 Hello everyone, thank you for being here after lunch. Can we begin with a prayer? In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, amen. 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 the Son of the Holy Spirit, amen. Okay, so I usually talk about faith and science and more recently also motherhood. So there's not a lot of talks given with all three of those things. But a little bit about how I come at this because I'm very passionate about teaching people that there is no choice between faith and science, that science is the study of the handiwork of God. I was a chemist first. I love chemistry. I have always loved chemistry. I don't understand people who don't love chemistry. But I was a chemist and as a chemist, and I can say it now reflecting back on my younger years, I did have some distinction in my head between knowledge and belief. I've cemented that distinction as I've gotten older. But even when I was studying science, I accepted, I call it the fiduciary knowledge, the knowledge handed on to me by professors and scientists who came before me. I accepted, I granted a scent to the truths they taught me. And I had to believe them. And only once I did that was I able to go into the lab and use those skills to see for myself and to know for myself that what they said was true. But I had to believe what they said first. The thing is, I was believing in a thing. I was believing chemistry, that atoms really exist. I love atoms so much and I've worked with them for a great periods of my life. I have never seen an atom. Anytime an atheist asks me, how can you believe in something you've never seen? Like, I've never seen an atom. And it's the truth. The atomic world is not available to our naked senses. When I converted, I started to figure it out. First, my love of science had actually been a search for truth, which means it was a search for God all along. I didn't know that. I was very much a nun before it was cool to be a nun. I lost my religion in 1991, the same year that REM song came out. And I grew up Baptist, I left it behind. I went to school to learn science because science had the answers. And that was that. And I am a very logical person, though. I always wanted things to make sense. I think most people are like that. But I followed the logic to its end. And there's something about learning science. If you really believe it, if you really accept it as truth, then you gotta follow all the way through to the conclusions if you really want to know the thing you're trying to study. And so I was never afraid to push the logic as far as it would go. And I did do that in my pre-conversion life, which I haven't written too much about. But suffice it to say, at some point, I realized that was a dead end. And I left my job as a chemist, and I converted. And then I realized that granting assent to the truths of faith was very much like what I had always done with chemistry. Instead of granting assent to what people who came before me, scientists before me, discovered, I was granting assent to what God revealed and what the church guarded over its entire history. And so it was very exciting. And it was similar, too, because I had to believe. But this time I wasn't believing in a thing. I was believing in a person. I was believing in Jesus Christ. And if you believe in someone, that is a more certainty, a higher certainty, than any knowledge is, because you accept everything that person says is true. This is my body. That word is means something. It means it is. So I accepted those things. But just like in chemistry, I didn't understand why titrations work or how to balance the mold-to-mold relationships. I didn't understand all of that until I practiced it and started doing it. But when I converted, I said, I am going to follow the logic all the way to its end. I am all in. I will not speak out of both sides of my mouth. I will not do this halfway. I'm Catholic fully because I want the fullness of the truth. It means I went to Mass when they said it's an obligation, even though I didn't know why. Because when I was raised Baptist, it was like joining the country club, go if you want to. And I went. But only when I started living that life, where being with Christ meant that much and was the center of everything, did I start to understand why it's an obligation. I started practicing prayers. And the first time I prayed the rosary, I felt so ridiculous walking down the street muttering these prayers. But I did it anyway. And over time, I came to understand how there's grace in that, how you gain insight into the life of Christ when you unite with Him in prayer. The one I struggled with the most, though, was contraception. Because not only was I non-religious as a chemist, I was pretty much buying into that feminist lifestyle. And I really struggled with the contraception being open to life. But when I read in the catechism that children are gifts, which is not a scientific word, I said there's something true there. It rang true. And it changed the way I thought about the two highly complex composite systems of atoms and molecules that I gave birth to at that point. It stopped with that very reductionist view of the human person. And I started to understand that children are gifts, even if they're not planned or they're gifts. They're something God gives us. And it changed my way of looking at things so much that that was actually when I first realized I was going to convert. I left my job at DuPont. I studied theology while I was home. And in that time, I said to God, I'm going to be open to life. I'm all in. I mean, I even tried to practice NFP, but it wasn't very good at it. And so I was like, I'll take as many as you can give me. So I don't really want to keep up with this stuff. And I was getting older. I was in my 30s by then. So I was all in on that. I am open to life, God. I am not afraid. I will accept children. Well, in the first five years of our marriage, my husband and I had four daughters. In quick succession, the first one was born the first year. And I was already starting the process of conversion. It took me two years to fully come into communion in the church. The second one was born 14 months later. And in those days, I said to my