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Episode Description
Author Emily Stimpson Chapman shares her thoughts on how to soak in the fullness of the Christmas Octave by focusing on faith, family, and fellowship from the Nativity to the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God.
The TCA team also delves into the inspiring lives of soon-to-be saints Carlo Acutis and Pier Frassati, both of whom are slated for canonization in 2025. A teen technology wiz known as “God’s Influencer” who used his gifts to attract youth to Christ, Carlos will become the first millennial saint. Pier Giorgio Frassati was a member of the Third Order of St. Dominic, and was named “The Man of the Eight Beatitudes” by Pope John Paul II for his exemplary devotion to bringing comfort to the poor and suffering.
Monsignor Roger Landry brings us a special message to prepare our hearts for celebrating the meaning of this special season.
Bios
Emily Stimpson Chapman is an award-winning Catholic writer, podcaster, and author of nine books, including Letters to Myself from the End of the World, Hope to Die: The Christian Meaning of the Resurrection of the Body; and The Catholic Table: Finding Joy Where Food & Faith Meet. She is the co-author of children’s books, Mary: Mother of All; The Supper of the Lamb; and Lord, Have Mercy. Her latest projects, an illustrated youth Story Bible, a fourth children’s book, and an essay-rich cookbook will be published in 2025. A prolific writer of Catholic Bible studies, articles and essays for women’s ministry, Emily publishes a weekly newsletter on Substack, Through a Glass Darkly, and co-hosts the popular podcast, Visitation Sessions. She lives in Steubenville, Ohio with her husband and three children.
Ashley McGuire is a Senior Fellow with The Catholic Association and co-host of the nationally syndicated radio show, Conversations with Consequences. She is the author of the compelling book, Sex Scandal: The Drive to Abolish Male and Female. She writes for numerous news outlets and speaks regularly on major television networks, serving as a prominent voice for the pro-life movement and religious liberty. She lives in Kensington, Maryland, with her husband and five children.
Leigh Fitzpatrick Snead is a co-host for the nationally syndicated radio show, Conversations with Consequences, and a Fellow for The Catholic Association. A write, editor, and speaker, her work has appeared in the National Catholic Register, Washington Times, and many other media outlets. She took her doctoral studies as a John Quasten Fellow at the Catholic University of America and the School of Philosophy, and earned her Bachelor of Arts from St. Johns College in Annapolis, Maryland. A former fashion and travel editor for Theology of Home, she serves on the Executive Board of Human Life. Leigh lives in Indiana with her husband and four children.
Betsy Fentress is a professional writer and editor, and co-author of three specialty cookbooks. Betsy earned her Bachelor’s Degree from the University of Missouri School of Journalism and studied in the graduate English program at Louisiana State University. She is a council member of the Archdiocese of St. Louis Annual Catholic Appeal, and has served as a mentor for the Hatchery Program at the Skandalaris Center for Entrepreneurial Studies at Washington University. Betsy also tutors after-school programs in University City, Missouri, where she resides with her husband Sam. They share six grown children. She and her husband enjoy dabbling in art collecting.
Monsignor Roger Landry is a priest of the Diocese of Fall River, Massachusetts, and the National Director of the Pontifical Mission Societies in the USA. He writes for numerous publications, is a frequent speaker on radio and TV, and is the author of the book, Plan of Life: Habits to Help You Grow Closer to God. A graduate of Harvard and the Pontifical North American College in Rome, he served as Attaché to the Holy See’s Permanent Observer Mission to the UN in New York. Monsignor Landry traversed the full 1500-mile Eucharist Pilgrimage this past summer and joined the historic Eucharistic Congress in Indianapolis, an event which coincided with his 25th year in the priesthood.
The following transcript is machine generated.
Episode 297 Transcript
| Ashley | Hello friends, and welcome to Conversations with Consequences. We are the radio show and podcast of the Catholic Association where we aim to change the culture one conversation at a time. You can listen to Conversations with Consequences on the EWTN Global Catholic Radio Network Saturday mornings at 7 a.m. Eastern, or catch the encore at 5 p.m.. We are also on Sirius XM Channel 130. Of course, our radio show is also a podcast. Go to the Catholic Association dot org or directly to wherever you listen to your podcast. I'm your hostess, Ashley McGuire, alongside my friend and TCA colleague Leigh Sneed. And we have so much to discuss today with a Catholic wife, mother and writer Emily Simpson Chapman. And here we are in the Christmas octave trying to keep the season alive in our homes and in our hearts. And we thought, what better way to do this than to chat with the very culinary creative mind of Emily? Welcome to the show and Merry Christmas, Emily. |
| Emily Stimpson Chapman | it's great to be here with you, Ashley. Absolutely. |
| Ashley | So, Emily, we're in this Christmas season, and as Catholics, we know that Christmas does not end on December 26th, and we don't throw the tree out the day after. And in fact, it's when things are just really getting going in so many ways. So, you know, as somebody who's written about and talked about hosting and ways to make our home a beautiful place during the holidays, what sort of advice do you have for mothers who are trying to do this without losing their sanity? |
| Emily Stimpson Chapman | And I don't know, get a good bottle of wine? Sure. You know, I have three little ones. My kids, they're six, four and three. And I was trying to decide yesterday if this is harder now that they're not babies anymore because they were functionally babies at the same time. Or if it's easier, the season can be crazy making. I mean, between the decorating and the baking and the shopping and the FedEx truck not delivering the presents and, you know, trying to get everything, sometimes traveling, there's so, so much. So I think part of it is just taking off the pressure to have it all done by any date before Christmas Eve. If you are online, that looks like everybody has already decorated their houses and they're sitting by the fire in some sort of perfectly manicured home. |
| Ashley | So, Emily, this is the first time you've ever been on our show. We're so glad to have you with us today. Please tell us a little bit for our listeners about your work, your writing, who you are and what it is that you do. |
