 All right, well hello and welcome to workshop number two. I don't know if this is as draining for you as it is for us, but listening to all these amazing ideas and speakers and sitting all the time, it's a lot to take in. I think we get a big break after this, don't we? So we'll see if we can bear through. Dinner, that's a good break. Okay, so I have to use this microphone. Is everyone hearing me okay? I feel like there's some fans blowing and things. You hear all right? Okay. Let us begin with a prayer and then we will chat. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, amen. Lord Jesus, we give you thanks for the opportunity to gather together, to reflect on wisdom and to pray for the gift of wisdom. We ask that you would fill us with your Holy Spirit as we share and meet and reflect together. We ask that your Holy Spirit would come upon each and every one of us to open our ears to hear exactly what you want us to hear, that I would say what you want me to say, and that we would all submit ourselves to what you want us to do. Mother Mary, we ask you to wrap us up to take this session into your mantle, into your loving care, and to pray for us, your children. Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art 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. Even the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, amen. Oh, so it is a pleasure to be here in the midst of not just the speakers and the priests and the presenters, but all of you who are here to giving your time to come and to be fed, to be filled, and to live in the ministry and the mission that you have been given, that God has given to you. As I shared in my other workshop, it's always really my desire when I encounter groups of people, when I'm speaking to them, I wish we could all speak to each other. I wish I could hear your stories. What brought you here? Why are you at this conference? What are you receiving? What is the Lord sharing with you? If we have a little bit of time at the end, I'll open it up for comments, for sharing, for questions. So also please be praying about if there's something that you think you're called to share during the course of this. I want to have an opportunity for you guys to share that with the group as well because we're all here to encourage and lift one another up as we reflect on these themes. So the theme of divine wisdom, as I have been just kind of praying that the Holy Spirit would lead me in my preparations, I was struggling a little bit honestly with just kind of the idea of, okay, I'm scheduled to go give these talks on divine wisdom. I'm supposed to come with something that's worth listening to, some insight that people are gonna take with them, but wondering for myself, how do I understand and experience divine wisdom in my life? And I was thinking, it's actually been a very challenging couple of weeks for me in some of the events that have taken place that they have the effect of making you question, what is the wisdom behind this? So you all have stories like this too, but it seems like it's really been piling for me lately, some very sad and tragic things that happened. My parents live in an area in Ohio that was hit by a devastating tornado about a month ago and they were unharmed, but many friends and businesses and things in the area just devastated by this active nature that comes through. And it didn't touch me directly, but it's just one of those moments. It was close enough, it's my hometown. Those are places and people that I have connections to and say, okay, why does God let that happen? And then receiving news about two weeks ago from a very dear friend of mine, also from Ohio, I wonder if there's a connection with Ohio and bad things. Also a friend from Dayton, Ohio where I grew up who has children who are very similar in age to mine. Her youngest is also two and a half and she just received news that her little two and a half year old girl has leukemia. You know, she thought it was the flu and they went in for a doctor's exam and ended up going to the ER and is now going through the chemotherapy and you have a story like this too. That's Rachel. Oh, you know Rachel. Hi, are you from Dayton? Okay, it's the sax debtors and the bonds, okay. So yeah, so here's a picture. Okay, so you're praying for this story too, okay. So little Teresa, sweet little girl, going through all this horrible treatment. Oh my gosh, and Rachel, I don't know how well you know Rachel but what a woman of faith. And in the midst of just these terrible circumstances unfolding in her life and the fear for the life of her child and it hits me too, not only because I love Rachel but I have a two and a half year old son who gets on my nerves sometimes and you know, but when you think about, okay, what if this was my news and what if I was dealing with this and why God are you doing this to Rachel, such a good and faithful woman who never wanted anything but to get married and have children and to raise her children to be holy and she's struggling to have joy in the midst of these difficult things, you know. And I have a cousin who has been struggling to save a very, very difficult marriage with an abusive husband. She's been struggling for years and trying everything to try to make this work and in this last week she really feels through much prayer and discernment that she has to separate for the safety of her self and her children. God, why? She has been so faithful. She has prayed. She has really, really tried to seek your will in this. Why is this not working out? Why are you not converting his heart? Why are you not healing the baby with leukemia? Why are you sending tornadoes? Why can my sister-in-law not have a baby? You know, and you have these stories too but I was just reflecting. It's really hard to comprehend God's wisdom. It's hard to understand what God's plan is and why he lets the world unfold this way, you know, whatever. It's just sort of the problem of evil and we all deal with it and you all have your ways that you've navigated these questions in your life. I get it. It's just been hitting me a little bit in particular as I'm preparing these lectures on divine wisdom and thinking, okay, God, you know, the paradox of the cross and it's foolishness to the Greeks and whatever it is to the Gentiles. You know, it's a sense of we're not gonna get it, we're not gonna understand, don't even try. But I sort of have a desire to get past that experience of just sort of saying, oh well, oh well, I'll never get it. Just sort of give up to God's wisdom that life is gonna unfold in a series of miserable and unfortunate events and you just have to say, oh well. So there's something deeper beyond it that I wanna access and I was reflecting on that and praying about it and I'm not here to tell you that I figured this out before I prepared my talk today and guess what, here's how it all resolves. But I will say that what came to me as a reflection for all of this is the fact that as we are journeying through these sorrows and these trials, as we are journeying and we are questioning and we are wondering, the one thing we are not doing is we are not doing it alone. And I think about the gift that Christ gave us in giving us the church, not just as an institution, but as a mother, as a mother, that we are journeying our sorrows with a mother and it is awesome that my mother is here with me just because you experience that relationship through your life and how you journey sorrows together. The church does this with us. The church journeys through life, through all the moments with us. She is mother church. Another little drama that happened last week, we took the kids to the county fair. I don't know if you caught, I live on a dairy farm with my husband and six kids and 500 cows and the county fair is a big deal. So we take calves and we take pigs and the kids dress up in suits and lead them around in circles and get blue ribbons and it's one of the biggest things that happens all year long. We're at the county fair, it was day four of the fair. I was in the camper with the little ones and my