husband, I'm going to Daily Mass. Every day, I was pregnant again after the second one was born when I was pregnant. With the second one, I was going to RCIA. But I took him to Mass every day to Daily Mass, even though I could not receive. And I did it the whole time I was being in the process of converting. Because I said to my husband, as a chemist, if somebody told me there was going to be a miracle 10 minutes from my house in this building, I would be there. If Jesus is going to be there, really, truly present, I'm going to be there. So I was there. And that was my being all in, schlepping these little kids around. When the third daughter, so I already had two older kids before I became Catholic. And when the third daughter was born, I started to realize the prosperity gospel of centering your life on the Eucharist is not what I thought it would be. Because I sort of thought now that I'm going to be Catholic, everything's going to be great. And everything's going to work out just fine. And I had a hard time with relationships because of my reductionist views. I mean, that materialism, it's not just a bad philosophical idea. It affects the way you view people. And so as I was having all these babies coming along, my son was pretty OK with things. Mom's married to someone now. New sisters are coming along. He was not thrilled with that part. But my oldest daughter, who's now 30, my oldest daughter was sort of getting left behind. And it hit me. Mom can convert. Mom can straighten her life out. But you can't re-raise a child. And she was already 15 when I started that. So I had her very young. And I had to start thinking about relationships. There were so many times I stood on that rock of truth pointing the way to Christ. And I let her have it. All the years that I spent neglecting my duties as a mother because I was pursuing my career, I suddenly changed. And her whole world tilted. And I started preaching to her, standing on my rock of truth, showing her the way. Because I thought that's what I had to do. Well, by the time the third daughter was born, when she was baptized, I was finally received into the Catholic Church on the same day. And my husband and I celebrated the sacrament of holy matrimony on that same day. We had been married on 010203, because he's a mathematician and I'm a scientist. But we celebrated the sacrament of matrimony on that day. But shortly after that, my oldest daughter ran away from home at age 17. She was done. She didn't know what this new life mom was embracing was all about. And she set out all those empty years that I neglected her. She decided it was her turn to go her own way. And that's what she did. But I kept going. I kept thinking, what can I do now? What I can do now is stand for the truth. I will always be here on this rock, pointing the way for her when she needs to look for something true and good in the world. And I was determined to do that. Well, after that, I got pregnant at fourth time. I also started to learn that not everybody understands Catholic teaching with the passion that I was pursuing it. After the first three daughters came along, the doctors were starting to say to me, so what kind of birth control are you going to use? And I was like, I'm Catholic? Don't you know? And he was like, OK. But I was getting asked that more and more. And it was in a Catholic hospital, which confused me a lot, which is why I said I'm going to learn what the church teaches. But I didn't realize that everybody wasn't locking arms, marching to the same tune as Catholics. And when the fourth daughter came along in five years, I went to the doctor. And the doctor said, you can't do this to your body. But I was healthy. I was fine. The doctor said it's not good. Your nails are going to get real thin. You're going to lose all your hair. Your body can't hold that baby. They were worried. And they tried to talk me out of it. And I'm like, I don't know what you want me to do. I'm pregnant. You just treat me. But also, because my older daughter had left, and because, let's face it, being pregnant with three toddlers ain't easy. And I was a bit of a perfectionist. But in trying so hard to do the right thing, I started becoming overwhelmed with anxiety. I mean, just getting three little kids in the car when you're pregnant is hard. And a teenager who's gone and your heart's broken, and my son was just mad because he still didn't have any brothers. And he was becoming a teenager. But I was stretched too thin. And I said to the doctor, I need some help with therapy, psychologically. I'm feeling stretched. I'm feeling overwhelmed. And I'm anxious all the time. I can't even keep up with the sippy cups and the diapers and the socks. And it's getting to be too much. And the doctor said, we have an OB therapist who comes into my office after hours. I'll set up an appointment for you to talk with her. And I did. And that woman came in. And she was Catholic. And I thought, oh, good. And she started talking to me. She said, you sound like a perfectionist. And I'm like, well, I'm a little bit high strung. But I just want to do this right. I'm asking for help. She said, can I see a picture of your family? And I showed her a picture of our family in those stupid lands in matching sweaters that you get at Christmas. Because I made everybody wear one for a picture. And even my daughter came and wore the sweater for the picture. And it was just my moment. Everybody was smiling and happy for that one instant. And it meant a lot to me. But the therapist read perfectionism into it. The therapist read, this woman is on the edge. The therapist took that picture and said to me, in all honesty, she said, do you love these kids? Yes. She said, because if you continue with this pregnancy, you may not live to be able to raise these kids. And at that point, I did lose it. I came to the Catholic hospital and I asked for help with my kids and myself. And I'm told that I'm going to fail no matter what I do. I'm either going to fail as a mother with these ones, or I'm going to fail as a mother with the one who is in my stomach. They were trying to talk me into having abortion. And she said that. It wasn't nuanced. It was, you need to have an abortion. And I