 such a joy to get to spend these moments with you. Thank you. Thank you for being here. Thank you for all that you are doing to be able to go back home and give more, right? OK, I had a quick question here. How many of you are catechists? OK, now a different question. How many of you are parents? OK, yeah, it was a trick question. So now, how many of you are catechists? Yeah, I know some of you have the credentials. But you know what? Even just being married has certain qualifications, at least for our own children, right? If you were married in the church, it was actually part of your vow that you would accept children lovingly from God and bring them up according to the law of the church. And through the sacrament of holy matrimony, you and your spouse are strengthened each day for that task in addition to the sacramental graces of the Eucharist and confession, right? Third qualification is your love for your child. You have an unconditional love for each child that God has placed in your care. And as much as I would hope that the teachers my kids have might have that kind of love for my kids, I know I have that in my heart for my own. Fourth, the catechism in 2252 says parents have the first responsibility in the education of their children in faith, prayer, and virtues. And in fact, St. John Paul II, infamiliarist consortia said this, their role as educators is so decisive that scarcely anything can compensate for their failure in it. And many of you are trying to pick up the pieces, aren't you, of parents who really are not taking this seriously enough and what a challenge it is to share the treasures of the faith but then to not have that backed up at home. And how do you reach the heart of the child? I know that's something you really pray about and think about. What are the examples we have to be effective teachers? Well, I think we can look at Mary and Joseph. We'll begin with the Holy Family. Without getting into the conversation theologically of how much knowledge did Jesus have, they still had the responsibility to share the faith with him. We know that they knew the sacred scriptures. If you ever do a side by side comparison of Hannah's prayer in 1 Samuel 2 with a Magnificat in Luke 1, you see tremendous parallels. She draws, I believe, from 1 Samuel as she formulates that Magnificat. You know, in our culture, we say, now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take. But in Jewish culture, around the time of Jesus, the verse that they used to quote to their children was, into thy hands I commit my spirit, from Psalm 31.5. And Mary stood at the foot of the cross as Jesus said those words in the fullness of what they meant, as he committed his spirit back to the heavenly Father. Mary would have taught Jesus. She would have accompanied him, as did St. Joseph, to Jerusalem for the big feasts. They had him circumcised. They observed the liturgical celebration. So through words and deeds, Mary and Joseph communicated the faith to Jesus. And Jesus did the same with his own disciples, right? He instructed his disciples, like on the Sermon on the Mount. And he taught them how to minister and how to pray by his example. So our family follows the example of the holy family and our Lord by cataclyzing our children in word and in deed. We have to live this message in front of the toughest crowd, right? I mean, if anyone could list your sins for confession, it's your husband and or your children. Because we don't live perfect lives. It's not enough to say, well, I will just live the faith well because we do blow it. As you know, it's not simply enough to teach the faith, we have to actually live it. So it's not just teaching, it's not just living it. It's living it and teaching it in tandem. And yes, even when we blow it, we still can be teaching our children, asking them for forgiveness. I had one time where I was harsh with one of my children. He wasn't obeying me over and over again. And I really had reached my limit and I marched him out of the room and sat him on a chair. And I said, you just sit there and think about it. And he looked at me with these big eyes and he goes, I don't wanna go to heaven. I said, for Pete's sake, what are you dragging heaven into this? And he said, because I don't wanna live with you forever. Oh, I found my knees very quickly. Please, will you forgive mommy? I wouldn't wanna live with me forever either. I'm so sorry. So even when we blow it, God writes straight with crooked lines, doesn't he? And they are very quick to forgive, which is wonderful. The catechism says the Christian home is the place where children receive the first proclamation of the faith. And so for this reason, the family home is called the domestic church, a community of grace and prayer, a school of human virtues and of Christian charity. It's not enough to enroll kids in CCD. It's good, but it's not good enough. It's not enough to have a parish priest on call to be able to call and say, okay, this is the question my son or daughter asked. It's good, but it's not good enough. St. John Paul said, quote, family catechesis therefore precedes accompanies and enriches all other forms of catechesis. Right before Jesus returned to heaven, he gave these instructions in Matthew 28, 19 to 20. And though it applied immediately to the apostles, I believe we could say these words in many ways applied to parents, beginning in verse 19 or 18. Jesus came and said to them, all authority in heaven and on earth have been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you and lo, I'm with you always to