nine-year-old son runs to the door and opens it up and says, Mom, we've got to leave, there's a tornado warning. So I'm like, oh my gosh, I mean it wasn't raining or anything, I didn't know this was happening. So I'm gathering up all the kids and like, okay, I hope the cows don't fly out of the barn. We're getting in the truck and going home. So we're all packing up and the rain is starting to come and it's lightning and it's thunder and there's a tornado warning behind us and my husband is like thinking we can get home in time and I'm like, I don't know, we should go find somebody's basement. It's a scary moment. I've got all the kids in the car with me and the kids start praying Hail Marys and I've got three rows of kids, you know, crammed into this Toyota Sienna and they're praying like in chorus because they can't hear each other from the front to the back so you've got Hail Mary over here and you've got Mother of God over there and they're just cycling through Hail Marys, like just like the mantra of Hail Mary and I was scared and I was afraid and I was supposed to be the mother in that situation. I was supposed to be the calming source but I thought thank you God that we have a mother that we can turn to in these moments of fear and concern. Thank you God that we can just say Hail Mary full of grace and like you don't even have words, like you're just encountering Mary as your mother, you're just encountering her in that moment of need, right? That's what we run to the mom, we run to that source of strength and comfort and what a gift, what a gift that God decided to give us a mother, Mother Mary, the mother of the church and mother church and I kind of think it's something that we as Catholics could spend a lot more time meditating on is the motherhood of the church. How are we mothered by the church and how does her presence keep us rooted in our faith, keep us connected to the wisdom of God when we don't comprehend it and we want to run away? And there's a lot of different ways that she does this and there are maternal ways. You know one of the ways the church keeps us by wisdom when we don't get it and we wanna run away? The church has something called Holy Days of Obligation, Sunday Obligation, like when your mother says you're coming for dinner because I made dinner and everybody's gotta be there, there's a sense of obligation. You're gonna be here at the family table or you're gonna be in trouble. It's been planned and everyone's gonna come and the church says you are obligated. Nobody, does any other religions say you are obligated? I don't know, you are obligated, you gotta come. It's not an option, you've got to come. At least once a week you have got to show up. You have got to be at this table. I don't care what mood you're in, I don't care how busy you are, I don't care how tired you are, you have got to come, you are obligated. Does that sound like a mother? Yeah, sometimes because she knows it's good for you. The church requires us to stay in contact with her. So when I want to walk away, when I don't understand, when I wanna go look somewhere else for some solution or some clarity, the church says you stay here, you stay here, you keep coming back and you know what happens when she forces us to come to church? We are forced to listen to the word of God. We are forced to hear with our ears the word of God, the living word of God speaking to us. And our mother brings us there and says you sit down and you hear the word of God spoken to you. And you immerse yourself in wisdom, you don't have to get it, you don't have to love it, you don't have to have emotional response to it, but you have got to be in contact with wisdom. The church keeps us in contact with wisdom when we don't get it in our heads, when we might feel like being elsewhere, being Catholics means we are kept in contact with wisdom. We are kept in contact with the living waters. So there is wisdom there. Okay, those are my introductory comments. Now, to the handout and to the point and to the scriptures and to all these things about mother church and wisdom. First off, I wanted to reflect on Matthew chapter 13. This is I think the first scripture. So this handout, by the way, is just gonna kind of chart through the quotes that I'll be sharing so you have a written version of them as we go. Matthew chapter 13 verses 45 to 46. The pearl of great price. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls who on finding one pearl of great value went and sold all that he had and bought it. This first came to me in conjunction with the church because I thought about the witness of all the religious men and women who have sold everything for the pearl of great price. The witness of the men and women who have given their lives as priests, as sisters, as religious, who literally have left everything behind, made sacrifices of everything that the wisdom of the world would say you need to have for happiness, have sacrificed it for the pearl of great price for the church. You all may have caught that my brother, Father Anthony, is here as one of the speakers as well. Personal connection for me with the witnessing of a vocation unfolding in my brother's life and knowing the sacrifices that he made and knowing what worldly successes could have been before him with the incredible gifts that God gave him and to lay it all down for the church, for the love of the church, not just for Jesus Christ. You can go be a Christian anywhere. You can only lay down your life in complete sacrificial love for the Catholic church in the way that a priest or a sister does it. That vocation is uniquely a Catholic thing, that pearl of great price that literally gives a witness to the world of laying everything down is a uniquely Catholic thing. And it shows us that there is something worth sacrificing for. It is a witness. And those of us who may not have made such a dramatic sacrifice in our lives as laypeople should never ever forget the witness of the men and women religious who have done this. And it should be a reminder and a call to us at every moment to never take for granted the pearl of great price that others have sacrificed everything for. And you know what else this makes me think about? It makes me think about the scandals. And it makes me think of the incredible tragedy of the pearl of great price not being valued for what it is, right? Of those who haven't loved the church as she is meant to be loved. And those whose witness has been led astray, you know? And we have to recognize that that is not the actual sign of the church and who she is. It is the witness of those who have made the sacrifices that reminds us the value and the beauty of the church. So I just wanna start on that note of saying this is a pearl of great price. This church that we belong to, this mother church, this is a pearl of great price. It is up to us to understand and to reflect on what is the value, what is the treasure? Why are people giving up everything in their lives to pursue a religious vocation? What is it about mother church that is worth all of this? We need to reflect on this. And specifically the maternal aspect mother church. The way I first started reflecting on these themes and how my book on mother church was born was it was a moment, it wasn't something I expected to be reflecting on or working on in the course of my writing. I did a lot of writing about women saints and virtues and things like this. And in the course of some of that work, I was invited to participate in a seminar at the Vatican reflecting on the 25th anniversary of Pope John Paul II's letter, muliaris dignitatum, on the dignity and vocation of women. That letter was very instrumental in my life and my conversion. I had had some angry secular feminist influences in my life. I encountered that document talking about the true dignity of femininity and womanhood in the light of faith and the light of Christ. It among other things had been instrumental in bringing me back to understand that I had a place and a mission within the church as a woman that my freedom and my flourishing was actually