Bonus: Introduction to Phase Six: “Praying Together”

Hey, I am Father Mark Mary with Franciscan Friars the Renewal, and this is the Rosary in a Year podcast. We are just starting our final phase, Phase 6, which is entitled Praying Together.

And to kick it off and do a little introductory episode into Phase 6, I am joined by my friends Jackie and Bobby Angel. Thanks for making the time for being here.

And so, we're talking about the Rosary and kind of the question we like to kick things off with. Do either of you, as individuals or a couple have like a favorite story of the Rosary?

Maybe a testimony to the Rosary, something like that kind of is part of your own history and relationship with praying the Rosary. Yeah.

So the 54-day Rosary Novena has been a really amazing, miraculous part of our story and even just my story before Bobby, because a friend of mine, his mom gave me this little 54-day rosary novena book.

And I looked at that and I thought, I've never prayed a rosary for 54 days straight. There's no way this is happening.
And then I was dating a guy and I was like, where's that Novena book?

And I started praying a 54-day rosary novena for this boyfriend to start going to daily mass because I've been going to daily mass since I was 18.

And, you know, I just wanted us to be on the same page. And actually, half, so 27 days is petition for something you want and 27 days in Thanksgiving, whether or not you got what you wanted.

And literally the day after my petition phase was over, he.

called me and he said he was going to daily mass and he's like yeah i don't know what's been going on in my heart this last month and i just start laughing, you know, and I'm like, cause I do.

And so he started going to daily mass. And I was like, that one was so successful.
I'm going to do another one.

Thinking at the, you know, end of it or in the middle of it, he was going to propose to me. And literally on the 27th day, he broke up with me.
And I was so mad.

And I was, you know, like a little brat of God. And I had to be thankful for 27 days.
And I was like, hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord. You know, I was so mad.

But I heard Mary say to me, she's like, there is someone better.

And so I was like, oh, fine. And literally, I started this little journal that had Mary on it, had the Hail Mary on it.
And I started writing for my future spouse.

Well, fast forward like two and a half years, I was almost at the end of this journal. I was writing every month in it and praying for my future husband, wherever he was.

You know, and like knowing that if I died and my future husband was Jesus in heaven, like, ha ha, funny. Okay.
So I just, you know, God, whatever your will is.

But I was like, maybe I should do another 54-day rosary novina for my future spouse wherever he is.

And I looked forward and it the assumption is on august 15th and i thought well i should end my rosary noven on that day so i counted 54 days backwards and i think it was like june 22nd or third i started it the next day bobby and i remet at the theology of the body institute and that week was very apparent that this was the man i was called to marry and fast forward to august 4th we go on our very first date he comes out to california from florida we go on our first date official date, and he goes home.

And his dad picks him up at the airport and he and his brother are together. And his brother was kind of like a chaperone.
You're like, like ye old days.

His dad goes, so is this the girl you're going to marry? And Bobby just pauses and his brother goes, if he doesn't say yes, he's an idiot. And his dad goes, okay, great.

So the next week they go ring shopping and on August 15th, he bought the engagement ring. And so I didn't find this out until three months later when he proposed.

And I'm asking him all the questions like, how did you ask my dad? You know, when did you get the ring? And he said, when he said he bought the ring on August 15th, he had no clue.

I've been praying a 54-day Rosar Novita for my future husband. And yeah, so we found that out.

And what was cool is on our wedding day, I ended up giving him that journal of all the times I've been praying for him and asking our lady to intercede for him. And it was, it was beautiful.

So our lady has really been a huge part of our story. Come to find out, we both had consecrated ourselves to our lady through the St.
Louis de Montfort consecration the same year.

And yeah, so Mama Mary has been a huge part of our vocation story, but especially the 54-day Rosary Novena. Did Bobby have these headphones when you met him?

Is that what did it? I thought, man, if my future husband is wearing child-size blue headphones, that is just so, that was part of my list of everything I wanted in a man.

I am the most humble man that I know. I will use a toddler headphone set.