the close of the age. We are not only to baptize our children and that's a critical first step, but then we have to teach them all that he commanded them. And Jesus' promise is also for us, his presence always, his power to be able to do that. I believe that we can look for signs of faith in our children, we can expect him to bring out faith in our children and to begin to peek into what is it like to have this son or daughter become more and more my brother and sister in Christ, calling me on to holiness, calling me on to obedience. In fact, St. John Paul in his letter to families said this, raising children can be considered a genuine apostolate. To do this we need to make a home for God's word. Now how do we make a home? Well, to build a home that doesn't just look solid but is solid, it's got to have a good foundation. Proverbs 12.7 says the wicked are overthrown and are no more but the house of the righteous will stand. That's the kind of home we wanna have. And the family is assailed on every side. How can we withstand the assault? We need a fortress that will endure. Proverbs 24.3 and 4 says by wisdom is a house built. By understanding is it made firm and by knowledge are its rooms filled with every precious and pleasing possession. So how do we build with wisdom? Well, we begin with the foundation stones. Ephesians 2.19 and 20 says this, you are no longer strangers and sojourners but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone in whom the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord in whom you are also built into it for a dwelling place of God in the spirit. So the foundation stone, the cornerstone is Jesus, the foundation is the apostles and the prophets. If we want a marriage to last, if we want our family to last, if we want generations to know him and love him and serve him, it's beginning with Christ and his church. How do we build on top of that? Well, 1 Corinthians 3, 12 and 13 says now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, each man's work will become manifest for the day we'll to close it because it will be revealed with fire and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. Faith, real faith works. Today we choose Christ. Today I challenge you to choose your spouse. Today choose your vocation. Make it an active choice, a daily choice and build on that foundation that God has established. Respond to the grace because the choices you and I make do not simply affect our own lives, they affect our families. And what's the covering? Sort of the roof. It's our consecration to have a place of safety and peace. And it's not enough for moms to be spiritual. They need their fathers as well. In the storms of life, who will be that covering? Proverbs 14, 26 says this, in the fear of the Lord one has strong confidence and his children will have a refuge. Do you want your children to have a refuge? It is your husband or the father of your children or I'm speaking to the men. It is your faith that will provide that. There was a study out of Sweden that said if mom and dad both attend church regularly, 33% of the kids will be regular and 41% will attend irregularly. 25% will be lost. If a father is irregular, but a mom is regular, 3% will remain regular churchgoers, 59% irregular, 38% lost. And if a dad is just non-practicing altogether and mom is regular, 2% of the kids will be regular churchgoers, 37 irregular and 60% lost. I can't fully explain it, but I will tell you in the plan of God, he doesn't intend women to handle this alone and we need fathers to find the depth of their manhood in that relationship with Christ and you will provide that refuge for your family. In Jesus' high priestly prayer for his disciples shortly before departure, he said to the father, for their sake I consecrate myself that they may also be consecrated in truth. My father has chosen this as one of the primary verses for his life and he already has said that that's what he wants on his tombstone so that future generations will know that he consecrated himself over and over to the Lord for their sake, for future generations. Jesus consecrated himself for us. Fathers provide that covering for the disciples and we need to not leave future generations out in the cold. Okay, so we stand at the door of our heart and we hear the Lord knocking in Revelation 3.20. Behold, I stand at the door and knock if anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I'll come in and eat with him and he with me. You know, when I became a Catholic, I really struggled with how I was gonna share the gospel as a Catholic and I was out gardening and it seemed like the only way you could do it was share the gospel, have someone become a Protestant and then try to get them into our CIA so they would become Catholic. And I said, God, can't we shorten this process a little bit? And I really didn't hear a voice but it was like he spoke to my heart and he said, well, maybe if you use the whole verse. See, I used to use Revelation 3.20 when I did door to door evangelization and I would say Jesus is knocking on the door of your heart and he wants to come in. Please open the door to him. But the other part about eating made no sense to me so I just deleted it. I just gave him Revelation 3.20, A, okay? And I started mullig it over and it was like it didn't make any sense because I didn't understand the Eucharist but what Jesus is saying is I don't want to just come in and reside there, I want to feed you and I actually wanna feed you myself. That's how intimate this relationship is. That is how personal it is