to be found in the heart of the church not outside of it. So I was invited to come and join in a group of 100 women from around the world reflecting on the themes and the ideas in Pope John Paul II's encyclical on the dignity and vocation of women. When I received the invitation initially, I didn't think it was gonna be possible for me to go. I had just had my fourth child weeks earlier. I was actually nursing her at 2 a.m. one night when the email came in from some office in Italy inviting me to come to the seminar. And I thought, oh my gosh, that would be amazing to go attend to that. That document is the reason I'm sitting here nursing this fourth baby instead of being a feminist actress in New York City. But I can't go because I have my children, my husband's gonna be busy chopping corn down in October when the conference is. So I'm not gonna be able to attend this. I'll actually turn down the invitation to attend the seminar. Not long after, maybe the next day or two I got a call from my brother, Father Anthony, who actually was the one behind orchestrating me getting the invitation in the first place. And he called up and said, so Gina, did you receive any kind of a message or anything from the Pontifical Council for the Lady? I said, yeah, oh my gosh, I can't believe it. They invited me to come attend this seminar in Rome on the Pope's letter. And he's like, oh yeah, so are you going? And I said, well no, I turned the invitation down. I can't go, he said, oh, you turned down the invitation. You know how hard I had to work to get you invited to that thing? He didn't say that, but he was so disappointed that I had turned it down. But I thought I can't go reflect on womanhood and motherhood at the expense of my womanhood and motherhood. I can't abandon them to go do this. Well, word got around to my parents. So I got a call then shortly thereafter from my mom and dad who called me up and said, Gina, you know, I'm not sure exactly what this is about, but we understand that perhaps you have an opportunity to travel to Rome to attend a conference. And if there's anything we can do to help make that possible, you know, dad says, I can travel with you. I can watch the baby. Mom can come to Wisconsin and help baby sit the kids while Joe's off in a cornfield somewhere. You know, if we can facilitate this and make this happen, we love to do it. And I said, oh my gosh, that would be amazing. So they came, they helped. I went to Rome with my father and with my baby, my four-month-old Gianna and we traveled to Rome for this event. My dad and I had just finished writing a book together. My fourth book was called St. Francis, Pope Francis, A Common Vision. I had been asked by my publisher, servant books, just after Pope Francis was elected to reflect on his spirituality and the spirituality of St. Francis and see how they were paralleled with one another and unfold this. And I had just had my baby and I thought, I can't write a book right now. There's no way I'm gonna be able to do this. But then I thought, I know. I'll ask dad to be my co-author because he's a retired professor of mathematics, but he loves reading and he loves the saints. So I got dad on board. He helped me research and write this book. We had just finished our manuscript on Pope Francis. We went together to Rome and the culmination of this seminar on Pope John Paul II's letter was a private audience with Pope Francis. And so it was really cool because we were gonna be able to meet in person. And this was October. He had just been elected in March. He was still very, very new. And we had the opportunity to be in his presence and actually encounter this man. We'd be researching and writing about and so forth. The other sub theme is that my daughter, my four month old, Gianna was born without vision. She had no sight and we had taken her to see the ophthalmologist when she was about a month old because we're thinking things were not responding normally and he had told us that he thought possibly she could see light, but that that was all. So I also was bringing Gianna with me to Rome as a kind of pilgrimage. Gianna Agnes, so both her patrons are Italian saints and my dad and I brought her too with the idea of praying for her and entrusting her to her patrons and to her Lord. So anyway, we attended the seminar and we had the opportunity to meet the Holy Father as we were there in the session and we actually came forward. You know, gosh, the connection. So Dr. Hiramun, Dr. Nina, who's also speaking here today, who forgot her glasses, she was there present at this seminar as well. She came forward with me with Gianna when we were meeting the Holy Father and she's the one who speaks like 12 languages and I don't speak any. So I had arranged with her. I said, Nina, when we get up there, will you tell the Holy Father in Italian that Gianna can't see and ask for a blessing? So we came forward and she shared whatever she shared in Italian and you could just see. You know, it's true that he loves children, like he saw Gianna's face and he was all lit up and all excited and leaned out to tap her on the head and then Nina leaned over and said that please pray for her, she can't see. And you could see on his face when that news was shared. I just really think of that as a moment of the fatherhood of the Holy Father, like entering into my pain as a mother, as he took into him just in an instant, like the sorrow of, oh, this beautiful little girl has this problem and his face changed, became solemn and he closed his eyes and he laid his hands on Gianna's head and he just prayed silently over her, which is not what I was expecting. The sort of big papal cross blessing thing, but he prayed silently over her and I had this sense of like Mother Church loves us and cares for us and one of the things Mother Church gives us is a Holy Father, like it's also balanced when you think of it. Mother Church gives us a Holy Father. Here's this Holy Father praying with this mother over her child, like literally the concrete, I have a need, I have a sorrow, I don't get why God gave me this cross to bear with this child, but I am bringing her here because circumstances have miraculously arranged it, to bring her before Mother Church and to bring her before the love of a Holy Father who is truly in that moment. I mean, it was a very concrete, real human moment of encounter where he took her pain into his heart and he prayed over her and it's that kind of experience of Mother Church keeping us rooted and connected in the deepest sorrows of our lives. Like the deepest sorrow to have a child with a disability, what a deep sorrow, what a why Lord kind of thing and to just have the church standing there laying hands on her. It was such a moment of healing. It was such a moment of healing for me to say, it does not matter, it doesn't matter that she's gonna have this obstacle to deal with. She is wrapped in the arms of Mother Church, she is wrapped in God's providence and it is as concrete as a man's hand on her head. It is that tangible, it is that real. Mother Church keeps things that real for us. And of course, we got back to the convent where we were staying after the meeting and I'm looking at Gianna's eyes. I'm watching for her to have some sort of miracle of regained vision, you know, because you kind of think like the Pope's prayers might be a little more effective than mine. It wasn't that. It wasn't an instant moment of healing on that physical level, but on the spiritual level of realizing that I had been healed by the touch of Mother Church, it was a profound gift. And I will share with you, many, many people were praying for Gianna ever since we had that news of that diagnosis. Many people were praying and interceding, more faithfully praying for her than I even did. And it was about maybe a month after we were back from Rome. I remember I was nursing Gianna on the couch and when you marry a dairy farmer, people give you cow things, okay? So they sort of think that because you're moving to a farm, you somehow like you're suddenly in love with Holstein Cow. So when I got