Transcription
Welcome to the program of the hearts of the holy family. I'm your host Steve Jacques and today we have Dr. Sheila Kusbik who is the liaison for, uh, the messages of Our Lady, Queen of Peace in Medjugorje. And we have a beautiful message to share with you, which really coincides with the message that was given 50 years ago to, um, to Servant of God Maria Esperanza on, um, the, uh, the title of the apparition there is Our Lady, Reconciler of Peoples and Nations. And Our Lady seems to be echoing that message, but really for, for our times and for the events that are happening right now in the, in, in the United States of America, but all over the world. So, thank you, Dr. Sheila, for being part of the show.
You're welcome, Eves. Well, we're in March. We're in spring, actually. How wonderful.
Um, yes.
And, you know, Our Lady is very aware of every detail of what's going on, not only in the world but in our lives. And I think she makes this very clear in this message that I'm going to read to you, which is from March 25th, 2026. I'll begin.
"Dear children, the poison of selfishness and hatred rules the human hearts, and that is why you do not have peace. I am calling you, little children. Be love in my extended hands to all those that you meet in humility. Pray for peace and work on reconciliation among people, so that it may be good for every person on earth. Thank you for having responded to my call."
Eve, right off the bat, as I read this message, this is a message where Our Lady is revealing to us, and she has that gift. People don't realize she has the gift to reveal the hearts of men. That's Our Lady of Sorrows' gift to the world. And here she is revealing the problem in our hearts. And it's so important, I think, that when we begin to speak, and when Our Lady's speaking to us, no one's exempt from what she's asking us to take heed of. We are all part of the problem because we're human. We're sinners, and we get tempted like everyone else. We sin like everyone else. And Our Lady knows, but she knows the remedy. But before we can get to the remedy, she has to point out what's wrong. And right off the bat, she says the poison of selfishness and hatred is what's being, is ruling our hearts, and that's why there's discord, unrest, and lack of peace in the world. That's why there's war. War again is not of God. God does not want war. He wants peace.
Yes. But when men's hearts, the hearts of men are not purified, have not come to repentance, when we walk around with lack of humility, and our egos get in the way, then we're drinking the poison of selfishness and hatred. And what is poison? I always teach my, my listeners, go to the dictionary. You'll find out a lot more than what you think you know. Poison is deadly. So Our Lady's making it very clear that selfishness and hatred lead to death. There is no fruit. It is not fecund. It will lead to war, chaos, and destruction. Right? It's harmful to the human soul. It's harmful to relationships, selfishness, and hatred. And you may think to yourself, especially if you're striving, you're striving to be a good Christian, a good Catholic, you're, you're striving to follow the commandments and to live out the gospel message. We always can go deeper. Even those of us that are trying to walk the walk and are conscious and frequenting the sacraments, we still can learn from this because Our Lady's asking us to go deeper into our hearts, into areas of our lives where selfishness has taken hold. And I start with selfishness because what is it? What, what is it to call somebody selfish? There's something good about being conscious and loving yourself and taking care of yourself and being all that God created you to be. That's not selfish. Selfishness is when you're preoccupied with yourself to the extent that you leave out others, and you don't see others' needs, and you become void of anything other than what your needs are, what your comforts are. And, um, usually that involves becoming filled with, puffed up with your pride and your ego and power to the point where others are being oppressed, not noticed, not seen, or pushed aside. So it's an advancement of your own wants and needs to the exclusion of others. And here we should be reminded right away of the two greatest commandments. The two greatest commandments, my family, are to love God with your whole heart, mind, and soul. We know this. This is catechism 101. And, and it doesn't say, you know, lesser that, and to love your neighbor as yourself. Well, if we love ourselves, if we truly love ourselves, and we know what we are in God's eyes, then we are going to be able to look at our neighbor the same way. But when there's something wrong with our hearts, which all of us are guilty of, we all have these problems. We have wounds. We're sinners. Um, sometimes the enemy gets in and sneaks into places in our hearts, not intentionally, but it happens. And so Our Lady's asking us to make a correction now and to look deeper into our hearts because even though in our own domestic churches, in our own little worlds, outside the big cosmic problem and conflict right now, our correction of ourselves directly impacts the world. That's the beauty of walking with the Lord, becoming, you know, purified, becoming more humble, and joining this army of love that's going to conquer the hate and darkness of the world. We each have a part in that, and we have to pay attention to that.