and we need to have that heart of our, the door of our heart open wide to him saying, come and live, take up residence. I wanna follow you, I wanna serve you and then you look for the way to share that with your children. We were down in the basement because a very strong wind was coming through. We were living in Joliet, Illinois. I think a couple of people here from Joliet. It was actually a tornado. It did some damage up at the college that my husband was teaching at the time. College of St. Francis, now it's University of St. Francis. We had three little kids and we could hear. It was like a train and my husband said, we've gotta get to the basement. So we raced to the basement and then when it got super quiet and it seemed to be a little bit of time, we went upstairs and everything seemed to be over. Go upstairs for bath time and my five-year-old is saying, it was like the spirit was saying, I want to come in, I want to come in. And I'm like, honey, take off your clothes. We're trying to get ready for a bath time. And he's like, well, it was like, it was like throwing open the doors and I am not paying any attention. And my husband said, honey, you go bathe the other kids. I wanna talk to Michael for a minute. He's our firstborn. And what he shared was that when he heard that sound, it just translated into the power of the Holy Spirit and he felt like the Holy Spirit was saying, throw open the doors, I wanna come in. And so in his own little way, he just welcomed the Lord very specifically. When Jesus was asked to summarize the law, he quoted Deuteronomy 6, 4-6. This is so familiar that even today, when you go to Israel, they have this on a little scroll, not just outside the doors of their homes, but even the doors of the hotel rooms. And if you look, you see a little brass holder, if you opened it up in Hebrew, it would quote these verses from Deuteronomy 6, 4-7. I'll read. Hero Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your might. And these words, which I command you this day, shall be upon your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way, when you lie down and when you rise. First and foremost, it's a call for me to love God with everything in my being. This is not tipping my hand to him. It's not showing up for mass on Sundays and checking the box. He wants all my heart, all my mind, all my strength, all my will. And I cannot call my children on to that level of commitment unless I'm willing to do it. So first and foremost, it's a call for you and me to give everything to him. And then secondarily, I am commanded to teach my children how diligently, where, everywhere, when we get up, when we lie down, when we walk by the way, when we rise, when we come and when we go. Okay? I'm to teach them to give themselves with all their heart and with all the character that they can form that God can fashion inside of them, intellectually forming them in the faith and with their strength, their skills, their abilities, everything yielded to God. Wordless witness is not enough. It's not enough. We don't want the kids to just recite the creed. We want them to believe it, to not just know the 10 commandments from heart, but to obey them from the heart, to not just recite prayers, but to pray sincerely. Now, we do have to check if they're understanding what we're teaching them, right? I bet you would have a lot of interesting examples. I have a few here of just innocent misunderstandings. One of my friends thought that Dona Nobis Pachem was actually, don't you know he's watching? And she thought it was a pretty threatening thing to think about. The Lord's Prayer, I mean, one person thought, how would be thy name? In Family Circle, I just saw this the other day, give us our trespasses as we give it to those who trespass against us. One of my friends, older sister, called her a snot when she was being naughty. And so she thought for a long time, the Lord's Prayer said, lead the snot into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Another friend, her mother used to pray the 23rd Psalm over her, and she literally remembered turning around and trying to see if surely goodness and mercy were following her. And finally, and this probably happened in your family, we went, we were gonna pray a decade at the Rosary and Scott thought it was time maybe Hannah could lead, I think she was five or six. And so he asked her to lead. And so she began, hell, Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you. And we kind of both looked at each other and piously bowed our heads. And the second one, hell, Mary, full of grace. And then when she said it a third time, Scott said, honey, what are you saying? Hell, Mary? And she goes, yeah, hell, Mary. And he's like, no, no, no, it's hell, like, hi, it's not hell. You know, you can't plan teachable moments, they just occur, we had a funny one. Jeremiah was five years old, I was in the kitchen, and he came in, he came in where I was, and he said, mommy, when does God sneeze? Must admit it, I'd never thought of the question. Before I could start to formulate an answer, Hannah had walked in, so she would have been about eight, and she said, God does not have a body like we do, so God does not sneeze. And Scott came in on the tail end of that, and he said, well, yes, but we were just in Israel. And do you remember how dusty it was in Israel? And I bet when Jesus walked around in Israel, he got dust in his nose, and he seized. And God, sorry, Jesus, who is fully God and fully man, when he sneezed, God sneezed. And I just felt like we high-fived God, like we