married, I got Holstein Cow teapots. I got Holstein Cow push brooms. I got Holstein Cow hot pads. I got Holstein Cow, everything got Holstein Cow, beautiful handmade quilt with Holstein Cow on one side and black and white swirl design stuff on the back side. Anyway, that quilt was on the back of the love seat where I was nursing Gianna with the swirl, black and white sort of Holstein-esque inspired designs on the quilt. And I remember nursing her as I sat there about a month after we got back from Rome. And I remember looking down at Gianna and I remember seeing her see. I remember looking in her eyes and I saw that she could see that design. You know the black and white swirl thing, like they put them in cribs for babies because there's something stimulating about the way vision develops and she was looking at that swirl thing and I could see for the first time I saw that she was seeing something. And it wasn't like her vision wasn't completely returned or anything but it was the beginning of an unfolding where slowly, over time, God gave her her vision, you know? And we sometimes are looking for Mother Church to interact in our lives in these clear, understandable, definable, reasonable, rational ways. Pope prayed over child, child regains vision that instant, right? That would be sort of the clear, rational thing. I don't know what kind of a miracle this was or how or whose prayers or maybe it would have happened even if we hadn't been prayed over by the Pope. I don't know, I just know that over the course of time God's grace, God's gift, whatever that miracle was it was like a slow unfolding miracle that all began in the heart of Mother Church who loved me and loved her in that moment. And that's the kind of concrete thing Mother Church does for us. She loves us in our sorrow and our weakness. It's not a matter of the Church taking away somehow explaining away in her wisdom, somehow doctrineing away the mysteries and the pain and the suffering and the sorrows and the crosses and the griefs and the disabilities of life. The Church doesn't doctrine those things away. The Church loves us with in and through them. The Church walks with us in and through those sorrows and those difficulties. Mother Church journeys with us through these things. One of the things that Pope Francis said in this little reflection he gave when we were present there talking about Moliaristic Natatum, he said the Church's mother, she is woman and this is beautiful. You must reflect more deeply on this. He said that to a hundred of us but I felt like the Pope was telling me what to do. Like the Church is woman, she is mother, this is beautiful, you must reflect more deeply on this. I felt like I was receiving a commission like, okay, well, the Pope just said we're supposed to think more about what Mother Church is. Maybe I should spend some time doing that. So that's how this project of the Church as our mother unfolded was reflecting on, okay, so what does Mother Church mean? I mean, we've all heard the term Mother Church but where does it come from? What's the significance? Now let's turn back to the handout for some quotes about the history of Mother Church, the concept and the idea. So as I began the research for this project, I thought okay, I'm looking around, I'm starting to dig up about the concept of Mother Church and I wasn't finding a lot. I wasn't finding a lot to explain where the term came from or what its theological origins were. It was showing up all over the place. You can do a search for Mother Church and it shows up, people use it like kind of just a kind of colloquial expression but I thought what is the significance? I thought is this just kind of a term of sentimental ideology that helps us to submit to the authority of the Church, Mother Church and then I encountered this quote from Henri de Lubac. He says, when a Christian who knows what he is saying speaks of the Church as his mother, he is not giving way to some sentimental impulse. He is expressing a reality and I thought okay, good, so he's telling me it's not just a sentimental thing, there is something to this. Mother Church is a real thing. Now what is that and where does it come from? So we start tracing back some of the history of this. We look at Jesus's references in the Gospels, Matthew 23, 37, Luke 13, 34, next quote on your handouts. He says, how often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings? All right, now St. Augustine interpreted that passage to be a reference to Mother Church. Augustine interpreted the mother hen to be the church that Jesus commissioned to carry on the motherly task that he began on earth. That's right, Jesus began the motherly task of establishing the church and her sacraments that love us and walk through life with us as a mother does. So this is the first reference that I was able to find in terms of the maternal imagery of the church coming from Jesus himself, interpreted by Augustine. St. Paul uses maternal imagery, talking about the church, looking at Galatians chapter four, verse 19. My little children, for whom I am again in the pain of childbirth until Christ is formed in you. And here's what John Paul II has to say about that line from Paul. John Paul II says, in order to illustrate the church's fundamental mission, Paul finds nothing better than the reference to motherhood. So St. John Paul II recognized in Paul the importance and centrality of a maternal image to talk about who the church is and what she does for us. The church's fundamental mission, Paul uses the imagery of motherhood. I am again in the pain of childbirth. What does the catechism tell us about Mother Church we have from catechism 808? The church is the bride of Christ. He loved her, he handed himself over for her. He has purified her by his blood and made her the fruitful mother of all God's children. The church is a mother, a fruitful mother. In CCC 181, the church is the mother of all believers, it says, she's truly our mother and quoting St. Cyprian there in the catechism. He said, no one can have God as father who does not have the church as mother. The catechism quotes that. It's a dramatic and strong statement, isn't it? That church as mother goes hand in hand with God as father. Why? Because God as father sent his word, the second person of the trinity into the world, the incarnate being, uniting humanity and divinity who established the church to be our mother. It's all connected to the same ministry, to the same mission. It goes hand in hand. It's not a separate thing. It's not just a human institution. It's not the idea of the 12 apostles. This is divinely instituted, divinely originated and some will argue that it was intended from the beginning of time that the church would exist and be our mother. The next quote, Matthias Shebyn, the motherhood of the church is not an empty title. This motherhood is as real as the presence of Christ is real in the Eucharist. It is as real as a supernatural life that exists in the children of God. It is real. It is a true concrete thing. And this is what I reflected on as I was taking this mission of thinking about mother church. I was thinking about how is this real? How is this concrete? This is the book that was born from this. The church is our mother. Seven ways she inspires us to love. As I was thinking about my own experience of motherhood, of mothering my children, as I was thinking about my experience of being mothered, of being a daughter, as I was thinking about the way that I've experienced motherhood, and I was thinking about what the church does for us. These were the themes that came to mind. And of course, for books, you have to put things into categories and chapters and tables of contents. In truth, it can't be reduced to these categories. But there are ways to start thinking and meditating and pondering on the gift of the church and how she keeps us rooted in the wisdom of being united to Jesus Christ. So we talk about these seven themes of what the church does for us, how she concretely manifests her motherhood, the church creates like a mother creates new life. A mother