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Lessons of Grief with Annabelle Moseley

• The Catholic Cemeteries Association

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CCAirwaves welcomes Annabelle Moseley! She is an award-winning American poet, author of multiple books, Professor of Theology, speaker, and podcaster. 

Join us for a heartfelt exploration of life's trials and triumphs, and perhaps find a piece of your own story reflected in hers.

Purchase your own copy of Annabelle's books:

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Do you have a topic you'd like us to discuss? Please email us at podcast@clecem.org!

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Speaker 1:

you. Hello everyone, and welcome back to CC Airwaves. My name is Paige Matillo and I am here with my co-host, joel Hansel.

Speaker 2:

Good morning.

Speaker 1:

Paige. Good morning Joel. How are you?

Speaker 2:

I'm fine. How are you?

Speaker 1:

I'm doing great, especially because we have a special guest joining us.

Speaker 2:

Love it.

Speaker 1:

She is an award-winning American poet, author of multiple books, professor of theology, speaker and podcaster. Let's welcome Annabelle Mosley. How are you, oh?

Speaker 3:

It's a joy to be with you today. Paige, I'm glad that you're here. Thank you, both of you. It's great to be with both of you.

Speaker 1:

Well, more me than Joel, I would assume. So how are you Tell us a little bit about yourself, annabelle? Oh Well, I'm great.

Speaker 3:

Thank you so much for having me on. I'm a mother, I have wonderful kids, I have little boys, I have a great. I love what I do. I teach theology and I love writing. I've always wanted to do that, since the time I'm a little girl, and I feel like I'm living the dream.

Speaker 1:

So what are your son's names? Oh, they're Johnny and Charlie.

Speaker 3:

How old are they? They're so cute. Seven and nine, that is adorable. They really are.

Speaker 1:

So we spoke a little bit about your book Awake with Christ. Do you mind telling our viewers what it's about?

Speaker 3:

Sure, so Awake with Christ is about living the Catholic holy hour in your home. And there's actually a subtitle to the book how Keeping God Prayerful Company in the Garden of Gethsemane Can Change your Life. So you know, we hear so often and we should right about the Eucharistic holy hour that we can attend at church, and I mean, I love it myself. It's something I do every week. I can't recommend it highly enough and there's nothing more important outside of Mass and the rosary.

Speaker 3:

Eucharistic adoration is really incredible for the life of the soul. But at some point you have to come home, right, at some point you have to leave the church and you have to come back to your home. And how do you keep that Eucharistic devotion and that very kind of personal, intimate love of our Lord going and thriving in your life at home so that, whether you live alone or whether you live with your family, you can really feel this wonderful thriving of spiritual growth in your own home as well? And I believe that the at-home holy hour is the way to do it. It's a way to keep company with our Lord in Gethsemane, which is a way to watch and pray with Him the way he asked us, the way. He asked us. It's right there in Scripture. Will you not watch with me one hour? I love it. Yeah, it's a beautiful devotion and it's personal too. I really feel that, no matter what you're going through in your own life, this devotion, this at-home holy hour, can change your life. I really speak from experience.

Speaker 1:

And what is your experience with that?

Speaker 3:

Well, you know it's an interesting page. When I was a little girl, I stumbled upon the at-home holy hour devotion long before I even knew what it was. I had been going through a terrible grief, a terrible loss. I lost the two most important men in my life within nine months of each other. So I was nine when my grandfather was diagnosed with cancer. He died when I was 10.

Speaker 3:

I kind of journeyed that whole very closely. I wasn't kept away from it. I really was there as part of kind of his caregiving and it was a joy and a privilege, honestly, to be with him. But we were very close and then, nine months after he passed, my father died and my father was, you know, a great dad. I mean, I still miss him all these years later, you know with kids of my own now, and I still think of and miss my dad every single day. So that was a lot. That was a lot to handle.

Speaker 3:

You know these two huge deaths in a row, within within only nine months of each other, and you know this agonizing loneliness would be how I would describe the way I felt.

Speaker 3:

You know those days, those weeks, those months, it kept going on where I struggled to sleep at night.

Speaker 3:

I struggled to just get through the day and what I found page was you know, one night I remember sitting up and I couldn't sleep, couldn't sleep and I just a prayer kind of came to me.