covered so much in one little conversation, and it all started with, did God sneeze? You have to be careful when you have a bishop over for lunch, we were sitting around the table, and I don't know what it is about our five-year-olds, I have very, very verbal and articulate sons, I have five sons, one daughter, no difference in how very, very verbal they all are. And so we're sitting around the table, and my David, who was maybe four at the time, said, Bishop, I'm like, oh my gosh, okay, he's doing, should have been, you know, your excellence here, Bishop Unforten, but of course we didn't practice that before, and I was cooking dinner. So anyway, he goes, Bishop, I have a question I've always wanted to ask you, I'm thinking these four-year-olds, like how long can he have thought of this question? But then he said, did Jesus know everything when he was a baby? So the bishop answered it a little bit, it was Bishop Conlon, for those of you who are in Joliet, again, he's now Bishop Bear, he was Bishop here, and he answered it, and he said, now you ask your father any follow-up questions. In the scriptures, we have been given two tremendous gifts. The first is, according to the Catechism, that we have the words of God in the words of men. God's word. We're not a religion of the book, we're a religion of the word, the word made flesh, but also the word inspired, and the Holy Spirit who inspired the word of God preserves it from error. And secondarily, we have the gift of the Holy Spirit leading the church, the Magisterium, so that we can understand its interpretation. It's a great blessing, this unity of the church. I don't know if you really thought about it, but as a non-Catholic coming into the church, it's an unbelievable thing that you, in one volume, could have the catechism of the Catholic church. Unbelievable. It's beautiful. In Russia, they're actually writing a catechism of the Russian Orthodox Church. It's a 25-year project. They already have 30 volumes written, and they're only halfway through the alphabet, according to my husband. It's being co-sponsored by the governments. It's really an amazing, amazing venture, but can you imagine? 30 volumes, and they're not halfway done. We have that gift, and it isn't written for scholars, it's written for us. It's written for us. We have one unified structure of authority in the church. We have one liturgy. You can have four Protestant churches on four corners at one intersection, and in the history of their churches, they might never preach on the same scripture ever. But my husband can be at Oglebay Park. I can be here. I have a child in Denver. I have a child out in Nebraska right now. I have a child at South and Caldwell. I have a child in Front Royal, Virginia, and one over in Emmitsburg, and we will all hear the same scriptures every day. That's amazing. That is staggering. It is such a beautiful gift. When Paul was writing to Timothy, he reminds him of the treasure that he had being raised in a faith-filled Jewish home. Just before he gives those beautiful scriptures about all scripture being inspired by God and profitable for teaching correction, reproof, and training in righteousness that the man of God may be equipped for every good work, he then, before that, says this, but as for you, continue in what you've learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood, you have been acquainted with the sacred writings which are able to instruct you for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All scripture, and then he goes into being inspired and profitable. How did he learn the scriptures? And his father was a pagan. His father was a Greek. It was Lois and Eunice. His grandmother Lois, his mother Eunice, faithfully taught him the word of God. So don't give up hope if your spouse isn't a believer or your children are not believers at the moment because God is at work and he will use what you have. Keep praying, keep praying for their conversion. Now how do the scriptures help us to grow in teaching, reproof, correction, and training in righteousness? This is all part of really making a home for the word in our home. First teaching, Romans 15.4, whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction. That by steadfastness and by the encouragement of the scriptures, we might have hope. The scriptures are foundational for doctrinal formation. Jesus' own words and actions in the gospel, how we want to examine the mysteries of the faith. We need to soak in the scriptures to understand the faith. And we have that opportunity and responsibility to do this alongside our children. We will never plumb the depths, but we can have great joy in the adventure. And it is always valid to hit a point where you have to say to a child, you know, I don't know. I'm going to have to ask Father or I'm gonna have to look it up. Because we're imitating what we're trying to impart which is it's a journey and it's lifelong. You won't have all the answers. We can't give what we don't have, but on the other hand, it is never too late to learn. So we have a chance to model humility and joy at the same time. And then as I said earlier, we have to be sure they understand. We had a car trip on one Thanksgiving down to Cincinnati. We call it Catechesis, which is Catechesis in the car. Now my Joe, who's now studying for the priesthood, my Joe wasn't doing too well in his lesson, his second grade lesson, understanding the two natures in the one person of Christ. Imagine that second grade and he doesn't have that down. So I showed Scott that he kind of failed the