 Some questions. All right. Hey, friends, this is Dan and Stephanie Burke. Welcome to spiritualdirection.com webinar, Behold, Prayer and Meditation for Advent. I'm excited to talk to our guest and excited to talk about this topic. I, as a Jew, convert to Catholicism, but I'm still Jewish, the idea of Advent always resonates very deeply with me because of the coming Messiah and this idea that in every year, no matter what, I mean, at least in recent years, I've just had this renewed hope, renewed joy, renewed anticipation for what God might do. So I pray that that is brewing in your hearts for the sad event. And if it's not, we'll try to ignite that a little more deeply. And if it is, we'll hope to expand that in your heart. And we have a really beautiful guest with us tonight to talk about how this might come to be in you. And then hopefully, if it's in you, it'll be in the world around you as well. OK, I want to introduce Sister Miriam James Heidlen, S-O-L-T, Solt. She is a former Division I athlete who had a radical conversion and joined the Society of Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity in 1998. She has shared her story on EWTN's The Journey Home Program and at numerous Seek, Steubenville, and other conferences. She is a popular Catholic speaker, co-host of the Abiding Together podcast and the author of the best-selling book, Loved as I Am. In addition to speaking, Sister Miriam has served in parish ministry and as the director of novices for her Solt community. She earned a master's degree in theology from the Augustine Institute and speaks extensively on the topics of conversion, authentic love, forgiveness, and healing. Her newest book, Behold, a Guided Advent Journal for Prayer and Meditation, was just released through Ave Maria Press. Welcome, Sister Miriam. Oh, thank you very much for having me. I'm delighted to be here with you this evening. It's great to have you with us. We were blessed to have Father John Burns, who you know very well last year, on this same webinar, same time, same topic, a little different perspective this year talking more about healing. But the book, Behold, what? Tell our audience a little bit about it. What is it that you hoped to accomplish through it? But maybe first, what compelled you to write it? That's a great question. I wrote a Lenten journal last year called Restore. And when Ave Maria Press approached me again and asked me if I'd be willing to write an Advent journal, I just really sat in prayer and I said, Lord, what do you want me to write? What do you want your people to know this Advent season? And this idea just unfolded in my heart. I could just see it unfolding systematically in my heart of healing around the family because so much of Advent and so much of, say, our holiday season, right? Thanksgiving and Christmas and New Year's has to do with family. And our families are our deepest source of love and it's oftentimes our deepest source of pain as well. And so I just had in my heart the Lord's revelation of what would it look like if we spent Advent with Mary, Joseph, and the child Jesus and our own childhood and then together as a holy family that would help to heal our relationship with our mothers and with our lady, with our fathers, with St. Joseph, our own childhood, no matter how young or old we are with the child Jesus and then our entire family with the holy family. And that's the Lord's desire is to bring us in a wholeness and communion. And so he continues to do that. And I think Advent is especially a beautiful time to allow that process to happen. Yeah, I don't know why this hadn't been, I mean, it might have been done before but as I was reading through the book and getting a sense for what you're working on it, it makes so much sense. It kind of surprised me. I thought, I guess it hasn't been done before. But yeah, I mean, you enter into the holidays and you enter into wounds that are unresolved and they're unresolved because you haven't spent time with the folks where the brokenness has come from or is interwoven with, right? And then you face those and I'll be honest when my, a little bit different context but my father died just a few years ago and when I entered back into his context and his world, I guess, I was really paralyzed to be honest and I've healed a lot personally. And my dad and I had a great relationship but if I didn't have Stephanie with me to kind of be the spiritual anchor, I think I'd have gotten lost a bit. And that connected with this is I think that's part of a normal experience for people entering back into family contexts where there's junk that has never been resolved. Oh, thank you for sharing that, Dan. I think that's so true and in big and large, big and small ways, we've all experienced things like that. And I think sometimes what happens when we start talking about those things is we often have a certain self-defense mechanism of, my parents are the best they could. I don't wanna dig up a bunch of stuff and just to let you know, we're not doing any of that. All we're doing is allowing the Holy Spirit to bring to our hearts the surface, the places where our hearts have been ruptured in love and where our relationships aren't what they could be. And the Lord desires, even it's just a small step this advent, just a small step toward healing and wholeness in the Lord. And I don't know anybody who couldn't use that, myself included. So, yeah, that's really beautiful. Yeah, it's important what you said. This isn't about blaming parents and anything like that. Both of my parents came from difficult backgrounds and they didn't really know what they were doing and sort of that played out in some very painful ways. Probably my biggest struggle is with my mother, who I love and I understand, but it has been quite fascinating to come to know the Blessed Virgin Mary and to really pray to her to be my mother, to be the perfect mother. That no mother can be, right? I mean, even if you had a great mother, nobody really measures up to the Blessed Virgin Mary, right? So, but for me, that's been healing, just developing a relationship with her and being able to say, I don't know who taught me the prayer about mother be my mother now. Did you teach me that prayer? That's the one I use all the time. I just prayed that a few minutes ago. Oh, I love that, yeah. Yeah, Mary be a mother to me now. Yeah, Mary be a mother to me now. I think it was actually mother, no, saint mother Teresa, the one who used that. So I think she encouraged us to do that. So let's talk a little bit about this. How do we reflect on family and healing during Advent? And you know, what kind of graces are oriented towards this generational healing? Because we're hearing a lot about that. Since we have so many exorcists and deliverance ministry people and people in healing like the JP2 Healing Institute, Bob Shoes, all of this, we're hearing a lot about this idea of generational sin, which some of us maybe had never come into or this idea of entering into this inner healing. I think I don't know anybody who doesn't need some sort of inner healing. So how can Advent and the beautiful reflections on the Holy Family help us to enter into that? Yeah, well, we think of Advent as literally the beginning of a new year. It's the beginning of a new liturgical year and there's so many graces the Lord gives us. He's gonna give you and I graces this Advent that he didn't give us last Advent. And it's going to be for a time such as this. And when we talk, I work a lot with Dr. Bob Shoes and with the JP2 Healing Center. And when we speak about healing, we're not talking about fixing, we're not talking about some movement in the church, we're not talking about some people over there who need this and I don't need it. When we talk about healing, it's a very simple definition of healing and it's this. An experience or an encounter with God's love that brings us into wholeness and communion. An experience or an encounter with God's love that brings us into wholeness and communion. And that is discipleship. That's holiness, that's our whole life and Jesus loves us so much. I'm just continually amazed at the beauty of Christ of he wants to be so intimate with us. He's going to take every experience we've ever had onto himself and he's going to share every one of his experiences with us if we allow him to. And so that means that everything that's happened in our life, we're not alone in it. We're not alone in it. And we just think of the mystery of our families and it was a very common saying in healing circles that suffering that is not transformed is transmitted. And so all of us in our life, the places where we have yet to have our suffering transformed when we all have suffering every single person, no matter what walk of life you are, no matter how many academic degrees or how politically important you are, every person has places where their hearts have been ruptured in love and where love is withheld or love was withdrawn and the Lord is desiring to bring those places in a wholeness and communion because those places don't just go away. We actually just transmit them on to others, whether that's overly