Speaker 3:

I was remembering my children's illustrated Bible that you know, a lot of us had as kids and I remembered the illustration of Jesus alone in the Garden of Gethsemane and how well his friends were asleep and he was going through this terrible agony. And I said to myself you know what? I'm with you, I feel like I'm with you in that garden. Let me be with you, lord. It just kind of came to me and it's not like I had any formal prayers that followed that I was just a kid but I kept returning every night page to just sort of be with him in the garden and it made me feel better and I realized I would say to him I would say you know, jesus, I wouldn't fall asleep with you. I'm awake anyway, I can't sleep. And I started to realize as I got older that it was really our Lord who was taking awake with me, who was consoling me.

Speaker 1:

That's so wonderful.

Speaker 3:

Thank you.

Speaker 2:

Annabelle, it's pretty obvious that your faith helped navigate you through the grief that you were feeling with the loss of your grandfather and your dad. What insights does awake with Christ provide to those who are mourning, and how can their faith help them navigate their grief?

Speaker 3:

Okay, so this holy hour that I had stumbled upon. You know, here I am a kid and I'm Unable to sleep and I'm feeling alone and I kind of instinctively, I really feel it was the Holy Spirit that just helped me. You know, I could never have found that on my own. God just reached out. You know how he says to us I will not leave you orphans. In scripture he says that I will not leave you orphans. I think I think it was literal in my own life that here he was being a good father to me. I'd lost my own father and my grandfather and he was fathering me.

Speaker 3:

Well, as I grew up I kept kind of returning to this devotion where, whenever I was having a hard time, I think of our Lord when he was at his lowest point in some ways. I mean, we think of Calvary all the time, we think of the crucifixion, but at least there you see John the beloved and our blessed mother and Mary Magdalene at the foot of the cross. They love him and they're telling him. They love him and the good thief tells him. You know, I believe in you. In Gethsemane he's all alone, he's, he's agonizing and he's by himself, and I really think that he does that partly in his, in his mercy for us, that we have a place when we're alone and when we're suffering, to enter in.

Speaker 3:

Now, all these years later, I grow up, I become a professor of theology, right, and I was. I was very interested in the devotion to the sacred heart of Jesus and it was in that devotion that I discovered that St Margaret Mary, actually in her visions of our Lord, right and this is very much church accepted visions, along with the first Friday devotions which many of us are familiar with, and this love of the sacred heart, st Margaret Mary was also asked by our Lord, and this is less known Joel. She was asked by the Sacred Heart of Jesus, please wake up and comfort me on Thursday nights. He said if you could give me from 11 o'clock to 12 on Thursday evenings to remember my time in Gethsemane and To console me there where I had no one to console me. So I read this and I'm like wait a second. That's what I've always been drawn to do, and here it was. Our Lord asked for it.

Speaker 3:

Now we could say, right, when we study our scripture, our Lord already is asking for it, right there in the Bible. Will you not watch and pray one hour with me? But then he comes to St Margaret Mary and he asks again Please, could there be souls that wake up from 11 to 12 on Thursday evenings and just think of Gethsemane and pray with me, even in your own home, in your own home. So I thought that was absolutely remarkable. And, of course and I always tell my students this and my readers this Please don't worry, if you can't wake up at 11 o'clock at night.

Speaker 3:

Our Lord is outside and beyond time and space. If you can, if you're awake anyway, like if you can't sleep, that's awesome. Or if you decide to offer that up and say you know what, as a special offering to our Lord, I'm gonna set aside that hour. There's so many graces with that hour, but if you do it in the morning or the afternoon, our Lord will accept that too. And I guess my message for anyone who's going through grief, through loss, through anything they're going through, that I've lived this personally and it's such a game-changer it really it brings such meaning to that time to offer it to our Lord Jesus.

Speaker 2:

Doesn't have office hours.

Speaker 2:

Men it's interesting that that that you talked about about the hour. That setting is setting aside the hour, whether you could do it in the morning or the afternoon or the evening, or from 11 to 12 at night, because this past Sunday at at mass was um, jesus is 40 days in the desert and and the priest in this homily was talking about how a Lot of us, throughout our, our days, will retreat to our desert. And when we retreat to our desert, we do things like Flipping through Netflix, trying to find something to watch, or, you know, we're thumbing through our, our phones, through through social media or reading articles online, and maybe when we do go to the desert our desert there that we spend that time with Jesus.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, taking an hour.

Speaker 2:

Right.

