 In the battle for our children's souls in today's perverse culture, Catholic parents have a key advantage. Our children were made for heaven. And a new book from author, Kimberly Begg, is helping Catholic parents raise strong children who are able to resist the temptations of the world but not only resist them, face them with courage. The book is Unbreakable, Saints Who Inspired Saints to Moral Courage. Kimberly is a Catholic wife and a mother of five. She's also an attorney with over 20 years of experience, strengthening Catholic and conservative causes. Kimberly, thanks for being with us today. Thanks for having me on, Mary. So Kimberly, you're not just a mom and an incredible attorney to boot. You're involved in so many levels of Catholic faith and education and foundational work. It's amazing. So what was your inspiration to stop, take a break from all that and say, hey, I'm gonna write this amazing book about saints and courage? Well, I wanted to write a book to help Catholics live courageously in the world. And I wrote this book specifically for parents to help them guide their children on their path to heaven. And this book is unique in that it tells the stories of the saints in a way that's never been done before in a more complete way that incorporates the favorite saints of some of our church's greatest heroes and also the stories of some of those moments during their lives where they were able to practice and develop a habit of acting courageously for Christ out in the world. And some of the saints in the book, I think saints are kind of like gray hairs on me. When you find one, you find more. There's always, when you find a saint, you find more saints and more holy people around that saint. They don't just exist in their little bubbles. So tell us, how did you connect the dots between, let's say, Saint Genevarch in your book and the saints that inspired her? How did you find them? Well, let's see. A few years ago, I gave a presentation to a group of high school and college students about Blessed Yergy Papiyushko. It was for Young America's Foundation standing up for Freedom Seminar. It's a wonderful program that I actually had a hand in founding a few years ago. And I was excited to give this presentation because of the many ways that then Father Yergy stood up for his faith. And as I was doing my research into his life, I was just so astounded and overjoyed to find out that as a boy, his favorite saint was Saint Maximilian Colby. And in fact, he first learned about Saint Maximilian Colby going to his grandmother's house and reading the Knights of the Immaculata, which was Father Colby's newspaper that he had published. So he loved Saint Maximilian Colby as a boy. And as he got older and he went to school and then as a teenager, he was in this wonderful Catholic school. Catholic education was pretty much abolished in communist Poland at that point, but there was a school that had opened right before the communists came in and shut down all the schools. And it was run by this wonderful Catholic priest who was very intentional about only hiring faithfully Catholic teachers who were trained to teach in the Catholic tradition. And so it was at this school that he discovered the writings of Blessed Stefan Wyszynski, then Cardinal Wyszynski, who was the primate of Poland. And he just loved these sermons. So he was actually known as the philosopher when he was in school because he loved the readings of the writings of Saint Maximilian Colby. He loved the readings and the writings of Cardinal Wyszynski and he loved to talk about them. And then when he went to the seminary, he actually went to Cardinal Wyszynski's seminary, which was not close. It was actually in Warsaw, which was a lot further away than the local seminary. But then he really learned under him and trained under him in seminary. Fast forward a number of years in his life and there were many opportunities for him to practice acts of courage in his life. But then in 1979, when Pope John Paul II made his historic visit to Poland, guess who was in one of the front rows in one of his largest audiences in Warsaw, Father Yergy. And so when you listen to Blessed Yergy, Pope Yergy goes, wonderful, wonderful homilies. These were his masses for the Fatherland and he would get 20,000 people to come in person. And then they were broadcast throughout Poland and throughout the Eastern Bloc. His followers would record his words, record them and play them over Radio Free Europe and also reprint them in newspapers. But when you hear the words that he spoke in talking about the evils of communism and the dignity of the human person made in God's image, those are words that he learned through Pope John Paul II, through Blessed Stephen and Vizinski and through Saint Maximilian Colby. And it made me realize this can't be unique. You know, we know how important so many of the saints are to our own lives. And so I started to get curious about, you know, who were the favorite saints of some of our favorite saints? And originally that the chapter had, the book had 12 chapters and I sort of through my research found about 12 of these connections just really just out of curiosity taking books that I have around the house and I started to discover them. And then just one by one, I just started writing about them, but there was so much to write that I ended up with just 14 saints in this book and four main chapters of the four saints and their sanely inspirations. Wow, and I was going to say, is Father Yersey considered a martyr or is that not in his canonization process? Where is he? Yes, he is. Yes, wow. I was