is a co-creator of new life, a pro-creator of new life. And the church creates new life in us through baptism where we are born anew. Literally, we are born again. The church creates life in that way. The church cares for us like a mother cares for us. You know how parenting motherhood, the ministry of caring is sometimes reflected in those small, menial little tasks of keeping the house, caring for the children, taking care of the laundry, cooking, running errands, answering questions, the little things that keep a household and a family running. The church does this for us in the form of like a parish structure, a pastor and staff employees and someone who keeps the coffee fresh. And the church does this in structures like the USCCB, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops with their offices and their organizations, their housekeeping. Sometimes it seems so unspiritual. Sometimes it seems so bureaucratic. Sometimes it seems like so much busyness, but you know what, as a mother, unloading the dishwasher morning, after morning, after morning also feels very unspiritual, but it has to be done. It's part of the caring. You don't just create these children and then set them loose with no structures, no guidelines, no support, no caring. The church does this for us in her concrete structural ways. I only have six children in my home. If I did not have some offices and some titles and some charts and some organization, things would be total chaos. Think about how many children the church has to organize and oversee. She cares for us through the diocesan and the archdiocesan and the curial structure. She creates, she cares, she teaches. Mothers teach their children. We accompany our children from the earliest learning of how to walk and how to eat and how to smile and how to talk and how to love and into the deeper questions. Through lives we teach, Mother Church, of course, the ministry, the charism of teaching. Through the magisterium, through the doctrines that unfold the truth of God's word for us, create, care, teach, acceptance. Mothers built somehow, intuitively built to accept and love their children no matter what unconditionally. To always be ready to welcome. To always have a heart for the child, especially for the lost and the suffering one. And this is Mother Church who always is ready to welcome her children who want to come back home to her arms. This is Mother Church. The sacrifices, this is another thing. Mothers sacrifice for their children. Biological mothers sacrifice from the beginning. They sacrifice their bodies, their energy, their blood. They lay their lives down to give birth to their children. That is a real death. That sacrifice that begins in biological motherhood continues through the sort of white martyrdom of sacrificing throughout life in the way that we serve our children. Spiritual mothers, those who aren't biological mothers, spiritual mothers also sacrifice in the way that they give of themselves and their energy and their gifts and their time to love the people entrusted to them. Mother Church sacrifices. She offers the sacrifice. She brings us encounter with the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. She says, you're gonna come. You're obligated to come because there's a sacrifice happening here that is for you, that is for your benefit. Mother Church raises up that sacrifice if the Catholic Church keeps the sacrifice alive. The Catholic Church is what enables us to have the sacrifice of the mass, to have the sacrifice of the cross represented at the Eucharist. This mother sacrifices for us. She is intimately connected to the sacrifice of Jesus Christ that gives us life. She creates, she cares, she teaches, she accepts. She sacrifices. Mother Church also heals. She is there to walk alongside the sick and the suffering as we mothers, and of course, all of these things apply to fathers in a way too. It's a parenthood in its holistic sense. I think there's a special ministry of motherhood, Pope John Paul II in his letter Amulius Dignitatum. He says, God entrusts the human being to the woman in a special way. It's a unique giftedness that God has entrusted the human being to begin its origin, its first moments in human existence within the womb of a woman, within the care of a mother. It's not to say fathers don't journey and do these things as well, but there is a unique entrustment that women have as mothers. There's a unique giftedness of nurturing. This is manifested so often in the healing presence of the way we care for our sick children. And my husband is an incredible father. He's an amazing man. But when the kids are throwing up or when they have some sort of awful, you know, disastrous, bloody knee, I'm the one bandaging the wound. I'm the one cleaning out the sick pot. Now that probably depends on person to person and so forth. That's not to say across the board, you know, women are always the ones that clean up vomit. But the point is there's an experience of nurturing for the sick that's incorporated into the maternal vocation. And Mother Church does that too by nurturing us in the sickness of our sin. By healing us through the sacraments of reconciliation, through the sacrament of the anointing of the sick. Journeying with us through the times of suffering and sorrow. That is part of her mission as well. And celebrating is the other point I wanted to talk about that mothers have a gift for celebration, have a gift for recognizing the joys in life and making something out of them. And Mother Church does this as well. Mother Church, you know, spreads the table with colors. We have liturgical seasons that relate to decorations. I mean, it's true, the church decorates for us. She says purple this time of year, green that time of year. We're going to use red today because it's St. James. Did you notice that? Everything was red because it's a martyr. This is a maternal touch. This is a lady who wants to decorate for her children. This is, it's as concrete and real as that when you talk about the church. It's just concrete and real as a mother who wants to celebrate, who wants to have everyone around the table celebrating together. Mother Church does these things for us and she keeps us wrapped in the love of a mother concretely through these ministries. Psalm one, I shared this last night when I was talking about this workshop. We are at the middle of page one on your handout. We talked about the image of being the tree planted near running water. Blessed the man who follows not the council of the wicked nor walks in the way of sinners nor sits in the company of the insolent but delights in the law of the Lord and meditates on his law day and night. The law makes me think of the church because the church upholds the law. The church helps us understand the law. The church helps us to reflect on. The magisterium helps us to clarify the law. The church tells us we have got to keep the laws. The church keeps us in line with the law of the Lord. It keeps us meditating on the law day and night. Being members of the church keeps us with the law when we might rather go elsewhere. That is one of the beautiful things about this faith of ours that has obligations and that has definitions about what's okay and what's not. That is the mother church keeping us with the law. It is keeping us planted near running water. We yield, it yields its fruit and do season whose leaves never fade, whatever he does, prospers. Mother church keeps us by the running water. She says, you have got to stay here. You come and you be here because I know it's good for you and I wanna care for you and I wanna teach you and I wanna heal you and I wanna celebrate with you. So you be here because I'm gonna keep you where you need to be, even when you're suffering, even when you don't understand, even when it doesn't make sense but not so the wicked. They're like chaff which the wind drives away. For the Lord watches over the way of the just but the way of the wicked vanishes. By staying connected to mother church, we are preserved from vanishing. We are preserved in spite of