said, no, that's not what Catholic teaching says. That's wrong. And she said, oh no, I'm Catholic. I've traveled all over Europe. I can tell you that's not what the church teaches anymore. People are having like two kids, Max. You're trying to be a perfectionist. And I did lose it then. And she put me in the hospital overnight for observation. And I laid in bed that night. And I remember laying there staring at the ceiling. And I said, Stacey, you're all in. You got to pray. And I did. God grant me the clarity to know your will. Because I'm confused. I'm being told things by people who are professionals. And I don't think it's right. I know it's not right. And I looked them in the face the next morning. And I said, you are wrong. Leave me alone. I'll find help that I need. And I'll learn how to deal with this anxiety in healthy ways. But I am not having an abortion with this child. I named her Anna Lucia, my little light. She was born prematurely, but she was healthy. And Lucy, as we call her now, is going into sixth grade, straight A student. She's going to play the bassoon. And everybody calls her the hug machine, because she is always smiling. After that, I had my first miscarriage. And I was devastated. I wasn't ready for that. Many of you know is why I talk about it. It's not talked about very much. But many of you know what I'm talking about. I wasn't ready for that ache. And my arms. I wasn't ready for that word, miscarriage. And I said, OK. I have to really think about what I believe here. And I started studying about, does this baby go to heaven? And realizing that we are taught to trust them to the mercy of God, which I did. And that there's no clear answers on those things, although I do believe that our children go to heaven because I'm praying for them. And then I had a second miscarriage. I tried to stand on my head to keep it from happening. That's how desperate I was. And I got mad. I'm like, God, I'm open to life, and you give me death. You take away all of that. What are you doing to me? And then I got pregnant a third time. And I said, I've had enough of this Catholic hospital. I'm going to find my own doctor. And I found a doctor an hour away who was out of the system, a woman who was Catholic all the way, treating holistically. And that is my youngest son, who Particles of Faith is dedicated to because he's a little pill. That is my youngest son. He's a boy. Of course, we were not sure we couldn't believe it until he was born. He's a boy. But that's my youngest son. After that, I just told my husband he got a job in another state. And we moved into the foothills of the Adirondack Mountains up in New York, upstate New York. And I said, I just really want to get away from. I withdrew. We moved into a 100-year-old hunting lodge on a 20-acre property with a lake. It was like heaven. But I wanted to be isolated with my children and probably swung too far that way. But when we got out there, I was going to homeschool the kids. And I had three more miscarriages and quick succession to the point where I wanted to use birth control just not to have to go through that again. Because I tried not to get pregnant, and I would until I tried to ban my husband from the house. It didn't work. But those things taught me a lot because there was one day when, again, I found myself in a situation where I had to think about what I really accept and what I believe. My husband had taken the kids out of the house, and I was home alone. And so we lived in this old hunting lodge. It had a stone fireplace. It was a late fall. I put on my black boots, my black downed lands in coat because I only wear black for other reasons. It's just simple. I can't match colors. And I know too much about chemistry, too. I just can't match the colors because of the wavelengths of light. But anyway, I put my scarf on, my long parka, my boots. And our house was on a hill that looked over our lake. It was beautiful. And there was a spot about halfway down the hill that I called my spot. And it was just a little clearing in the trees about as big as this. And there were the tallest pine trees and some hardwoods and ivy. And it looked over the whole lake. And I went down there with the last child that I miscarried. I had something to bury in a little jewelry box. And I didn't want to do it with anybody else around because it's such a private loss. I just didn't want to be with anybody else. And I walked down to that spot and looked out at the lake. And I dug a hole in the hard, cold ground. And I put that box in there. And I said, this moment is uniquely mine, just like these gifts were. And I covered it up and left it there. And I stood back up. And I put my hands out because I felt like I needed to say something motherly. And I summons the guardian angels of all the other children that were lost, the five. I lost five. And I decided I should say something motherly here. And this moment, that's mine. I can't just dig the hole and walk away. So I said, dear children. And I'm like, I feel like Simba in the Lion King teaching. No, it's Moosafa in the Lion King teaching Simba about the circle of life or something. So I felt kind of goofy. But I was alone. So I said, with all the angels and the elements. And I said, this is a cathedral of creation. I'm just going to have my own little thing. And I said, my children, I don't know who formed you in my womb. I did not form you. I don't even know how you formed in my womb. Two gamete cells came together and started your genome. And your existence began. And your soul was there. Only God, the creator of everything, gave you life and breath. And I stopped. And I looked around because that reductionist thinking, I really do look at trees and see equations clicking away in photosynthesis. And I said, stop. And I just tried to take it all in, the water, the crisp air, the smoke billowing out of the chimney behind me in my empty cabin because all the kids were gone, and the geese honking. And I just looked at all of it. And I said, God, the creator of all who created everything, who ordered these elements that made up each one of you, God in his mercy will restore you to me someday. And then I said, mommy loves you. And then I knelt down and I sobbed. And I realized