| Emily Stimpson Chapman | sure. So as I said, I'm a wife, I'm a mother. I married later in life. I was I've been a writer for longer than I've been a wife and mom. So I've been writing for about 20 years. I married my husband Chris, eight years ago after a very long friendship, and we were not able to conceive. So we ended up adopting. We adopted three babies in two and a half years. They are four and three now. Yeah, it was our youngest. Two were eight months apart. So it was they're, they're functionally twins. They what is black and the other is white. But they like to tell people they're twins. So they're very confused. They they think they're twins. They know they're adopted, but they love they're very proud of the fact that they're same the same age. So, yeah, So it's been a really wild ride. And I've had to adjust to figuring out how God wants me to continue doing the things he's always called me to do, to write, to host, to cook, to make things beautiful, but doing it in a whole new way with with little ones and in a way that really serves them as well as serves God and serves others. So it's been a lot of a lot of juggling, a lot of discerning, a lot of pivoting, a lot of letting go over the past really six years. But it's such a it's such a joyful thing to get to do. So very grateful for Emily. |
| Leigh | I read recently maybe in the last year, read letters to myself at the end of the world. And I just I just really loved it and thought, Wow, this is a book. I really you know, I kind of really related to or gave given to friends in their twenties. And you wrote the book about surviving the single years, which I think is so great. Do you and now that you are a woman who suffered infertility and has adopted you, find yourself because this is something that my husband and I have experienced being sort of like an adoption guide to young women is that like, do couples come to you and say, like, how do you do it? What's it like? You know, and do you help sort of guide them through the process or, you know, talk about what it's like to discern that vocation So. |
| Emily Stimpson Chapman | So, so much? Yeah. |
| Leigh | There's so much. |
| Emily Stimpson Chapman | That the Catholic world has not been as on top of adoption as the Protestant world. Yeah. And so there is a lack of good guidance, there's a lack of good education. There's there's a great group called Springs of Love is trying to make up for that right now. But heir to the Protestant world, we are I mean, we're miles behind. So, yes, I've made it a priority. I get so many people see the Catholic women on the Internet who's adopted a few babies, and they're like, I should ask her question, or I should just send my friend who's struggling with infertility or thinking about adoption to her. So every night a week goes by that I don't get answer questions about adoption, and I try to make as much spaces I can on my schedule to have just talked to people on the phone about it, to answer their questions, to educate them, to kind of be the person I wish I had had. I had a lot of friends at Adopted. I knew one of my best friends is a birth mother. But even then, the the way the adoption world works is different now than it was maybe ten years ago, 20 years ago. So trying to get up to speed when we began, began the process was a lot and overwhelming. And people have very strong opinions and feelings. And the real world is a little bit different than the Internet world. And so helping people who spent too much time reading on the Internet about adoption, you can get in, connect with the reality. |
| Leigh | Says there when you start yelling yeah I know And so and we did our first adoption almost 20 years ago now and I know that things have changed. And then our last one was just two and a half years ago. So we've now we have a 19 year old who's going to be almost 20. 13 year old twins and the baby, two and a half. What have you heard back from people who who you've said that you who are, you know, maybe not quite there yet, who are still struggling and, you know, charting and doing all that, you know, the narrow stuff and figuring it out. Like, do people respond well to that advice in person? |
| Emily Stimpson Chapman | You know? So, you know, you talked a little bit ago about sort of hospitality and openness to life. And my husband and I always saw adoption as another form of hospitality and being open to life like we we knew going into our marriage that one, we felt like God. It particularly called us to take care of some of hospitality. That was something to practice in our home. And two, we'd already talked about adoption. We knew we were marrying older, we knew pregnancy might be harder. |
| Leigh | And so it's actually strangely rare. I have found that people who get married say after 35, never even talked about adoption. |
| Emily Stimpson Chapman | I think it's sort of the delusional world where everyone's getting all the celebrities are getting pregnant because they're all using IVF that you think, I have more time than I do. |
| Leigh | Right. |
| Emily Stimpson Chapman | And you know, the Catholic world, if you start getting pregnant younger, yeah. You also have a good chance of conceiving older. So all my friends were still getting pregnant. So, you know, there's every reason for me to not like pregnant. But we had talked about adoption. So for us, you know, but infertility can consume you. So even though we talked about it in that first year and a half when we were really trying to get pregnant and I was taking all the hormones that become such an all consuming desire, very focused on it. And you could make an idol out of pregnancy super fast when they're full. And so for me, what I did at a certain point, Kristen, I just stepped back from everything. I think we're a year and a half and we're like, All right, I'm getting obsessive and controlling and it's consuming our whole lives. We have to stop. We have to trust. Like if God wants me to get pregnant, I will get pregnant, married, got pregnant without even having marital relationships, like not taking Clomid. Like, I've got to figure out how to trust the Lord with this. So it was in that break where we stepped back and said, Alright, Lord, we trust you. That we were really able to say, okay, let's revisit adoption. What do we care more about? Do we care more about being pregnant or being parents? Like we feel so called to be parents? Yeah, maybe we need to open another window. And so my, my primary advice to people is to let go for a minute. Like when you feel like you want to burn the whole world down every month when your period comes and there's no baby or to see a family out and you're just filled with bitterness at that family, stop the infertility treatments. |
| Leigh | Like. |
| Emily Stimpson Chapman | Making an idol of pregnancy. It is hurting you spiritually. It is not God like it's normal to be angry and upset, but when it's consuming you. |
| Leigh | Yep. |
| Emily Stimpson Chapman | Got to take a break and you've got to sit the right Lord. Your will not my will and what is your will? And it was so some people, they do need to wait because you can't rush into adoption with, you know, huge gaping, unhealed wounds from infertility. If you think you settling, if you think this is plan B, if you're mad that you have to pursue adoption, you should. |
| Leigh | Not giving up. |
| Emily Stimpson Chapman | An adoption, right? You should not be giving up. You should not be feeling like you're giving up. So some people do need to wait because they need healing, they need peace. Other people need to say, What do I really want? And maybe we need to to open that window. Maybe we need to think about it. Every couple who is infertile is not called to adoption. But I think infertility can be an invitation to an adapt to it. |
| Leigh | That's a really good way to put it, because I know in my writing and when I talk about it, I really try hard not to conflate the two because, yeah, I've seen some really beautiful examples of spiritual motherhood and women who maybe they tried to get pregnant or open to life didn't get pregnant and that was okay and the rest and think it's. |