or covertly. And so the Lord is bringing us into his own beautiful life. That's the very first paragraph of the Catechism that the Lord creates us to bring us into his own blessed life. And it's just our simple faith and it's gorgeous. You know, I love what you say, how you say what you say that the healing is to, if I could put, I'm wrestling with words a little bit, but I'm thinking, there's a lot of images going on in my head. So we're a Carmelite community, the possibly VA community, which is behind spiritualdirection.com, the Able Institute, all of that. We're Carmelite and in that spirituality, what we are often working with people is, what is in the way of your ascent to union, right? Which is in the definition. And what we've come to, just like you and Dr. Bob Schuets, and I think it's a movement of the Holy Spirit in the church today, is that when we encounter that brokenness in us, it's not a time to run. It's not a time to, I don't know, hide or recoil or mask or whatever, but it's an invitation of God because it's either in the will that he's allowed, of course, something to occur or he causes it to occur for a greater benefit, but when we enter into those times when that junk comes up, it's an invitation to healing. It's actually God entering into our life, if you will, or making known more fully his presence and saying, this stuff is in the way of the great love that I have for you. Would you please let me kill it? And I'm now I'm mixing with C.S. Lewis, it's great for me. I love the great divorce, that's so great, love that's great. Yeah, that scene is so amazing where it's almost the angel is desperate, like so he's an instrument of God to heal the man. He has a demon, right, that the junk, whatever he represents. And this demon is desperate for the man to say yes. And then the second he says yes, of course he heals him and he becomes this. You mean the angel is desperate for him to say yes. Did I say it wrong? You said the demon is desperate. Oh, sorry. Well, the demon would like him to say no. The demon's trying to get into Klingon, yeah, it's so good. Hold on, hold on, you know, you're not gonna like to be without me. It's a good thing you're here. We have all kinds of comments there, correct me. But I think that's, is that the way you see healing is the junk is there and God gave himself for us and he didn't just give himself for us so that we could have this life of nothing but difficulty and then heaven, right, or the or purgatory. But actually in this life, he wants to draw us deeper into his heart and he's inviting us through the healing of our wounds. Yeah, yeah, you know, Dan, I think our wounds, we are, every single one of us have, we have places of our wounds that we're very ashamed of and we're convinced they make us unlovable. And so even when we talk about like the junk that gets in the way, a lot of times those are areas of lies we believe about ourselves. It's unconfessed sin, it's suffering that is stuck so deep in our heart where we just keep living it out over and over and over and over again. And all of us try really hard. We all try really hard to be normal. We try to go on, we try to muster up the courage to forgive that person and our family and inside our hearts are just shattered and those sacred places of encounter with the Lord are so precious to him. Jesus is not, he's not ashamed of our wounds. He's not ashamed of us. He's not ashamed of our weaknesses. We're terrified of them because we think it makes us unlovable, but when we find it in those places of poverty where we sit with Mary at the foot of the cross and we just say, I need you, I can't do this. Like I need your help. Those are such sacred places of encounter. And I think all of us in our life, if we could just step back a bit, like if you could look at the areas of your deepest suffering and areas that you're coming through, not we're getting over or dealing with, but they're walking through with Jesus in this paschal mystery, aren't those the very places where our hearts have been broken open to love like Jesus? Like, how else would we, how else would we fathom his love for us and to be able to love others if our hearts had not been broken open so deeply in these places that are so precious and so tender? And so I wrote in the book Restore that many years ago I was giving a healing retreat for seminarians and the rector of the seminaries and exorcist. And he was sharing with me. He was in all the teachings. And at one point we were having lunch together and he just shared with me. And he said, I really believe, he said, I really believe Satan is like a sniper. And he said, because he has a superior intellect to us, he can intuit the destiny of every human person. He said, he doesn't know the details, but he said, I really believe that he can intuit the destiny and he will shoot his most deadly, deadly bullet, most poisonous arrow in the places to do us the most damage. And he said, your wounds are not random. Your wounds are not arbitrary. An enemy has done this. And he said, if Satan can get us to hate ourselves, hate God and hate the people who wounded us, he's one. But he said, if we allow in the grief, in the lamentation, in this truth, in the valley of the shadow of death, if we allow Jesus to come with us in those places and to transform them, we love with a power and a potency and an efficacy and a compassion that we would have never known any other way, which is why we can say not just a nice pious idea, but we can say in our life, your life and my life, oh, happy fault, oh, necessary sin of Adam that gained for us so glorious a redeemer. Like this, this is our faith. It's so gorgeous. Like Jesus is so good to us. He's so kind. It's just stunning how he loves us. He calls his friends, you know? My gosh. It's really beautiful. One of the ways that I've been moved to speak about this is that hurt people hurt others. Yes. Healed people heal others. Yes. And what I have come to believe with everything because I've just seen it played over and over through direction through the women that I walk with through deliverance and in many ways is that the enemy, as you were saying, he's like a sniper. He picks his spot and where he can create the most damage but I also believe that that is the area that our greatest call is. Yes, that's true. That's our greatest call. And you know, for me, when I was a child and my dad is long gone, God rest his soul and have mercy on him. You know, I heard over and over again, children are to be seen and not heard. My voice, my speaking was not acceptable. I was to be silent. I was not to be seen. And I would have never told you that I would be leading marriage retreats with my husband, that I would be on radio, doing divine intimacy radio, that I would be speaking in front of women and conferences and I thought, isn't this fascinating? That, and it's so beautiful. And so I, when I hear someone who's hurting and we're walking through with them and we bring them to healing, it's easy to impart great encouragement and hope to say the Lord is still healing his people, still healing it. I see it all the time. We do, you do. We see it at all these conferences and these private retreats and everything. And it's a beautiful thing to see the Lord at work and know that he's bringing about a greater thing, a greater good that he's going to use to set others free as well. It's really beautiful. Amen, Stephanie, amen. Yep, amen. Wherever you are, there's more. That's another thought that's coming to my mind. Is there are folks who have come a long way and who are doing well and even looking at you or maybe the three of us. I know Stephanie and I have overcome a great deal of healing, but the beauty of relationship with God, the beauty of knowing the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, to be a finite creature and know an infinite creator. So it means that the journey of healing and of ever drawing ever near or then of course beyond this life in heaven, the new discovery never ends. I think it's important for folks to know because a lot of our audience is pretty devout. It's important for those folks to know too, those who are traditionalists or who are in the ordinary form or whatever kind of worship they have under the Catholic umbrella, maybe they have daily devotions and daily mental prayer, pray the rosary every day. The Lord, until we see him face to face, we're on a never ending journey of discovery, of hope, of renewal and conversion. Maybe you could speak a little bit to, as we head into Advent, how this Advent, no matter where the person is, spiritually a child or an adolescent or an adult in terms of comparing to the purgative element to the unit of stages, how is it that this Advent, no matter where we are can bring us deeper into healing and relationship to the Lord? Oh yes, I think the best news in that is that it is good that we grow. I'm so grateful that we get to grow, that there's no limit to the depth of love with which the Lord wants to bring me into and goodness and patience and kindness and chastity and modesty and magnanimity and just the beauty of who got it. There's no limit to that. There's