there that day among the elements and angels with that gift given back to the earth, I realized there that day that because I had been open to life, I learned how to face death. That's what I got out of it because I realized if I really believe that God created everything and holds everything in existence, they're still my children. And it changed the way I thought about everything. I went back up that day to my cabin up there and put some wood in the fire. Got some coffee, you know, hoeing your alone. And I got my Bible out. And I just went back and reviewed that story. And I want to read it now. I looked up the history of it. I started thinking about the second Maccabees mother because I wasn't quoting. I wasn't invoking Simba and the Lion King when I said those words. I was echoing that mother in the second book of Maccabees, chapter seven. Does everybody know that chapter, the story I'm talking about? I started thinking about her. And I said, you know what, I feel a camaraderie with her. She lost her sons to martyrdom. So that's even worse than miscarriage, I think. I couldn't imagine that. But I felt a camaraderie with her too because I said that woman would have loved chemistry. And I looked at the story. And I didn't even know all this about the history at the time. But the Maccabees was a Jewish group family that led a rebellion against the Seleucid Empire. 168 years, thereabouts, 168 to 160 years before the birth of Christ. The king at that time was named King Antiochus IV. And he had this goal to take Judea from Egypt and to unite a vast empire of Greek empire, Hellenistic civilization. He wanted to unite a vast empire and create a unified religion for those people of the Hellenistic cultures. He named himself Epiphanes, Antiochus IV Epiphanes, which means God Manifest. And I thought, you know, this sounds kind of familiar to how I feel these days raising my children in modern culture because it seems like there are entities out there that think they're God Manifest and that want a different religion. And there was a rebellion among the Jewish people because this king was making them turn their back on their faith for seemingly insignificant things. And I understood that feeling. It's how you feel when you're in the doctor's office saying, I will not use birth control. I will not use birth control. And in this part of the story, there already had been martyrs that the king wanted them to seriously eat pork. The king wanted them to eat pork, and they said no. Now, I don't know about you, but I think, you know, I can say no to birth control, but I'd probably eat the pork. You know, I'm sure everybody thinks that when you read it. Like, why? But the martyr before that chapter, Eleazar wouldn't do it because he was old and he said, just kill me, and I'll let people see it because I don't want young people to think I've lost my faith or changed my religion. But when you get to the martyr of the seven sons, there was a mother with seven sons, all brothers. They were arrested, tortured with whips, and forced to eat pork in violation of God's law. The brothers were defiant. One of the brothers, speaking for the others, what do you expect to learn by questioning us? He asked the king. We were ready to die rather than transgress the laws of our ancestors, and it made the king mad. And so what does he do? It says he gave orders to have pans and cauldrons heated, and he gave the order to cut out the tongue of the one who had spoken for the others to scout him and cut off his hands and feet while everybody else looked on, mother included. When he was completely maimed but still breathing, the king ordered them to carry him to the fire and fry him. As the smoke was spreading out from the pan, the brothers and their mother encouraged one another to die nobly with these words. The Lord God is looking on and truly has compassion on us as Moses declared in his song when he openly bore witness, saying, and God will have compassion on his servants. And it goes on. After the first brother had died in this manner, they brought the second. After tearing off the skin and hair of his head, they asked him, will you eat the pork? Answering in the language of his ancestors, he said, never. So in turn, he suffered the same tortures. With his last breath, he said, you accursed fiend, you are depriving us of this present life, but the king of the universe will raise us up to live again forever because we are dying for his laws. The third suffered the same cruel death. He put forth his tongue at once and told them, go ahead and cut it out. He stretched out his hands and said, go ahead. And he said, it was from heaven that I received these. For the sake of his laws, I disregard them. From him, I hope to receive them again, talking about his hands. Even the king and his attendants marveled at this young man's spirit. After he died, they tortured and maltreated the fourth brother in the same way. When he was near death, he said, it was my choice to die at the hands of mortals with the hope that God will restore me to life. The next brought forward, they brought forward the fifth and maltreated him. And he said to the king, mortal though you are, you have power over human beings, so you do what you please, but do not think that our nation is forsaken by God. Only wait and you will see how his great power will torment you and your descendants. He's saying this to the king. They brought the sixth brother and when he was about to die, he likewise spoke to the king, reminding him that he is fighting against God himself. The king was at this point, admiring the mother and these brave sons. And he was filled and he was worried. And he looked down at the seventh son and he begged him to, to relent. He said, I'll make you a friend of the king. I'll give you riches. Just relent, just eat the pork and the mom can have one son left. But it says here then, the mother filled with a noble spirit that stirred her womanly reason, exhorted to her sons as they were all dying. She had been saying, I do not know how you came to be in my womb. It was not I who gave you breath and life, nor was it I who arranged the elements you were made of. Therefore, since it is the creator of the universe who shaped the