| Emily Stimpson Chapman | Not necessarily what God has for them. But so I do think I do think couples need to not necessarily wait, but they have to discern that they have to be discerning from a place feeling at a peace of place of peace. It was during that break I was writing a study for Endow on Humanae Vitae. I was a little bitter. I had to do that for Women's Ministries. It was the 50th anniversary of humanity today, and they wanted me to write a study on it. And I was like, I don't really feel like telling couples that they have to be okay with having more children. And right now, and I have very resentful and I sat down to write it, but in the time I was working on it, God showed me like I was being called to the same thing that fertile couples are called to. Like they are called you trust God with their fertility. And I have to I had to to I had to trust him when babies weren't coming. Just like other people have to trust it when babies are coming. And in that call to trust him is where I was able to start saying, okay, Lord, what do you want from me and Chris? And Chris was saying the same thing and I started by the time I finished the study, I think the day after I sent the study in, we got a call about our son Toby. So and we hadn't even started the adoption process yet. It was amazing. We had just been looking at things. So yeah, so that's my advice to people, not necessarily rush into it, stop and consider and pray and look at your own heart. Look at what you want. What is it that's compelling you to to pursue infertility treatments right now? Is it a conviction that this is what God wants? Is it desperation? Is it pain? You know, is it pregnancy or parenting that you care more about? And I know I agree that I couldn't get pregnant a little tiny bit, but I went through so much labor to bring my children into our home and do care for them and to care for their birth mothers that don't feel like I missed out on anything, like I would like another baby, like I wish I had more babies. That's the only thing I feel like I've missed out on. I want more, but. |
| Leigh | That's me too. Yeah. So, yeah, so I totally this it's just so similar. My husband, he's a bioethicist and he was actually writing a government report on the regulation of Tis the Year. We were like, really going for it. The first year we were really, really trying to get pregnant after sort of just being, you know, casually open after being, you know, really terrible about using in me. You know, we shouldn't start wondering, like we're not really because we were young when we got married. And basically, as he wrote this report, we learned every single thing that could go wrong with human bodies and why they don't get pregnant. And we're like, And when we had unexplained infertility, we never knew, but it was just sort of like this weird cloud hanging over how they had to go to work every day and work on this report about all the different kinds of infertility. And what advice do you give to people? Is it not so much the rushing in, but sort of if you think you've got like a little twinkle toward adoption, maybe just start the home study process because you want to be ready? I mean, you know how it is. I mean, I've had to rush through a couple of home study things myself, which obviously is worth it, but it became nice to have it in your back pocket, or at least to know to know where to go to get it done. You know, just, you know, if you do ever feel that supreme like ultimate divine push, you know, over the edge, then we had the similar situation, too, with the break. We we decided to do that to just kind of start the process and check it out. And six weeks later, we had our first son in our arms and we hadn't yet. We tried to like take our we called our Catholic fertility playbook to a secular doctor, which just ended up being mocked at every turn. It was awful. As we eventually left, we adopted our first we then saw an Afro doctor. This is back in the old days when you had to go to Nebraska. That wouldn't not protect us on every corner. And we did that for a while. And then we were in London for a semester and I didn't feel like, you know, taking the whole shebang, the needles and whatever, it was one thing to be away from him, several states, but in the same country. I didn't want to have to deal with all that, you know, in England. And as we got ready to go home, I said to my husband, maybe we should, you know, call Dr. Hilgers, get things going again. He was like me. We had this wonderful son. We you know, we've already sort of crossed this thing. You know, if we get pregnant, we get pregnant. Just like you said, let's adopt again. And like, three or four months later, the twins were born. Yeah. So it's just such providential race you're given when you take that time to step back, isn't it? I mean, it's so important because it could be such a dark, heavy cloud over you all the time. And it's all you think about every just every waking moment of every day. So I'm just so glad that you're out there talking about it and you share so many stories. And I think that what was really interesting when you shared your story of adoption with Toby and all the different things that went on, it's just important to show that the reality. And how about how many people are involved in an adoption story? You know, it's not just the happy couple in the baby, right? I mean, and you're so good about that. He's so good about talking about the gift of the birth parents and the struggles that they're going through and that they need our help and our prayers. And I think that that's just so another thing that we're not doing it well enough, you know, as Catholics and, you know, as I think even sometimes adoptive parents, we missed the point on that. So what about I'd like to talk a little bit more about your hospitality. Do you you live you live sort of near Steubenville University, right? Is that right? |
| Emily Stimpson Chapman | Just a few blocks away from it. Now, we lived in Steubenville for 15 years and then moved from Christian. I got married. We moved into Pittsburgh, which is just like 40 minutes away. But a year ago, we moved back to Steubenville. So we're we're a few blocks away from Franciscan University. |
| Leigh | What do you do with anything with like the young women there or the young students? Are you involved in that community still? |
| Emily Stimpson Chapman | I'm not very involved with it. I was just talking to Father Dave Pavelka, the president, last night. But between my own little children and then my the writing that I do and trying to we've been restoring an old house here. So I'm much more focused on sort of the local moms like helping out there. The older I get, there's more room and distance between me and the young girls. |
| Leigh | Now. No. |
| Emily Stimpson Chapman | So but yeah, God has really God has filled up the plate amply right now. But I would love to be able to do more with the girls as as we get more settled. And life is calmer here. |
| Leigh | Yeah. And so what, what, what, what are you working on now? Your substack and I'd give another book in the works. What's going on right. |