going to ask you that later on here that you have Saint Joan of Arc, you have another young saint from the Spanish Revolution from the Casteros in Mexico. And that's three out of four are martyrs and not especially old martyrs either. Saint Joan of Arc in her teens, the Castero saint in his teens, I think he was 14 or something like that. 14, yep. Yeah, was that a conscious decision on your part to pick saints that were not just courageous but young and courageous, so young and bold? No, it wasn't. It wasn't, they were just the stories that spoke to me. And as I started to write, it was almost like which saint should I write about next? And these were the saints that just came to my mind and I just started ordering every book and reading every book that I could find about them. What's interesting about Saint Joan of Arc, we're all familiar with her story about having Saint Michael appear to her and we might hear about Saint Margaret and Antioch and Saint Catherine about Xandria. But a lot of us modern day don't know who these saints were. They were teenage martyrs. They were teenage martyrs who gave their life standing up for Christ during the Diacletian persecutions. And so the fact that these teenagers were visiting her and giving her inspiration so that she could stay strong so that she could leave the safety and the security of her home, which by the way, Saint Margaret was actually kicked out of her home as a teenager because her father was a pagan priest. And as soon as he discovered that she was a Christian, he kicked her out of her home. Well, she left her home for the first time at age 16. It was age 13 that Saint Michael first started visiting her, but at 16 years old, she was a farm girl in France. And she left her home to go convince the captain of the fortress at Beau Couleur to give her escorts to go see Charles VII to convince him to let her lead an army and to chase the English out of France. It is so impossible and it is so ridiculous that all of this happened. But it was because of the great trust that Saint Joan of Arc had in God and in his will for her life. She had complete abandon to his will, just accepted 100% that this is what, not only that this is what he wanted for her life, but that this is what he wanted in the history of the world for France. And the fact that she knew going into each of the battles, including the battle where she knew she would be wounded and she was wounded, she actually tried to fight through it. And then she realized at some point that she needed medical help. And that's a great lesson for all of us, isn't it? But at some point, we have to look around and realize that sometimes God is actually working not just through our own ability to fight through something but working through the assistance of others in our life to help us at those great moments. But the entire last year of her life, she spent in just horrible conditions after her capture. So she was betrayed by her countrymen and she was abandoned by her king and she had to endure just really awful physical and emotional torture during that last year. And she was just interrogated on months on end, lots of trick questions, but she was able to just speak truthfully about her faith in a way that honored God. And in the end, of course, it was a sham trial which was quickly overturned by the way after her death. But she was able to just continue to answer the questions and endure it. And of course, all they wanted was for her to apostatize and to renounce her faith, but she refused. She knew not only that this was God's will for her life but also that she was the only person who could accomplish this. And she actually said that several times during her life that she knew that she was the only one who was going to save France. I can really contrast that kind of courage with what parents today with teens or young adults, that they're told that the bravest thing their child could do is perhaps transition or become someone else or decide in this narcissistic way, hey, whoever God may is not good enough. Whoever God made me to be right now, that's not good enough. I need to be someone else. How does that contrast to the saints that you're, especially St. Joan of Arc that you're talking about in the book and the kind of courage they had to stay fast, to stand strong in their faith, even in what you're speaking about with St. Joan of Arc, such terrible treatment. Yeah, yeah, well, it's truth. You know, that's really the biggest difference here. And it's the claims of the world, right, on one side. And then it is the truth of God's law and God's love and the will for our lives on the other side. So, when we're talking about courage here, we are talking about the courage to stand up for what is good and true and what's written on our hearts as good and true. Because we know that the truth is written in our hearts. As much as the world likes to make these outrageous claims today, that boys can be girls and that sexuality is not tied to marriage. Sexuality is not tied to procreation and that there's nothing special in the sexual relationship between a husband and wife and that there's no reason to limit sexual behavior between a man and a wife within a marriage. As much as people say that and as much as our culture reinforces it through all sorts of entertainment, through all sorts of social media, through movies, through music and has for decades, those are the world's values. You know, those are not God's values and Christians have always, always, always been opposed to the values of the world. Jesus said, take up your cross and follow me. You know, and the