So, she also talks about hatred. And, you know, right off the bat, I'm like, I don't hate anyone. Do I hate anyone? My goodness, my family, when I spent time before the Lord, I really had to check my heart. I had to check the progress of my heart. From the time that I've been conscious of my sinfulness and my misery up to now, 65 years of my life, have there been times where I have fallen into the sin of hatred? Yes. Yeah. I'll tell you, I'm a passionate pro-lifer. And it's easy to get into this renouncing and speaking ill of those that commit abortion. It's very difficult, but it's possible to love those that are committing abortion because that's what God wants us to do. But there was a time where I just hated anybody. Couldn't imagine how anyone could love somebody who could destroy another life.
Does that sound familiar? And my family, we're in a war right now that's involving people of different cultures. Whether you call them Russian, Muslim, American, Jewish, are we not hearing this language of hatred? "I hate them." It's hatred is stronger than dislike. It's willed for the, for, for something bad to happen to somebody when we hate. We do not desire their good. We do not will their good. We do not bless. And Our Lady understands our circumstances. I think of the beautiful St. Maria Goretti, right, who was stabbed by this man that lusted after her. And you could see where somebody could be angry, that leads to resentment and hatred of this man. But because of Maria Goretti's love and prayers for him, even on her deathbed, he became right. He's up for canonization, from my understanding. Um, and he, he's been doing penance his whole life because she chose to forgive and love the man that afflicted and killed her.
This is grace, my family. It's possible. But this is what we're talking about when Our Lady's looking at the world right now as we're speaking because we're so polarized. We're so divided. How many times do we hear, "I hate the Republicans. I hate the Democrats. I hate this." How many times do we hear, "I hate my sister-in-law. I hate my father. I hate my mother." Because of wounds. Wounds that have hurt us. Wounds that have closed us off to love and grace. So you see, this is something that Our Lady is asking us to spend time on. And I believe that the best time for this to happen is during this beautiful Holy Week that we're entering into as we're taping this, because Jesus in his Passiontide, in his walk in the Via Dolorosa, is loving and forgiving all those that he encounters that betray him. Judas. How he loved Judas. How he had to wash Judas's feet, knowing that Judas was going to betray him. And yet his love for Judas never changed. When the soldiers whipped him, he turned. I could only imagine the gaze of Jesus looking at those that are afflicting him with such bodily pain, in the gaze of love. This is divine love, my family, that is possible for us to enter into if we desire and ask and pray for grace. So Jesus is going to be our model this week of getting rid of the hatred and selfishness in our own hearts. And look and see how Jesus gave everything. He did not withhold one bit of his body, his physical body, his emotions of love, right? And his Sacred Heart, which poured out blood and water. He gave of himself. He blessed the world, and divine mercy became real for us. And we were saved because of Jesus Christ, the God-man, who teaches us divine love. So, it's not impossible to love those we hate or struggle with. Sometimes I use the word, we may not actually hate or wish for somebody's death, but there are people we struggle with. Let's be honest. There's some people we don't want to run into today that bother us, that do something to our, uh, insides because of either fear, or they just drive us crazy. Even the great saints had people that they struggled with, or things that they struggled with, but they knew that it was God's will for them to love. And love is willed. It's an action. You know, Eves, I think of Our Blessed Mother too, in this message. Our Lady, her servant, her servant's heart from the very beginning. Our Blessed Mother knew no other way but to serve and give totally of herself, like her Son. And her heart was positioned from that from the beginning when Jesus was incarnated into her womb, and she became the Mother of God. She did not sit at home and pamper herself, letting the town know she's pregnant and therefore, "Wait on me." What did Mary do? She quickly made haste because the angel told her that her cousin Elizabeth, who has many years ahead of her, was pregnant. And she knew that Elizabeth needed help. And love propelled her to go to move out of her own needs, her own self, and go and stay with Elizabeth. Well, she did more than that. She brought Jesus to John the Baptist, and the two cousins met in the womb, and we know the rest of the history. But Mary, being pregnant herself with God, served Elizabeth for three months. And it was a long journey. So her servant posture, her servant attitude from the very beginning is something that we need to model. Now, what gets in the way of a servant's heart? Selfishness. We can be selfish of our time, right? We think we, we think that what we need to get done sometimes is more important than what God is asking us to. My family, we need to understand when the Holy Spirit's prompting us to do something that's important in God's plan, because that prompting doesn't go away. And it could be a difficult prompting. It could be something where you're going to have to take some time. You might have to visit with somebody. There might have to be, um, a correction