| Emily Stimpson Chapman | Yeah, there's always another book in the works. So my substack is a is a weekly things. I'm always working on the Substack It is. It's a my Substack is a it's a larger substack So it takes it's a job. My substack is a job. And then I am I've been doing a series of children's books based upon Scott bestselling books. So we just had our third one just came out last month called Lord Have Mercy. It's about confession, and I'm getting ready to start the next one. I just signed the contract yesterday and it is going to be about Saint Joseph. So that's the. |
| Leigh | Work and what they'll do. What's the age range that like, like prepping for your first Holy Communion and your first reconciliation or. |
| Emily Stimpson Chapman | Yeah, I mean, they all are different. So the one we did on Mary Mary mother of all is like 3 to 10. And I would say center is like that the separate the lamb and Lord have mercy are a little more focused on kids preparing for first Communion or who've done it in recent years. So we say those books are more 5 to 11. So this going to be for a younger set, which is fun. And then I'm also doing so doing some edits on I did a children's story Bible for Word on Fire that will be coming out at the end of this year. So we're still fixing tweaking that a little bit right now. |
| Leigh | So that's not all, but it's another book. There's always. |
| Emily Stimpson Chapman | Books. I know I got a proposal for another. I'm a writer. This is just how we pay the bills here. So, so. |
| Leigh | Talking about the kids and we're in the octave of Christmas, what what do you guys do? Specially to keep it going, liturgical and fun and all the stuff at home. You know that the rest of the world ends Christmas on the 26th. What happens in the in the chaplain home? |
| Emily Stimpson Chapman | Yeah. We're pretty much starting Christmas on the 26th. So it takes me all of Advent to get the house ready and we don't listen to Christmas music other than my favorite band Over the Rhine has very Advent to Christmas music album, so we do listen to those. But yeah, Christmas music starts on the 24th for us. The decorating is done on the 24th, so now we're just for getting to enjoy the decorations where normally we travel at Christmas, but this year we're not for various reasons, so it's been great. We've got all these fun trips lined up for the kids to go into Pittsburgh to see the lights at the Botanical Gardens and go to the zoo and see the lights and we'll go downtown. We're trying to focus on doing as much Christmas stuff as we can during this octave, and then we'll have a we'll go to a big party On Epiphany. We do gifts on Epiphany and we do Christmas gifts, but we always do a small gift for the kids kids on epiphany and yeah, they know that like this is Christmas season. It's not what's before is Advent and we have the countdown till Christmas. It was very clear Advent was Advent and I know stickler on those things. It's when you're traveling over Christmas, you might want to have your house decorated before December 24th. You know, every family has to make their own their own decisions. So we've sort of evolved and changed as the kids have grown. But being home during Christmas season is such a fantastic gift because we can really we have a little more things within our control than being. |
| Leigh | In an RV. |
| Emily Stimpson Chapman | And used to. |
| Leigh | Wait until Christmas Eve. I remember getting really into that idea to go get the tree on Christmas Eve. There are no trees. |
| Emily Stimpson Chapman | No, there's no trees I got to get. |
| Leigh | From the Home Depot. Gave us a horrible one for free. what is up with this? Just take it because that just so we revamped our Advent calendar to, you know, that. |
| Emily Stimpson Chapman | Includes getting into it earlier. But. Well, you wait. |
| Ashley | You know what I discovered about the whole because I'm starting to crack down on shifting the needle in our house towards celebrating Advent properly and Christmas properly. And this was the first year that I actually proposed to great consternation in my home that we delay Christmas songs until the 24th. And even even my husband was like, it's like a Taliban Christmas here. |
| Emily Stimpson Chapman | But for moms. |
| Ashley | Who are, you know, stressed out, it's it helps to actually remind people that we're preparing for Christmas. And if your tree is not decorated until the night before, not only is that not okay, but that's actually liturgical be more appropriate. So. But I'm with you. We stopped traveling after our third was born and started just doing almost the same things you were describing. We'd go see the zoo lights and we do all those things after Christmas when everybody else has thrown out their tree and it's like, No, we're going gung ho Christmas at home and you can really make Christmas special. I found by just forming your own traditions at home. And I know, you know, we keep up with the festive food and feasting because it's just a major feast every day has wonderful st that we're celebrating. And you've done a lot of writing about food. You have a website and a book about food, a book called The Catholic Table Finding Joy where Food and faith meet and a website. How did you become a food writer? Among other things. |
| Emily Stimpson Chapman | I have no idea. I think so. I the book, The Coffee Table is really is a it's a theological book, so it tells the story of my eating disorder. I struggled with anorexia for four, six years, and it looks at how the church's teachings on food and the body and the sacramental worldview, how that can help heal us from issues with food, whether it's eating disorders, food addictions. So that's that book. But I just love to cook. I think it started from not eating for so many years. I would read cookbooks because I wasn't eating. It was like virtual virtual eating and as I was healed so powerfully through the graces of the Eucharist and the church's teachings on the sacramental world view, I wanted to to share the graces that are abundant at every meal with people. I wanted people in my house. I wanted to feed them. God feeds us. He feeds us with the Eucharist. And so it is a deeply Catholic act to feed other people. It gets to gather people around a meal, to make a sacrifice of my time to pour my love into food like God pours his love into the Eucharist. That is, you know, when you go to Catholic cultures, eating is such an important part of of the culture. It's an act of faith to eat together and to feed each other. So I've been hosting for, I don't know, 20 plus, 25 years or so now, and I'm a simple home cook. But yes, I do also have a cookbook coming out. There's a cookbook coming out this spring called Around the Catholic Table, and it's filled with 101 recipes and also essays on hospitality. So that'll be out in the spring. But yeah, people seem to like my recipes. The cookbook was originally part of the cookbook was written to help with our adoptions. It was part of an adoption fundraiser, so popular and so successful, and people kept asking for a hardback version of it because it had just been an evolution and it may have spread. Publishing asked me if I would do an expanded version of it, so I did that this past summer. So it will be coming out soon. But I love to cook, I love to feed people. I look like I'm Irish and I am Irish, but my heart is like an Italian grandma. So if you're in my house, I want to feed you. And I just think we Americans have such weird attitudes about food. Like we're we're very puritanical about it and we're always on, you know, some dietary kick or some restriction kick. And part of it is because, you know, our food has it's it is not as clean as it once was, but we don't have a European attitude about food like a love and a freedom. And seeing food as as community and eating as a communal act. And so I think a really healthy culture, a culture cannot be healthy unless it has a healthy attitude about food. Like food is a fundamental symbol of the Eucharist. It's something that God uses throughout Scripture to talk about abundance and love and grace. And that's meaningless to you if you can't have a healthy relationship with food. So I want to feed people good food and have good conversation and drink good wine with them. And I think that many problems of the world could be solved with that. |