entire test. And I said, do you think we could talk a little bit about it in the car? And so Scott said, absolutely. So all our kids were in the car and Joe had second grade, so he was probably seven. And so Scott kind of went over a few things and then he began to ask questions. Now what we expected was that Joseph would answer, what we didn't expect was that David, who was five years younger, would chime in from the back. And he was, he was only two, two and a half probably, but he was two. Okay, so after teaching, Scott said, so is Jesus fully God? And Joseph said, yes he is. And then from the back of the, yes he is. Like, okay, well that's all right. Is Jesus fully man? Yes he is, yes he is. Is God eternal? And Scott, Joe said, yes he is. And from the back, he is not David. Why do you say he's not? He said, I have seen a turtle. I know what a turtle is and God is not a turtle. You know, we're gonna pull anything off on that kid. So not only is scripture helpful in giving us good doctrine, but also in correcting doctrine. We need to grow in knowledge so that according to Ephesians 414, we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the cunning of man, by their craftiness in deceitful wiles. Every rosary we say the apostles creed. Every Sunday we recite the Nicene Creed. Where do these phrases come from? Why do they matter? Sometimes fistfights broke out in ecumenical councils. I'm sure many of you now have seen the memes of on St. Nicholas. I love it. I love it. It's something like I'm known for giving gifts and punching heretics and I'm all out of presence. But the point is truth matters. Truth matters. I don't know if any of you read the Magnificat passage this past week on Maximus the Confessor. Oh my gosh, this faithful, faithful man who was fighting as a bishop against other bishops in the Eastern church over whether or not Jesus had two wills or one. And he was at 75 years of age. He was exiled for six or seven years. And then they brought him back and put him in prison and gave him a chance then to argue with another bishop. And he was so convincing. They cut off his hand so he couldn't write anymore and they cut out his tongue at 82 years of age. And he died three weeks later. Maximus the Confessor. It's almost, I almost wish I could have another son because they're getting Maximus so he could tell that story over and over again. Truth matters. In a day and age where people are saying, well, what's your truth? What's your reality? Reality and truth is what God says it is. I like this, I read this today. If anyone asks you what would Jesus do, remind them that flipping over tables and chasing people with a whip is within the realm of possibility. We need to understand doctrinal formulations because there really are no new battles. And so when things emerge and people are swept up in it, if we know why the church teaches what she teaches, we will usually find the way to address something that seems new but really is not. Now, scripture thirdly is profitable for correction. Improper behavior examined in the light of God's word. There's some things I learned about by simply reading through the Old Testament. I was horrified. I remember coming home and saying, what are they talking about? People with animals and oh my gosh, I was already in junior high school and my mother was like, you know, you don't have to read all the Bible. One day my granddaughter who now is older but at the time she was four, she came bounding down the stairs and she said to her mom, today I wanna be holy, I wanna be a saint. And her mom said, okay. And she said, so, don't tell me to do anything I don't wanna do, okay? Wouldn't that make it easy? If only God never crossed my will, we would get along so well but the scriptures show where my will needs to be crossed. What do I need to do? What do I need to not do? What do I need to do? There's a verse, I put it to a little tune. I was saying it to the workshop earlier, I'll sing it to you now. But as I was praying, how do I help my little boys have pure hearts? I came across this scripture. It's Psalm 119, 9-11. And it goes like this. How can a young man keep his way pure by guarding it according to thy word? I have laid up thy word in my heart that I might not sin against thee. One of the ways in which we can help our sons and daughters, our grandsons, our granddaughters, nieces and nephews to remain pure is to have God's word in their heart because then it will come to their mind. The spirit can bring it back and convict them of the truth. Psalm 119, 105, thy word is a lamp into my feet and a light into my path. We need light. We need to be able to see the pitfalls, the dangers and the way forward. Now we will not always have the wonderful outcome we hope it will have. One day I was teaching my children and my daughter had attitude. I mean, you know, she was trying to do math. You know, the big size and finally I was like, A for drama, can we please do math, you know? And I had this idea, okay? Second Thessalonians 517 says, give thanks to God in all circumstances. So I said, okay, here's what I want you to do. I want you to go up to your room and you are gonna sit there till you think of 10 things you wanna thank God for. And then you come back to the school room and let's get back to math. She said, fine, off she went. It's pretty peaceful, rest of us are just carrying on. And then she came in and there was something. She was so dramatic, she came in and I said, can I have the list? And she said, I'll read it myself. I thank God I'm none of the following. I'm thinking, oh