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This is Like a Mother with Katie McGrady, the podcast that brings you honest conversations about motherhood. The ins, the outs, the ups, the downs, the realities, the joys, the struggles, the pains, the moments where we think, I can't do this. And the moments where we rejoice that we are doing it and everything in between.

I'm your host, Katie McGrady. We are so happy you're here. 

We take our girls obviously to mass on Sunday,  which you do go to church as a family.  And we slide into our pew on the right side of our parish church.  And we kneel down  and you say some prayers before mass begins. And not long ago, Rose, who's in second grade. So she's preparing for first reconciliation and first communion.

She asked me,  mom, why do we kneel before church?  And I said, well, you walk into the church and Jesus is present in the tabernacle. And so we take a few minutes and we pray. Thank him for being there.  Thank him for getting us through another week. I'll ask him for help over the course of the next few days.

I'll tell him what's on my mind or what I'm struggling with.  And I could tell the little wheels in her head were spinning and she was trying to understand fully  why I would want to talk to Jesus about my week or ask him for help.  And so I phrased a question. Very simply, as simply as I could, I said, what would you want to tell your best friend? 

And she looked at me without missing a beat. She said, well, Mary Catherine's just sitting right over there. I could go tell her anything I wanted.  It's funny how kids sometimes, you know, throw back in your face  a moment that you think is going to be, this is it. This is when she connects with the Lord in a new way.

This is when she's going to pray in a new way. But  I did notice that she kneeled  probably because I told her she had to, and she seemed to be thinking, I don't exactly know about what.  And so then my prayer became.  Lord, give her faith.  I wonder if that's a prayer that all moms should be praying more often.

Moms of little kids, moms of preteens, moms of angsty teenagers, moms of young adults making big decisions. Lord, Jesus,  give them faith.  Help them hold on to their faith.  Help them be able to defend their faith.  Give them a deeper understanding of why faith matters, and why we're prioritizing going to church as a family.

Praying in the evenings, living in the liturgical traditions of the life of our church. Just give them faith.  And I wonder if we pray that prayer, Lord give them faith, if we can then also add on, and Lord give me the strength  to teach that faith.  To give witness to that faith. 

In today's episode, you're going to hear a story about when I, I saw my dad praying in church once he was praying this novena  to find work  and he was praying it off of his phone and at first I was kind of annoyed that he was on his phone and mass and then I looked over and saw I was, you know, the screenshot of this prayer  and I was deeply moved  because I saw his faith. 

When I go to mass with my mom and my dad,  and I so very clearly and vividly can see that at the moment of the elevation of the host, my mom makes this really profound bow of her head,  this moment of deep acknowledgement of our Lord is present. Those witnesses of my parents faith in my young adulthood, in my adulthood, I remember so clearly.

And so now I also can think back to the profound witness of my mom and dad when I was little  and how faith was such a priority for us.  How can I do that with my own children?  How can any of us hope to build that faith in our kids? Beyond, Lord, give them faith, but Lord, give me the skills and the awareness and the hopefulness I need to be able to impart the faith.

You know, there's a ton of podcasts about all sorts of various components of our church, of our life in the church, of parenting, of marriage, of motherhood, of fatherhood, so many different things.  that we can tap into, resources that are available, books to read, hopefully real life relationships with people that you can have conversations with.

I mean, there's so many, we're kind of in this golden age of things available to us.  And so I wanted on today's podcast a conversation show that really tries to encourage you in your motherhood But also just very honestly and vulnerably kind of work through some of those hardships and those challenges and hold those two things Side by side.

I wanted to sit down with somebody who I deeply admire her motherhood all of our guests I very much do  and I deeply admire the way she does ministry her motherhood informs her ministry Her ministry certainly informs her motherhood. I've known julianne stands for a number of years kind of from afar You I got to do an event in her diocese many, many years ago, and I was just captivated by the way she was such a leader. 

And that really is the word that I think defines her. She's such a leader in so many beautiful spaces  of being able to spark really great conversation about how are we walking through faith with our kids? How are we encouraging them in their faith? What can we do both practically,  And kind of 10, 000 foot view to ensure not just the next generation has faith, but generations beyond that, because what we give to our kids, maybe they will one day give to their children.

Hopefully so. Right.  The other thing I really love about Julianne, she's got a great Irish accent. She's from Ireland. She came to the United States many, many years ago. And we talk about the ways that she kind of has a foot in both worlds, a home in both places and what that has done to her faith, what that has done.

And, and, Encouraging faith in her children. I love this conversation. I think it's such an important one too, because so many of us, so many of our listeners, our kids are young  and our target audience is a lot of times between like five and 15, we've got some older moms and some younger moms. We've got people kind of all across the spectrum here of the ways that we are engaging with raising our children.

And this conversation is both practical and encouraging, but also really reveals the way one family is doing it. And. We can all kind of learn from that. Julianne is also a professional in the world of catechesis and ministry and evangelization. She's got a number of books, which we have linked down in the show notes, from Loyola Press.

Incredibly practical advice that's available. That she's compiled in these really, really great resources. So today's episode is one of those you can, you know, pull out a notebook, a pen and paper, and take notes of these practical tips, as well as just appreciate the Irish Brogue in the course of our conversation.

We're grateful that you're here. I hope you enjoy this chat with Julianne Stanz about not just surviving parenthood, but passing on a faith that we love. 

I was talking to my kiddos this morning  and at one point like I mentioned like we needed to say our prayers before we left for school and Rose, who's seven, she looked at me and she's like, Mom, I do like so much praying at school and she goes to a Catholic school. So like, it's not surprising that she was like, I'm not into this right now.