ourselves, in spite of our questions and our lack of understanding and our sinfulness. We are preserved from vanishing. John 15, five, nine to 10, the vine and the branches. I'm the vine, Jesus says, you're the branches. Whoever remains in me and I and him will bear much fruit because without me you can do nothing. We have to be connected to the vine. We have to be connected to the vine. Put that in conjunction with, at the top of the next page, page two, Colossians 124, Saint Paul, he says, now I rejoice in what I'm suffering for you. I fill up in my flesh what's still lacking in regard to Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body which is the church. The church is the body of Christ. The church is the body of Christ. We have to be connected to Christ who is the vine. The church keeps us on the vine. The church helps us to stay connected to the living waters. The church keeps us where we need to be. We need to remain faithful to mother church who wants us to remain faithful to Jesus Christ. We need to remain faithful to mother church even when others have abandoned her, even when others have spoiled her reputation through their falsehood. We need to remain faithful to mother church who wants us to stay connected to the vine. I think about the wisdom of mother church keeping us from vanishing. And I wanna share two different women, two different mothers, Anna and Hannah. Anna is a mother of eight. Her oldest is a freshman in college. Her youngest is two months old. And she's a woman who is part of my mom's fellowship group at my church. And she was sharing a story with me about dealing with one of her teenage children who she and her husband were witnessing him becoming more and more dependent upon and addicted to his phone, to whatever social messaging things were taking over his life and his time. And they had tried various measures of calling him back from that kind of dependency. You know, you start by laying down certain rules and certain, okay, well this many hours a day or you can't use that app or whatever it was and it wasn't working. And he was continuing to be ruled and to be sucked into this machine and this device. And I will say, I don't think that his addiction to this device was probably any more dramatic than what many, many, maybe all most young people struggle with today. So it's not like he was some extreme version. It's just that he had parents who were very attentive to what was happening. And when they saw that their attempts to navigate a balance were not working, they took the phone away from his hands and they smashed it on the ground into smithereens. And I thought, oh my gosh, that's dramatic. You know, to destroy this device. But they had the courage to destroy the device that was destroying their son. They had the courage to say, okay, we've tried to navigate this on a rational level and it's not working. You are vanishing. You are vanishing into this idolatry, whatever, into this addiction. You are being lost to this machine, to these ways of living your life and we love you too much to let you vanish. And we are going to destroy this machine that is destroying our son. And they had the courage to do that. But she struggled with that. As a mother saying, I don't know if we should have done this. This was so dramatic. Thing cost $200. We're smashing it on the ground. You know, what's the right thing to do? And we encouraged her. We said, this is the courage of a mother. This is the courage of a mother who loves her children and doesn't want to see them vanishing. This is the love Mother Church has for us. Sometimes we have to have our idols smashed to the ground. And that is why people don't like Mother Church sometimes because we don't want our idols to get smashed. We want to keep them. We want to hold them with us. We want to navigate our lives with those things that we worship that are not God. And Mother Church says, no, you can't. Mother Church in this culture of relativism, Mother Church in this culture where anything goes still is the one voice who is saying to our culture, you are vanishing. You are disappearing. Come back to the living water. This is not the way of life. You need to destroy that idol. You need to destroy that image and come back. And people don't like to hear that. That is the role of a mother. That is the courage of a mother. And we hope and pray that the time will come where her son will mature and will look back and will say, thank you. Thank you for saving me from that. And that leads me to my story of Hannah, another woman in my mother's group who did not have a mother who was watching out for her who did not have a mother to journey alongside her. Her mother was preoccupied with other things. And Hannah was left to grow up on her own without that mother saying, here's where you need to be. Here's what you need to do. She was just left to wander freely. That's what we think our dream is, right? We think our dream is to have complete freedom. Go do whatever you want. She had that freedom growing up. And she suffered because of it. And she looks back now and she says, where was my mother? Where was she when I needed her? And by the grace of God, you know, her story is beautiful and she's had a powerful conversion. But she suffered because she didn't have a mother who had the courage to smash those idols. So Mother Church is called to a mission of courage of proclaiming the truth in the gospel to a world that doesn't wanna hear it, but that needs to hear it. And we have a mission of supporting her when Mother Church is the Anna that comes to you and says, oh, should I have done that? Should I have taken such a stand? When our Mother Church is suffering because she is holding to the truth, because she is proclaiming the gospel, because she is saying such basic fundamental truths and realities as things like marriage is between a man and a woman. Such fundamental realities as there is such thing as a man and a woman when our church is proclaiming the value of life from conception until natural death. When our church is talking about the importance of openness to welcoming life. I mean, all these things the church says that is smashing idols of the culture, we have got to have the courage to support Mother Church and say, yes, yes, that is right. You do that, you preach that, this is my church, I support you. You know, whatever that is, however that manifests in the preaching of our priests, in the teaching of our catechists, we are supportive in the leadership of our bishops. Whatever, I don't know how you're gonna be called to uphold that mission of Mother Church, but we certainly are called to do it, we're called to support it, we're also called as members of the church to be that voice for Mother Church who is not afraid to preserve people from vanishing. Some people would rather vanish. It is our job to try to bring them to the living waters. And remember the story of Hannah who after the fact said, where were you? Where were you when I was vanishing? People may not ask for it, they may not look for it, but they'll appreciate it after the fact and it's our mission. It's our mission to continue bringing people back to the waters of life. Oh, key dokes. The church keeps us rooted. The church keeps us connected to wisdom. How do we do this through the Holy Spirit? This is a theme on page two, Wisdom, the Holy Spirit in the Church. I don't think I'll go through each of these quotes one by one, but I have here for you a collection of scripture verses that talk about the importance of the spirit in the life of the church and the connection between the spirit and the truth and wisdom. And I think the one that, yeah, Acts six, three, it's kind of two thirds of the way down in that section, wisdom, the Holy Spirit in the church. Acts chapter six, verse three, brothers select from among you seven reputable men filled with the spirit and wisdom. Pick the leaders of the church, the ones that are filled with the spirit and wisdom. So the church's mission, her leadership is connected to this ministry of the spirit and the gift of wisdom. This is what we