somewhere. In order for God to, uh, Jesus to be ministered to somebody, it's going to require our cooperation. So we have to be very conscious of where in our day we're being selfish, slothful, lazy, whatever. Or I call these sins of omission. So this is really an area where we look at this week before we enter into, you know, the Holy Triduum. Where are we omitting to do good to our neighbor? Where do we omit being of service to somebody? There is always somebody to help. When I hear people say, you know, "I'm just at home. I really don't go anywhere. I don't go that far." A servant's attitude is always to give something. You can give a smile. You can give change. Funny story this morning. You know me and my funny stories. I was at Cumberland Farms, running, trying to get gas and getting ready for this podcast and all these things. And of course, God was testing me, and I was in line, and there was a gentleman ahead of me. And God bless this, he was a veteran. I probably was in line for about seven minutes, just under 10. And I was looking at my watch and checking, 'cause I left my keys in the car, thinking, "Okay." And I was getting restless. I knew what my heart was saying. I was getting restless. I was getting impatient with the man in front of me. And then a gentleman next to me said, "Here, I'll let you cut in front of me so you don't have to wait." And the Lord corrected me right then and there. I needed correction. I tapped the gentleman in front of me who was struggling to count his change. I said, "Let me buy your coffee." And he looked at me with the biggest smile and he said, "Okay, good-looking lady. I'll let you buy my coffee today." [laughter] And, um, we had a beautiful conversation going out to the car. And my family, I spent more time talking to him, and here I was worried about time.
That man needed to feel love. He was a veteran. We talked a little bit about his battles, how he served our country. And I ended with a hug and got in my car, and I said, "Thank you, Jesus, that you reprimanded me." But this is what I'm talking about. All these little things, these little promptings where, you know, what can I do to make the situation different? Where can I bring love and extend my hands? That's the second part of the message. Be love. It doesn't have to be big things. St. Therese teaches us, it's the little things done with love that are monumental and so fecund and fruitful in the kingdom of God. We may not be called to the big things, but we sure are called to the littlest done with perfect love to help another human being. And so Our Lady says, "Be extended hands. Be her hands." What do we do with our hands? Well, we can do many things. We can bless another person. How many times do we have the, I call it the guts to bless somebody, to touch them, to hug them? You know, the world is deprived of physical contact in love. After COVID, we have forgotten. I think we're getting a little bit better, but we have forgotten that the human person needs to be touched. That's just scriptural. Jesus touched everyone. We are made to touch. We are made to commune. And so it's okay. You, so many people say to me, "Well, I'm not a hugger." Okay, you don't have to hug, but you can place your hand on somebody. There's such a difference in tenderness when you approach somebody with a touch than when you stay far away. That body language is different. You bring more love and you make them feel more welcomed when you can touch. You can feed people with your hands. You can cook. You can give. You can work. There's so much you can caress. You can take care of the elderly. There's so much that we can do with our hands to be extended hands. Literally, we can help our neighbors. It's spring, uh, cleanup time. All of this not centered around ourselves, but about others and others' needs. So important. I think we also need to go back to scripture and be reminded about where our Lord tells us that selfishness is not the answer. As a matter of fact, selfishness keeps us from heaven. My favorite passage is Luke 6:35: "But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High God. For he is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked." So if God is kind, and his mercy and his love never changes, he's expecting us to act the same way because that's where the fruits of conversion come. That's where souls are saved. That's how heaven works. Right? In St. James, I'm reading a few scripture verses to remind us. He says, "Wherefore, where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice." My goodness, is that not Our Lady's message? "The poison of selfishness and hatred rules the human hearts, and that's why we have no peace and we have war." 1 Thessalonians: "Make sure that no one pays back wrong for wrong, but always strives to do what is good for each other and for everyone else." So, it's so important, my family, to be conscious each day. Ask the Lord to send you somebody that he wants you to minister to. Ask him to introduce you. One of the things I do every morning, not because I'm a goody-two-shoes, because I know that God waits for me to ask, and I'll say, "Jesus, I'm available to you. Whoever needs help, send them to me. Whatever you want, Lord." And so many times, almost every day, you know, my schedule gets disrupted. What I think is my schedule. But it's okay. It all works out in the end. And I know Eves, you can tell stories about that, because as we go on our day, every person that we come in contact with from the time we leave our house, and even when we're within our own domestic churches, becomes our territory of souls.