But like, how do you, Julianne, welcome to the show. You've got kids older than mine. So you've probably tackled this before where they're like, Mom, I don't want to do the Jesus thing. Like, what's your response to them when that happens?  There's always time for Jesus,  right? Like there's always time for a cup of tea.

There's always time for Jesus. And so like, I think one of the things that we can do is break the routine of how our kids perceive prayer happening. And so I love little simple things like, I know that many of the listeners have little little kids that listen in on your show, Katie. And then. Yeah. others who have teenagers like myself, and that span in between.

But when you put their, their, their shoes on in the morning, because they often can't tie their shoelaces, make a sign of the cross over their feet, right? Oh, wow. So right, you've just been like, may God guide your steps today. It's like those kind of moments that I think transform how a child sees themselves communicating with God all day.

So that's one of my big ones for like little You know, when you're putting on their little sweaters, you're zipping up their jackets, you're buckling them in their car seat. You know, sing Christopher pray for us, just really simple. And so you can break the, okay, let's all stop and pray. That's great. But interweave it as part of your day.

I love it. It's the tactile. I mean, it makes it sacramental in a lot of ways. Julianne, introduce yourself to our audience because you've got that. wisdom both as a mom, but from a professional capacity. You've done such incredible things, are doing such incredible things in the church. Tell us who you are and, and what you do.

Oh, thanks, Katie. I appreciate that. I respect you greatly too. I, as a mom and a minister, I, um, grew up in Ireland, came to the U. S. and, um, have worked at all levels of the church, um, from diocesan to parish to collaborating with committees, um, at the Vatican. And so I've spent a lot of time, uh, ministering  in a lot of different contexts, speak all over the world, have written six books.

My new one is called the Catholic Parents Survival Guide, uh, because that's what a lot of Catholic parents are doing. Um, but I also was a part of the executive team for the Eucharistic Revival. And so I know many of your listeners have listened. in and heard a lot about the revival from you Katie and what an amazing event that was.

So for me, I just think being part of school communities, parish communities, being part of the diocesan life, being part of the USCCB, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, to me it's all been part of this mission that I feel like God has set me on, catapulted me on from my homeland in Ireland to be here to share and encourage people to live their Catholic faith in a culture that.

often I think marginalizes faith and squeezes it out in ways that are sometimes insidious for moms and sometimes very direct. And so how do we as Catholics create space for each other to have an authentic voice around our traditions and our faith and practice our faith in a way that is a sign of hope for people?

That's the intersection of a lot of the work I do. Yeah. It sounds like your motherhood very much informs your ministry.  Very much. And today I am Director of Outreach for Evangelization and Discipleship for Loyola Press. And I go all across the country listening to moms, listening to dads, listening to grandparents.

And what I hear, Katie, is so much heartbreak around I wish I'd known this. I wish I had done this. I wish I had spoken to my children. I didn't know this. And you know, you hear the weight of guilt around that and I don't want parents to feel like that. I think there's enough in the culture that makes us feel like we're not doing good by our children.

Like we're not feeding them the way that we should. We're not putting them in all the activities. And I, I want to encourage parents who are listening today. I mean, the very fact that you're listening to, to Katie's show today, to me is a sign of hope. You're leaning into this conversation, um, we're creating space for each other to dialogue, to raise our kids in a way that is countercultural for sure,  and not just to be good human beings, but to be sane.

And so I think we have to get real and get into the nitty gritty of people's lives. And so for me, my motherhood is at the intersection of that realness. You know, my children. go to Catholic schools, but they were often made fun of for going to Catholic schools. So when I talk about evangelization, how to share your faith, I'm remembering the experience of my children being made fun of and having to defend their faith.

To me, that's where we have to get real about the conversations that we're having around faith and how to live it in this, in this world that we're in. Yeah. You mentioned that word heartbreak and I think that's very true. I had a, a very hard conversation with someone at the Eucharistic Congress. She kind of caught me in the, this was like the story of the entire Congress was getting caught by people when I was in transit from point A to point B and like some of the best conversations I've, I've ever had. 

And she shared with me, I, in My Kids Are Little, a seven and a three year old at the Congress, six and three,  and she shared with me how her kids have completely left the faith. She's an older woman, her children have completely disaffiliated, her grandkids aren't baptized,  and how heavy that is for her.

And she, I mean, she looked at me and she was just, and this is in the hallway of a convention center, and I'm like trying to get to a podcast recording, and she's like,  What do I do? Like, what do I do to bring him back? And I, I didn't have the time in that moment to share with her, but I assured her that I would pray for her.

I, I sent her off to different publishers and I said, there's tons of resources. There's tons of people, like there's so much out there.  But I, and I, all I left her with was just pray, pray for the gift of faith in their hearts. And then as I'm like finishing my walk to get to this podcast recording that I needed to get to rather quickly, I thought, in 30 years, am I gonna be in that same place?

And like, how do I avoid being in that same place? And my mom and dad are incredibly blessed, I think, and they did a fantastic job. And my sister and I did not leave to faith. I would say half of our high school classmates have. And like, we went full in, like, like super Catholic, like one works for the church, one's a canon lawyer and a nun.

Like there's no more Catholic that we could have gotten. And yet I think if I were to ask my parents, what did you do? Neither one of them would say, Oh, we did this, we did this, we did this. Like there's not like a formula, but there are things that we can do. And I, and I think you're right getting into the nitty gritty  of how we foster that faith so that that heartbreak isn't something we later on have, or so that we can walk with people who are in that heartbreak.