no limit to our ability to forgive and to be patient and to be kind and to be truthful and to be honest. And I'm just so grateful that there's always more that we continue to grow in love. And I mean, you guys have been married a long time. Like, do you ever tire of saying, I love you or ever hearing your spouse or your children say, I love you. And that's really what the Lord is doing this Advent season. He's continuing to pour into the places of I love you. I love you, I love you. I want to bring you to deeper waters. I want to bring you to deeper intimacy. I want to bring you to deeper joy and freedom and fulfillment and fullness and wisdom and all the gifts of the Holy Spirit. And so I'm just so grateful that I get to be on a journey that I don't have it all together and I'm little and I'm poor and I get to learn. I'm just so wonderful that every morning we get to get up and as disciples, as you know, the root word is student. D-I-S-E means student that I'm a student in the school of love and I don't graduate and that's okay. And I can learn and I can be little. And I'm sure you guys know Father Boniface Hicks who does a lot of work. I did a retreat with him last year and he's so lovely and I've known him for many, many years. He's a dear friend. And at one point during their retreat, he just looked at me and he said, Sister Miriam, he said, children, like we all get to be little and you don't have to be big and grown up and have everything figured out. You just, you just get to be little. And I think that's such a, that's such a great, that's such hope for all of us. Our families, our children, our church, our world that we can continue to grow and to be transformed. Oh my gosh, that's amazing. You know, one thing we've seen in deliverance and also in exorcism ministry and have become thoroughly convinced of St. Teresa of Avila said to herself, God withholds himself from no one who perseveres, right? I think it's important that people listening know and I know you can speak to it with conviction as we can. Everyone who stays in the fight, like everyone, we, you've worked with thousands of people, we worked with thousands of people and I can't think of a single person, no matter how bad they were broken, whether it be, you know, actually I don't even wanna give examples that we've seen, but from things that you could never imagine, you know, the worst things you can imagine or people come out of, have you ever seen anyone in all of your years who, if they stayed in the fight, God didn't show up for them where they weren't healed or where they couldn't be healed? Oh no, I've never seen that. I think that's the beauty of the quality of the openness of our heart that we keep going and we keep going with Jesus and that's very true and the Lord, you know, and it's our life is so mysterious in many ways, I think when we see God face to face and we look back at our life, there'll be so many mysteries, but finally we were revealed and this side we're just so small, like St. Paul says we see dimly now as in a mirror, we just don't, but as we just keep going, I mean, just getting up and keep going, we fall, we get back up, we keep going and that's persevering to win the crown and there's no substitute for that, it's not always romantic, but it's the best, like what other option is there? Like, you know, lay down and just, I don't know, it's like there's really no other option when you think about it, like the only way is through, it's really true, the only way is through. Wow, it's interesting you just said that, the only way is through, fascinating, I don't know if I should reveal where that origin, the Holy Spirit originally, it actually came to me in an exorcism with a victim that had suffered more than anybody I could ever imagine and they so desperately wanted to be healed, but of course in the middle of that process and healing, it's so traumatic and I whispered in their ear, the only way out is through, the only way is through, so it's fascinating to hear you say that. So let's talk a little more about Behold, which is, go ahead. Is that what you're going next? Yeah, I mean, it has to do with this, but it's the favorite topic here. So I want to talk about how Mary reveal, what does Mary reveal about the design of our hearts and our deepest longings? I am such a love affair with our lady and so I just want to hear your thoughts on that. Yeah, she is the apex of everything and she, her heart and her womb and her body and her emotions and everything about her that is full of the Lord, that's the desire of every human person. She is the crowning glory of every human person to be so open that God has literally made new, he's made flesh within us and of all the desires we have and all the time things that compete for our attention and things we get distracted with and we kind of fall off the path and that woman, oh my gosh, she is the fullness of all things. She is everything we hope to be, everything we want to be and she's also in every way we wish to be loved by her, especially with feminine love, like the gift of her love as a mother is tender communion to bring us closer to her son, how beautiful and kind and strong and steadfast. We all want to love like that and we all want to be loved like that. And so when we see her, we see her beauty pierces our soul as she's full of grace and that beauty, it hearkens to heaven. It's the heavenly longing of every human person, both man and woman alike, I'm convinced of it. Yeah. One of the things that I have been very convinced of myself is just as sin came through Eve in the garden and then we have this restoration through the new Eve and our lady that I believe that women's hearts are going to be healed through our lady, through the, you know, that almost you could almost think of her immaculate heart being restored in the hearts of her daughters because this world desperately needs mothers. Yes. It does need that feminine touch. It does need that nurturing and that love because boy, the enemy goes after women. Yes. And in a horrid way, and I think it's because he's terrified of a healed woman because a healed woman brings forth life. She brings forth life in relationships and her marriage and her children and her grandchildren in a way that, and I love men, but there's a particular gifting in a woman to be able to bring forth a healing love that's just extraordinary. And I believe that our lady's gonna do that in the hearts of her daughters. You know. How I truly agree with you. You know, it's just really. I truly agree with you. Mm-hmm. So tell us, I wanna connect back to the book because I keep wanting to present that to folks. And to help them, guide them into a deeper kind of advent, maybe explain a little bit about how you've used these, you know, the relationships in the holy family. We've talked about the Blessed Mother. Maybe we can talk about St. Joseph and Father wounds and how, how, in behold, that you lead us to explore a new vision and new relationship with God in that context. Yeah, well, the book is really set up to be just a gentle invitation. And really all I am just gently taking you by the hand and just leading you on a very simple and a very quiet journey of healing. And it's looking at the different aspects of the feminine love of Mary and the masculine love of Joseph and then the aspects of childhood as we all, you know, I love that Jesus comes to earth as through the womb of a woman and he grew up and he had his diapers changed and he learned how to talk and maybe he played soccer and he went, you know, he grew up, he was 12 years old, he was 14, he was 15, he was 20, you know, it's just so human. Like, and Jesus is bringing us to be fully human. And so it's allowing those characteristics, so say for example, like St. Joseph of his, just his tender strength of his, the way he uses his protection of how he's honored, how he's honest. And those characteristics of strong masculine love that sometimes we have those in our fathers and sometimes we don't, but they're characteristic of a love that protects and a love that guards life and a love that defends life. And so really it's just spending time with just a meditation, a short meditation every day to just kind of open your heart a bit to what was your experience with your dad? You know, and what was experience with, what does St. Joseph, you know, as an image of God, the father want to say to you and that is, and how is he working to, to bring your heart into a community relationship? And it's the same with our own childhood, like the wonder of our childhood and being taken care of and joy and just, you know, how did we come back when we were upset? How did we, how were we regulated again? And, you know, all of us in our life, we learn ways to survive. And ideally those survival mechanisms break down at some point, hopefully, because what the Lord does in that is he invites us to a deeper way of living. And so just maybe aspects you've never thought about or maybe haven't thought about in a long time, but all these things have a profound effect on how we live our day-to-day life, you know? And in Jesus says, you know, from the fullness of