Speaker 3:

Very nice tie-in with the homily for this past Sunday, absolutely Well, that is a beautiful Lenten image. You know, here we are at the time of this recording. It's Lent, you know, and Lent is the desert, and it's another kind of, I suppose, desert experience to think of what our Lord went through in Gethsemane, although the image there is that of the garden, and that's the one that I suppose has been my favorite my whole life in terms of getting me through. It's the culmination of Lent. You know, holy Thursday is, of course, the first day of the Triduum and it's what we're really aiming for. Oh, lent, it's this sense of coming to the Triduum that much holier, that much more in love with God than we were at the beginning of Lent. But I love that place, set apart in the garden, that he is alone, that he, you know, in his wisdom, there his three closest friends are asleep and that really, and you know it's an image for us too. We fall asleep so many times in our life, kind of like what you're saying, joel, all the opportunities of times that we could kind of be praying, that, you know, the human side kicks in and we, let's say, look through the television, or we, you know, go through our news feed instead of the opportunity of setting aside that hour. That's what this at-home Holy Hour devotion really gives us.

Speaker 3:

It's that structure I actually set up. I actually started. I founded a website called CatholicHolyHourcom. I have a team as well that we started this team, catholicholyhourcom. You can go on and become a member and you'll actually be sent on the first Thursday of the month, as well as other Thursdays, and in Lent it's every single Thursday. You're sent a guided Holy Hour where it's totally for free. You get this guided Holy Hour that our team puts together that places you in the garden with our Lord. There's beautiful art, there's prayers, there's reflections, there's sometimes even music, and you can take that space and have that structure of okay, my hour. I don't have to think about how to spend the hour. It's right there and I can follow along with this prayer guide.

Speaker 1:

That's wonderful. I did not even know that about you in general.

Speaker 3:

Well, you know, I invite anyone who's listening to join us. It's really a beautiful community. We have thousands of prayer warriors there now and we even have priests that pray for us, that every Thursday night they do special prayers for all of our members. So you really have, and there's even a place where you can leave prayer requests. It's beautiful and it's really it's kind of that sense of a community, in like you're solitary with our Lord, but you're in a community with everyone doing this together. It's beautiful. It's CatholicHolyHourcom and you know you're so invited and so welcome to join us.

Speaker 1:

That's wonderful. I'll link it below for our listeners who are interested in joining that beautiful community that you have created for the people. Now let's oh, sorry, it is okay. So let's talk about your other book, our House of the Sacred Heart. Do you mind sharing a little bit about that one? Oh, I don't mind at all.

Speaker 3:

Thanks so much. No, so like, awake with Christ is all about how to do the Holy Hour, right. So just to kind of differentiate between them, awake with Christ is all about how to do the Holy Hour. What is the devotion? And then how do you practically live it in your life, right? Not just, I mean, there actually are holy hours given to you in the book, but also beyond, just when you're praying. How does this devotion kind of change your life? And there are actually many practical tips. So that's what Awake with Christ is. Now, on the other hand, what's different about Our House of the Sacred Heart?

Speaker 3:

This is a litany of stories, and I'll tell you what. If you're interested, you can get the hardcover edition. It's a little bit more, but it's full color art on every single page. Oh wow, we have such beautiful art. I mean, if you're someone who finds prayer assisted by seeing a beautiful Michelangelo, a beautiful Bellini, they're all in this book, on every page, to kind of enhance your devotion. The paperback has them, but they're in black and white, the pictures. And basically what we did is I took all 33 lines of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and each line becomes a story, a lesson. It's funny too. I mean we even have, by the way. We have lessons from as simple as the lesson of the shoes to the lesson of, let's say, the door, all these kind of common things that are from our own lives, that become more charged with the sense of the spiritual and of God. One of the lessons is the lesson of the cemetery, actually, and Our House of the Sacred Heart is really a place.

Speaker 3:

I wrote it during the COVID pandemic. I wrote it during a time when no one was able to visit with each other and, you know, everybody was kind of stuck at home. This is a book if you are feeling like, if you're grieving, you have loss and, let's say, you are living alone or you just haven't been able to bring yourself to get back into visiting people or seeing people or whatever you're going through, if you just want a sense of having company. This book is like a warm cup of tea given to you at your grandmother's table. It's literally about the house of my grandmother.

Speaker 3:

She lived in a red house and all the people that came in and out of the house. We had priests that would visit. There were priests in the family, there was a nun, but there were also all these lay people and she had six kids and it's all the people that would come and go. So you get these practical, real life stories of living a devotion to the Sacred Heart of our Lord in everyday ways, and then at the end of that chapter are these beautiful devotions to the Sacred Heart. So it really feels like a home, a place that apart that you can come and join us there at that table. It's very a welcoming book.