| Ashley | Well, we're so blessed by you coming on today to tell us about your many different fascinating projects and where can our listeners is there a central place that people can go to as like a portal to your many different your substack, your your different websites? Where is the best place that people can go and find and follow your work? |
| Emily Stimpson Chapman | Substack is always the best place you can just pick me up. Emily Simpson Chapman on Substack or Instagram. So I'm not posting. I don't make deals very often. I'm a writer. Yeah. |
| Leigh | okay. Appeals. |
| Emily Stimpson Chapman | yes. I don't do reels. I'm a writer, not a content creator, so I'm not in your feed very often, but I've always in stories so you can always find me in the stories on Instagram. |
| Ashley | Well, thank you so much for joining us today, Emily and Leigh, and wishing both of you a very blessed Christmas activ. |
| Emily Stimpson Chapman | Thank you so much. |
| Leigh | Merry Christmas. Only to have you back on. I have a million more questions for you. |
| Emily Stimpson Chapman | That would be greatly. |
| Ashley | Welcome back to Conversations with consequences. I'm your hostess, Ashley McGuire and I'm joined today by my colleagues and friends, Betsy Fentress and Lee Sneed. And here we are in the octave of Christmas. And what a wonderful season it is and what a wonderful time it is to be Catholics, because as we Catholics now, Christmas is just beginning, unlike the way the rest of the world celebrates it, where they put out all their Christmas decorations the day after Halloween and strip it all down the day after Christmas, we're only just beginning our feasting and one of the things that I love about the octave are all the wonderful feast days and saints that we celebrate in this period. And I've always thought that it's interesting that the first one that we celebrate actually is Saint Stephen Martyr, and he's kind of a special saint to me because I met my husband at Saint Stephen Martyr Church. But I just I find it interesting, almost like it's a little bit of a stark reminder that despite the kind of innocence of the Nativity, you know, of the Christian reality, the call to suffer and sacrifice, and that Jesus came into the world as a baby, but he died a death, you know, much like that of Saint Stephen. So I don't know. Ladies, what what are your favorite Saints during this season? |
| Leigh | Lea Well, I really like that, that contrast that you just pointed out and that sort of reminder that even in this season of feasting, we've got to remember why you know, Christ was born. Yeah, I think that the feast of the Season really, especially when you have little kids where there's Santa everywhere, like you said, we're right after Halloween and it's hard to remind them. But in our house we do Advent for real, and we've got to make it worth it. And so that the octave is I feel like it really it sort of like it pays off. It shows the children that that's really like, listen, this was this was a feast worth preparing ourselves for. I really like, you know, at the end of it, I like the baptism and the story of a John the Baptist baptizing Jesus in the Jordan and the sky opening up. And it's there's this second epiphany, right, that we acknowledged that, you know, this is the son of man on Earth. And I have a special place for that one. Mary, mother of God is good, too. I don't know. What about you, Betsy? |
| Betsy | Well, you're taking all the good ones. |
| Leigh | Leave the fair play, Betsy. |
| Betsy | Well, I would just say that I didn't really understand the depth of Stephen as the proto martyr until I did a deep dive in the Book of Acts. I would suggest that our listeners take time to do that on December 26th and see just what an amazing early martyr of the church he was. On top of that, the Feast of the Holy Innocents. I think that since abortion, it became a reality in our country that that feast has so much depth and so much meaning. Ashley and I were talking with the director of the movie The Star the other day, and that animated movie really does bring to life what Herod did and how threatened he was by a child. And so that's kind of the glum feast in the midst of all of this, because I like also bookending things with Epiphany. And it's just I mean, how can you not like singing with three Kings and basking in the glow of these people coming to adore this little baby? |
| Leigh | What is the things you did with your kids as they were growing up or do with your grandkids? Now, Betsy, celebrate Epiphany. Well, I'm. |
| Betsy | Sorry to say that they don't live where we live, but I would say that one of my favorite things that Sam and I did was we went to a 12th night party. Yeah. And it really I had never been to one. And it really drew out the proper meaning of those 12 days of Christmas and just exactly what Ashley said to not put everything away. So, I mean, some people, maybe they think it's bad luck to have your tree up past. |
| Leigh | really? |
| Betsy | New Year's? |
| Emily Stimpson Chapman | Yeah, it's crazy. |
| Leigh | I could see if it's a fire hazard, but it's not. That's not bad luck. Yeah, that is crazy. Yeah, I had an eccentric, and I think you kept hers up, I think until your mama went lent. |
| Ashley | Well, that Candlemas is almost before Lent. And I was going to ask both of you when you put your tree away, because it kind of cracks me up that in the Catholic world, I've noticed there's a debate that gets pretty serious about when is the right day to take down your tree. Some people say Epiphany. I think we do baptism of the Lord, but there are some people who are like, if you take your Christmas stuff down before candlemas shame. |
| Leigh | Well, yeah, well, there's always something to debate with that kind of thing. I mean, for us, I think we've done it. We do try to pick a day that has some kind of, you know, feast or solemnity to it, but it is oftentimes based on the condition of our tree to see when, you know, But we we do at least try to make it to epiphany. And we leave up other things, too, if we have to, you know, save our house from burning down by taking the tree outside. |
| Betsy | Well, now that I've gone to the dark side and I have a fake Christmas tree, there's not that urgency. |
| Leigh | That every year. |
| Betsy | Yeah, there's just a lot of allergies and stuff in in our house. And it's so we did that and I don't have all our sons who will drag it in and drag it out and all that kind of stuff. But we usually probably take the tree down it between epiphany and coupledom. US Did you all grow up using the word candlemas? I mean, I didn't even really know it until I have a friend who was a poet and wrote a poem about it. And that's when I kind of got introduced to it. And I mean, February 2nd just kind of wasn't a thing in Catholic school education when I was growing up. |