call the Magisterium. This is the teaching office of the church established by Jesus Christ when he set up his structure of the 12 apostles and when the Holy Spirit came down upon them at Pentecost. This is still the structure that we have the benefit of living within as members of the Catholic church. The Magisterium is the spirit and wisdom and men who have been chosen to bring this charism to us. We live within this church. This church, this church established by Jesus, this church led by the spirit. This church connected to the gift of wisdom. This church manifested in a collection of guys, men, people, chosen, human beings, anointed with the gift of leadership through spirit and wisdom. This is the church. This is the church that we are called to love as mother, to have the benefit of. The church and her teaching is what unfolds as the spirit leads the leaders of the church. However, that leadership of the church is also balanced and informed. It is also guided and directed by the sense of the faithful. The census fidei, the sense of the faithful. We as lay people have a mission in the leadership and the guidance and the teaching and the direction of the church through the census fidei, the gift of our role as baptized believers who help to keep the doctrine of the church where it is meant to be. We'll get into that a little bit more in a moment. Wisdom is connected to Holy Spirit in the church. Wisdom and the church can both be understood as being intended by God to be connected, as being timeless and eternal in an interesting connected way. We're gonna look at several scriptures that unfold this. This is the next section. Wisdom and the church as timeless. Book of Wisdom, chapter seven, verse 26. Talking about wisdom itself, for she, wisdom, is a reflection of eternal light, a spotless mirror of the working of God and an image of his goodness. So wisdom has this sense of being eternal, being from the beginning of time. Sirach, chapter 24, verses three and nine. Again, wisdom speaking. I came forth from the mouth of the Most High and covered the earth like a mist. From eternity in the beginning, he created me for eternity, I shall not cease to exist. Wisdom as being eternal. When we think of wisdom as the word with the capital W, the logos, the incarnate second person of the Trinity, these passages make sense that from all of eternity we had this wisdom of God which eventually will become in time, in a moment of history, incarnate in the person of Jesus Christ and that the church is so intimately connected to that mission, that the church also has a timeless element to her being. Turn to page three of your handout, please. I wanna share with you these quotes from St. John Paul II and Lumen Gentium number two, talking about the eternity of the church and God's plan. John Paul II is referring to this scripture passage above, Ephesians 3, chapter three, verses nine to 11. Here Paul says, to make everyone see what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages and God who created all things so that through the church, the wisdom of God in its rich variety might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. This was in accordance with the eternal purpose that he has carried out in Christ Jesus our Lord. So it says here, through the church, the wisdom of God is made known and that this was part of an eternal plan from the beginning, eternal, from the beginning. That like there's not even a beginning from before the beginning. The church to bring us the wisdom of God, it's part of the plan. This is where John Paul II reflects on this as is clear from this text above, talking about Ephesians 3, 9 to 11. The church is part of the Christocentric plan designed by God, the Father from all eternity. He says elsewhere, when seen in the perspective of the Father's eternal plan, the church appears from the beginning as the fruit of the infinite divine love which unites the Father to the Son within the Trinity. Here we go now, the Mysterium Ecclesiée, right? The mystery of the church thus finds its origin in the Mysterium Trinitatis. Think about that. The mystery of the church finds its origin in the mystery of the Trinity of God himself. In that sacrifice on the cross, the church was born as a community of salvation. The church is not an accidental, it is not just an incidental, it is not just a historical structure. It is part of the mystery of the Trinity, it's part of the mystery of all history of eternity. This is Mother Church. This is the gift we've been given. What a pearl, what a pearl of great price. Do we recognize the treasure in our midst? Do we reduce the church? Do we reduce the church to a set of people and programs, operations, offices, doctrines, guidelines? Or do we behold the mystery of the church intended from all eternity to bring us into contact with the wisdom of God through the church? The wisdom of God and its rich variety might be made known. What a pearl of great price. Lumen Gentium number two, already from the beginning of the world, the foreshadowing of the church took place. And Mother Church, Mother Church, wisdom six, 12 to 20, I was reflecting on this passage as I was thinking about the church. And as I read these things, I was just thinking about how the church is this wisdom, how the church is these things, how this description of wisdom also describes the church. So bear with me as I share these reflections and maybe as you're looking through these verses, 12 to 20, think too if you would, what in these verses about wisdom speaks to you about the church? I don't know, maybe this is just me, maybe you'll hear something there too. Wisdom is radiant and unfading. That made me think about the fact that we know that the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail over the church. Unfading and radiant, the gates of the netherworld, the darkness of evil and death will not prevail. Wisdom is radiant and unfading. So is the church. She is easily discerned by those who love her. She is found by those who seek her. Isn't Mother Church always here to be found? Isn't she always here to be found by those who seek her? She hastens to make herself known to those who desire her. Wisdom does that. Doesn't the church do that in her missionary activity? To go out to the ends of the earth to make herself known? To bring herself to those who are in need of encountering the church? Verse 14, one who rises early to seek her will have no difficulty, for she will be found sitting at the gate. Okay, so I was thinking you have to rise early to seek her. They'll have no difficulty once they rise early, but rising early is a difficulty. And I think about that with the church sometimes, you do have to exert some effort. One who rises early will have no difficulty finding her, but we do with the church, we have to apply ourselves a little bit, don't we sometimes? We come here to learn, to study, to understand. I came to Franciscan University of Steubenville to get a master's degree in theology because I wanted to understand. I had to apply myself to learning and study and classes and papers and all the sort of details and logistics that go into encountering the church and her fullness. That's that rising early, rising early to find the church. And then when we exert that effort, we have no difficulty. Verse 15, to fix one's thoughts on her is perfect understanding. Okay, it's talking about wisdom, but what about the church? To fix our thoughts on the church is perfect understanding. We have the gift of the magisterium, the development of doctrine, the collegiality of the teaching bishops. When we fix ourselves on the teaching gift, the charism of the church, we understand. What's puzzling to us on our own? What we might try to understand or comprehend in revelation or in scripture? When we bring ourselves before the teaching charism of the church, we understand. It clarifies for us, the church does this for us. One who is vigilant on her account will soon be free from care because she goes about seeking those worthy of her. Wisdom does that, so does the church in her missionary