So if our, our heart is filled with our own self-centeredness, we're not going to see the needs of others. So ask God to remove the blinders so that the next time you go to the grocery store, you're going to see where somebody needs help. Or you just might approach a stranger and be bold and bring them the good news. God bless you today. How many times do we say that? "It's so nice to see you. Thank you. You've blessed my day." I'm sure many of you do, but many of us don't. We're afraid. There's so much fear, the fear of man, to keep us from becoming intimate and loving with each other. This type of love that Our Lady is talking about is not the love that rules the world right now. I think you know what I'm hinting to. The rule, the love that rules the world is a lustful, aggressive, self-centered love. This romantic love gone wild. We have taken love and disordered it. Divine love is centered on the Trinity. How the Trinity loves. The Father loves the Son so much that the Son returns it reciprocally. And their love is so intense that it's dynamic. It's not static, that it creates another person of the Trinity called the Holy Spirit. Do we love like that? Do we love expecting nothing in return? That's a big one. And that's something to think about for confession. When we do something good for somebody, are we doing it out of the purity of our hearts because we love, or are we expecting something? This is good for husbands and wives to really think about. [laughter] You know, sometimes our, our primary motive might be our spouse to do something, so we're going to do something first. No, St. John of the Cross tells us, "Put love where there is no love, and you be the first one to put it there." That's the step. Sometimes when there is disgruntle or relationship problems or people not getting along, it's because neither one will budge, right? We've all been in those dynamics. "Well, I'm not going to be the first one. I'm not going to." But St. John of the Cross says, "You put love where there is no love. Be the first." And I can tell you, my family, that is a blessing to be able to get past your own angst, your own resentments, and decide for love, because that's what Our Lady's talking about. That's what's going to bless the world. And we have to practice this in our small microcosm first so that the grace can go out to the world. You see, as, as things escalate, and I believe that as things get more difficult, and we may be in a situation in our own country here in the United States, not too soon, where we may not be able to get the goods and the means of what we're used to on a daily basis because of war, because of selfishness of nations. There could be lockdowns. Look what's going on in Cuba right now where the grids are down. I have friends there that they can't get food. They, there's no light. There's no electricity. And what are we going to do in those situations? Are we going to be worried about ourselves? Or are we going to reach out, band together, help each other, love thy neighbor? Because that's where the fruit and the grace is going to come. Sometimes, Eves, the only thing we can do is be with somebody to console them, to spend time. We may not be able to have any major impact, but to be there. And it reminds me of my time in Medjugorje during the war. I didn't have the sophisticated medical team or maybe even the sophisticated medical knowledge to be there during the war when the atrocities were going on. But what I did have was a heart that was broken and loving these people, and being with them, consoling them, holding these mothers that lost their infants, holding these mothers and children that had no father figure on their home front because they were on the front lines. Those were the times where even though I had nothing, or I had no solution that the world would grant, I had the love of Jesus Christ in my heart for another. And there were many times I felt like Our Lady in the Pietà, where all I could do was hold them, but I could love them and not be afraid. This is the type of love that the Lord is asking us to step into. And Our Lady, she says also here, "in humility, pray for peace." She just doesn't say pray for peace. And I pondered this. She said, "in humility." So I think sometimes when we are praying, and prayer becomes commonplace sometimes, and we pray for peace, she's asking us to go deeper into repentance, to be humble, to know where we ourselves have not been peacemakers, to renounce where we have erred. "My Lady, I come before you. Forgive me for the times when I have been the cause of division in my home, where I have not been the peacemaker because of my own ego, my own wants, my own desires. Today, Mother, thank you that I recognize my need for mercy." That's humility. "Remind me, Blessed Mother, that I have not always chosen the right way. Forgive me, Lord. Today I beg for peace." That's the prayer she wants to hear, acknowledging where we went wrong, not everybody else. She's always asking us to go into our own hearts. So that prayer of peace has to be centered on our own little, again, microcosm where we've gone wrong.
Confess.