beginning of humankind and brought about the origin of everything, he and his mercy will give you back both bread and breath and life because you now disregard yourselves for the sake of his law. And she leaned down then when the king started entreating on the seventh son to relent, it says she did something different with him. She leaned down to him and in her native language, son have pity on me who carried you in my room for nine months, nursed you for three years, brought you up, educated and supported you to your present age. I beg you child to look at the heavens and the earth and see all that is in them. Then you will know that God did not make them out of existing things in the same way humankind came into existence. Do not be afraid of this executioner, but be worthy of your brothers and accept death so that in the time of mercy, I may receive you again with your brothers. And then it says she was also killed. And so the mother watched them all die. And this is, the story is in here. And I thought about that story a lot because I thought, okay, what I'm suffering today is not as bad as that. I thought I couldn't have just stood by. I wouldn't have stood by. I wouldn't have. I would not have stood by. I would have been screaming. I would have been throwing a fit. I would have been fighting. I would not have gone down like that. And I think about her and the camaraderie with her because as my children have grown older now, those four girls will all be teenagers in 2020. Pray for us. Now you know why I went back to work. They will all four be teenagers and they're beautiful young ladies, but it's been hard. It has not been. I have tried so hard with these kids to raise them in the faith. I did everything the books say you're supposed to do. And they are very strong in their faith. They're so strong in their faith that one of them wrote an entire treatise on whether a girl should have a cell phone using the Thomistic method of naming the objections. And I said the authority says no. But that's the thing I learned about raising Catholic children. You don't just check boxes. You don't do that with any children. You don't just check boxes. But the more I taught them to think and seek the truth, guess what they did? They ask a lot of questions and sometimes they think they have the answers and they have this free will thing. And it was difficult. But I also felt many times like although they weren't being slain right in front of me, that our culture is killing them with a slow death just as well. I feel like it is a battle for their souls every day. We in the Tresenko's household do have to deal with all these issues because my kids go out there and see things happening and they ask questions and they have friends, the LGBT stuff, the vaping thing, all the chastity, sexual stuff, the online stuff, talking to friends across the world. All of those things come at them and the science and faith thing they all got. They're like we know mom, we know, we know. We don't have to pick between faith and science. They got that. But it's constant. That's why I studied theology when I was home raising them because I wanted to be able to answer their questions. But the more I teach them to search for the truth, sometimes the harder it gets. And so I do get mad sometimes and I get panicky still because it never seems to get easier. And I'm in it for the long haul, but it's hard. And so I have this thing I do where just to, the healthier ways of dealing with anxiety, I have this thing I do where I imagine that I meet the Maccabees mother in this little white room suspended above time and space. She comes in and her robes and her sandals and I come in in my black dress and we sit down and I look at her and I go, how did you do that? And she says, you know how? All the stuff I said to you, I don't think I could have just stood there, I don't know. She said, yeah, you know it was about more than pork. It was about taking away our religion. Gave that little bit we would have had to give everything. I would have lost my children's souls if I'd given on that little bit. And I said, okay, I see what you're saying, I see what you're saying. I said, I guess then I'm glad that we don't have a King Epiphanes, Antiochus IV making us, you know, take this birth control pill or I'm gonna, you know, at least it's like that. But I said, it's almost worse. It's almost worse in our day and age because we don't have that kind of brutality, but we have never ending war raging for the souls of our children. And it's so subtle and it's sometimes dressed up so pretty and it's dressed up in the no hate or love. And it's like, I have to be constantly vigilant. I'm not just standing there on that one terrible day. It's every day I have to be constantly vigilant about the safety of their souls. And she said, yeah, evil can be sneaky at times. Like, yeah. I said, well, then do you mind if I tell you about Adams? Because I knew she would like it. And she says, yes, she wants to hear. And so I noticed what you did there. When you said you looked out at the world and you found faith, you found strength, you found confidence in looking out at the universe, at the world that God made and at the children he knit in your womb, you looked out at that and you found confidence that God would restore their life and breath. Like, let me tell you what's happened since 168 years before the birth of Christ. Like, in not even the last 100 years, we've learned a whole lot about something called the Adam. Because I think she would like to know, you know? And I tell her, and I do find strength in my faith through this. When I say to people, I found the answer to suffering in the periodic table. They say I found suffering in the periodic table. But this is what I mean. Because it is amazing. I'm gonna cover it more in the next talk, but, I mean, Adams are these little things. And, you know, I tell her, I usually use a sugar cube, but she doesn't know what those are. So, I tell her, you know, if you take a grain of sand off the beach, or off the ground, and if you cut it into a billion pieces, and you take one of those pieces, and you cut that piece into a billion more pieces, you've got something about the size of these