something I
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didn't really think about before I started the book. Um, other nuns said things like, well, one mother
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superior in particular said that what is so key to a good religious vocation, uh, flourishing is a young
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person's relationship with their parents. When a young woman enters a monastery, she is entering as a
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daughter, a real daughter, you know, not just, you know, it's a term of endearment, right? It's a real
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daughter underneath a real mother in the monastery. And if she had a bad or competitive or fraught
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relationship with her own mother, uh, before entering the convent there, that's going to sort of
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impact her relationship with her mother's superior. So she said, you know, mothers work very hard to
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foster a good, you know, collaborative, loving relationship with your daughters because it,
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it carries on into their vocation, you know, once they, once they leave, you know, the, the home,
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um, of the family. And she said that that holds true too with father. She said that young women,
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um, entering her monastery who struggle in their relationship with their fathers. She said that
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that our father is a painful prayer. She said, it's very important for mothers and fathers to
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cultivate the sort of relationship with their children that models, you know, our, our heavenly
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mother, Mary and our heavenly father, God, because it is so important in a young person's ability
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to encounter and fulfill their vocation. It's interesting too. You you've got, um, this book
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is directed at mothers. I mean, today our culture is such that parents, yeah, whatever. It doesn't
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matter. It can be two men can be two. You're focusing here specifically on mothers. Tell us the
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importance of mothers while society is saying, nah, it doesn't really matter. Society likes to talk about
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the parents, right? Right. Um, and no, it's, it's a mother and a father and we cannot do each other's
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roles. Um, we talked, the nuns and I talked about this at the, actually at the beginning of the book,
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the, the unique nature of motherhood, um, the unique feminine quality of motherhood, um, motherhood
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and fatherhood are different. They're both necessary, but they're different in that motherhood takes
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the unique nature of a woman and asks her to provide, um, for those in her family, whether
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that's the spiritual, um, family of the monastery or the physical family of the, of the home, we are
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called to use our feminine genius in a way that a man just can't, right? And, and, and conversely,
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a man is called to use his masculine genius in a way that, that a woman can't, right? And
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for motherhood, what that means is that we are called to foster this nurturing world of love,
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right? Um, in a way that that's hard to describe in words, but when you see it in action, you can see
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it, it's there, right? The way that a woman fosters, uh, love in, in the home is a uniquely feminine
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aspect. Um, it's something that only a woman can give, right? If you think about how that, that comes
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about, right? Where women literally provide a room for a baby to develop, right? This all surrounding
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comfortable environment, right? And, and we are uniquely gifted with the ability to do that. Um,
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and, and, you know, some of them will say, Oh, I'm not maternal. I can't do that. You know,
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we all have it in us somewhere, right? And if we focus on developing that according to our calling,
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it will come out, right? We have to, to find that in ourselves because it is there. It is an essential
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part of who we are. Um, and we are called, you know, in, in however God calls us to fulfill
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that universal call to motherhood. We are called to, to offer that gift, um, for those in, you know,
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the community that he has given us, whether that be, you know, the children and the husband and the
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home or within the church, um, at, at large. If you can give us an example of that outside of the,
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um, you know, the birthing context, which, which where it's obvious, but more in the home example of
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what that looks like. And there's an example that I use in the book that I think is very
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beautiful. Um, where a mother and a father, not exclusively, but our emphasis is more, um,
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a father is more sort of doctrinal in his emphasis, right? He's more logos centered,
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whereas a mother is more, it's more of an intuitive sort of, um, presence centered.
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Um, and, and, and how that impacts us in the home is that, you know, a father's role is very sort of,
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I would say pointed or should be more pointed and more directed in, you know, in, in this way,
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that way, you know, children often model their father's religious or lack of religious, um,
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ideals. They more likely will model the father's than the mother's, um, for a mother. I think what
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that means is that we have to create a presence, right? And, and that's why, you know, various
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popes have talked about how it's wrong for societies to create a sort of environment where women are forced
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out of the home to work because we are very much the heart of the home, right? And us being at home,
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not all the time, right? But, but us like focusing on the home to create a comfortable home,
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to create a welcoming home for those who live there, that is, I would say,
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sort of bringing the concept of the wound into the, the, the home, right? The sort of the lifeblood,
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the beating heart of the home needs to be there at the home to cultivate it, right? Um, so the home
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isn't simply like a house with beds and furniture, um, and food, but, but has that sort of life pulse that
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only a mother can give? It just occurs to me and maybe it's peculiar to us, but I don't think so.