Confess, and then bring it to her in humility. And, and that prayer touches the heart of Abba because it's pure. It's in repentance, and God is going to use it to repair on the grander scale because that's how God works. She says, "in humility, pray for peace, and work on." She knows it's not going to happen overnight. So when she says, "work on reconciliation," it's a process. It's a process. For any of us who have been estranged from loved ones, or there's been feuds in families, it may begin overnight, but the process of accepting them as they are, loving them as they are, not expecting change right away, but just to love them where they are, even in their error, is what she's hinting to. Because reconciliation, two parties have to meet that are different. Two parties have to meet that may hate each other. And so they both have to come together in love, willing to lay down the weapons of hatred and selfishness, and to begin to open their hearts to accept, to surrender, and to allow the grace of God to come so that change will happen. It's so important. Reconciliation is what God wants. He wants that in families. He wants that in marriages. He wants that at nations, in towns, villages. He wants it everywhere. But it has to begin with ourselves. And we need to ponder that. Who do I need to reconcile with? Who do I need to apologize to? Where have I kept my own? You know, some of you may say, you know, Dr. Sheila, you know, you're very vulnerable with with telling us about what you've done wrong. And, you know, I am because we're all in the same boat of being human beings where we struggle. And sometimes I think in marriages where two people are coming together in conjugal love, and this is the love that God wants. This conjugal love means you could have two people from two different extremes coming together, becoming one flesh. It involves a progress. It doesn't happen overnight on your honeymoon, because the honeymoon's over, and you begin to see the flaws and the defects of the other. But the last thing we want to see is our own. But it's our spouse that God has given us that's going to show us in great mercy where we need to improve, right? Where we need to improve. I remember, um, shortly after I got married, I love my mother-in-law, but she's could be a bossy lady like I can. We can both clash with our own, um, I don't know, our own egos, our own wants. And the Lord, I don't know, maybe about 10 or 12 years ago, when I was in prayer, allowed me to go deep into my heart to where I needed to forgive her. Where I really needed to go deeper and make a conscious effort not only to pick up the phone, but to go face to face and say, "I'll just say her name is Mary. Mary, I need to talk to you. There was a time not too long ago where I disliked what you did, where I held resentment in my heart towards you, avoided you." Imagine somebody. And she listened to me patiently. And I said, "And there were times where even though you hurt me, I now have to forgive you. So, I'm making this effort to do this." And I'm going on and on and on, being specific as possible. And she, in her own beautiful heart, looked at me and said, "I have no idea what you're talking about." [laughter] "I have no idea what you're talking about."
Wow. Well,
True. In many cases, it is true.
But I had to be the first one to break this cycle of whatever was going on.
Yeah. Yeah.
We can all, we can all, um, we all have this. It's
You had to unburden your heart, right? You had that burden, and you, uh, wanted to forgive, and, uh, and she was saying, "All right, this is a long time ago. I've gone way by by by that." And that's is really true for all of us, really.
Right. Right. And, um, you know, one of the things that I do think about this message, this is really at the heart of, of the, um, Hearts of the Holy Family, as well, is the, uh, is the reconciliation of people's inclinations. It's like it makes me think of a little of a Servant of God, Maria Esperanza, where that's really her life mission, right?
And she started, she started at home. She started with her children, you know, to raise them properly and to, and to, uh, this mission of, uh, you start, of course, any reconciliation starts at home. If you're, if you're in at war at home, well, you're not going to fix the war in, in the, in the nation, right?
No, not at all.
You're going to contribute. You will contribute to it.
Yes. Yes. However, um, this, this cycle of selfishness and poison and, uh, and, and people get into it. I know, um, we're all guilty of it to a certain degree. It's like, you, you listen to the news and you say, "These people are on my side, those people are on the bad side," and we don't, uh, we don't try to reconcile. You know, I, I, I, I recommend, um, I really commend Pope Leo, saying that we need to, uh, open the the doors of reconciliation, you know, uh, because some people say, "We can't reconcile. There's this, this, and this." We can't. Humanly, we can't. But with God, we can.
Right.
And that's why we need to be humble and, uh, you know, let go, do the miracle of reconciliation of peoples. And, and, and he, he will, he says, "so that it may be good for every person on earth." Does that mean just some people on earth? Does that mean that is that exclude the Muslim, Muslims? Does it exclude the, uh, the Jews? Does it, because everyone is a certain, there's certain camps, and where is my heart? If it's in the heart of Jesus, well, Jesus loves them all. If it's in the heart of Mary, she wants, she's their mother, and she wants them all to go to heaven. So I think, you know, the, um, it isn't but haphazard that the message was given 50 years after the, uh, apparition and the message that was given to Maria Esperanza in Venezuela on March 25th, um, 1976. And now here in 2026, Our Lady is saying that to us in, uh, in Medjugorje. And there's two things that I just want to, you know, for those who are listening, there's two, I, I just look at Maria Esperanza. This was given to her as her life mission is, you know, to love everybody. And, you know, you notice the two things with Medjugorje and Betania is that Our Lady's love is always accompanied by, you know, supernatural graces that people receive there. You know, I've heard so many stories of, you know, the apparition there was, uh, hundreds or maybe thousands of people that that saw the Blessed Mother that day, and they were personally touched. And, um, so I think this mission that Our Lady is giving us is that if we do our part to bring this reconciliation in our little way, that she's going to do fantastic things.