man. We missed, she missed big time, okay? And I'm looking at Mike and Gabe and we are all desperately not looking at each other because you know, you're gonna catch an eye and laughter's not gonna be a big hit. So bald, homeless, an idiot, earless. She just had her ears pierced. I think that was on her mind. Dead, selfish, shy, terrible, stupid, or a Muslim. We probably prayed for a Muslim country or something that morning and that was on her mind. When she said, or a Muslim, we just gaffawed. It was, at which point she marched right back out of the room. So you may have a scathingly brilliant idea of how to pass on the word of God to your children, but it could fall flat, I'm just saying it. Why bother studying God's word? To be complete, equipped for every single day to be complete, equipped for every good work. Scripture uniquely is alive. It's active. According to Hebrews 412, the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and spirit of joints and marrow and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. It's a sword of the spirit. That's such a vivid image. You get that also from Ephesians 617, the word of God, which is the sword of the spirit. What comes to mind when you think of a sword? You know, a battle, bloodshed, suffering, victory, defeat. We are in spiritual warfare. My husband says this world is not a playground. It's a battleground. We have an enemy. He is seeking whom he may devour. He may have given up on some of us. He may have thought, well, you know, they're out of my control. They're just too close to the Lord. I don't know, but I'm gonna work on their kids. I'm gonna work on their grandkids. We have to fortify our children and our grandchildren because they're in the battle. No one's exempt. Little things can discourage. One time I was talking to one of my children. We do a lot of gardening. I don't know what it is about five-year-olds. I feel like my five-year-olds that come up with very poignant things. And after Mass, I always used to pray over my children about whatever God's call would be on their lives. So we're out gardening and Jeremiah says to me, I pray and I pray and I pray and God does not answer. I'm thinking, oh my gosh, five-years-old and he's already discouraged. I said, what do you mean, honey? What do you pray for? He said, I try to ask God, what do you want me to be? And I said, well, you know, you've been talking a lot about India. For some reason, he was born in the feast of St. Thomas and I think Thomas just was a part of him and Thomas went to India and he just, for months he'd been asking people, do you think you'll go to India and teach the Bible? Do you think you'll go to India and serve God? He asked Hannah and Hannah was like, no, not a chance, you know? And so I said, maybe God's calling you to be a priest in India. And he said, I don't wanna be a priest. And I said, well, that's fine, honey, that's fine. I said, maybe there's a little girl out there named Beth and you're gonna meet Beth and you're gonna fall in love with Beth and get married and have children. He said, I don't wanna get married. And I said, well, honey, what do you wanna do? And he said, I just wanna be a little boy. And I said, oh, sweetheart, that is your calling and God will tell you when it changes. He was so relieved. It was so hard. I don't know if you know it, but Baptists often do memory work drills and they call them sword drills. Really, it's really very clever. But do you know Protestants don't actually have a gene that makes it easier to memorize the Bible? I think that's a little known fact. We need to know and we need to know where to find it, okay? Because then you can reflect on that. You can meditate on that when you're doing the carpool, when you're out digging in the dirt in your garden, when you're on a walk, when you're lying in bed. You can recall to mind what that word was. Years ago, my father determined that he was gonna re-memorize scripture and memorize new scriptures. And in 20 years, he had 1,000 verses committed to memory. He always would pick a memory verse on our family vacations and all of us gathered together for about 25 years for a week. In one year, he chose Philippians 121 for me to live as Christ and to die as gain. We would get up and go early to Mass and then come back and my children never complained. And then we did an hour of family worship and Bible study. Caught a quick breakfast in between. That was it. That was the start of every day of family vacation. So we were coming back from Mass and we heard a siren. And whenever you hear a siren and I've trained my children, you know, we pray, someone needs help. Whether it's a cop car or an ambulance or a fire truck, we pray. And we began to pray. It was like, dear Lord, please bless whoever that vehicle's trying to help. And then I looked ahead and saw one of my sisters frantically waving it into the area only our family was. And the prayer went from, oh God, please help whoever. So God, oh God, oh God, oh God, oh God. I mean, I couldn't even articulate a prayer. And we pulled in and we dashed out of the car and then we could see that the crisis had abated. But one of my brothers had walked from one, there were three cabins, each one had a pool. And he had gone over to get coffee and didn't notice his two-year-old had followed behind him. And the two-year-old saw a toy. My brother walks into the cabin. I know it was the prompting of God. My sister looks out the window and he was already floating. There was no quick way. She had to run through the house, down a flight of stairs, leap