Before you said the heartbreak thing, you said the culture kind of squeezes faith out in this insidious way. Talk about that. What do you mean by that? How are you seeing that?  Yeah, I mean, I think it's something as simple as, you know, being made fun of on the school bus because you get dropped off at the Catholic school.

Or if you don't go to Catholic school, the fact that you're. Sunday is sacred and that you have intentionally carved out time for your family to go to mass on the weekend when families are out boating or they're on the lake or they're swimming or they're going shopping. I mean, so I think, I think also, so we have that, uh, reality.

And then the other reality that I see where faith is really squeezed out is on social media, online. And, um, I think that this is particularly hard for women because the role models that we hold up of womanhood are not healthy often and they are very competitive and there's a whole culture around making you feel bad about what your house looks like, what you look like, what you're eating, what you're doing.

And on the face side of things, We believe faith brings wholeness and integration to the human person, right? Mind, body, and spirit. And that conversation is squeezed out. It's like, I just see it on social media. The things that go viral, the, you know, the influencers that are out there are hawking fashion and, you know, home wears and things.

But those of us that are trying to have conversations, real conversations about human connection, our desire to belong, um, wipe. why there's historic rates of addiction and mental health crisis. And getting underneath all of that, we want to marginalize that conversation. And so I think it isn't, it's like a vice.

You know, my dad was a mechanic and he used to have a vice in his garage and it would like, he would squeeze, he would tighten it slowly. And I think that's accelerated in the last couple of years where that tightening has come. And a lot of moms will tell me that, Um, they are really struggling with, um, how to, how to project, uh, a culture in their home of faith is important to us because when they do that, they receive such negative.

um, pushback and criticism online too. So I think those are two realities for us that we have to be careful around. Yeah. Yeah. I posted a photo the other day on Twitter of, uh, it was last, last Friday, they brought all the littles from our Catholic school to the church to introduce them to the tabernacle just to give them like a visual of, yeah, this is, and like bringing them close.

Sister Maria Hope, like, let the little kids, like, walk up and touch the front door of the tabernacle. Oh, I love that. It was precious. It was adorable. Claire came home and she told us she got to visit Jesus teeny tiny house. I was like, yes, you did. You got to visit the teeny tiny house of the Lord. And I love that.

It was like this very tactile thing. I posted the photo on Twitter. I've got a lot of followers on Twitter, a lot of non Catholic people. And somebody tweeted back at me like, Oh, I see the indoctrination has started early. And it just like hurt my heart. Like you don't have to agree with me, but I'm not indoctrinating  my child.

I'm, I'm sharing the culture of our faith. Like that's the job that I've  taken on. Like, that's what I said I would do when we brought her to the church.  So let's talk about that. What are some things maybe that you're doing in the Stan's home that you're doing with your children who are teenagers? So I'm sure it gets harder as they get older.

I worked with young people for a long time in youth ministry. So like, I knew it was hard on that side. So it's of course hard when they're that age in your house.  How do we build that culture? What are, what are some things that we can practically do? Maybe let's start with like, what's one thing that you guys do in your house that you wish every Catholic family would make a part of their routine and their rituals and their rhythms? 

We pray together as a family and I think it all starts with building a culture in the home. where the foundation is prayer. Like, I talked about putting the children's shoes on and making the signs of the cross, but simple things like, I dropped my son off this morning for school, he wasn't feeling well, he was feeling okay, well enough to go to school by the way.

Yeah, that weird, like you're hoping the school doesn't fall this afternoon. Yeah, morning, but it's, you know, it's time now. And um, I just held his hand in that moment and just said, you know, God is with you today.  And he's here with us right now. And let's just give him our stress and our worry for the day and to be at peace.

And that was it. Um, so those moments, I take time for those moments every day. And that's what I wish parents would do is to recognize that creating space for prayer can happen in lots of different ways that, and it can look unexpected. You know, you can wonder, I tell parents a little of this a lot. I remember when my children were very little, my youngest is nine. 

When you have your children, sometimes you don't know what to do, right? When they're very, very little, you walk in and they're babies and you check to see if they're breathing. Do you remember that moment, Katie, when you would do that, right? You almost wake them up. And I would do something, I called it the hover prayer, because that's what my husband said you're doing.

But I would just, Go in and I would just put my two hands over their crib and I would just pray every hope in my heart for this child, you know, that they would be strong, that they would love the Lord, that they would be good, that the Lord would have their vocation in mind and would strengthen that.

Okay, like all the hopes and dreams that I had, I would pray over them silently in their room at night.  I feel like it was those moments that connected our family much more than you know, do this thing, go here, go there. I think the other thing I would say too, prayer and pilgrimage are linked. Going away, getting out, seeing different churches, going to different shrines, helps connect them with the universality of the church.

And so make these little trips, you know, we, we take trips all the time as families. You know, we go to Disney, we go wherever families are going today. Um, But I feel like it's really important to go to shrines and places that create sacred moments for children and to just immerse them, to plunge them into those moments, um, so that when they come away from them that they feel like something is different there.

Why is it different? The other thing I, I think too is at night we have two questions we ask. What was the best part of your day? Where did you see God? And then where, What was the worst part of your day and why? And it kind of functions like a mini examine.  And so, the examine is a great way for us to understand our own motivations and desires and little get this, like, where was the best part of your day?

I got to see Jesus in his tiny house. Right. What was the worst part of your day? It was when I was kind of bullied or when somebody spoke down to me or whatever. And so this is where you can bring the Lord right into those conversations and I would encourage parents to take the time to do that. You can do it in your car.