Because it's the only splitter we have. Yeah, it's the only one that can attach to

multiple headphones and you know what you can pull it off it is my color it's my season it's totally looks rock rocking on you yeah it's marian blue yourself you bobby you got any sort of testimonies or or kind of history with the rosers i mean that that account of what like how jackie and i came together under the umbrella of

Our Lady of John Paul II, his teachings on the theology of the body, our faith,

and how close Mary was, how close John Paul II was to Mary

like when he lost his own mom from such an early age he went to Mary and said you must be my mother now

and and I even thought of this in the last day thinking about this interview like I forget how close Mary is to our story sometimes where even

my little email send off like it's my name in my email dot ttm which I've had for I don't know how many years now.

And I just, it's so close you don't see it sometimes where it's like, it's totus tuus maria, which is the Latin for totally totally yours, Mary, which John Paul II took as his papal little slow, yeah, as his motto.

And I just, that's been like in my face day in, day out, and how easy it is to just like, I don't know, stop seeing it.

The same with Jesus on the cross or any other part of our faith where it's just becomes too familiar. And so Mary, I think, is also happy to be behind the scenes interceding for us.

Like, it's, it's not about her, it's, it's about going through her to Christ.

And both Jackie and I separately had our growth in faith and Mary being a real part of that. And now together as a married couple and now with five wild kids,

you know, trying to form them with a love of the faith and an appreciation for our Lady and the Rosary, too. And what's cool is every year we reconsecrate ourselves.

You're supposed to do your consecration. So we then started doing that as a married couple.
So the Immaculate Conception has become our new, or my new day.

My original date was the presentation of the Lord. But so every year we reconsecrate ourselves.
And every time in those years that I was pregnant, we would consecrate each of our children to our lady.

And so it's just been, she's been a huge part of our faith journey.

And because a priest friend of mine, who's an exorcist, he, he said to me, he's like, Jackie, when you, when you place yourself in the womb of our lady, to be formed like Christ was.

He's like, that's where she protects you, you know, and she, he's like, Satan, you know, Satan can't stand our lady. And when you consecrate yourself to our lady, that's what you're doing.

You're essentially saying, I want to be formed like Christ was. And I place myself kind of within your immaculate heart, within your womb to be formed like him.

And it's just, it is, it's a beautiful place. And as a mama, like a place of protection that

we want to have our marriage and our children be under that protection. Different folks who are listening to this are coming from all different places.
They're not necessarily

Catholic. Just to kind of briefly kind of define some terms.
So, 54-day novena, right? A novena

is nine days of prayer, and it goes back to Mary and the disciples praying for nine days after the ascension, waiting for the coming of the Holy Spirit. This is kind of the first novena.

And there's a practice in Catholic spirituality of sort of kind of inspired by this, spending nine days of praying for a particular intention.

And then there's kind of like the ninja mode, the super sort of mode of going for a novena, which is a 54 novena.

And so at that time, if I understand it correctly, right, like the commitment is praying a rosary every day for 54 days um for a particular tension and then in gratitude for that intention that sounds about right essentially so three novenas which 27 days in petition for something and then three novenas in thanksgiving yeah

okay so that because i was talking to somebody else i'm like i'm not exactly sure why it's like 54 as opposed to like 93. it's three

for the petition three in gratitude right and father as i've spoken about the 54 day rosary novena i've heard the stories it is incredible the amount of miracles that have happened because it's hard.

It's really, it's like the widow, the persevering, the knocking widow. You're just knocking.
If you have this petition, it takes a lot to really do 54 days in a row and not miss.

I mean, it's difficult. And so I have heard so many people come back to me and share their stories about them finding their spouses or even.
just certain miracles of conversions that have happened.

So, because I love praying the rosary and I love interceding for people. So, some of my 54-day no Venus have been for the conversion of family members, and I have seen miraculous things happen there.

And I love interceding with our lady and asking for her intercession. And so, it is very powerful.
Her intercession is so powerful.

I mean, it says it in James, the prayers of a righteous person is powerful. And our lady is the most righteous person who ever walked the earth.

What was your experience of, you know, praying the first one, and then you got an answer, but it wasn't the answer you were hoping for. And then persevering and continuing to pray.

Because I I think this is like a beautiful and just really true testament to how this works.

It's like when we're praying, we're doing something, just praying the rosary, we're praying, we're in a relationship with Jesus.

It doesn't mean that everything's going to work out how we think it's going to mean, like, right away. How'd you navigate it? Well, listen, I know that I am the daughter of God and that God loves me.