into the pool, come up under him. And the whole way, she's just screaming. And he did catch a breath pretty quickly and they pulled him out and then the fire truck came. They checked him out and my dad said, before Sally and Tim take Steven to the hospital to really make sure he's okay, let's pray over him. And so we prayed over them and they left and then my dad said, let's say our family verse for the week, for to me to live as Christ and to die is gain. Now I can tell you our hearts would have been broken beyond words had he drowned. But that scripture was still true that had he gone on to be with Jesus it would have been gain. We don't know when we need scripture. I could give you many, many more examples. God convicted my heart in the midst of the most difficult tubal pregnancy miscarriage that I had in the midst of, he convinced my heart of the communion of saints because I had memorized Hebrews 12, one and two. And as I lay there very broken in heart, very broken in spirit with a full C section cut sideways and up and down. God spoke to my heart the truth of those words that I was present tense surrounded by that cloud of witnesses. And God broke through that truth about the communion of saints before, well before I became a Christian, I mean before I became a Catholic. A child is spiritually sensitive. We wanna tell them the Bible stories. We wanna sing them songs about God, hold them at mass and whisper loving thoughts as much as we possibly can. We mediate God's grace, but then comes those moments when God works very directly on them and we begin to see them as a brother or sister in Christ. I had one of those moments when Jeremiah was five, I was frantically trying to finish my defending the faith talk. I was upstairs typing furiously. It was due on this stage in 30 minutes and I still didn't have an ending. And I come running down the stairs and Jeremiah was there and I said chair, you have to pray for mommy. My talk isn't finished and I'm on in 30 minutes. Now I did not mean at that moment, but my five-year-old bowed his head, put his little hand up and began to pray. And there was no way I was going to brutally interrupt that prayer that I just asked for. And I was like, okay, okay. And of course it was a very quick prayer. I mean five-year-olds don't have lengthy prayers. And I gave him a hug and as I ran up a door I realized that was the ending of my talk. That I had taught him to pray, that I told him I had a need, and that as my little brother in Christ, he prayed for me. And now I have this incredible opportunity to ponder that two of my children who are my sons and my brothers in Christ will become my fathers. That's mind-blowing. I serve on city council. And one time, one of the, a man who was the head coach of one of my two sons who's studying for the priesthood was honored by council because they won the state championship again. And the last time they had won it was when Jeremiah was on the team. And he didn't see me at first, so he went around and met Shaqans with all the council members, but I'm up a little higher with the mayor because I'm council at large. And as he was exiting the thing, he saw me and he goes, Miss Han, how are you? And I'm like, I'm great coach, Zach, thanks. And he said, is your son still studying for the priesthood? And I said, yes. And he said, tell him when he gets ordained, I want to go to confession to him. Incredible. I mean, the news camera was there. I mean, it was packed. His football players were there. It was really cool. So one of the council members turned to me and said, are you gonna do that? Are you gonna go to confession? And I said, on my deathbed. To be sooner, I don't know, I don't know. But it's never ever too late for us to choose to live the faith in our homes. Don't buy the lies of the evil one that you don't have enough together, that you aren't fervent enough, that you haven't learned enough, you haven't prayed enough to be able to do all this with your children or your grandchildren or your nieces and nephews. God is at work in your heart, in your life. He wants to redeem families, not just individuals. He wants you to share this faith with your spouse and together to build this wonderful home in which the word of God will thrive. He wants it, it's his will. And so say, yes, Lord, I'm available. Yes, Lord, I want to follow you and I want to follow you accompanied by my spouse and children. I believe that he will answer that prayer and he will lead you and guide you into the ways in which you can build that home for the word in your heart and in your home even more. Let's close in prayer. In the name of the Father and of the Son, the Holy Spirit, amen. Lord Jesus, we thank you for these minutes together. We thank you for the ways you are at work in our lives and through us to those around us and through others to us. And I ask that we would open ourselves up to your Holy Spirit to hear what you are calling us to at some new level of reading scripture, studying scripture, memorizing scripture. Please help us to grow as your sons and daughters in the faith. And we give you all the honor and glory and Mary who is truly the mother of the word who made a home for the word of God in your body and a home in Nazareth with Joseph and then include all of us in your home as our mother. We ask for your prayers as well. Hail Mary full of grace. The Lord is with thee. Blessed are thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb Jesus. Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, amen. God bless you, God bless you. Thank you.