the heart, the mouth speaks. And wherever your treasure is, there your heart is. And what happens in our heart, like the Catechism says, the heart is our hidden center. And what happens in our hearts matters. And we can't pretend like the things that happened to us or that we got, like got over or that we don't want to talk about anymore don't affect us, they do. They affect how we pray. They affect how we see ourselves, how we see God, how we see others. And so the Lord loves us so much. He wants to bring everything into, to love and truth because both are healing. Truth heals the lies and love heals the wounds. And they both heal together. You know, as we're, as you're talking and as we're talking, I had this suddenly this vision of a nativity, you know, set a beautiful one comes to mind and we're, we're drawing near to each of the primary characters, right? In that, in that reality so that we can draw near to Jesus and maybe help us make that connection. So in behold and in your vision for this deeper dive into Advent, deeper immersion of the heart into the reality of Christ, you know, coming again Christ coming again in our hearts. How did you, how do you bring it all to together for folks? Well, in many ways, it really comes together in the stable where Jesus is born. And, you know, it's been likened by many, many people like our hearts are like a stable and there's all kinds of things in a stable. There's cows and there's, you know, animals and there's drafting is kind of dirty and in that place Jesus chooses to be born. And he is not afraid of our stable and he comes to be born in the stable of our lives in the stable of our marriages and the stable of our religious communities in the stable of our families. And it's the very places we think there's no way Christ could want to be born here. He does. And so he is bringing holiness into every single. He's bringing ordered love. He's bringing love and truth to every part of our life. And so as we allow him to bring those relationships together as we allow him to heal those relationships and bring us into wholeness and communion then our lives take on the vibrancy of Christ. And what we see is, you know, our family is perfect. No, they're not gonna be without fault. They're not gonna be without defect this side of heaven. But is the Lord doing something very beautiful on it? Yes, He is. Yes, He is. And we don't have to continue to live another year and our families say, you know, many, all of us have stories of families. And sometimes, you know, families where one half of the family doesn't speak to the other half of the family or we don't talk to Uncle So and So anymore or, you know, just all the things even we do in our immediate families that are, that just really don't bring about love or communion, they bring about divisiveness. And at least for our end and on our end of the picture, what is Jesus inviting us to this advent so we can live in humility and truth and offer the gift of love. And that is a witness and that's the kind of holiness that can't be faked, right? Where the Jesus comes into our life and he, through his relationship with us and through his presence in us, it's the fragrance of Christ that people encounter and that's the journey of our life. But it happens in real ways and it happens around a family. I think sometimes we think we're healed or we live in isolation. I'll just be holy over here by myself or I'll be healed over here by myself. And it doesn't happen like that. It happens in communion and communion with God within ourselves and with other people. So we need each other and in the mystery of life, God has given us our family and God knows what he's doing in that. And so we continue to pray for all the members of our family and ask for wholeness and communion, real conversion of heart, real beauty, real reunification in the places where there wasn't and a deeper restoration in the places that are. You know, one of the things that came to mind so vividly when you started to talk about our souls being the stables with all kinds of untoward things in them. It reminded me, years ago, I went through the exercises with my director and maybe somebody needs to hear this because I was led to a memory and it brought great shame, this deep ungodly shame. And what was so fascinating, difficult and beautiful was that as we were talking about inviting God into that, inviting our Lord into that, I remember from this deep sorrow and this deep shame uttering the words, he can't love me there. Oh, yeah. Like he can love me everywhere else, but he doesn't love me there. And it was an utterance that came out of a truth, something that I was holding on to. And what was so beautiful was then to take that into, we had a chapel, we have a chapel here in the retreat house, but at the time we had a chapel on our third story of our house. And I just got on my face and I took myself just quickly there and I invited the Lord in. And he walked into that memory and I can tell you it was the most exquisite experience because it was healed, it was gone, all the pain, all the shame, all of it. And he just so desires to meet us in those places, whether it's in our own brokenness, things that we've done, or things that have happened in our family and the scars and the pains and the disappointments because pain just seems to pile on to pain, wounds pile on to wounds. I always talk about the enemy being an opportunist, finds that and boy, he's gonna grab ahold of it and he's gonna manipulate us. And then he's gonna attract other of our nemesis that are similar through other people to pile on to that and it just seems to go on and on, but the Lord, if we'll just draw near when he meets us in that it's gone and it's healed. It's very beautiful. I know that Dan and I, Dan has deep mother wounds, I have deep father wounds. What steps can we do through this behold? How will it help us deal with that? How can those of us who have those kinds of wounds find him? Yeah, I think all of us do. Like we said, our parents, and like we said, this is just being honest of the places where they just couldn't be everything to us at all times. And sometimes it was a lot more egregious than that, but even in that and those things, they reflect in our hearts as the catechism says that our mother and our father are the first examples of God to us. And so many times we adapt to a vision of God that comes through parents when they're not perfect and just life and maybe it's other things happening in our families. And I think just being honest about those things and allowing the emotions to come to the surface. And like you said Stephanie, really beautiful, that was a belief that you held about yourself. And it wasn't until you were in a safe enough place to that for that belief to come to the surface or then you could bring it to the Lord and you find that he didn't mock you, he didn't shame you, he didn't say, what's wrong with you? He just received that tender belief that you have about yourself and then he revealed the truth to you. And this is really all the Lord is asking of us to do is he's bringing us, wants to bring us to a safe place because it's security that allows these things to come to the surface. And then as we allow this to come to the altar of our hearts, the Lord meets us with the truth. And we can honor our mother and father and the people in our life and our spouses and remember family, we can honor them as we're supposed to, we're supposed to honor the people in our life and we can also be honest as well. Just like that's why we go to confession. We bring ourselves as a beloved son or beloved daughter and we're also honest in the places where our love has been ruptured and where we've hurt people, where we've hurt God, we've hurt ourselves. And so I think the journey of honesty, which is the journey of humility, we're just living in reality, just living in the truth of like, Lord, this happened to me, this is something I'm experiencing. Can you please reveal to me what I'm believing about myself? Cause those are many times the most powerful triggers of what I'm believing myself about myself in a certain situation. And then Lord, what is the truth? Because that's really the sticking points in our life of, you know, every wound has a message. And so it's like porcupine quills, you know, it's like the porcupine quills and they have a barb on the end and the barb is the message also. So it's gonna get stuck in there. And so the Lord would like to speak the truth to us because I know for me in just areas of just major trauma in my own life, one of the many things I've learned along the way is that the people that hurt me are just people and they're not monsters and they're broken like me. And like you said so beautifully, hurt people hurt people and it's not excusing sin, it's not excusing the need for justice to be restored, all that will be taken care of. But really at the end what you see, there's their people too that are loved by God. And as the catechism says that when the Holy Spirit purifies our hearts, it turns the pain into intercession. And that is something that enemy can't touch that the humility, the