Speaker 1:

So you mentioned that you have a chapter that goes over the lessons of the cemetery. Yes, so what are those lessons? I'm curious. Buy the book. Yes, I like that.

Speaker 3:

Joel, thank you. Yes, you know, like okay. So the lessons in the book really run the spectrum. You know, I can't believe how much I learned from my grandparents. They're sort of the stars of the book in many ways, and it isn't true that many of us learn some of the best lessons from the seniors in our lives.

Speaker 3:

You know when the stories that we tell it really is and I encourage everyone keep telling those stories to your kids and your grandkids because they really stay with us. I know they did for me. My grandmother was unbelievable, you know she had gone through the death of my grandfather, which I shared with you, and then helped my mom and I through the death of my father. And I mean I go through like, for example and I'll get to the lesson of the cemetery in just a second, but just to give a quick view of her character, one of the lessons in the book is the lesson of the garbage of all things. And friends would say now, how the heck do you have a lesson in garbage? Do you know, when she was taking care of my grandfather, he had cancer. She would go out only one time of day because she couldn't leave his side. She was always at his side, but when he would fall asleep in the evening she would bring out the garbage. And it was at that moment that she said she would look up at the stars and she'd sigh and she'd breathe really deeply and she'd have her own private prayer. And she said it's so strange. But you know, here you are bringing out the garbage. It's literally the most, I don't know, boring and not glamorous, to say the least, moment in our lives. And yet it was the time she looked up at the stars. It was the time she said she felt God loving her. She had that moment alone and it was an incredible lesson for me to see that really there are moments to touch the holy, every moment of our life, even something like that. So she was very special and she was very faithful.

Speaker 3:

The lesson of the cemetery is that my mom and I would like to go and we would go plant at my father's grave. My grandmother made it. Now, remember I was just a kid I was 11 at this time and 10 before that with my grandfather. My grandmother made it something that wasn't how would I put it? It became beautiful. It became something I actually look forward to, even though I was a kid. You know, going to the cemetery she would bring a blanket. Sometimes, you know, we'd bring a blanket and we'd make it almost like a little picnic. We'd sit there, we'd, you know, we'd pray and we'd plant. And one day in the cemetery, I can actually read you right from the book it was a Catholic cemetery. I was comforted by the many statues and etchings of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. There was a huge statue of our Lord kneeling in Gethsemane. There was angels everywhere. In some ways, a visit to the cemetery almost felt like a visit to a church. A cemetery is an opportunity, a field filled with names, to wander through and pray for, a field of reminders to take up our own life to the fullest while we have it and we would we would stop and pray at other people's graves and pray for their souls.

Speaker 3:

One day, while we were at the cemetery, my grandmother was with us. She was tending the graves and as she passed there, she heard someone weeping my grandmother being my grandmother, this is her personality she wandered over to see the woman. The woman was elderly but sat on the ground in front of the grave, her head bowed down and her shoulders heaving my grandmother. Nanabelle was what we called her. Nanabelle had seen her before, always in tears. My grandmother asked her why are you crying so? And the woman replied oh, I miss my husband so much. Nanabelle answered well, do you want to be with him now? There was no answer. Nanabelle continued well, don't worry, I'm sure you'll be with him soon. The woman stopped crying at once. I don't want to be with him soon. I've got a life to live, she said and stood walking away with determination.

Speaker 3:

Nanabelle ran into that woman the next day and she hugged her and said thank you for those words. I'm still here and I'm still visiting with him, but I'm charged with more of a sense of God's purpose for me and that God didn't take me yet and I'm still here and I have work to do. So Nanabelle always enjoyed telling the story. She knew the advice might have seemed harsh in the moment but Nanabelle was living that same story with her own husband so she recognized the kindness she said when that woman wiped her tears away and stood with a look of determination. She knew, I guess, personally how someone can get lost in sorrow. It can be so difficult to find your way out. Remember my grandma was there a lot at that cemetery, but she said when she was telling that widow she was really telling herself.

Speaker 1:

Wow, your grandmother sounds like an amazing person.

Speaker 3:

She died at 101. When she died she still had, I like to say, her eyes were still sparkling. She was still able to be funny, wise, but she also knew when to just be silent and listen. She was someone who was filled with energy, but she'd also just sometimes take your hand and listen to what you had to say and she wouldn't answer until she really had thought about it and prayed on it.