On the way to school. It can take five minutes.  Yeah. I love that. I think it's important, too, to like  listen to our kids in those moments of answering. My husband and I have to practice a lot of patience sometimes because Rose tells stories like we do, long and drawn out Cajun stories. That's Irish. It's very Irish.

It's very Irish. It's very Cajun. And like, we'll look at each other and be like, do we say get to the point at some point? Or do we just let her, do we just like let her go? And then halfway through, You'll get to that little nugget, and you'll be like, Oh, this was what she was, she was getting. She's seven, so she's learning how to, how to do this conversation.

And then we, One of my favorite Pope Francis lines of his entire pontificate was that listening likens us to God. Like, we get the opportunity to sit in that holy moment with her. And, and listen, our youngest is She's getting to the point where she can articulate those kinds of things. But most of her, her bad day is usually other kids in the classroom may be behaving badly.

She never really talks about herself in that moment. She just wants to be like, Leah did this or, or, you know, Bri did that. Um, but I think it's so, I love what you just said about this,  making those intentional moments really matter because in a decade when our kids are out of the house or they're off to college or they're having families of their own, that then becomes a part of their family culture.

They're the ethos of what they want to maybe build in their own little nuclear family. You, you came to the States from Ireland. Tell us that story. Cause I know it's kind of a wild story how you met your husband and the way that the Lord brought you. I don't know that I would have left Ireland to come here, but I know that you love it and that you're here and that like you still get to go back home and you still get to bring your children.

back to the homeland, so to speak. Tell us that story, how you ended up in the States. Yeah. So I, Ireland is always, when I talk about Ireland, I always talk about it as home, but when I'm in Ireland, I talk about the U. S. as home and that's the immigrant reality. You've always got one foot in both worlds.

Yeah. I think I often say Ireland is my homeland, but America is my heartland. because I just fell in love with the American people here. And the kind of encouraging, generous, optimistic, hopeful spirit that I think is at the heart of American life. Like I was just talking to a bishop friend of mine in Ireland, and he said to me, this is something that we have lost actually in Ireland, is the sense of hope.

that we have for the church and for the world. And so that really struck me. Um, so I grew up in Ireland and I had this moment, Katie, it's so Irish. I went on pilgrimage. I climbed Crow Patrick, which was Ireland's, is Ireland's holiest mountain. It's called the Reach. It's where St. Patrick spent 40 days and 40 nights in prayer before his public ministry to convert the Irish.

And I went on that trip with, you know, 25 other girls, I went to an all girls school, received a great education from the Sisters of Mercy. And we went on pilgrimage and there was a priest on that trip that was helping us understand St. Patrick and he spoke about Patrick as if he was real, like he was just with us.

And so this was the first time that someone had spoken about the saints where I felt like the They were alive. They were around me. And I went on this pilgrimage and as we got to the top of the mountain, and it's quite a climb, several hours of a climb,  I, the sun was just illuminating, uh, Crowpatrick and there were all of the drumlins, which are tiny little islands.

They say there's 365 of them just all around the Bay. And I felt this rush in my heart of gratitude  with the beauty of it all. But the thought that as beautiful as this is, it's a, it's but a reflection of God's love and I had never considered it. And I remember this welled up in my heart and I said to God, wherever you go,  wherever you send me, I will go. 

And so I went and I studied theology after that and, um, took a break from teaching.  in graduate school to come all the way over to teach in a little Catholic school and be a director of religious education. Just took a year out to do that and just explore what God was doing. And I was here and after three years then I met my husband and my mother was like, then it was all over.

We knew she was not coming home. And so I've been in the U. S. Actually, if I can share this with your listeners, this is an emotional month for me, September, because I left Ireland at the age of 23. And I came to the U. S. on, um, September 24th, and I now will have spent exactly half my life in Ireland and half my life in America.

And it's, it's raising such mixed feelings for me as I raise my children here. They're dual citizens. Um, but it just, it's just, it reminds me that half of my heart is still in Ireland. So it's a reality you live with as an immigrant. Yeah, I had, I had dinner with Cardinal Czerny in May and he said something and you just echoed it how like the immigrant is always kind of in two places at the same time and how  that's hard.

Like you feel almost like uneasy in some ways as you're embracing home in a new place. But also still feeling that tether to where you are from. You mentioned your kids are dual citizens. I think that's awesome. What a gift for them to have that second passport. How do you foster a love of your homeland in them.

I know y'all went to Ireland recently with your kids, which is incredible. We go over and back. Yeah. Yeah. So that means they're used to this, right? Like they know, like we're half Irish, like this is part of our culture. Yeah. Yeah. And you know, there's, you know, Ireland, there's a lot of different ways, I would say to parents, if you're not Irish today, but you have roots in another culture, whether it's German or Belgium or Belgian or Polish, what I would say is,  You have asked me some great questions, like, what is the one thing you would, you know, have parents look at?

And one thing I would say is, don't mirror the world in, in the traditions of the world and the rituals of the world. Mirror the church. I'll give you an example of this. And this might be controversial, so I'm just going to say it, but we have beautiful traditions around Advent and Christmas.  Um, in every culture, every culture has different foods, um, just beautiful ways of bringing the season alive to prepare for the birth of Jesus.

And we do in Ireland too. I struggle when I see people mimic things like the elf on the shelf. No, not hating on anyone. If that's what you do, more power to you. But what I would say is  that's a secular tradition and I get that it prepares children to receive Jesus, but so does the advent calendar. So does the JSA tree.