love, the obedience, the truth. Like that is the powerful force of transformation and that's the life of Christ and that's what he's bringing to birth in us. You know what's so incredibly powerful when you talk about the, when the Lord brings us to that place and heals us and we can then lean into the power of intercession is one of the prayers that we use is Lord, as I forgive this person which takes so much courage, it takes incredible courage to even go there, to even admit the things that have happened or that we've done or been done to us or whatever that as we do that and we allow the Lord to heal us then we can ask Him to turn all curses into blessings to restore them a hundredfold. And then when we set them free, we're free. And the Lord can then move. Then we're not withholding the grace that He wants to perhaps move through us through that prayer to that other person and to be able to genuinely ask for somebody who's hurt us to be healed, for them to be restored, to be saved, to be sanctified, for them to become great saints is an extraordinary gift and it is possible but it does take some careful walking through with souls that'll help us, help through those places because it's sacred ground and it just has to be navigated so carefully. That's true, yeah. And it takes time and that's okay. It's a process and it's okay that it does and it's true, yeah. I'm sorry, Dan, what were you gonna say? No, my heart aches for everyone listening because I know what it feels like because I'm even in this place in my own life because I came out of a background of abuse. I came out of an environment where there are a bunch of caskets of siblings and niece and from drug abuse and from neglect and all of that that no matter where you are and no matter what the junk is, it's back to what you said earlier. The pathway to God is through in and through those things and I know that I have healing ahead of me. I don't know that I understand it completely but there is something brewing in me that's been there for a while and stuff I just know that once I face it, wow, is it gonna be difficult, but I also know enough because I've been through it enough that on the other side is a deeper kind of love that I never thought I could know, a deeper kind of joy than I never thought I could know, a deeper kind of self-giving, a deeper kind of chest and I just want this in this webinar, I want everyone listening and listening to Sister Miriam and to Stephanie, I think I pray to God, you hear in us that there's freedom on the other side of that pain but God is calling you to face it, to move into it, to find Him there to allow Him to heal you and then you will become a force for healing in the world, you will become a deeper and more authentic disciple of His, you will be changed and the world will change around you. Even more than that, our daughter, she's so inspired me when she said this but as she was getting ready to prepare for marriage, she, something came up, something came up in her and we know that when that anxiety starts to rise, it's this indication that something needs to be healed and brought forth and I was so inspired by her in her words and she said, mom, I have a responsibility for my future, to my future husband and to whoever the Lord entrust me with to go receive healing and the responsibility to them, not just for yourself but to them. And I think that's the other thing is that the Lord has created all, every person is unrepeatable, they're beautiful, they have this particular mission that only they can complete, whatever that is. And I just, I ache for those who are struggling, I want them to step into what the Lord is asking of them to come to that healing because the Lord needs them, we need healed people. We need to walk with one another and help others to find their healing. We need healed priests, we need healed sisters. I know that you do a lot of work in that area because I think it's interesting to talk about mother wounds and father wounds. And I think we all have a collective mother wound. We have a collective father wound and it shows up in so many ways even in our holy mother church and we just need to encourage one another to seek. We have a responsibility to ourselves, to those in our immediate family but to the extended holy mother church because those graces, our sin is never isolated, our brokenness is never isolated and we need to allow that to happen so that the Lord's grace can just flow freely. That is so true. And like Mother Teresa said, we forgot we belong to each other and we profoundly affect each other and there is no such thing as a private sin but there's no such thing as a private grace either. And I think that's one of the things we will be shocked at is when we see God face to face, we enter into heaven how tightly interwoven we all were and we all are that we don't even realize it and I think, I love what you're saying that are both of you and I think that the truth is that we don't go into these places alone and that Jesus is the one who's inviting us and like you said down so beautifully like you can tell the Holy Spirit's bringing something to the surface of your heart and that's all we need to do is go to the Holy Spirit and just ask like, Holy Spirit, what are you doing? Like what's happening in my heart and the Lord goes with us and trauma therapists say that for all of us have these wounds, these wounds filled with pain but almost surrounding every single wound we have usually is a secondary wound of having nobody safe to tell it to. So by the time since we were little even till now we have these wounds that are surrounded in these areas of isolation and fragmentation and when we can in safety and on communion, bring that to the Lord and to people who love us people who are gonna be with us who will not leave us who will not forsake us who see God in us and who know us then that gives a safety that's the covenant that gives a safety for everything to come out and it's so much more than just managing we're not here to manage our wounds and Christianity is not sin management it's God forbid Christianity is sin management we are the most pitiful of all people but- It's a pretty boring religion. It is but Christianity a complete transformation into glory. So I think really like question is I was at a recovering addict and many years ago I was at a meeting and this woman who was having a hard time staying sober just came to the meeting one day and she just came in all these various conditions and we're never really sure what she was gonna show up as and she came to the meeting one day and she had a huge epiphany and she said, you know what? She's like, I realize I've been doing this sobriety thing all wrong. She's like, up until this point I've been asking myself what is the bare minimum I need to do to stay sober? And she's like, I realized the question I need to ask is not that but how free do I wanna be? Right. How free do I wanna be? And as us as Christians, there's no limit to that there's no limit to how free we can be in the Lord. There's no limit because he is infinite and because his heart is infinite and he wants to draw us into the depths of his heart into the depths of freedom and then to liberating others as long as we're in this earth and of course even afterwards to advance his kingdom. So I wanna shift we've sort of touched on the edges we both share a love for healing in the priesthood and a calling to be a part of that. It's, we have a hundred guys as I mentioned to you before the webinar in our program where we're forming them to enter into seminary and our goal really is to help them address many areas. We have great folks, they're just like you and in the sense of in the category of the kind of person you are with giving yourself to the church but Father Bochansky courage, Father Sean Kilcolly, Father Boniface Hicks is working with us. You know, all of these wonderful priests and lay people gathered around to nurture and bring about and bring all the resources necessary to these young men who are serving the priesthood so that as they enter in, they enter in with less junk, right? Which enables them to be more who they're called to be and then hopefully we don't produce so much of the problem on the back end where we're not taking care of guys, they're not healed and then we put them into a context where in they have this beautiful opportunity of course to do more good than anyone could ever imagine but without healing, at least substantive healing of course then much damage can occur. What do you see in the church today? How do you see your work, our work, the advent, all of this conversation leading to hope? Where do you see the hope in the church? Oh gosh, yeah, I see the hope in so many places because we know that this is the Jesus church and we know he's not failing. So he's calling people and he's doing a great work. I think your spiritual direction, school, I think that's a sign of the times. I don't know if you get asked this, the two questions I get asked the most are how do I find a good spiritual director? How do I find a good counselor? And I really believe it's the Holy Spirit is raising, I