particles that make up everything physical in our world. You've got Adams. It's about the size of the atom. But then, if you imagine a huge enormous space, she doesn't know what Beaver Stadium at Penn State looks like. But if you imagine a huge space, the atom, as small as it is, has all its mass in this little tiny nucleus in the center. And I think that's amazing. There are positively charged protons in there that are 1.627 times 10 to the negative 35 grams. And they're so, so tiny, and they're positively charged. And there's a neutron that's about the same mass. It's just heavier by an electron, because neutrons are protons and electrons together. And that's why they're neutral. There's such order, even in this little tiny atom that makes up everything. And the electrons that whiz around and all the rest of that space are negatively charged by the same magnitude. So the amount of positive charge is equal to the amount of negative charge. We don't know why. But the electron is 2,000 times smaller than the proton. How do they know that? I don't know. I have a T-shirt that says protons have mass. I didn't even know they were Catholic. And I can tell you how they know that, but that's another class. It has to do with momentum. But it's amazing because scientists have actually calculated, we hear people talk about fine tuning and I sometimes don't like that because people, I don't think, use that word in the right way. But it is finely tuned in the sense that if the electron had not been 2,000 times smaller than the proton with the equal magnitude of charge, same amount of charge positive and negative, but the electron's 2,000 times smaller. It's 1,846 times, actually. But we round up to 2,000. If it had been only 500 times smaller, instead of orbiting in its quantum mechanically defined orbitals around the nucleus, y'all remember that from high school chemistry, instead of orbiting, guess what it would have done? If it were heavier, what would it have done? It would have crashed into the nucleus. Yeah, if it were lighter, it would have gone off. If it had not been that precise amount smaller, less mass than it is, and if it hadn't had the same magnitude, we wouldn't be here talking about the Bible and defending the faith today because atoms never would have formed since the beginning of time. Atoms never would have formed. As much as we can understand as scientists right now, atoms would not have formed if it weren't that precisely balanced. And so these atom things are what make, look at your arm and my son, the book is dedicated to him because he realized this at a very young age, that everything's made out of atoms and we had some very interesting conversations. But everything is made of atoms. The air is made of molecules. It's just too small for you to see, but they're there. When you breathe in, you're breathing in atoms that have been bumbling around in the universe. God only knows where, seriously. And God holds this all in existence. And quantum mechanics deals with where those electrons are. They don't know. We have equations that treat them like light. We have equations that treat them like particles. The bottom line is we don't know exactly where they are. However, as a chemist, I was really good at making them do what I wanted them to do because that's what chemistry is. You take these elements, atoms of different elements and you figure out how to lock them together. I call the periodic table God's Legos. And the interesting thing, I tell the Maccabees mother because I think she would really like to know this, is that there are no missing spots on this thing we have, the periodic table. The periodic table is made up of elements. Elements are defined by the number of protons they have. And I say, do you wanna hear this? And she says, yes. So, I'm gonna tell you. Because I do find it amazing. The elements form in the, in the where? Where do elements form? And I was seeing if he, in the stars. The elements form in the stars. When you look up at the stars, most of them are burning hydrogen to make helium. So here's how it happens. The periodic table has hydrogen. The first elements got one proton in the nucleus. In the beginning, when hydrogen formed, stars started to form like four million years or more after that. But hydrogen and another hydrogen who had their balanced electron whizzing around them fused the nucleus, meaning the protons fused. And when two protons fused, that made helium. That's the second element on the periodic table. Helium is stable, because it's a noble gas. It's a noble gas because it's stable. It's happy like that. It doesn't fall apart. Because it's stable, helium sticks around long enough to fuse with another hydrogen. That's how you get lithium, the third element on the periodic table. Three protons in the nucleus. Helium's still hanging around. Two helioms can combine to make beryllium, the fourth element on the periodic table, four protons in the nucleus. Helium still hangs around while beryllium's there, though. And another one can fuse. What element do you have now when you have six protons in the nucleus? I'm seeing how much you remember. Carbon. Carbon hangs around with six protons in the nucleus. Another helium, which is still around, can hit. And then you have another very important element, oxygen. Scientists say this, atheists scientists say this. I've read it, I can quote it. It's quoted in Particles of Faith. It's in a secular AP Chemistry Science Book. There's a curiously high abundance of the elements in the universe necessary for life on Earth. Because of that precise, I mean helium is stable because of the electrons doing what they're doing. It is so precise. But in the universe, there are those elements that we need for life on Earth, and we don't know of life like this anywhere else in the universe. Some people say it's on Mars, but I don't really think so. But here on Earth, we have this. The other elements continue to form in the same way. We have white dwarfs, and then we have red giant stars when more elements start to form up to iron. And then in a supernova explosion, the star explodes and all the elements heavier than iron up to uranium form naturally. The only place in the Earth that anything higher than