And he, again, he delights in all of us as his children. And I know that God loves.
giving me good gifts and that he has good plans for me.

So, no, in my life since my conversion at 18, when I fell in love with Jesus, I have known that no matter what the answer is to any of my prayers, that God always has something good.

He, he, he's not holding out on me. He's not mad at me.
And so when it didn't go my way, I thought, okay, great. Then you have something better for me because that's the kind of God you are.

That's the kind of father you are. And I knew it.
I have faith and I trust. And over anything, I want God's will.

So even when I was single and I was discerning my vocation and I didn't know, you know, God, are you calling me to be married?

Are you calling me to be a celibate are you calling me to die like i literally i'm very momentumory like every day i could die and so as a single person i'm like maybe yeah bobby has skulls many of skulls in our our office

and i really thought you know maybe my vocation is in heaven just like some of the saints uh pierre giorgio frozati you know saint carlo acutis all their vocation was in heaven to be married with jesus the bridegroom so i thought maybe that's my vocation i could die i'm not guaranteed 90 years of life so even when things don't go my way i know god can say yes he can say maybe but not now and he can say no.

I really believe, I'm like, God, you are a good father. And if it's not this guy, it's going to be someone better because you don't hold out on me.

And God, someone had told me, like, God doesn't show us gold and give us silver. And I'm like, great, I believe that.

I believe that when I, you know, he's not going to show me somebody and be like, oh, sorry, you don't get this too.

And I tell people that when they hear my story and Bobby's story, they're like, oh, your story is like such a fairy tale.

I'm like, first of all, we have so many friends who have amazing vocation stories. So many friends.
I was like, it's not like we're special.

It's not like God's like, oh, only you guys get a great story. No, I'm like, you are God's son or daughter and he loves you just as he loves me.
Like I'm not special in his eyes compared to you.

So I just trust that he does have good plans. I love Romans 8, 28 says, all things work for good for those who love God according to his purpose.
And it's just

an act of trust. and saying, God, I want your will above everything.
I don't care what it is. I want your will to be done.
And I can be suffering through it. I could be in pain.
It doesn't matter.

Like my feelings

that I want God's will to be done. And whether or not it's painful, whether it's joyful, that like the end, I want his will.
For those who

kind of want to believe that, but to struggle to believe that. So like they've had, they've had a lot of experience of life, which is making this case that God doesn't want to give you good things.

He's like, he's not.

We're not talking about silver and gold. We're talking about like, if I could just get silver, I'd be happy.

But, you know, there's like a lot of experiences of of not getting anything um and then they hear folks say like no god is good god is good god trust him trust trust him like for those who struggle to really believe that with like some really deep intimate parts of their lives like what encouragement would you make them to kind of persevere and hope i would say god is not this mean coach who's trying to cut you from the team he's not a puppeteer that delights in our pain There is evil and there is suffering in the world and we don't need to water that down.

But again, from Romans 5, it's suffering produces endurance, which produces character, which produces hope.

And the character is the Greek, which I'm not going to pronounce, is something like a proven or tested character that as an athlete, like you don't know what you're made of until you're pushed beyond what you think you could do.

Sometimes, again, the suffering is producing the endurance of just like, I'm just going to get through the day. I'm just going to get through the next hour.

I can't see what's ahead, which is producing the character that is slow going. I don't even realize it's happening, perhaps.

My ability to tolerate discomfort or uncertainty or just the, I don't know where life's going, but I'm just going to show up and do my lousy best today. Like that is doing something.

And God is not just like, peace out, good luck. He's closer than we know.

And we often are, you know, we get stuck in our sin. We get stuck in just kind of losing the forest for the trees.
And so it can be hard to hope. It can be hard to like hear these kind of

these points and be like, yeah, well, what about me?

And to that, I would say, keep going. He's wanting to pull greatness out of us.
And that can't be done just sitting on the couch.

But our God is also one who walks with us. and is in the suffering with us, in our humanity with us.

Christ took on a body, a human body, a heart that beats, that briefly died and stopped beating, but is now beating in eternity.

And so, too, with Mary, like closer than we know, her intercession and her prayers with us. The other thing I would say is in the Psalms, it says, God is close to the brokenhearted, right?

God is close to the brokenhearted. And I think a huge part of this is falling in love with Jesus.