Um, in our home, we do something called advent angels. We have a little angel that kind of moves around doing good things. It's similar to the elf on the shelf, but it's, but it's a uniquely Catholic tradition. So I would say, reclaim your Catholic traditions. No matter what they are, I'll give you a great example of that.

At Christmas we often see a lot of candles in the windows of people's homes. A lot of people don't realize that's an Irish tradition. So between 1600 and the early 1800s, the practice of Catholicism was outlawed in Ireland and it was a very, very dark time for the Irish church.  Priests were, um, murdered, um, many left and went overseas.

It was an offense to have a rosary in your pocket and to be praying in your own language. And so there was this suppression of the culture.  Catholic people wanted to keep their faith alive and they would leave a candle in the window for priests that were traveling under the cover of darkness from one village to another to let them know that there was a safe place where they could celebrate a Catholic man.

And so. I love this tradition because it harkens back to the idea of there was no room for Jesus at the inn. And is there room at the inn of our heart to welcome and invite people? And so I think placing the candle in the window, you know, battery operated, whatever it is, To be a beacon of hope, particularly for those who have no home, for, for those who, uh, whose faith is, um, under persecution around the world.

I mean, you can really look at this from a lot of different respects, but that is a unique tradition that I wish we'd recover in our homes. And I think it starts there. It's mirroring the language of the church rather than the language of the world. 

Can we talk about Bibles for a second? St. Mary's Press wants to help your child, tween, or teen. Learn, love, and live the scriptures.  Their Bibles are incredible. They're colorful and engaging designed specifically for each age group and offer unique Catholic content. So young people can connect with Christ. 

Take a look at smp. org forward slash Bibles  use promo code mother. That's M O T H E R and get 5 off your order. Bye. In laws, uh, have candles in their window, uh, they're in northeastern Pennsylvania. My mother in law is Polish, my father in law is Irish, and so like, they both claim that the candle in the window is their thing.

Like,  my mother in law's like, oh, that's the thing the Polish do, and my father in law's like, no, no, the Irish did it first. And so my daughter, Asked last year if she could have a candle in her window. Uh, so I bought a little battery operated one. I told her you can turn it off. You can turn on. She's like, no, mom, a real kid.

I want fire. We're like, no, no, no, no, we're not doing fire in the children's bedroom, but it was, and she like had no idea the history of it. She just knew that it was something her grandparents were doing in Pennsylvania. So she wanted to do it in Louisiana. And so when we can like tether them to something that's.

Historical like tether them to this deeper reality and like you are a part you wrote a book about the thin places like in some way like that, like engages us with this thin place of feeling the holy and the sacred in our, our secular world that where our faith is sometimes challenged or where somebody claims I'm indoctrinating my child.

You said the sisters of mercy, it's the RSMs that are at our school, the religious sisters of mercy, who I know started in Ireland. And, and I always remind my daughter like, no, no, they've got Irish roots. So this is like part of our family history. You mentioned hope, too, which I think is such an important word for moms, holding on to hope with our kids and our families.

How have you seen that hope in our American church? And, and like, reminding us, of course, that the church is vastly different in other parts of the world.  And I mean, right now in Ireland, we can look at France, the eldest daughter of the church, where faith is definitely dim in a lot of ways, even though there is this great love of Notre Dame Cathedral.

In Ireland, I know there have been struggles in keeping the faith alive. So how are you kind of balancing, okay, my homeland is some ways they're losing their faith, or there's a smaller community of people keeping it alive, versus Eucharistic revival, and we just had, Arguably the, the coolest thing we've done in the American Catholic Church in years happened.

How do you balance those two things? Yeah. You know, I think for those that are listening in, I'd invite you to pray for Ireland and the people of Ireland, especially because in the last couple of weeks, there's been a report that has surfaced around abuse again, related to particular schools in Ireland.

And it is vast, and it is heartbreaking, and it is.  tragic, and my heart breaks for the victims, and my heart breaks for, um,  for all those that have been just so wounded in the midst of all of this tragedy. And so I want to be clear about that. I think when I. Look at hope, um, and I tell my children this too, there's four parts of hope that really strike me.

It's very easy to remember. So if your listeners are driving, you might want to pull over right now and write this down or listen in later, um, H O P E, right? The, the words. Um, hate for healing. There is no hope unless we can recognize where we've been wounded in our lives. And this is this thin space idea that the Irish have, which is God is always breaking through to communicate himself to us because he loves us so much.

But healing is so badly needed today,  personal and communal, and in all the ways that our institutions have wounded people, and we've been wounded by them, right? There's layers of healing, generational healing, healing in our family. So healing, it's very connected because Jesus is the divine physician, right?

He can take any wounds we have and he can, he can heal and bind and bless and, and bring us to wholeness. The, the next one is, oh, is to remain open. It's, I think when we go through hard times where the light is dim, that we start to close ourself off to each other and to God. And that's where the darkness starts to come in.

We start to listen to the voices in our heads, or the doubts, or we start looking at social media, and we start listening to the negative, instead of like,  The good that people are saying, like, you can do this, Katie, keep going, right? Remain open to God and his plan for your life. So that's the openness piece.

And then the last two are prayer and Eucharist.  So the key to hope is found in prayer and sitting before the Lord. And I think sometimes we have these exalted ideas of like, I am going to pray with my children and it's going to sound like this, Oh, good and gracious God, we beseech thee. Nobody approaches.

their father or mother like this, like, mom, if, if in your goodness and infinite mercy, you could feed us, they just come and go, I'm hungry. Feed me. Right. Right. Unless they're being sarcastic, but that, yeah.  And so the prayer of the heart, I tell people, pray with your children in the voice. That you speak to God in.