uranium exists is here because we continue smashing atoms together, the man-made elements. But the thing is, there is not a missing spot on the periodic table. Do you see what I'm saying? So the Maccabees mother is really amazed. She can't believe that. She can't believe that. I'm like, this is what we've learned in the last 100 years, not even 100 years. This is what we've learned, and this is why modern science has exploded so much, and this is why we have new battles of our time. But she says to me, she says, well, sounds like you have more reason to be confident in God's faithfulness than I ever did. And I say, you're right, you know, to say. And then I tell her, even more, I tell her about Christ because she lived before Christ came. And I said, look, I want you to know something else. It's not just that modern science came along and developed all this wonderful stuff and that we have this great knowledge of the order in the universe. Science was born because of Christianity. She says, what does that mean? I'm like, Christ came. You believed in bodily resurrection all those years before, but Christ came and revealed to us that God is triune, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And the Son, the second person of the Holy Trinity became man, became incarnate. No epiphanies God manifests. He became incarnate and came to be with us. And we know, and she said, I know this is going. In the beginning, God created everything and I finished it with the New Testament and I said, and in the beginning was the word and the word was God and the word was with God. That's why our God created a universe out of nothing with order. The Greeks in her time had a word, logos, that they used to describe the order in nature. But they thought nature was God or that God was imminent in nature. That's a long discussion, but they believed in pantheism. They did not believe in a creator the way we do. They believed in an eternally cycling universe. They didn't believe there was a beginning in time. And so when you believe in an eternally cycling universe, you really at some point logically get to the end where there's no free will. Because if the universe is eternally cycling, whatever part of that cycle you're born into, there ain't nothing you can do about it. If it's a low period, live with it. You can't change it. If you're born in a golden age, great. And there are scholars, Father Stanley Yocchi, someone I've studied very intensely, that opine, that that prevented the birth of modern science in any other culture. Christianity is the only religion that is monotheistic, incarnational and triune. We believe in a God that wasn't just one God who created everything, but God who became incarnate and who is triune. And I told her, something I noticed in the elements, in the way that everything is ordered, the way that we're breathing, the way that our life, our bodies, life came from these elements, were made of the elements, were literally made from elements that were first formed in the stars that you look at at night. I said, I see relationship everywhere in the universe. And she said, yeah, it is all about relationship. I understood that. And I told her that's something that's been very hard for me to understand about relationship. But I didn't understand it really well until I heard about the Trinity. And that changed everything too, children or gifts. But the Holy Trinity teaching says that God beget the son, that God the Father beget the son. And the Father and the son together is one substance spirated forth in love, the Holy Spirit. And that's where we get the intellect, God the son, the second person of the Holy Trinity, the word, and will, the love that is the Holy Spirit. We're made in the image and likeness of God. We're not just atoms and molecules, we have a rational soul, we are a rational soul too. And so that means we don't just go through life checking boxes and doing prosperity gospel. It means that we all have free will and intellect. And that I told her I had a theory that our relationships are kind of like atoms coming together with their electrons. But atoms don't have free will. And so as a chemist, I can put things in a beaker and the electrons will go around both atoms and form a bond when they're supposed to. But like in my marriage, for example, it didn't work so much like that sometimes because sometimes the bond and the atom, I think of us in our own little spheres coming together and now we're sharing all this stuff. Sometimes it wasn't just like Hunky Dory, like all that. It took work to keep that bond there. And sometimes it's like if you get too close, the bond can break. So it took work. The understanding that we are made for relationship, it hit me when after all those things we went through, when my husband, his name is Jose, he was born in Cuba, Jose Tresencos, Spanish, I forget to tell people that. But when JJ was born, our son, that youngest one, after two miscarriages and before three more, that little miracle child, when he was born, it was the same time I was studying the Holy Trinity and he was holding JJ. And there was a moment when I was still in the hospital bed and he was holding our little newborn son for the first time and he was looking at him. And he was looking at him with this way and I thought, I was hearing the words, the father gives all of himself to the son except to be the son. That's what we say with the Holy Trinity. The father gives all of himself to the son except to be the son. That's why they're two different persons defined by the relationship. And I looked and I said, that's what he's thinking right now. He, we are made in the image and likeness of God and we long to know and be known to love and be loved. We belong to others. And my husband would give all of himself to that baby boy right now if he could. The thing is, he can't. And so I felt a sadness at the same time. He can't give all of himself to that child the way God, the father, gives all of himself to the son except to be the son. But he wants to. And it was sad because the Maccabee mother looked at me and said, I know this one, original sin. Like yeah. We are born all of us into a sin damaged world. Sin always affects relationships. It's never