Speaker 1:

She was one of a kind that is incredible and I think that lesson from the cemetery will really resonate with our listeners, specifically about how you can't get lost in the sorrow. You're still here. You will see them one day, but for now you're here and God still has a plan for you.

Speaker 3:

That's it every day we're here is that opportunity where God is saying you're in my plan, use your life, you've got a beautiful life to live. I remember Nana Belle sometimes saying once she turned around 97,. I remember her saying, wow, I'm still here. And I'm so feeble, she'd say because she was used to having a lot of energy. And she'd say, well, god still must have a purpose for me. And I remember sometimes what she did was she did like a phone ministry where she had been a driver pretty late in life but she was frustrated that she couldn't use her car anymore. She'd pick up the phone and figure out someone who was alone or home that day, not feeling well, and she'd be the person to call. And it was incredible, I'd say, you're still touching lives at 98, 99,. It was amazing. So she really lived it.

Speaker 2:

That's fantastic it is. There are a lot of people that they're just sitting around waiting for the phone to ring.

Speaker 1:

But she reached out to them.

Speaker 3:

Yes, and I think she was one of those people, joel, honest. I think she'd tell you so honestly that she was lonely. She had those Get Seminy moments where she felt and that's actually one of the things my book talks about when I said, how do you live this devotion? It's about taking that hour with our Lord and it's so comforting because you have this beautiful prayer and you feel this intimate connection with him. But now, okay, the prayer is over and you're back to what am I going to do today? Even just picking up the phone, even if you're homebound, you can't drive anymore. You're not the only one that's lonely, just waiting to hear from you, and you're going to make their day.

Speaker 2:

Another lesson. That's beautiful.

Speaker 1:

So, annabelle, for our listeners who are currently experiencing grief, could you offer some stories or advice that might help them find solace and strength?

Speaker 3:

Absolutely Well. I was talking about my incredible grandmother, so I'd like to first share another story about what life was like with her in the Red House, which I've come to call Our House of the Sacred Heart, and this story in my book, our House of the Sacred Heart, is called the Lesson of the Magnolias, and this was during a time of profound liminality. My father was actually in a coma At the time. He was in a coma for three weeks and my mother and I were just clinging to each other. It was the worst time of our life. Every day brought this kind of looming reality of impending doom and we were guarding each other. We were aware of how fragile everything was, but we both agreed that our strength came from each other. And the other Annabelle in our life All three of us were named Annabelle, so we called my grandmother Annabelle, and she was a real cutie, I have to tell you. She was just had such spirit, such joy in her eyes all the time, and she was like our Pearl of Great Price. You know, she completed our little trinity of women.

Speaker 3:

And one day we were driving home from the hospital, having been at my father's bedside, and we just been there for so many hours. It was now getting dark, the weather looked threatening and we stopped for food. All of a sudden, after we got back in the car, the car wouldn't start. So here we were, having just left a long vigil at the hospital. We're hungry, we're tired, it's starting to get dark and we're three quarters of a mile away from Annabelle's house. So it's snowing. I mean, this was like something out of a movie scene, where the snow is just coming down, it's like an instant blizzard, and the road that's normally very busy in our, in our neck of the woods, was abandoned. You didn't see a car coming down and it seemed like it happened in the blink of an eye while we were in the store. So all of a sudden now this is, by the way, before the days of cell phones so we couldn't just call for help, you know? So Annabelle shouts out above the snow. We can do this, you know, it's not even a mile from here. Let's get home and we'll eat. We'll worry about the car tomorrow.

Speaker 3:

So we, my mom and I, kind of look at each other. We all three of us link arms and we slipped and slid across what was normally one of the busiest streets on Long Island, but due to the snow, it was a ghost town. Annabelle gripped the pork chops and we gripped Annabelle. We could barely see in all that blinding whiteness and none of us had gloves. And my grandmother laughed. It's the three of us causing trouble, the three Annabelle's.

Speaker 3:

All of a sudden, we couldn't stop laughing. This laughter was a really unfamiliar sound in those days for me, those days of worry and sorrow over my father. And we were belly laughing. Snow was blowing into our faces as we scurried across to the other side and we found our way to Annabelle's house. Where's something else? You know what we are? We're the three steel magnolias. My mom shouted above the wind, evoking the recent movie by that title Tales of Grid and Grace, shared between bonded women. Yeah, the steel magnolias. I cried out with a laugh. Now all three of us had declared it. It was official.