The voice that God encourages you. You are lovely. You are doing the best that you can. Keep going mama, right? Pray in that voice because that is God speaking to you heart to heart. And then the last one is the Eucharist. Be connected to the Eucharistic heart of Lord. Hope is found in all four of those realities.

And so I hope that's an encouragement for people where they're like, but I pray and I'm like, but go before the Lord in prayer, open your heart to him. So look at those four keys and then be honest with yourself. What do you need healing for?  Where do you need healing in your family, and how do your children experience any woundedness as a result of what's happening in the culture or in your family, and allow God to heal up and bind up those wounds? 

Well, I think that's such a great, um,  such a great way to remember. Healing, open, prayer, Eucharist. And that's something that I can repeat in my mind.  It's, it's interesting that you have said, you know, prayer. I think we, we relegate prayer at times too. Okay. When I need something very specific or when I'm having a very hard time in this one particular area, I'm just, or like, I need to discern something.

Then I'll like fit it into my busy life as a mom. So like I got a text message this week asking me to do something and I said, Oh, well, can I pray about it? My holy hour is coming up.  And it was like, okay, add that to the agenda of things that I need to talk to Jesus about when I have time in front of the Blessed Sacrament.

And, and so as a result of that, like as a mom, sometimes I forget. I can, I can actually pray about like those little practical things that are happening in my life that are, that are difficult right now or that I need to like thank God for. So we were doing math homework with Rose the other day.  She's got the same like mental block with math that I think I had at that age.

Me too. To be fair, math is weird now. Like the way they teach it is not the way I feel like I learned it. And it was like this complicated word problem with like fewer or more. And so then they have to like decipher. I don't know. I don't remember second grade all that well, other than first communion. But like, it was not going well.

Tommy, who is a teacher, was like, I've got this. And then of course, He's explaining it like he would explain it to a group of juniors in AP Biology, so like, he had to depart the table. Rose is sobbing at the kitchen table because like, she feels like dad is now mad at her because she can't understand the word problem.

I'm making sloppy joes in the kitchen, so I'm like trying to cook dinner. And I, all of a sudden, was just like,  I need to pray about this. Like, I just need to ask Jesus to come into this moment. And it felt, I'm going to be honest with you, it felt silly. It was like, Jesus doesn't care about this. Like, I just need to make dinner.

She just needs to do her homework. Tommy just needs to chill out. Like, this is not something that, and then I, I like, I actively felt the presence of the spirit being like, no, no, I do care about this. Like, I want you to pray for your child to feel confident. I want you to pray for your husband to have more patience. 

You to like pray for yourself to be able to respond Not in an overreactive tone to either of them I should note the honey badger our three year old was like off doing something on her own and we're just grateful The walls didn't get painted. She was not involved in this at all  but I prayed about it and I I feel like that's something that moms need to be reminded to Pray about those little things because jesus does care.

Oh, yeah  Yeah, and you know, I would say i'm going to challenge you a little on this too, which is You Drop everything that you're doing,  and gather everyone and say, It was tough. Like, we just need to create a prayer pause in our day and be like,  Set everything aside. Tommy, set aside what you're doing. My husband's a Catholic school teacher, too, so I know, I know what this, is like in a children's expectation.

You have all the answers, and you're juggling things, and you've got your to do list, and food needs to be on the table. Set everything aside. Uh, this is one of the gifts that I think I was given being on the National Eucharistic Revival Committee with Bishop Cousins. We were in a lot of dialogue, and it was getting like this contentious.

I was praying in my heart, Lord, let us find a way, let us see you, let us do the right thing. And, and, but we were all had different opinions. As you can imagine, how should an event like this happen? And Bishop Cousins said, timeout,  as good as all of our thoughts and our opinions are right now, there is nothing more important than being with the Lord.

Let us go in  and have time with him. And then let's come out and see how that changes things. I think people think we have to. Only do that in church. So put down your pots and pans, set aside the homework, come together at the table and just acknowledge, Jesus, this is hard. We are having a moment here.

Allow us to see your faith. Take that pause. And I, I guarantee you when you come back to whatever you're doing,  everything changes because he is present. You have, he's present all the time, but he is present in a most powerful way because you have called upon him. Because you can't get through your day without them.

Yeah. And that's, I mean, that's like a spiritual leadership role that I think moms are uniquely called to. Cause in a lot of ways, like we are moms who work outside the home, moms who stay at home, moms that have some, like, we're all kind of like almost the managers of the schedule, like the managers of the routine.

Like my kids look to me and say, can I watch a show before I do my homework? Like, and it's not that, They wouldn't ask dad, but they just like, they asked me first because like, I'm, I'm the one that has said yes or no, I guess enough times that like, they know mom's the keeper of that remote control. Mom's the keeper of that schedule.

Mom's going to tell us when dinner's ready. The keeper of the snacks. Absolutely. Like, yeah, they don't ask daddy for a snack. They ask mommy for, even if I'm in the middle of an interview, like, that's why I have to do all interviews while they're at school. Cause they'll just bust in here and be like, can I have a Danimals?

Where is your dad? Like, where is he available to answer this question right now? But that's such a cool. Thing that like we can uniquely call our families to this moment of reset and like leaning into it. You bring up Bishop Cousins leadership in the Eucharistic Congress. I was, I think I cried like 10 times a day at the Congress because I was so moved by like the intentionality.