Right.
For that they will never, something that we've never seen before. And of course, we need to, to pray. Some people think it's unrealistic. We need to be humble because, you know, if, if you look at, you know, if people look at the situation in the world, they're saying it's irreconcilable. It's, it's irreconcilable, right? And Our Lady says, "Yes, it's reconcilable." Right. She is the, uh, Reconciler of Peoples and Nations. So she, we need to ask her to reconcile. So I thought that, you know, it's really beautiful. And I do think that the, this connection between the two messages is just so beautiful and so timely for the people to hear today.
You know, there was another piece that came to me in prayer when she speaks about "be love" and the poison of selfishness. We have to look at our world because Mother Teresa of Calcutta made a statement at the prayer breakfast, I forget what year this was when she was living, that "there will never be peace in the world until we stop destroying life within the womb." So the love that we're talking about and the selfishness now that we're talking about, even in, um, relationships, has to go so far as to look at conjugal love. This is such an area where there are many Catholics that are at conflict with the use of abortifacients, abortion, contraception. And again, if we're going to be free to love, we have to be fully available. We can't keep anything back. Love must be free at all times. It can't pick and choose. It can't be, um, what's the word? Open to certain things and closed to others. And I think Our Lady's talking about that contraception is a selfish act. Mother Teresa took that to the extent of speaking more about that, that war and abortion are related because of this selfishness in thinking that this is love. And so the Church has never changed its teaching on conjugal love at all, that it is, it is both union and procreative. And when I was meditating on this, Eves, I thought to myself, "Okay, we're talking about conjugal love in a sexual term that is free, that's open to life, that's, uh, has mutual fidelity to both the, um, you know, the wife and the husband, that's trust-filled, that's faith-filled." But that's the same kind of love that we have to love our enemies with. Meaning somebody who killed our relative. Can we be free enough to say, "I choose to love"? M. Can we become one somewhere with knowing that that person who committed this violent act is wounded, doesn't see, has never experienced, as Our Lady tells us all the time in Medjugorje, "Don't call them unbelievers, call them those that have not experienced the love of God." Can we at least go there in our hearts to say, "This person, God bless them, never experienced love their whole life. They were abused. They were tortured." And so they've been in a prison of darkness. Can we say also, "I'm going to choose to love." This poor person who once was a child, never had anyone to trust. So divine love begins to take it and break it down. And we see that in order for this to become unified, where we put down these weapons of hatred and become one because we're made in the image and likeness of God. And if this one wills this instead of hates, it becomes fruitful, just like conjugal love giving forth life. It's the same thing. It's the Holy Spirit doing the work in us to bring us to a place. I think of, you know, Nazi Germany during the war. The Jewish people that had to forgive the German soldiers when you think of all the animosity that went on. We're dealing with our own wars, not just abortion. We're dealing with wars of, um, we see it now with Epstein files. Can we love Epstein? Can we pray for him if he's alive? I don't know. But I'm, I'm taking this to the extreme because God loves him. How many people out there have prayed for him? Remember, God says, "I do not wish the death of the wicked, but their conversion." But that means we have to pray for them. We don't have to feel anything lovey-dovey in our hearts, but we have to will the good. Imagine, my family, I'm making this up now. Let's say that Epstein is no longer alive. And let's just say that he's in purgatory somewhere. I'm just making this up in my own head and in reasoning through this how Christ wants us to act. With all the vile acts that he committed, he somehow was saved because of prayer or grace. But now he's in purgatory. Every time you and I pray for him, he gets closer to the light and the love of God. How do I know this? Bernard Nathanson. Dr. Bernard Nathanson, who I was blessed to meet. And remember, I told you earlier in the show, there was a time where I really hated people that were committing abortions. It was just, I didn't know any better. I just despised anyone that could do that. But God was working on my heart, and he allowed me to meet Bernard Nathanson eight years before he died. And this was a man that was responsible for over seven, I don't know, 70,000 abortions in New York City, including his own children that he aborted. And you may say to yourself, "My gosh, how do you love somebody like that? Look what he's done." And then he comes into the light because people were praying for him when he was alive. And then he's baptized into Christ, into the