Speaker 3:

We got inside the house, arrived in the kitchen, removing our coats, shaking off the snow, still laughing, I said out loud I'm proud to be one of the Annabelle's. And we all agreed. We all had bright red cheeks, socks resting on top of the radiator and an appetite, as a smell of frying pork and sauerkraut filled the room. I hadn't had an appetite. In weeks We'd all ate with abandon, despite our sorrow, and this was one example of the many adventures we shared together.

Speaker 3:

The lesson I learned on this day of my life was not to be frozen by fear, like we were in that blizzard, you know, and kind of metaphorically the blizzard we were going through of sorrow you just freeze in it. Sometimes it's very normal to just say I have no appetite and no interest in things anymore, but to keep pushing through until you find that life and love even again. There'll be laughter someday. The bracing cold of the snow will pass and there will be laughter again. So these days, above my living room sofa I have a print of three magnolias, all three as white as snow one in full bloom, one partially opened and one still abut. It's a constant reminder of what we face together as grandmother, mother and child, and how we three forge ahead anyway. Oh, thanks be to God.

Speaker 1:

That's a wonderful story. I love it, I mean three generations of women coming together, overcoming that fear and, like you said, not even just the fear of freezing.

Speaker 3:

Exactly. Yes, it was incredible to see how we could. You know that snowstorm and all three of us linking arms and heads down into the wind and coming in. It just reminded you of life, you know, and the love we had for each other and the spirit kind of that just gets you through. That will come again. When you're in that time that feels frozen Almost, think of yourself as going through that storm and everything will come back. Everything will come back. There will be the warm fire of home on the other side. You know of that pain, and even in the midst of it, that's what was amazing to me, paige. It was the worst. I mean, we had just left my father's bedside where he was in a coma and we knew we were going to be losing him and we still somehow, by the grace of God, had that moment together. It's there. It is there even in our darkest times.

Speaker 1:

It's there waiting for us. That's a beautiful moment that you shared with them and, honestly, god might have sent you that snowstorm to send you that reminder that everything would be okay.

Speaker 3:

Yes, but you know, I think it's that moment of test and I give so much credit to my grandmother for, like you say, seeing that God, that God sent moment, that God incident, and having the grit to say I'm not going to stand here and cry or get back in the car, and you know I'm just going to do this. She had so much spirit and we all learned from her.

Speaker 1:

Did you have another story that you'd like to share with us?

Speaker 3:

Sure, I have a story about the day after my father's funeral. We talk about this sometimes. You know, when we talk about grief that sometimes it's the wake and getting everything ready for the wake in the funeral and greeting everybody who comes. I know, even at 11 years old, I took a lot of comfort in standing at the door of my father's wake. I knew it was an opportunity. I don't know, somehow I realized I could meet all of his friends, I could hug them, I could sort of be there for my dad and it gave me something to do. Does that make sense?

Speaker 3:

You know you could make sense you could pick out the flowers for him, you could do all those things. And then the day after the funeral, it's a very hard day because everything just stops and all the busyness is over and you're just left with the quiet and the ache and the missing. So the story I have that brought real hope for me the day after my dad's funeral was I remember I was just a kid and I remember leaning against the lintel of our the bedroom door. This was at my grandmother's house. I was. We were staying with her. We had not yet felt ready to go back to our own home, the home that we shared with my dad. It was just too painful at that point and my grandmother was such a rock. So we were staying with her for a couple weeks and I was leaning in the Against the door of this guest room that she had and I remember the tears overtaking me. I was just a wreck and I was holding my dad's Prayer card from the week and the image we had chosen was the one of our Lord knocking at the door. It's that famous image where he stands there and knock, knock in. The door shall be opened. For Matthew 7, 7, and of course it's always God who knocks first, always waiting for our knock to respond like an echo of his returning his love. Well, I was holding that prayer card in my hand and I happened to be leaning against this door, you know crying, and who came by to visit? What a great day to visit, because this was a really tough day.