And Jason Shanks just told me a story the other day that when the procession was happening and going down to those, the steps, Bishop Cousins like at the last second was like, I want to say something like he was moved in prayer Like there was not a microphone ready for him to like give a fervorino but like he just Responded to the promptings of the heart and I I've been saying this as much as I can to people that there was a chapel In Lucas oil stadium.

Yeah, and during the evening sessions Adoration was happening the entire time. In the morning, our entire morning team for the, the, the impact session inside Lucas Oil, like, we would gather in prayer in the chapel to take a few minutes to start the day. Prayer was really, you know, That, I think that's my source of hope for the Eucharistic Revival is that like prayer was what prompted all of it.

Tell us how we can keep this revival alive now. I mean, the Congress is over. So what else can we do? It's just beginning. I think the best story I have on this was very simple. So Bishop Cousins called me and he said, can you come into the diocese of Crookston to prepare my parish teams for the Eucharistic Revival?

And I thought to myself, Oh my gosh, no pressure, right? And I had to call him back and I said, okay, Bishop. I can't come that weekend that you've already advertised, but I have a good reason. He said, what? I said, it's my son's first communion. And he said, he got it right away. He's like, not a problem. We'll do it after.

So again, prioritizing the Lord first. And so I went out to Crookston and we had just a wonderful two days with his parish teams and preparing them to receive the gift of what the Lord was going to do. And. Bishop Cousins gave me his Eucharistic Revival pin, the logo of the event. And I came back and I, he said, Julianne, this is for your son, Sean.

He is your youngest. He's making his first communion. I really want him to feel connected in this Eucharistic moment, making his first communion. And I want to give you this pin. And my son, Sean, is he's very musical. He plays the harp. He's not an artsy crafty child. Like the idea of coloring things is just like sets his teeth on edge.

I'm like, just get it done. It's so easy. All you have to do is color. He's like, no, why? Right. He loves math. He loves all of the things. So, but something came alive in his heart  and he took out an, uh, easel and he took out some canvas and he started like not just paper. Like we have the little. Canvas, cheapo canvases around.

And he painted himself this  big painting of the logo of the Eucharistic Revival. And he took it right upstairs after it dried and he put it on his, his little prayer table in his room. That's another thing I would say to parents, make spaces in your home, little areas of devotion for a prayer. And he has this one in his room and he has all of his holy things as he calls them, but he put it up and I said to him, why?

And he said, because I don't know if I'll get to go to the Congress, Mom. I was like, Oh yeah, you're going, buddy. You're going. Didn't tell him at the time. Yeah, didn't tell him at the time. Basically he said, but I can have a Eucharistic revival here in my own bedroom. Now that to me, right? And this is what I realized is, well, regardless of whether you went to the Congress or not, Eucharistic Revival begins in the heart.

It does. And the heart of our church, the domestic church, is in the home. Have a Eucharistic Revival in your home. You know, yes, get to Mass, go to daily Mass, go to Holy Hours, but also create spaces where revival can happen in your home. And to me, when he did that, it shifted my whole lens on what the Congress is designing to do.

The Congress was the moment that brought us together. It's descending forth then back to our lives where we can share faith and walk with people who are not practicing or maybe feeling a lack of hope or discouragement in their life. Each one of us can be, as I tell my children, you are now a tabernacle with feet when you receive Jesus.

So out you go with those feet into the world to bring the light of Jesus to people.  That's a funny image too. I feel like we need a t shirt with like a tabernacle with little I feel like too. Sticking out of it like that's your second grade first comedian gift. Um, that is so beautiful like that excitement. 

Like he knew, like he knew there was something special about this.  Rose kept asking. She was like begging to receive first communion at the Congress. And I kept telling her, no, you're going to want to do it with your class. You're going to want to do it with your class. I was like this close to breaking though.

Cause we had permission from our Bishop and from Bishop Thompson. And we like held off because I think it's going to mean a little more for her to do it with her community, with her community, with her classmates. But I mean, yeah, I was shocked at the number of families and kids. who were so invested, who were like excited to be there.

And there was that family adoration chapel on the second floor. Yeah. It was beautiful. It was all the time, all the time. It was like parents just needed permission to be there with their kids and like squirmy and noisy and like asking questions at full volume. Like there was something really, really beautiful about that.

What, what's like maybe one practical tip. I love this idea of like a prayer space, but like one thing that I could do with my family tonight. to foster this revival in our home?  Yeah, I think that's a great question.  You know, we have a little practice in our home. We gather on our daughter's bed. Um, we have one daughter and two boys.

And so everybody comes in at night and we talk about people in our lives that are struggling. And so last, and we've been doing this for quite a number of years, but my daughter always prays for people who have no one to pray for them.  And she came to this on, on her own. And so, you know, we often think about who in our lives is suffering, who in our neighborhood is struggling.

And so I know I go back to prayer a lot, but I feel like having conversations around  struggling and suffering is so important for families. The other thing I would say is be honest with your children about the difference that faith has made to your life. I'm going to give you a really quick story on that. 

My husband, um, is in his first year as a full time Catholic school teacher.  Two years ago, he started part time. Now, I have to tell you, my husband was a deputy sheriff and a counselor and he's done a lot of things. He's an incredible man.  During his eighth grade years or his middle school years, his parents, um, went, unfortunately, they went through a divorce. 

And he told me when I first met him, he was not practicing his faith and I was like, well, if you're going to be dating this little Irish girl, you're going to church with me on Sundays. Right? And so he came with me. So he, I, you know, we brought him along together and he told me, You know, I'm not quite there, Julianne, but I'm going to go with you.