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The mom has it together for, it's like having it together for everybody. And we're, you know,
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we were a large family with eight kids, but the mother's able to somehow provide for all in the
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family and know about what's going on with all. It is sort of like your example of the womb in that
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it's surrounded in the mom somehow knows what everyone needs. Um, and, uh, more like informs
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when, when I needed to get something for someone, um, I'll do it, but I'm, I'm sort of told what,
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what it is. And it's very much, I think, uh, pertinent to your example, at least for that was my
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experience of it anyhow. Well, if you think of our lady at Cana, right. And she tells Jesus, Hey,
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you're out of line. That's what a mom does. Pope Pius XI said, men must look for the peace of Christ
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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
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Christ is King. One of the things you must have learned from the nuns is how to pray for your
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children. And I think this is a big one for us, but because everybody is wondering, like, you know,
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as, as the kids grow up, that's our state of life right now. A lot of them out of the home.
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Um, that's, that's huge. And the, these nuns say that that's their focus. What'd you learn from them
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on praying, praying for our children? And, and yeah, what, how do you argue with God saying,
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Prayer takes a large part of the book. Um, naturally, um, we talked about praying with children,
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praying, praying distractions of, of children and of family life, right. Um, and praying for our
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children. One thing that I thought was very powerful, um, I have five kids, they're all eight
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and under. Um, one thing I thought was very powerful was the, the idea that praying unceaselessly,
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unceasingly, right. We think, oh yeah, nuns, they do that. You know, they've got five hours of prayer
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each day, or sometimes nine hours of prayer each day, depending upon the monastic tradition,
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you know, they're always praying and they always have the opportunity for prayer because that's
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literally their job. Right. Um, but they are also very surprisingly busy in the monastery. There's
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lots of things they have to do. And in between those hours of prayer as well, they are still called
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to pray unceasingly. And I always think to myself, or I did before I talked to the nuns, like,
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well, that sounds nice. Who actually does that? Right. Um, who, who can actually do that? Um,
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the nuns advice was really cool because it takes little things in your day that you didn't realize
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were an opportunity for prayer. And they sort of reorient your conception of prayer so that you find
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more opportunities that are already there that are kind of banging on the doors of your head.
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And, and you just don't notice that their prayer. So for instance, one of the nuns told me like with,
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with little kids and with, you know, praying unceasingly, unceasingly, she said the great
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benefit of, um, monastic prayer is that they're constantly repeat repeating the Psalms, right?
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Over and over and over again. She said, the great benefit of that is you get an ear bug and, you know,
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you're doing the dishes or you're, you know, doing whatever. Um, in my case, you know, I'm cleaning up
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the toys with my kids. And all of a sudden I realized, you know, I'm humming a hymn, you know,
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cause it's an ear bug because I've been repeating it. I've been trying to incorporate this in our
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family life. So we've, we've all been every single night saying Psalm one together as a family.
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And my three-year-old the other day was picking up his, you know, his toys and I overheard him.
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He had an ear bug. It was Psalm one was his ear bug. And he didn't have all of the words in quite
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the right order, but that doesn't matter, right? That's another thing that, that the nuns, um,
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emphasized was never pass judgment on the quality of your prayer, because what you think might be
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a poor showing on your part might be a treasure in God's eyes. It depends upon all sorts of factors
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that we aren't necessarily paying attention to. Like if we are desperately trying to pray and,
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you know, there's a lot of distractions around, but we are trying to, you know, maintain the prayer
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or, you know, it's really a prayer from the heart that maybe kind of got scattered around,
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um, you know, as you're trying to do something and, and, and you keep losing focus, but you're,
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you're, because you're trying to maintain order in chaos and you're trying to pray, you know,
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that can be an absolute treasure in God's eyes. Whereas, you know, a perfectly articulated
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rosary that, you know, you didn't really put your heart into, not as much maybe, right? You know,
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sort of looking for moments where prayer is sort of standing there waiting, ready for you, um,
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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
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picking up his toys, I'm over there in the kitchen doing the dishes and I hear him, that becomes a
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moment where I can pray Psalm one, two, because his bug has called me to a moment of prayer. Um,
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and we're united in our prayer, even though the three-year-old hasn't noticed that, right? I have
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noticed that. And God has noticed that. So praying with our children in little moments,
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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
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the home, hopefully they continue that gift that we have given them. Um, I'm still many years away from
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that, but we did talk about, you know, praying for our children too, is very important because,
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you know, God, God directs their steps and, you know, the nuns in the contemplative life,
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their purpose as spiritual mothers is to pray for, you know, the children of God. And that means
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they're praying for our children, they're praying for us. Um, and we can join our prayers to their prayers,
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um, as, you know, as we pray for our children. Here's an interesting thing. I heard once from a,
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from a priest, I believe, I can't remember now, but he said, um, Jesus said in the scriptures,
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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,
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by the time, uh, the kids have finished fighting in the aisle and she's going up for a holy community,
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she feels, she's been so angry. She perhaps should just ask for a blessing instead.
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Um, it's hard, but the priest is said in, I think it was so consoling. He said, no, no,
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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.
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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
00:29:42.880
of martyrdom is dying to the world and embrace of contemplation, right? So a white martyr, according to
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.
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,
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
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
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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,
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
00:38:13.340
perfectly through their literal life, right. Lay mothers, we are called to model that according to
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
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,
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