Speaker 3:

My aunt, anita Antonyda, was from my father's side of the family and she was this living legend. She was this tenacious Josephite nun from Brooklyn and she had founded and directed a school in Puerto Rico. She started it herself in a poor barrio atop a mountain, inaccessible from the main road, and the locals called her, and still call her to this day, the mother Teresa of Puerto Rico. She was incredible. She was born actually just two weeks after the miracle at Fatima, and the family legend said that that her mother wanted to honor the great appearances of Mary so said all right, bring her to the church, because in those days you'd get baptized, like a day or two after you were born, and the mom Usually didn't bring you, the godmother would bring you. So my aunt's mother said okay, go, you know, give her the name Mary of Lords. And when they brought the baby to the church, the priest said oh no, no, this child will be called Anita of Lords. This is the child's true name. So I mean this sounds like the story of you know some great, epic story of. The priest actually changed her name and it was a Puerto Rican name and my, my grant, my aunt knew this. She said Anita, that's a Puerto Rican name. A couple of her friends that were Puerto Rican were named Anita and she said I'm called to be a nun and I want to minister in Puerto Rico. That was the call she felt. So there she went, anita went to Puerto Rico and started this school.

Speaker 3:

She was known in Puerto Rico as the mayor of the mountain. She had a cane and she'd walk with her cane and she'd go up and down the mountain, checking from house to house in the slums, making sure everyone was okay, making sure they had enough to eat, was anyone sick, did they have a clean uniform that she provided for the kids. She was incredible. So now she was here in New York from my father's funeral and she'd come over to check on us. And you know it was amazing because just seeing her, you know you can imagine someone with this kind of grit the mayor of the mountain. She had come over to see me and she told me a story that changed everything. You know. It really was incredible. She told me the story that whenever she was going through a crisis in Puerto Rico and she had many, especially, you know, ministering to the slums where they're, you know, very little money she would always have to pray for any kind of intervention that they needed.

Speaker 3:

If they needed something new for the school, if they were low on food, she would pray. That was the only way and she said it would always, it would always come. God would always answer her prayer. She would open the door to a little closet that she had in her house and she called this little closet at her chapel and she closed it behind her. Now, think of a really poor place, right, this was her chapel. She'd open the closet, tug the pull chain that turned on the overhead light bulb, face the simple crucifix and kneel down on a rickety kneeler and pray for help. She would stay there, sometimes as long as it took to feel better, sometimes hours.

Speaker 3:

And her sister nuns say she'd come out with her eyes sparkling. She'd asked for a Puerto Rican coffee and she'd say I told him everything I had such a long talk with him and he knows so miraculously, the help always came from somewhere. And she, this aunt, this unbelievable aunt told me I'm praying for you. And when she told me the story about the door, you know that that she'd opened this door and she'd she'd stay there as long as it took. I Was leaning against a door. In that moment I was holding the prayer card that I was sharing with you was my dad's prayer card, which was knock in the door shall be opened.

Speaker 3:

Now, my heart was broken and I was at my lowest, but the message I got from that was keep praying until you feel better, keep praying for as long as it takes. And isn't that the message of Gethsemane, you know, kind of coming full circle to the devotion that I recommend in my book Awake with Christ. It says Jesus prayed the longer that's the actual quote from scripture. He was still suffering, he was still agonizing, and the quote is. And so he prayed the longer. And it was only after those, the third time he went back in prayer, that the father sent the angel of comfort. So that's a message for us. You know, sometimes it takes the longer, you know, we keep praying and all of a sudden we feel the comfort or we get that sign. It takes a while sometimes, but it is well worth it.

Speaker 1:

What a not what a wonderful lesson takes work it does, sometimes it takes longer than you expect. I mean, I mean not to sound strange, but in this day and age people are used to things happening very fast. I mean, you have Amazon Prime delivery, you have everything like everything's at your fingertips and no one really knows how to wait anymore.

Speaker 1:

They're not really they don't have to be patient for things. So when they pray for things and it doesn't come right away, or they don't feel better right away, they assume something's wrong. Well said, thank you Absolutely. And then they start to lose faith. But that is a wonderful lesson.

Speaker 3:

Sometimes it takes the longer yeah, and it took the, the mayor of the mountain, the mother Teresa of Puerto Rico, to teach me that that you know she would just keep at it. The funds didn't always come immediately, you know, when she needed them, or the help for the sick person she was worried about. It was always in God's will and in God's time. But she knew that the more she prayed, the better she'd feel, and then the answer would come and she just didn't give up. She didn't give up.

Speaker 1:

Now I know that you have one last story you'd like to share with us.

Speaker 3:

Sure I can share the lesson of the paperweight. I think this is a great message. This is a story. It's a simple story. It's about my father Before he passed away. It was after my grandfather had died and my dad really knew how much I was hurting, and he was hurting too.