| Leigh | Yeah, same here. And yeah, I mean, I got really categorized once we moved here to South Bend and this really thriving community. I learned some things and especially when my son was going, I'd be like, Tell mommy what you learned today, because I knew there were huge gaps I needed to fill. I didn't do I didn't go to Catholic school growing up, so I really didn't. I really had some big gaps. But no, but that's it's a real popular thing here, too. The 12th Night Parties and Candlemas. |
| Ashley | And what is the 12th night party is piqued. My curiosity. |
| Leigh | I mean, it's like I took a, you know, a Christmas party. I mean, like, give me, like the basic nuts and bolts. |
| Ashley | Yeah, I mean, I mean, other than well, because this is another thing that I think maybe our listeners would be interested in and that I've sometimes struggle, my struggle myself to grasp. Christmas is an octave. But we also talk about the 12 days of Christmas. So theologically liturgical, what is the difference? |
| Leigh | But I do know that like we call we can we call no, some prayers novenas even though they're longer than nine days. And I don't know why that is either. |
| Betsy | Well okay, here's a definition for you. The 12th night party is a celebration that marks the end of Christmas, tied in the beginning of epiphany tide. |
| Leigh | Excellent. Right. Well, you know, I love this. You know, lots of food and drink, and sometimes there's carols still, which is nice. It's a good time. |
| Betsy | One of the traditions is the people's we went to is that they took a piece of chalk and they wrote, I think the year date with a cross on either side of the date. Is that what you've experienced? |
| Leigh | Lee Yeah, absolutely. And you can buy like special epiphany chalk and wheat. Yeah, I know. You can really get really into it. Catholic. |
| Ashley | When I just wrote Epiphany Chalk down that's yeah, I guess it's on card next. |
| Leigh | But I think what we often happens is we do it sometime after epiphany we just grab it. Whatever priest happens to be nearby our house or that we invite over and say, Here's some chalk we do this for us and it usually, you know, works out okay, but I've seen it at parties and that's been really nice. But I think you can also do it. So many people do it even when they move into a new house. But the shocking but I do like to do it. An epiphany. But yeah, the special check. I'm not sure what is special, but I don't know whether it's special. Like beeswax. Candles is special or if it's just blessing. Chalk. But another thing. So many questions, ladies. |
| Ashley | Well, I just love it all because I've really been trying over the last few years, especially as my kids get older, to try to resist almost everything about the way the culture does. Well, frankly, everything, but especially the holidays that are ours. You know, I'm like, this is our holiday and don't come at me with this silly solstice stuff. Like, if it weren't for the solstice, we wouldn't have wreaths, you know? Right. The truth is, this is Christian Catholic holiday. And unfortunately, the way it's celebrated commercially, the thing that frustrates me I do think this has gotten better was the fact that not only was is there a commercial pressure to celebrate it, pretty much the the inverse of what it's all about, which is, you know, if you think about the simplicity of the of the Nativity and it was fun, definitely fun to reflect on that with with the director of the star and to think about, you know, the importance of animals and being among creation. But just yet but then also this, like at the same time people saying like, you know, take your religiousness about it and stuff it, you know, And I think that's improved a little bit lately. But, you know, it's I think it's just important to reestablish these traditions. I don't know if this is like a new thing reviving these things in the Catholic world or if it's just that I'm becoming more attuned to it with my kids getting older. But, you know, I think people shouldn't feel embarrassed to just start. You know, you can start we've done like one new thing every every season, you know, And after a few years, those things become incorporated. And, you know, one of the things I'm trying to do now is actually try it to the consternation of my kids, is to try and actually have Advent music instead of Christmas. Yeah. You know, great, great pop. |
| Leigh | Up. I mean, like, you know, playlists out there on Spotify and I think Crisis magazine, I think has put out a list every once in a while. Maybe they're from older issues. Yeah, I think that's right. I think you just have to, especially when you've got younger kids and your families, maybe it's growing and you can see what works for you. Actually, I would love for you to see if you haven't seen already. There's like a book, I think it's called Through the Year with the Von Trapps, written by Maria von Trapp. It does make you feel a little bit bad about yourself because it's like in there, like crafty shop, making these, like, punctured tin ornaments for one another. And they all do these special secret good for one another. But there are some ideas in there that I think that, you know, you can kind of take and adjust. Yeah, because when I was younger we I really about has always been a Christmasy person and I always like to put the tree up The Sunday after Thanksgiving, I was that person. And then once I was more in a community and kind of saw how things were different, I was like, I think actually you and I talked about this with Emily Chapman that I we decided to be really, really stark and get our tree on Christmas Eve. And that would really drive it home with our kids. There are there are no trees on Christmas Eve. There are a couple. And I think they actually gave us one for free because they were so bad. And we even one year we thought we do do a little bit better on the 20th. There's no trees. I think we had to get a tabletop tree. So we've learned and we've adjusted and a lot one of the things we like to do too, and we were traveling this year so we didn't do it, is putting up the lights on the tree on the Feast of Saint Lucie. That's one of the things I think that works for us, too. |
| Ashley | Thank you. That is awesome. |
| Leigh | I never thought it's so easy and it's so easy. Yeah. So I think, yeah, like, you, you just kind of do little things. One little thing for every year and just build it, and then it becomes part of your children's memories and what they take into their own homes. And. |
| Ashley | Well, there's one other scene in, in the Christmas season that I do love, and I think it's a great pivot to talk just briefly about a couple of Saints. We're looking forward to their canonization 2025, and that's Elizabeth Ann Seton, the first American born saint. And I'm reading her biography right now, and I commend it to you. I believe it's just called Seton an American Saint, but it's just a great story. You don't even have to be Catholic to appreciate the story of just a woman with grit and faith and entrepreneurial spirit. And she's just a wonderful saint. And so on that note, it's so exciting that we found out in the last few weeks. I think it was, that in 2025, we're going to have among, I'm sure, other saints. But to that many, you know, we've been anxiously awaiting. First is Pier Giorgio Vasari and then secondly, Carlos Acutis, who if you have Gen Alpha or Gen really, and even millennial kids, they're kind of a household name for Catholics. And so, Betsy, what do you know about these saints? I know you've done a little research on them and who are they? |