mean, what the Holy Spirit is doing is he's answering the need, he's answering the call and now 10 years ago or 20 years ago, maybe even a few years ago, you had to kind of convince people that maybe their hearts had been ruptured and they needed healing. Now it's like, we were just at a conference this last weekend with Bob Schuetz, we had 800 people at that conference, they had a waiting list of almost 200 people. I mean, and people are clamoring and I think you hear, especially in the heart of our shepherds or beautiful priests, these men did not give up everything to run a small business. They gave up everything to be the bridegroom of the church to give their life for the bride. And they love in a way that nobody else loves and if we could have a place for them where they could come to the truth of who they are so they could give the gift of themselves to give the seed that lasts into eternal life and to support and bless them to be fathers of the church. That's just to me, that's that and the healing of religious sisters especially, the bride and the bridegroom, the healing of the bride and the bridegroom which is the eschatological sign for heaven. That's so important. I just give my whole life for that, yeah. I totally agree. Now, before we jump into questions because they're starting to pile up, I wanna tell folks a little bit about who may, I'd be surprised if anyone listening didn't know who you are, but just in case, a Biding Together podcast, so it's a Biding Together podcast all spelled out together.com. Is that the primary place where they can find more about you and resources that you have, obviously the podcast is there or are there other places they can find out more? Well, I'm a co-host of that podcast, yeah. And we've been, we're gonna start our 12th season in January 2nd and we have probably 12 million downloads over the years of just people listening to our podcast. But you can also go to my Religious Communities website S-O-L-T.net and find out about my Religious Community and the only, I work a lot with the John Paul II Healing Center as well and there's a lot of videos on YouTube but the only social media that I am on personally is Twitter and you can find me at One Groovy None. So that's all I have. One Groovy None. One Groovy None. That's it. That's all I got. And God be praised. Amen, yeah. The Twitter is now a safer place for One Groovy None. Yeah, it's interesting what's happened, huh? Just think, you know, if that would happen, you're like, wow, that happens. It did happen. Well, why don't we jump out to some questions? I am 55 and live with my parents. My father, wounded daily, compounded by dad's sarcasm, complaining and criticizing. He thinks his behavior is okay because he's just joking. How do me and mom heal from this? Oh gosh. I bet there's a lot of stories there. I bet that's a very long story and you know, we've all done that where we tell, there's that saying the truth is often told in jest and usually what's happening when somebody's sarcastic, there's a lot of anger and there's a lot of pain underneath that. So I'm not sure like what your father is upset about or it sounds like there's some really deep areas of brokenness and I don't know I don't know if you're from the dynamics that boundaries need to set and what kind of healthy, safe ways you can but just I could need to understand that your dad is, it sounds like he's hurting and it doesn't make it okay but just to understand that hurt people hurt people like Stephanie was saying and maybe you need some distance or maybe you need to have a talk with him or maybe just to set some, I don't know, some walls or imparts to protect yourself in that regard but yeah, when it's hurtful like that it's not joking and even when we do joke and we hurt somebody if we go back and it's like, oh my gosh, I'm so sorry but it's just telling you something about his heart it sounds like his heart isn't a lot of pain. And that sounds like it. Oh, good. And I think one of, you know when you need a big miracle and you need that whatever that is that's hidden that needs to be revealed and brought up I can tell you that one of the most powerful things that I've found is the Nobina to Our Lady of Sorrows. I have such a devotion to her and I tell you big things happen when you pour yourself into Our Lady of Sorrows and ask her to come into these areas of woundedness and brokenness in your families and just say, I need a miracle here and I'm just gonna come to you and just show us. Show us how to move forward and she just answers those prayers. You know, the other thing about this is that I think when we realize that, you know hurt people, hurt people they don't and they don't know they're hurting others they're just acting out of their own woundedness and the vast majority of time with at least people with goodwill or just no ill intent is that if they knew how hurtful it was it's not likely they would do it. So maybe that Nobina to pray to find a way to have a conversation. And I would pray and fast for him before you if you get there, pray and fast for him for like a month before you ever sit down to make sure you clean up the air and pray as much as you can in your own sanctity and having that kind of conversation but we'll be praying for you, that's for sure. Yeah, mm-hmm. So just this is a comment from Amy Fenner. She said, three of my most favorite people right here God changed my evening so I could be present for this reason, gotta be praised. Hey Amy. Hey Amy. Goodland, Kansas, right? Yeah, that's right. Yeah. What can Advent teach us in this difficult and challenging time in our church, country and world? I think Advent teaches us what is most important that Jesus comes as a poor, vulnerable, dependent child and he comes in a stable and he's born to very simple parents and he's born in quiet and stillness and that's the most important thing that Christ being born is the most important thing and that we're surrounded by a family like we're a community of saints like we don't exist in the world by ourselves and of all the things like holiday lights everything like all the part that comes and goes but Christ is eternal and I think he's inviting each one of us into a deeper encounter with him but also the stillness, the light of the stillness where he wants to bring us and to speak the truth to us which will anchor us through anything. That Jesus not afraid of poverty he's not afraid of brokenness he's not afraid of dirt he's not afraid of stables he's not afraid of us and he desires to enter into our life with us and to draw us into his, yeah. And that reality I think is more important than everything else that's going on in the world and that is the answer to the question, right? I used to be the president of PWT and News and it's easy to get caught up in all the junk out in the world and out in the country and I really think that during this time we ought to draw ourselves out of that and into what it means to be in relationship with him. A lot of people don't believe this who haven't lived a long time in prayer but I just wanna attest to it. When you draw near to him you change and the world changes around you but it's in that order, right? It's in that order. So if you want the world to change around you then you change, you draw near to him and then the way that you pray, the way that you live, the way that you work, you will become an epicenter of grace but until you draw near to him, that activity outside I think is destructive and poison to the soul in terms of being absorbed in all of the problems of the world I mean, absorbed in the news, absorbed in politics but you can become an epicenter of grace, you can be one who when you kneel, the enemy runs in fear, oh no, she's kneeling again or he's praying again, I really believe, I've seen as a community, we pray a particular prayer for restoration and healing in the church. I believe a lot of what's come to light and I may be crazy but I believe it is from the specific prayer from the heart of many devout souls and God answers and hears but until we begin all things for God, before God on our knees, we will never walk in his strength and his wisdom, we will never walk in his power, we won't change what happens out there until we change or allow him to change what happens in here. And you know what I would add to that Dan is that I think for the angst of someone's heart, when they see the problems and the difficulty, is that that angst is a call from the Lord, for them, for that he's placed that pain and he's being drawn near to me, I've placed that pain because I'm trying to draw you near to me, don't go out there and get active, draw near to me so that I can heal you and then work, you know, and I just think it's an extraordinary thing because we tend to feel the pain and then we go out and get active but when we feel the pain, we need to go deep, go deep. What are some ideas to get a spouse to pray together especially during Advent? What would you two say? I have some ideas for you, Mike. Well, you know what word gets me right there is that word get. What are some ideas to get? Cause that's hard, that's hard because