Catholic Church, by Cardinal O'Connor. Eight years before he dies, he received this great gift of divine mercy, which means, my family, every his slate was wiped clean, and his temporal time in purgatory was erased. It makes you think that maybe Bernard Nathanson could be a saint in heaven. And if we could pray to him, which I do. I pray to him a lot. His intercession could be powerful to end abortion. This is how God wants us to think. The sinner becoming saint. There's no sinner that is void of the love and the mercy of God. But God requires us to pray for them, to pray, to pray for our leaders, world leaders that we hate, that we hate. How many of us are going to humble ourselves, praying for peace, to forgive, and pray for them? This is the message. It's hard. But all it takes is your will to want the good. So if that's where we have to start, to want the good of the other, for no soul to go to hell, and God's mercy, all it requires is a drop of his precious blood over that soul. My goodness, we can be saving so many souls. We are part of this great army that's not equipped with drones and missiles. We're equipped with love, divine love, prayer, the will and the want to do good, and we're equipped with the mercy of God because God has given us mercy. The other way to think about this is imagine if this were you. Imagine if I was Bernard Nathanson. Would I not want mercy? We should never think that we're above anyone else who might be a grave sinner. We're all culpable. We're all capable. And if you think you're not, then you have to work on humility. It's only by the grace of God that we're not in situations that seem impossible or insurmountable. That's God's grace. I was with my beautiful elderly father yesterday, taking him to the dental office, and we're on our way home, and we were praying the Chaplet of Divine Mercy. This moved me to tears, and my father said to me, "Sheila, I'm so thankful that God gave me the family that he gave me. A." He said, "Imagine if I didn't have you or whatever. I could not get help or healing. I could be on the the roadside." He had this huge awakening, and it was so much love pouring out of his heart where he was saying, "God, thank you. Thank you for my life. Thank you for my blessings." My father's a tough Irishman. He doesn't always talk like this. And I'm beginning to see that he's beginning to see how blessed he is. We need to see ourselves that way. But when we see somebody else that is not blessed in the same way, that is being tortured, or that has nothing but evil around them, my family, pray for them with whatever love is in your heart. Begin to thank God for them. That's something I want to talk about. When we can take somebody that may be so despicable, that is making headlines in the world, that is being, you know, the worst evil person in the world, and we can thank God for their lives because God created them. Amazing things happen. My beautiful exorcist friend, Father, uh, Paul, Eves, you know him, told me and taught me this from the very beginning. He said, "Sheila, one of the quickest exorcisms that he ever had was his first, and it all had to do with thanking God for the person that was in front of him that was fully possessed." And that broke the stronghold. And afterwards, when this person came back to Father to thank him, the words out of this person's mouth were, "No one has ever thanked God for me."
Oh.
Strong words. What is that? That's love. Divine love.
Amen. Yeah.
That's the way God wants it. So sometimes when we're praying for people that we don't like or or struggle with, begin by thanking God. Begin by thanking God. A friend of mine called me yesterday, a beautiful friend of mine who's a lawyer, who's struggling with a difficult case right now and is being threatened. Her life is being threatened, and she really needed prayer. She was scared, frightened, and a beautiful Catholic, that such an amazing lawyer who takes very difficult cases because of the love that she has, uh, for God's people, even those that have nothing. But this time, she needed protection prayer. And I said, "Well, the first thing we're going to do is thank God for the person that's threatening you." [laughter]
That is love. That's love. You know, it reminds me of Cabjo, uh, because people, their whole families were, uh, murdered, you know, by, by machete. It was not pretty.
Right.
And, you know, you're absolutely right.
I remember meeting one lady, and I, and she was so happy and so joyful, and I said, "What? What happened?" And she just said, "Well, I'm from Rwanda, and I forgave the people that murdered my family, and it changed my life." She actually acknowledged, um, you know, that reconciliation that she had was very, very powerful, which, you know, it brought me to tears because I saw so much love and so much joy, and that's supernatural. It's, it's not natural. Naturally, you would be, you would hold a grudge for the rest of your life. And that's what people are doing. But Our Lady has a better plan. She wants us to reconcile, and so that we could receive that joy that she wants to give us for eternity, you know, and as bring as many souls as possible. This is really the message of, uh, reconciliation. It's,
Yeah.