| Betsy | Carlo Acutis is known as the millennial saint and he's going to be canonized on April 25th of 2025. He was born in London to Italian parents, but the family moved to Milan. What I think is so interesting about both of these men is despite the fact that they also died young, is that they did not come from religious homes. And I think that there's a lot of parents who think if I just do all the right things, I'll have a priest or one of my daughters will enter the religious life and, you know, God has other plans and we just need to be open to them. But for Carlo, he he was really sporty kid and he'd been bullied a little bit as a child, but was very gentle with the people who treated him that way. It's kind of amazing. He was diagnosed on October 1st and died on October 11th, a very fast acting leukemia. There are a lot of amazing quotes attributed to him that you can find. I'll just give you one confession. Our soul is like a hot air balloon. If by chance there is a mortal sin, the soul falls to the ground. Confession is like the fire underneath the balloon, enabling the soul to rise again. It is important to go to confession often. And he's buried in. And I actually saw his tomb when I was there a couple of years ago. I had heard of Frascati because the student Catholic Student House at Vanderbilt, where my daughter went to school, was named after him. And that's how we got my husband. I got exposed to him and he's just when we say a litany of saints after a rosary, we often include him. |
| Ashley | Well, I read an interesting story about the miracle. You know, often we hear less about the interesting miracle that ends up being what seals the deal, if you will, for their canonization. And this for for Sarti was a seminarian who had torn his ACL and went and prayed, begin to know Vina to him, and felt like a supernatural heat on his foot. And then the wound was healed. The MRI cleared him. The doctor was like, I've never seen anything like this before. And it's just a great reminder that, you know, despite our technology, ical science is real world really so cheesy, but miracles still do happen. And I just think that's kind of the the ethos of the season that we're in now, which is just a miraculous wonder at the coming into the world of our savior and keeping our eyes fixed on that in this season is is really what will bring us great peace and joy. So I wish you both a very Merry Christmas time and I look forward to talking to you in the year. |
| Leigh | You too, actually. Thank you. |
| Betsy | Very Christmas to both of. |
| Ashley | You. And now Father Roger Landry offers us a thought provoking homily to prepare us for this Sunday's gospel. |
| Fr. Landry | This is Father Roger Landry. And it's a privilege for me to be with you as we enter into the consequential conversation God wants to have with each of us, as together we celebrate the Feast of the Holy family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph. We celebrate the sweets in the sun between Christmas and the solemnity of Mary, mother of God, on January 1st. It's an opportunity for us to focus on when the Word of God took on our humanity and dwelt among us in order to save us. He chose to enter the human race in a family, just as each of us does, so that he could redeem the family that the devil had attacked from the beginning with Adam and Eve so that he could, in fact, make the church a family. The church is the extension of the Holy Family at Bethlehem and Nazareth, comprised of those who, like the Blessed Mother and Saint Joseph, hear the Word of God and observe it, and who seek to live their life centered on God with us. Emmanuel This year, celebration of the Feast of the Holy Family is particularly special because it's taking place as part of the long awaited Jubilee of Hope, which Pope Francis inaugurated during Christmas mass during the night on Christmas Eve in Saint Peter's in the Vatican, a wheelchair. The Holy Father opened the Jubilee door and invited the whole church to make a pilgrimage through that door, leaving behind a world in which there are so many signs of desperation in entering through the door. Who is Christ? Who is our hope? But that was just the start of the Jubilee and the Feast of Holy Family. Two things are happening. First, in Rome, Pope Francis will open the Holy door at his cathedral. The Archbishop of Saint John and Lateran. Second, he decreed in every cathedral and co-cathedral of the world, bishops are supposed to celebrate Holy Mass as the solemn opening of the Jubilee year. So in the Mother Church of every diocese in the world, including your own diocesan cathedral, it will be a special mass with particular prayers for the occasion. I urge you to try to go to your cathedral this Sunday to celebrate in a particular way this Jubilee, along with the successor, the Apostle, sent to shepherd you in your part of Christ worldwide vineyard. The Jubilee will continue in each diocese and world until the Feast of the Holy Family next year. This shows that the Jubilee is meant to be marked not just in Rome and not just in every diocese, but in every family seeking to help every family model itself in Holy family and become a beacon of hope for the world as Christian families individually and collectively give a reason for the hope we bear within us. The Feast of the Holy Family this year will take place on the fifth day of Christmas. And it's key if we're going to understand and live out the Jubilee well, for us to grasp the true meaning of hope. If you look at the catechism of the Catholic Church, it says that hope is the theological virtue by which we desire the kingdom of heaven and eternal life is our happiness. Placing our trust in Christ promises and relying not on our own strength, but in the help and of the grace of the Holy Spirit. Hope is therefore a gift of God by which we ground our life, trusting in Christ words and promises and avail ourselves to the help of God, to seek to live in His kingdom, to live in, but not of the world. With our heart set on God in the great hope of eternal love and communion with Him. That's a very beautiful, rich definition of Christmas time. We can think about all the promises God made that were filled with the birth of Jesus, the Messiah of a virgin in Bethlehem, of a Father, and of all the other promises that would be fulfilled in Jesus life, death and resurrection. But I've always loved the definition suggested to us by Pope Benedict in his 2000 encyclical, 2007 encyclical on Christian Hope called Space Salvage or Saved by Hope in it, relying on St Paul's words to the Ephesians, he said that to live without hope is to live without God in the world. That's kind of like a photographic negative. The virtue of hope. They're forced to live with God in the world. We know this to be true no matter what challenge we're facing, what mountain we need to climb. If we seek to do it on our own, it can often prove overwhelming If we face the problem that God is with us, however, helping us, sustaining us, etc., we see