it implies that the spouse doesn't want to or you know, and so that's a tough place to be and we just left an amazing, amazing work of the Holy Spirit. We just had a divine intimacy and marriage retreat in Virginia, in White Horse, White Horse. White Post. White Post, White Post, the Mill and Nothing, beautiful, beautiful event and boy, we saw a lot of healing and I know that some of those spouses, you know came probably against their will to some degree but They're well-in-told, yeah, yeah. I told them, I said, I didn't see anybody drawing, you know, dragging in a corpse. Everybody watched it and so I think there's some good will here and we need to go with that, you know and praise the Lord in that. But I think there's an invitation, right? Because I think as spouses, you know go deeper with the Lord, that's beautiful. That's beautiful and it's attractive and it draws but we were reminded of something that I think was powerful and that is that one of the gentlemen said we can't forget that the spouse that is the one that's behind, you know spiritually who is not where his wife is or where, you know, in that situation he said we can't forget that they're suffering too because they are not, they can see that they're not where they're supposed to be and they don't know how to get there and they're aching as well. So we need to pray and sacrifice for ourselves. And assume the best. Assume the best, pray, throw a parade every tiny little thing they do, right? Get this book, Husband and Wife Together and maybe make this an advent of learning together and reading together like you hadn't done before. Pick up the book, read it together. It is, you know, it's written in a very accessible style. It's not gonna be overwhelming to anyone. It's going to be a simple straightforward look I think into the heart of God through the Holy Family and just that reading together. The other thing, last thing and we'll jump to the next question is maybe at the beginning sit down with your spouse and say, I'd really like this advent to be different. And I don't know how you feel about that but are there ways and ask them like don't impose ask them are there ways, are there any ways you experienced beauty and goodness in this time when you were a kid or with any way things you wish we would do or that you really would thought would be needed here and then maybe in that context you have your list ready but gently try to explore so that you're walking together and just if there's only one good thing that's different except the one good thing and make the best of it and draw closer rather than trying to get, I mean, not implying I mean, we don't know what this person would mean but it is, we have to be careful with that because we have to invite and be at peace and not push I pray a lot and I think that'll pull on way and know the power of a praying spouse the power of a praying spouse is extraordinary. Okay, okay. What, how do you know when you are controlling your healing versus allowing God to be in control of your healing? That's interesting. Yeah, don't we all try to do that? I think we can look at the fruit and a tree is known by its fruit and I think we can tell when that journey if it becomes fear-based or compulsive or we find just the fruits of things that are not bringing us into communion where it just becomes a way we're trying to dominate or manipulate or possess or those are usually signs that we probably moved into a place of fear versus allowing the Lord to come and bring us into healing and so I always every day in the name of Jesus we're now in control and the spirit of control because that's from the garden and Lord Jesus please come and help me be vulnerable and dependent on you but we can just, and we all do that at times we wanna take it for ourselves. I think just noticing the fruit so we develop a deep interior life we can kinda notice the fruit and say okay Lord here I go again please or I'm afraid Lord I'm afraid if I don't do this you're not gonna love me and I think being honest about whatever the fear is or whatever is being stirred allows you for even deeper encounter. Amen, well said. How do we know that we have truly forgiven not just intellectually but for sure it reminds me of the passage in the Gospels where Jesus said he finishes you had the one guy who owed a great, a little debt or a great debt and he was forgiven and then he throttled the guy who owed him a little debt and then at the end Jesus said you must forgive from the heart and I think that's what they're asking how do we know we've forgiven from the heart and not just intellectually? Yeah that's a great question also and I think really the telltale sign is the fruit. You know what happens through a process forgiveness is a process not an event and so what happens to the process of forgiveness is that over time there's a release for the demand for repayment. So I'm not like choking I'm not like that dishonest or choking the person so to speak demanding they pay back what they owe there will be a lessening of the resentment or the bitterness or and even when the feelings anger might still come back but I can acknowledge that and ask the Lord to come and meet me in certain places I move from cursing them to blessing them I'm shifting from ill will to good will and really what St. Thomas Aquinas says is forgiveness is offering somebody an undeserved gift can I even pray for them and people often ask what's the best thing I can do for Advent or Lent one of the best things you can do is you can pray for the person who hurt you every day and even if all you can do is just say Lord I can't stand them but I'm just gonna offer them to you amen like that for some people is monumental so we can tell by the fruit of that of what am I moving toward communion or away from communion and that might take time and that's okay but forgiveness is of the will and our passions our emotions will follow along after some time but as we choose that path if even just Jesus give me the willingness to be willing give me the willingness to be willing small prayers like that help us along the way and it leads us on that deeper process you know that's so important what you just said and people don't realize this I remember in a class I was teaching at the Abba Institute on discernment of spirits and talking about one of St. Ignatius's points is you have to will to be patient and they thought well wait I never thought of that that I have to that I just thought I feel it or I don't feel it but you can ask God and you can beg God even we should you know give me the strength to face this give me a deeper desire give me a deeper hope please help me you have a thought Yeah and on top of all this I think one of the things that we often forget is that we also need to take to confession our unforgiveness you know if we're holding someone bound that's the greatest gift that we can give to ourselves is to go to confession and just say Lord you know I have to acknowledge that I've been holding this person bound by my unforgiveness and take that to his healing graces because the sacrament is so incredible the other thing is as we work and will the good of the other person and all this healing and forgiveness starts to take place where we believe that we've forgiven them but maybe something comes up or we see this pain when we see them or we think about a memory or whatever and it jars us and we're surprised because we're going oh well I thought I'd forgive them why is this still affecting me is what I've invited people to do is to remember that often we can have taken it to confession willed it thought about it said it said it over and it got prayed about it but there's something about forgiving someone in the power of Jesus's name in the name in your name Lord in Jesus's name I forgive this person for these things and I asked for the curses to be turned into blessings and their restoration and I set them free he brings to perfection where we cannot do it and when we do that from the depth of our heart as he says in his name he completes that for us and I have seen miraculous forgiveness take place where people who were bound by memories and situations have been set free through that through his name Amen Yeah Okay So what is the deepest way to encounter and go through the hold? Well there's several different ways the book is written to where you can go through this by yourself you can do a small group you can I know some parishes are doing it as a parish wide based like program for Advent but I really think when I look at that question I think of it I always every Advent at the beginning I ask Mary to wrap me in her mantle of quiet that I could just spend Advent in the quiet with her and I think setting a time setting aside a time like we know in anything else in life anything is important to set aside a time for that and just to be faithful to it and just to let the Lord lead you these are just small prompts and I'm excited to hear how the Lord's going to lead people and just down their paths with the Lord but I think if we're faithful like we talked about earlier if we just keep persevering even if it's difficult or we wanna