It's hard work. It's work, like, it's Our Lady says, it's work, but it's worth, uh, doing. It's work worth doing because it really is going to transform the world. You know, those who desire, and, you know, we know those who are follow the message of Fatima, we desire the triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. This is part of the triumph. Without this, there will be no triumph because we're going to be lobbing bombs at each other and hating each other. And if we don't change, we'll hate each other. We'll hate for eternity. Those who are in hell, they hate, and they will continue hating for eternity. So, it's really, uh, something to ponder on, you know.
You know, I think this week, Eves, as we're closing, um, today, I placed the cross behind me because today the Lord gave me another beautiful image of posturing our hearts, tying in with this message. When we gaze at the cross, Our Lady is inviting us to come to the foot, to come to the foot of the cross. And what do we do at the foot of the cross? We, as mothers of the cross of love crucified, we kiss the feet of Jesus in an act of complete humility and repentance. And to be open to know where we went wrong, where we've been selfish, where we've been full of hate, resentment, anger, all of these things we just discussed. We bring it to the foot of the cross in a posture of complete repentance. And then what do we do? We lift our eyes to the open side of Christ, to where the lance pierced his beautiful heart, and blood and water gushed forth. Because now that we've repented, we are ready to be filled with divine mercy, to be fed with the Bread of Life, to be renewed in our baptism, to be clean, to be open, to be pure. And then we look again, and we see Christ's arms nailed to the cross, which is an act of extending our hands to love, which requires sacrifice. Sometimes we're not ready to do this, or God is asking us to do something that seems insurmountable, but his sacrificial love. And that's where we see Christ with his arms outstretched. And then as he whispers his last words to the Father, "My family, know that when you do this, Abba delights. The Father in heaven rejoices, and the fruits and the grace are ours to receive for the world." How simple, how beautiful, the cross teaches us this. So Blessed Mother, we thank you for your message. We thank you for showing us where our hearts are closed, where our hearts are selfish, where we have harbored hatred and lack of love. And we bring to you now our failures, begging for God's mercy. Jesus, we kiss your feet, pierced with a nail because of our sins. And in humility, Blessed Mother, we pray for peace. Mother, stand with us at the foot of the cross, cover us with the precious blood of Jesus that flows from his heart. Fill us now with the love, divine love, divine mercy. Send us out now to extend that love in our hearts, in our hands, in all of our gestures, in our senses. Remove the blindness. Send us out as apostles and victims of love. Father, may you be glorified in all that you are doing in making all new. We ask this, Jesus, in your holy name. Amen.
Amen. Amen. In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
What a beautiful prayer. Very, uh, very beautiful. And, um, you know, this is a, this is holy work because Our Lady is counting on all of us, without exception. So for every person on earth. So that's not the, that includes all the people that we there you consider on the other camp, which God wants them in his camp. And so we, we want to be all together with them for eternity. And, you know, the example of Bernard Nathanson is really striking because, uh, you know, people, even I know some people, they have a hard time believing that, you know, he, like, they'll say, "This person doesn't deserve heaven." Well, no one deserves heaven, right? But, you know, that's how, what is it called? Scandalous love.
Scandalous mercy.
Mercy. That's, I think that's the word that they use. How God could do this. He is so, he lavishes us with so much mercy, and that's for everybody. He desires. We just need to say yes. So, this is a very encouraging, um, and also a, a great mission, like you mentioned in the prayer. We're, we're, we're being sent out on mission. Um, you start with your family. The sanctification of the home is the first thing, and then you go to your extended family, and then the world, because it's all part, part of the, we're all part of the family of God. So,
So much. Do you want to end with a, a comment before, uh,
You know, I just want to, um, first of all, wish everyone a very blessed Holy Week. The Triduum is my favorite time of the year. I like to go into the dark recesses with the Lord, and beg him for further purification so that we can be apostles of love. My family, let us take this time seriously. Let's not be distracted. We have a lot to pray for in the world, and our Mother is counting on us. She calls us her little children, her army, her victims of love, and that's what we're being called out. So take this time this week to be with the Lord, to comfort him, to console him, and to let him move your heart, to be purified to such an extent that the light will overcome the darkness of this world. Hallelujah. Amen. I cheated. I said it before Easter, but it's okay.
Amen. Thank you again, Dr. Sheila. And thank you all for for participating. And please be reconcilers of people, like Our Lady's asking. Thank you.