about one person which I used to think when I was a materialist. You do what I want as long as it didn't hurt anybody else. Sin always affects others. And I knew in that tender moment with my son hold, my husband holding my son, that that purity was not gonna last. It would always be there, but there would be things in life that would cause discord and heartache and division and trouble and that we would have to work through it. But there is pain and suffering in all of our lives. There are no perfect relationships. These were not atoms and we're not God. We are people with free will. And so there's always gonna be difficulty in relationships and you have to work at that bond. And the Maccabee's mother says to me when I'm telling her about this, she says, that's why I leaned into that last son. She said, sometimes you don't need to stand on the rock of truth and point the way and preach it. Sometimes in the most critical moments, you need to lean into the other one so much that you can see the world through their eyes almost, that you're almost the other person with your children. You've gotta listen to them. And it is that love of friendship by which you try to get so united with them that you're listening to them and you're so close to them that you can see the world through their eyes because only then can you lead them to practice virtue. You can't force them to practice virtue but you've got to, it's so simple. You've gotta know your children. You've gotta be close to them. You've gotta try to see the world through their eyes. I know people say you're not supposed to be your kid's friend but that's exactly what you're supposed to be in that love of friendship where you know them. I've learned that. My daughter who ran away, I tell the mother, she's 30 now and we are close again. She had a lot of hard decisions, a lot of bad choices and I asked her one day, what did you need from me that I wasn't giving you? And she said I just needed to know you always loved me. When you preached to me I didn't think you were happy with me. And so that has that simple little thing of just listening. I also did some research, like if you listen, if you do this eyebrow jump it makes people be convinced you're listening. I actually worked on my active listening skills to like, you know when you're talking to somebody and you go like that. But I made an effort to really actually listen and to let her know, so that's part of it, to let her know I'm listening. And I do that with everybody. If you ever see me do this when you're talking, I'm trying to let you know I'm listening. But after the Maccabees mother and I get through talking in my imaginary world that day, you know, my little mental time out from the crazy things that are going on in life, I also finish by telling her that Christ came, revealed to us that God became incarnate to save us. And she gets it that only the creator could be the savior because if God holds us all in existence, it's not the relationship with each other that will save us. It's not us, ourselves that will save us. It is the cure to original sin, that brokenness in our humanity is the relationship with Christ, becoming one in the body of Christ. That spiritual relationship is stronger than any natural bond of birth. That spiritual relationship is strong. We're all part of one body. We're all atoms in the body of Christ. But I tell her about another mother who stood and watched her son be brutally tortured to death. I tell her about Mary. And I tell her, and she's so thrilled when I tell her, that Mary is queen of the universe and that all creation is echoing Salve Regina. And she looks at me and she says, because we're not mothers of dead children. We're mothers of the living. And I say, well, I have to go, but will you pray with me until we meet again? And she does. And we pray in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, amen. In the beginning, we pray, as it was in the beginning, glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, amen. And she likes that prayer. And she gets up to leave and she walks away. And of course, as she gets up and walks away, I look up and I see her surrounded by seven sons. And they're all smiling and she leaves. And I go back into my kitchen where some of my teenagers are doing their homework. There's one doing chemistry and hates it and it breaks my heart. There's one practicing the piano. There's another one getting ready to go outside to play. JJ's off doing something in his room. I text my oldest daughter and tell her I love her just because I text my son who's in the Navy now and tell him I love him. And then I say to all the others, I love you too. Because that's it. I was open to life. Yes, I learned how to face death. But what I really learned was how to be open to everlasting life. And so now I pray Hill Mary every day for all my children and the list is getting long because my 30 year old has five children of her own now. And she's Catholic. I pray for those children that were miscarried because the beautiful teaching of the church tells us not to presume but to desire baptism for them and pray with them. And what that means is I have a relationship with them. If the church had said they're in heaven, I'd just walk away and say, oh, okay. No, I pray for them every day. Just the same as I pray for my other children. Because the truth I've learned in chemistry and Catholicism, the truth may demand a lot from us, but how can we accept anything less than the fullness of the truth? How can we? And if you do follow the truth, you will be set free like it says. And I know now, no matter what life will bring, because like I said, we're gonna have four teenagers in the house next year. No matter what life brings, we'll figure it out. I'll lean in, I'll talk to them in our native tongue. I'll listen to what they're doing, I'll be there for them. And no matter what, I will love them always. That is something I can control. I will always love them no matter what. And I'm gonna walk with them through life for everything that they encounter. Thank God for the Catholic Church because the Catholic Church taught me how to love all my children unconditionally the fullest extent that I possibly can. Thank you.