give up but just the fidelity to that even just for a few minutes a day I think it's going to reap just really beautiful graces in your soul and so I think that's the best way to do is to ask the Lord for the grace as related to wrap you in her mantle and just take her hand and go Yeah, to add to that I would recommend in my book into the deeper which teaches people how to pray from starting from zero one of the things we talk about is sacred time and but it's helpful if you say to the Lord I promise to give you this I'm gonna get up at six, 15 or I'm gonna get up at seven or I'm gonna do and I'm gonna give you 15 minutes I think to add to what sister said I would I'd recommend you specifically commit to the Lord a time and that you promise to be there and even do so in a very serious way that you might take to confession or at least to the penitential right of the holy sacrifice of the mass and give it to him and don't take it back and even if you feel crummy and even if you didn't sleep well give it still give him the time and I think all three of us would agree if you show up even as a rag tag whatever you are whatever condition you're in he will meet you there and even if you don't feel anything and even if you don't perceive you're getting any benefit when you draw near to the Lord he is not a liar he is always truthful he will draw near to you. Amen. What are your favorite Psalms or words of scripture that you have found to be especially powerful in healing ministry? That's a great question. I love all the gospel accounts of all the different kinds of healing I love that but I think my favorite one of my absolute favorite scripture passages is a John 1010 where Jesus says the thief comes to steal kill and destroy but I came that you might have life and have it to the full and that for me has been such a encouragement in my life and so many times I wanted to give up and so many times where I thought I would never be well or I'll never get better or this will always be this way and Jesus kept encouraging me saying I came that you might have life and have it to the full that you would have it to the full that you would have it to the full so for me it gives me such hope of the like we've been talking about this whole time the fullness of life it's not just managing or modifying behavior but living in the fullness of life of Christ that to me is such a is such a balm for my soul in so many ways. Awesome. Awesome. I think the last question we'll take for tonight is a very good one a very important one and that is how do you forgive yourself? Oh yeah. That's often the person we have by the collar of our shirt it's ourselves and we can have a metaphorical relationship with ourselves because what we're doing is we're relating to ourselves at different parts of our life and it really is the same process of coming to terms honestly with what happened and many times that those areas are covered in shame and they're covered in a lot of self-hatred and if we could allow the sorrow of what's underneath that underneath the self-hatred and the anger that we often have at ourselves underneath that is the sorrow that says I'm so sorry that happened I'm so sorry I did that I'm so sorry but I've failed in that way and that's a very vulnerable place and if we could allow that place in our heart to come to the surface and allow Jesus to speak the truth to us there that's when we start to find deeper freedom in our life and many times what we do as adults is we psychologize ourselves now onto our younger parts and say what's wrong with you like why did you do that? Like or even if you have an addiction like what's wrong with you and that doesn't help it doesn't self-hatred nobody's ever condemned into a conversion or criticized into one we're loved into one and if we can allow just bring that to the Lord and say Lord I hate myself here I don't feel like I'm worthy and allowing him to bring those deeper places to the surface that's where we find truth and that's where we know that's why we have to hold on to objective truth that Jesus does forgive us that is eternally true and we can hold on to that even in places where we are struggling we can hold on to that and allow the emotion to come to the surface Yeah, yeah the other thing that comes to mind is really, you know since we're so deep into discernment of spirits is to understand and the difference between the conviction of the Lord in our sin and the condemnation of the enemy because the condemnation is, you know you're worthless you're useless you'll never change whereas the Lord says that wasn't right it's hurting you it hurt me it hurt our relationship but I'm gonna heal you and so he's always draws us back to himself whereas the enemy wants to keep us broken and when we start to recognize those voices in our heart and in our mind and to resist those that condemn and to accept the conviction but then go to that place and let it draw us to the healing through the sacraments and through healing prayer and deliverance and everything else that we need to bring us off to the fullness of that but, you know it can be done you know, I think all of us collectively have some we have plenty in our background that where we can say we had to forgive ourselves and it's painful and it's difficult but the Lord can do all things and with His grace you can come to that place of forgiving yourself and not only that but being restored and being set free you know Amen Amen So friends, pick up, behold a guided Advent journal for prayer and meditation here it is again and if you wanna learn more about Sister Miriam head out to abiding together podcast, all one word dot com, abiding together podcast AveMariaPress.com forward slash project, products forward slash behold but if you just or Twitter, one groovy nut or YouTube, yeah it's very easy to find you Yeah, no and please support her good work she mentioned Dr. Bob Shoots and the J2P healing center Yes You know, we're all one of the things I love about you I mean, we don't know each other well but our paths crossed a number of times it's been a real joy is you know, I feel like we are fellow tokens, you know on the way we're we're working to advance the kingdom together and for those of you out there who wanna do that more fully and wanna engage more of course, you know what we do but support Sister Miriam pick up the book listen to her podcast tell other people about it and make sure you absorb the content and make this advent a different one you know don't get caught up in the season don't let it pass you by wherein, you know you look back and just think oh, another one went by it make it a year where you draw closer to him regardless of what anyone else around you does by the way don't set up a plan where, you know you try to be too elaborate in your scheme, if you will the enemy loves those too many factors outside of your control if it's just you in your closet under your clothes every day praying and drawing near the world will be a better place by the time you come out of your closet all the better if it's your family too great all the better if you're a priest and doing this for your parish great all the better if you're religious who are helping those in your community others doing it, that's great but it's really, really important that we each draw near to the world and as we do that others will be drawn to us will help others but that place where only you and he can meet is the place that needs to be nurtured the most and when you do that you will change and the world will change around you Sister Mary thank you for all the wonderful work you're doing and for your beautiful spirit and desire to bring the abundant life to the people of God and thank you for spending some time with us tonight Oh, thank you it's been a delight to spend time with you thank you so much awesome God bless you would you mind closing us in prayer? Sure, yeah, let's do that the name of the Father and the Son of the Holy Spirit Amen Jesus, we love you we love you we thank you for the kindness of your love for the steadfastness for the eternal reality of your love Lord, a love that never ends that never leaves us nor forsakes us we just entrust our hearts to you Jesus we ask that you would cover us in your precious blood that you would defend us against any and all attacks that enemy and I just ask you Holy Spirit that you would just blow upon our hearts that you would just blow away any coldness or hardness and just bring warmth and life to our hearts Father, I pray that you would father us as your children as your sons and daughters, father us in a way we've never been fathered before please Lord and Mother Mary we turn to you and we just thank you for the gift of your son we thank you for the gift of your yes for your tender kindness mama I see you would wrap each one of us in your mantle that we could rest so deeply and peacefully upon your heart mother we just pray for everybody who was with us during this time who will hear these words we just make this prayer through Christ our Lord Amen All right, God bless you God bless everyone have a great evening and a blessed advent take care All right, bye bye