that nothing is impossible. That's the hope Christ sought to bring into the world. Isaiah prophesied that he would be Emmanuelle, which means God is with us. He's with us in the world. He's with us in the dark valleys, in the beautiful summit. He's with us on Rainy days and sunny days. He's with us always is. He promised of the ascension until the end of the world. And because he is with us, we are filled with hope. And the sun is gospel. We discover what happens when we're not with the God who has come to be God with us. We see it in the lives of the two Great, a saint of all time, Mary and Joseph. When they lose the third member of the Holy Family Jesus, the scene of losing Jesus for three days and then finding him in the temple constitutes both one of the Seven Sorrows of Mary, the fifth joyful mystery. It's an episode in the life of the Holy Family that unless we regularly meditate on the mysteries of Holy Rosary, we may not ponder enough. Since it comes up at Mass, only every third year on the Feast of the Holy Family, and then only on the optional Memorial Day, the Immaculate Heart of Mary each year, but is a scene from which we can learn so much within the context of the Jubilee. I want to focus on what it teaches us about hopelessness and hope. The Holy family of Bethlehem and Nazareth was holy. It first and foremost because it was centered on God who, literally dwelt among them whom they held in their arms, nourished, clothed, taught and helped grow according to humanity. But we see in the Sunday Gospel that there was a time in which Mary and Joseph two took their eyes off Jesus after one of their 360 mile pilgrimages each year from Nazareth to Jerusalem. They were heading home. Mary thought Jesus was with Joseph, and Joseph thought he was with Mary. But neither of them had Jesus in the forefront of their attention. After a day's journey, they both saw that they were wrong when they discovered that Jesus was with neither of them nor with any of the others traveling back with them in the caravan toward Galilee. Both were distracted. Both had taken their eyes off Jesus. This wasn't a sin, but it clearly was an imperfection. They took his presence for granted and the other was taking care of him. So they began to look for him with ever greater anxiety in the camp without finding him. It's every parent's nightmare to lose a child. They had not just lost a child, but also the son of God entrusted to them. So they journeyed all the way straight up the hill to Jerusalem anew and began to look for him there for sure, at the place where they had stayed, eaten and visited. They searched the whole second day without finding him. It's doubtless their began to grow. Finally, on the third day, they found him in the precincts of the temple area, sitting in the midst of the teachers, astounding them with his understanding, questions and answers when they confessed that they had been looking for him for three days with great anxiety, the 12 year old Jesus asked why they hadn't realized that he would have had to have been in his father's house, busy about his father's work. Well, they had taken their eyes off of him. He had not taken his eyes off his father. Losing Jesus for three days is not just something that points to his eventual three days in the tomb when the whole human race would in some sense lose his presence for that period. It also points to the anxiety, the hopelessness, even the despair that comes when we really lose the presence of Jesus in our life. Through sin, we can become like Mary Magdalene, the morning of the resurrection, asking everyone where they've taken the body of the Lord. The remedy is to keep our eyes focused on Jesus, who can't take His eyes off of us, to be with Him in seeking the will of the Father, to stay with him for a while in the father's house, so that we like him can be about God. The Father's business seeking to accomplish the father's will, just like we see Jesus doing to be with Jesus in this way. Something that will ground our hope. Always the scene of the anxiety of Mary and Joseph puts into relief that the Holy Family otherwise was totally focused on on helping him and each other to do the will of God. Our families, as well as the church, as the family of God, is meant to help us center our life on Jesus in a similar way. There's another aspect of the Jubilee in the family that Pope Francis brings up in his letter proclaiming the Jubilee. It's about openness to life, he writes. Looking to the future with hope also entails having enthusiasm for life and a readiness to share it. Sadly, in many situations, this is lacking. First effect of this is the loss of the desire to transmit life. A number of countries are experiencing an alarming decline in the birth rate as a result of today's frenetic pace. Fears about the future, the lack of job security, inadequate social policy and social models whose agenda is dictated by the quest for profit rather than concern for relationships. We see that almost a third of young people today say they don't want to marry and have a family for the sake of preserving the planet from more carbon dioxide emitters. But Francis says, however, that openness to life and responsible parenthood is a mission that the Lord has entrusted the spouses into their love for. The desire of young people to give birth to new sons and daughters is a sign of the fruitfulness that their love ensures for the future of every society. This is a matter of hope. It's born of hope, and it generates hope. Consequently, the Christian community should be at the forefront, pointing out the need for a social covenant to support and foster hope. Working for a future filled with laughter of babies and children in order to fill the empty cradles in so many parts of the world. Love, hopes, all things. If we're hopeful toward the future, we want to bring children into the world. If we're fearful, we don't. Openness to. Life is a sign that the married couple recognizes that Jesus, the bridegroom, the good Shepherd, is with them, gives them the courage to look to the future with hope rather than fear. Children are a concrete sign of the hope that Christians bear in the world and are meant to become agents of hope. So we look at the change they can bring into the world as the saints of the future. It's one of the important ways that Catholics can give our contemporaries a convincing account of the hope that inspires us as we in our own families recapitulate a little bit of the hope of the child in Bethlehem. It's one way that we show how those who have hope live differently. So as we celebrate on Sunday, the Feast of the Holy Family and the inauguration of the Jubilee in our various dioceses as well, to ask God with us, to convince us in a particular way of this holy present so that we may fulfill Pope Francis's prayer for the church. So we begin this special holy year. Pope Francis wrote to our witness may hope, spread to all those who anxiously seek it. May the way we live our life say to them in so many words, Hope and the Lord hold firm, taker and hope in the Lord Jesus, Mary and Joseph pray for us to be that hope. God bless you. |
| Ashley | Thank you, Father Roger Landry. Make sure to catch all of his great work at Catholic Preaching Icon, or you can follow his writings at the National Catholic Register. Go to NC, register dotcom, and until next time, we wish you all the very best and you go. |
| Emily Stimpson Chapman | With our prayers. |