activity. She graciously appears to them in their paths. Talking about wisdom, but it makes me think of the church and the sacraments. Doesn't the church appear to us in our paths through the sacraments? Every path along the way, birth, there she is with baptism. Growing in the life of the church, we receive first communion as children, becoming aware, the use of reason, entering into a new life of understanding, the sacrament of reconciliation for the moments when we turn away, when we fall. Journeying through life to vocation, the vocation of marriage, the sacrament of marriage, holy orders for those who are called, confirmation, the outpouring of the spirit as we mature in our faith. You know, the anointing of the sick for the closing chapters, she comes to us along the way, along the path through the sacraments, journeying through life with us. The church brings this wisdom to us through the sacraments. Verse 17, the beginning of wisdom is the most sincere desire for instruction. Do we desire the instruction of the church? Do we desire to be taught by the church? Do we desire to have her authority, her maternal authority instructing us? I think we need to pray for that desire. That's wisdom. That's wisdom leading us. The beginning of wisdom is desiring that instruction. Concern for instruction is love of her. Verse 18, love of her is keeping of her laws. We love the church, we keep her laws. The tragedy of the scandals, the tragedy of seeing Catholics who don't love the church is because it's a betrayal of this relationship with the mother. The reason it hurts so badly, the reason it's so incredibly difficult to accept is because it's so exactly contrary to what should be happening in this relationship of law and love. The ones who break the laws are not loving the mother. Love of her is the keeping of her laws. Giving heed to her laws is assurance of immortality. I think that's a promise the church offers us. It's speaking of wisdom here, but giving heed to the laws of the church is assurance of immortality. If we follow the laws of the church, if we live in the life of mother church, if we accept the gift of salvation that she unfolds for us through her sacraments, through her teaching, the gift of immortality, the gift of heaven, it is assured to us by Christ's sacrifice on the cross. The church just helps us to accept the gift. Helps us to actually with our lives and our understanding and our minds and our choices and our relationships and in the midst of our sorrows and our tragedies to accept the gift of immortality, the church keeps us ready, able, receptive, able to receive the gift of immortality. Immortality brings one near to God, verse 20. So the desire for wisdom leads to a kingdom. The desire for the church, the desire to be wrapped in the arms of mother church leads us to the kingdom of God. Mark four, 11. The mystery of the kingdom of God has been granted to you. The mystery of the kingdom of God has been granted to us. It is unfolded to us, it is taught to us, it is experienced, lived, journeyed with us through the arms of mother church, concretely through the life of the sacraments that we journey with her. The gift of the kingdom of God. One more point on the census Fidei, the faithful and the instinct for the truth of the gospel. This is from a document called the census Fidei in the life of the church from the International Theological Commission released in 2014. It says, the faithful have an instinct for the truth of the gospel, which enables them to recognize and endorse authentic Christian doctrine and practice and to reject what is false. We have an instinct for the truth of the gospel as baptized believers. This sense fosters true wisdom. And it says that the magisterium has to be attentive to the census Fidei, the whole church gathered together. But the judgment regarding the authenticity of the sense of the faithful is not just left to the faithful, our sense of the faithful is also brought into context of the magisterium overseeing that. And it makes me think about a parent and a child learning and growing together. Okay? I think good parenting involves listening to the wisdom of our children. Truly listening, not just establishing rules and laws because I'm the parent and I can and I have the authority and you have to obey me, but actually listening and hearing our children in their needs, in their thoughts, in their questions, and then charting our discipline, charting our teaching, charting our parenting according to the voice of our children. I think this is the interplay of the magisterium and the sense of the faithful. We bring to the church our own giftedness being baptized believers. We bring to the church our own sense of where truth is and where truth is not. And we speak that to mother church, but we always, as humble and obedient children, allow her to be the mother. We allow her to be the parent and ultimately her teaching and her doctrine is what we align ourselves with. But that teaching and doctrine led by the spirit should always be in harmony with our sense if we too are led by the same spirit. Last quote on the bottom of page three. This is also from this document on the sense of the faithful. It is not at all required that all members of the people of God should study the Bible and the witnesses of tradition in a scientific way. Rather, what is required is an attentive and receptive listening to the scriptures in the liturgy and a heartfelt response. It is the church does not require us to come to the applied biblical studies conference. We are not required to come and theologically reflect to intellectually reflect, but we are required. The church, mother church does say you have got to come to the liturgy. You have got to come to mass. You have got to be here and pray with us. And it's very important, especially for those of us who are intellectually or theologically inclined to remember that all of these reflections and all of these thoughts and all these conversations and all these quotes always must be submitted to the liturgy, to the holy Eucharist to encountering the wisdom of God through mother church at the altar. And that the head must always submit to the truth of the soul and the heart. And we must pray, as we reflect on these things, that the truths we talk about here at this conference will sink deeply into our hearts, that we will be transformed and that we will become people who live the wisdom in our lives. I wanna close with Colossians 1, 9 to 12. It's the last quote on the last page, page four. We do not cease praying for you and asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will. Through all spiritual wisdom and understanding to live in a manner worthy of the Lord. So as to be fully pleasing in every good work, bearing fruit, growing in the knowledge of God, strengthened with every power in accord with his glorious might, for all endurance and patience, with joy giving thanks to the Father who made you fit to share in the inheritance of the holy ones in light. We are called to share in the inheritance of the saints. We have a foretaste of the inheritance of the saints, which is heaven, we have a foretaste of that through mother church on earth, through the heavenly banquet of the Eucharist. We are called to share in this inheritance by living a life led by the spirit filled with the wisdom of God and always obedient, submissive and loving to our mother church. Let's close with a prayer in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, amen. Mary, mother of the church, our mother, please pray for us. Pray for us to love mother church. Pray for us to be humble daughters and sons of mother church who listen to her teaching, who love her and who share the gift of her wisdom with the world. Lord Jesus would give you thanks for the gift of your body, the church, and ask you to send your spirit upon us as we go forth from here to help us to bear your light to the world, amen. In the name of the Father, the Son, Holy Spirit, amen. Thank you all so much. It was wonderful sharing this time with you. I appreciate it. Thank you very much.