Speaker 3:

And one day he came home from work and his eyes were shining and he said oh, I found the best thing. I've got to show you this. And he handed me a surprise he'd found. He said he'd been driving when something bounced out of the truck in front of him and rolled to the side of the road and my dad being my dad, he stopped to investigate. He pulled his car over and he said what was that that fell out of the truck? I just have to see this.

Speaker 3:

Well, he never could have guessed what it was. He picked up this beautiful blown glass paperweight. It was a glass paperweight and inside there was a yellow lily, an actual flower that had been preserved. Under the glass. Now, there was a gouge where the paperweight had fallen, but it didn't break. And when he handed it to me, it looked like a big fingerprint running all down this glass dome of his paperweight and you could see these little like pock marks, like little bruises all over the glass.

Speaker 3:

But this thing was beautiful. I mean all the imperfections, one might say. You know, if you even want to call it that, on the outside I happen to really love them. It felt like character, but inside, this perfect lily, and my dad had this big smile and he said honey, this is like the soul. The soul can be made even more beautiful through the difficult times we face.

Speaker 3:

As I placed my thumb against that jagged gash it was the smooth gash I was reminded of the wounds of our Lord and the redeeming beauty that came from them. I felt like my broken heart in mourning was something our Lord understood. It was something my father understood and I realized he had found a way to give me a gift of comfort. He was such a good and wise teacher to give that to a child in mourning, you know, and I thought to this day. I still think of Thomas touching the wounds of Christ and how, our Lord, he could have removed every scar he has, but he kept his scars there, you know, like an opportunity to show us. Your scars lead to your resurrection. As long as you have faith in our Lord, all of your scars will lead to your glorious resurrection in our Lord and through him.

Speaker 2:

I never thought of it that way. I know you just.

Speaker 1:

Your lessons are incredible. These are things that I never would have considered or even thought of, but you just I'm gonna sign up for class.

Speaker 3:

You have two new members. Please do join CatholicHolyHourcom. We would love to have the two of you there as prayer warriors.

Speaker 1:

It's really beautiful. I mean those lessons. I think that our viewers will really appreciate them honestly, absolutely. I mean each one.

Speaker 3:

I hope so. You have great viewers. I mean you have incredible listeners and viewers with all that they're going through, I hope that can reach them, you know, like a hug from God. Really I hope.

Speaker 1:

So, annabelle, now that we're wrapping up the podcast, is there anything that you'd like to share? Any upcoming projects that explore the themes of faith, grief or healing that our listeners should look forward to?

Speaker 3:

Sure. The current project I'm immersed in right now is called Thursdays in the Garden, so it has me really prayerfully busy. During Lent. We're creating at CatholicHolyHour our team is creating a brand new Thursday HolyHour for every Thursday of Lent. So normally we just do like the first Thursday of the month or we'll do special Thursdays here and there, but because we really want to honor our Lord for Holy Thursday Holy Thursday is when he goes into the garden we want every Thursday in Lent to be a way of keeping him company, of saying, yes, lord, I will watch and pray with you. You're not alone. We're not there in biblical times with him, but we can be with him spiritually.

Speaker 3:

In fact, it's been said I think Padre Pio mentioned this that you know when the angel of the Lord brought our Lord comfort in that garden, what was in that comfort? What was part of that comfort? Padre Pio said all of the prayers we give our Lord and get sent to the heavenly, even now, since our Lord is outside of time and space, he received then. So the love, that Holy Hour that you do with our Lord and get sent now, can actually make him feel your love there in the garden of Getsemane. What could be more beautiful than that, not to mention any grief pain. Anything you're going through will be consoled through this devotion. So this is CatholicHolyHourcom. Just sign up to the first Thursday Club or Thursdays in the garden. It's totally free and we really can't wait to have you join us.

Speaker 1:

And for all our listeners, I am going to link everything down below the books, the Catholic Holy Hour, just so that way it's in one convenient place for all of you. Thank you so much for joining us, annabelle. We really appreciate you being here and for sharing about your books, your lessons, your website.

Speaker 3:

Thank you so much, Paige, and thank you, Joel. It was really a joy to be with you. God bless you both.

Speaker 2:

Thank you for joining us. That was fantastic. Loved our time together.

Speaker 1:

Me too, and once again to our listeners. Everything will be linked below. Thank you for listening to CC Airwaves and we will see you soon.