reason the stories of the saints are so important, you know, the reason that they are the birthright of all Catholics is because saints inspire saints. Saints allow us to have some kind of a roadmap. They give us guidance. They give us real world examples. You know, Christ promised to never leave us alone. You know, he promised that he would always be with us. And yes, that the sacred scripture is a wonderful church tradition. The sacraments are really such a blessing to all of us. So are the stories of the saints and they really should be passed on down to children. I think in recent years, I think Catholics have gotten a lot better about this. But in doing my research, I was fascinated to learn more about some of the saints that I had no idea about. St. Margaret and St. Catherine are two examples. But, you know, St. Jose, Louis, St. Charles, Del Rio is another example. And as is one of the saints who inspired him the most and that is St. Tarsetius, who I was completely unfamiliar with before I did my research. But what's interesting is, you know, who was not unfamiliar with St. Tarsetius, not just St. Jose, but also the Catholics in his town living in the 1920s in Mexico. Because when St. Jose left his home, similarly to the way that Joan of Arc left her home and joined the Cristeras cause at only 14 years old, they had the sacraments readily available at camp because the entire purpose of the Cristera Rebellion was to fight for Mother Church in Mexico because the Mexican government was trying to destroy the church, had completely outlawed Catholicism in Mexico. So they had the sacraments readily available, they had mass. And when the other soldiers saw this 14 year old boy receiving the Eucharist with such reverence and kneeling and really just, you could tell that he understood that Christ was really present there in the Eucharist, they gave him the nickname of Tarsetius. So I had to think, well, who is Tarsetius? Because I didn't know. And my children didn't know, they do know. My children didn't know. But what I found that was Tarsetius was 12 years old during the Valerian persecutions of the third century. And he volunteered to take the Eucharist to prisoners and Christians who could not be present for mass. And on his way, he was discovered as a Christian and he had the Eucharist in a little sac that he held to his chest and he was beaten brutally and murdered. But he just, he wouldn't let go of the Eucharist. My goodness, my gosh. The stories that, you know, like we don't need Marvel. We have superheroes of our own right here in our faith and we just have eyes to see them and eyes to read about them. Kimberly, in the opening of your book for your beautiful book, Unbreakable, you refer to another book from Tan, one of my favorites, Parenting for Eternity. It's by Connor Gallagher, our CEO. Why was that book important in your mind to fit in? How does it fit into your greater framework of Unbreakable and what you are trying to pass on to parents? Well, first of all, it's a wonderful book. It's one of those books that you read that really just changes the way you live your life and the way that you interact with the members of your family. But Jesus Christ is the way and the truth and the life. And Connor Gallagher's book is about the way and Unbreakable is about the way. And part of his message is that as parents, you have certain duties and you have your own path to heaven that is made only for you, but your kids are a part of that and you have responsibilities to bring them up in the faith. When we baptize our children, we make promises to God. We make promises to raise our children pamphlet. And like I said earlier, it's not a box checking exercise. I think a lot of us grew up being very poorly catechized. I certainly was. I went to Mass. I didn't even know what a holy day of obligation was actually until I became a young adult because I don't think anybody in our parish went to holy days of obligation and knew what they were. I did go to Mass growing up, but I also went to CCD and I took tests and I had teachers kind of quizzing us on the Trinity. I have to tell you, my faith was a complete enigma to me until I hit my twenties and started to really, really understand what it meant. That thought that I was made for a particular purpose, that I was made to know God, to serve Him, to spend eternity with Him in heaven and that there would be people in my life who would be around me that I would be responsible for and helping them on their journey. It was just such a fantastic revelation. And that changes everything. It changes how you do everything. It changes your friendships and your work life. It changes how you spend your time, your free time, your leisure time when you realize that you have these duties. So Connor's book very much did that for me, helped me just really crystallize just all of these thoughts that I was having about my own children, about what my duties are to them. And then I think when I made that wonderful discovery about Blessed Jersey-Papillus School and Maximilian Colby, just the idea for the book really came together. And I think there are so many more stories like this. That's true. Those saints are an unplomed depth of riches that I think sometimes we're just barely scratching and glory to God for that. It's a wonderful thing. Again, the book is Unbreakable, Saints Who Inspired Saints to Moral Courage. You can find it here on tanbooks.com and at your local Catholic bookstore. Ask for it there. Kimberly, congrats on this beautiful project and thank you so much for being with us today. Thank you, Mary. It's a pleasure.