I don't really know my faith as well, but I went to Catholic school and it's so common to hear that.  And, but he told me once, he said, we will absolutely be choosing faith for our children because when my family home collapsed,  he said, the only things that held our family together during that time was our Catholic school and our parish. 

And so for his journey to come full circle, for him to be passionate about his faith and now going into teaching middle school science and middle school religion, to me it's a great example of how the Lord works in our story. Talk to your children about the value that Catholic education The value of being a part of a community of faith, the value of being in an apostolate.

Talk about the real ways that faith has changed your life. You know, when my husband shared that story with our children about how important the family is, he referenced growing up in a home. where his family life was broken and the effect that that had on him. And at first I was like, is this too much for our children?

I mean, we did it at an age appropriate time, but he wanted them to know that we were making what they think is a hard choice, right? Why can't we just go here? Everybody else is going to the game on Sunday, whatever it is, right? No, we are doing this because you never know at what point of your life you are going to need the grace that comes.

from living in community and living in faith. And so I, I just think it's an important message for parents to be real with their children, age appropriately, but to tell them about the difference Jesus is making to you. Not just, let's just not always be talking about the church or, you know, the, the big talk about Jesus and what is happening in your life that makes all the difference for children.

That's so beautiful. That's so beautiful. And, and Hard at times, but it is important because it's, it's, yeah, it's there. I distinctly remember a moment in like my young adulthood. My dad had been laid off. He was looking for work. We were fine. Like our family was not in a hardship, but like, I knew he was struggling with not having a job.

And I looked over at mass one day, uh, cause my parents go to daily mass. And I went with them on this particular day and he had his phone out and I was annoyed. It's like, why is my dad looking at his phone? And then I like looked over and he had this. St. Joseph Novena that he had like screenshot and he was praying and I was so moved like I still remember How moved I was in seeing like my dad is actively praying for this reality  And that is, that's incredible, Katie.

And it's like, I mean, it sticks in my head as, cause like I knew my dad and my, they go to daily mass. I mean, my goodness, like, of course they're prayerful, faithful people. Uh, at one point during the Congress, my mom leaned over during the Matt Maher concert and she was like, he's still got it. I was like, mom, he's not even 50.

Like, like she was so into it. I mean, that was like her Taylor Swift concert. She was so excited.  Deep people of faith, but like that deeply impacted me as a, as a young adult. Um, Um, so it's like, especially when they're young or in their teenage years, like we know that's going to, that honest, vulnerable sharing.

We could keep going, Julianne. I always tell my producer, I try to keep, I try to keep it to a point. I mean, our listeners are always like, we want more. Uh, but I, we always ask one final question to our guests and it's my favorite question to ask of any mom. And it is just very simply, you know, memento mori, we're all going to die.

There's going to be a day where we're not there physically with our children.  What is it that you want your kids to remember about you?  I, um,  part of my own mission, like my ministry, the intersection around my mission is around encouragement. And I, uh, the word encourage means to put heart into, you know, core that heart to heart peace.

And so I want my children to know that I loved them and that my love was a reflection, just a tiny reflection of God's love for them. And that, you know, I would encourage them to grow closer to the heart of Jesus, especially because we live in a world which can seem so stony and hard hearted,  and that they would feel in my heart, my own tender, raw, sensitive, imperfect heart, that they would see a reflection of God's love.

Not just for the world, but for them uniquely as his children. And so I would hope my children would remember that. And also, the fact that I make amazing scones.  I mean, I've seen your Irish. Like if those scones weren't good, I'd be very worried. I, uh, I still remember the scones we had at the Rainbow Hostel in Doolin. 

Because this, I mean, this lovely Irish lady was making them fresh every morning. Every morning. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I'll, um, I can eat gluten in Europe for some reason. So I'm looking forward to the next time I get to go to, uh, to the motherland and have some for sure. Julianne, where can folks follow you and grab a copy of your books and see all the great work that you're doing? 

Thank you. You can catch up with me at my website at juliannestands. com. My books and the Catholic parents survival guide, how to answer your kid's toughest questions about faith is available at allstands. com. all big box stores online, but I will say also at Loyola Press, my publisher who are, have been amazing to me through the years, but please patronize your small Catholic bookstore.

They deserve your business, uh, first. So you can find me, you can friend me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, all the usual. All the places. We'll have them down in the show notes for folks. Julianne, thank you for taking the time. I really, really appreciate it. Anytime. God bless Katie.  One of the things Julianne.

said in this episode that I very much appreciated  was this idea that in our homes,  we have the chance to really build,  we can foster hope, we can think about hope, we can make hope this real priority.  I was taking notes while she was talking, healing, openness, prayer, and centered in the Eucharist that  as a family, if we are people of deep hope, then we're able in so many different ways to grow that faith,  to encourage that faith. 

To see the beauty of that faith.  to know that that faith will live on in our children.  The episode kind of stands for itself. I think it's a fantastic conversation. It's one that I'll certainly be listening to again and again. Hey, we love this show. We're so grateful that you spend time listening to us here on the OSV podcast network.

We've got some incredible shows on the network. Make sure you check out osvpodcasts. com just wonderful things on there, including sister Josephine Garrett's fantastic hope stories. One of my favorite podcasts.  If you give us a rating and a review that gets the show in front of more folks, if you share it on social media, that's great.

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We'll be back in a couple of weeks with another fantastic episode. Thanks for following along. But like a mother, we're so glad that we spent this time together today. 

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