When we fall in love and we realize that our beloved is so close to us, yeah, he's not this angry angry or mean person, but

that

even the Holy Spirit, who is the love of God poured into our hearts, it says that in Romans 5, 5, like this is the love of God,

that when God gives us this love,

it also gives us his wisdom. And wisdom is perspective and seeing through that our citizenship, we are made for heaven.
And so no matter what happens here on earth, right?

We are made for this eternal love story, that this is our destiny. And I think that's part of hope in the catechism.

Oh man, when it talks about hope in the catechism, it even says that hope is desiring heaven and that heaven is going to be the fulfillment of our all these desires.

So when we realize we all have these human, very human desires is how we are made to be loved, to be seen, to be known, that only God can satisfy that. And guess what?

I am married to the man of my dreams. And he's my best friend.
And guess what? He still can't satisfy every desire of my heart. I tell that to even married women.

I say, I know some of you married women think that if you were married to the man of your dreams, that you would be fulfilled and happy and never have any pain. And that's not true.

I am married to the man of my dreams. He's my best friend.
And we've been married for how many? 12? We're in our year 13.

Yeah. Thanks for remembering.
I know. Right.
Sorry about that.

And guess what? We have, you know, experienced life. Life has been thrown at us.
Pain has been thrown at us. Miscarriage has been, we've had health issues, like just all this stuff.

And

to realize that Jesus alone no human being no amount of money no even our vocation it's not going to satisfy every desire of our hearts only jesus can do that so falling in love with him is always the answer in our pain in our brokenness when we don't have hope it's jesus is always the one who we need to get closer to it during all the emotions of life all the things of life where we are disappointed where we are hurt rejected abandoned He's the only one who's going to satisfy all that pain and that desire.

And for me, the Psalms are always where I go to when I am feeling that extreme pain or the extreme suffering. I go to the Psalms.
One of my favorites is Psalm 18. Psalm 18 says, I love you, Lord.

You are my strength. You are my rock, my fortress, my refuge.
And then there's a part in it.

I think it's verse 19. It says, you delivered me because you delight in me.
Like the Lord delights in us and he loves us so much.

There's another translation that says, you saved me because you love me. And I'm like, oh, that's great too.
But I like that you delivered me because you delight in me.

He delights in us and i think we're not going to have hope and we're going to we're going to kind of be stuck in maybe our cynicism or our pain as long as we keep our eyes on ourselves But when we get, when we get closer to Jesus, we put our eyes on Jesus, that's where he starts transforming our pain.

He starts transforming our cynicism, maybe, and even our woundedness, our brokenness, when we start getting closer to him and we really fall in love and realize he is the answer to all of our desires for happiness.

It's nothing else. It's not going going to be our vocation.
It's not going to be our success, our job, how much money we have. It's not going to be any of that because we aren't made for this earth.

We're made for heaven and the eternity of love with him. So, what's going to happen for this next phase is we're just praying the rosary.
So, I'm like praying the rosary.

I'm going to have like some a few little like meditations that we're going to, we weren't doing in the last phase. We're going to do them here again.

Um, but it's really like people are going to be coming to this and they are coming to this just to like have one other person to pray with, you know?

And I think this gives kind of a testament to this, to this God-given sort of like um reality or just understanding that, like, we're not meant to do anything alone.

When people are really struggling with trusting, they're really struggling with hoping, they're really struggling persevering, they're really they want to love Jesus and they're really struggling to fall in love more with Jesus.

You don't even have to trust Jesus by yourself, you don't have to surrender to Jesus by yourself, you don't have to trust him by yourself.

Like, it always can actually begin, and it's meant to begin by going to him first.

Like, hey, Lord, I want to help, like, I want to trust you, help me trust you, I want to surrender, help me surrender, I want to persevere, help me, help me to persevere, you know, and so, so, like, we're just not made to do anything alone.

And, and if folks, you know, who are listening are struggling with, with some, like, wherever you're struggling, the first step really is always to go to the Lord and ask for his help and his support and

his guidance. And we can also, of course, we know.

Go to our lady and as a good mother is able to meet us in our struggle and meet us there in a way that's like beautiful and compassionate.

In your own experience of mother, has it been something that's given you some like insight and like a window into Mary's experience with Jesus or into like like Mary's, how she wants to be a mother to you and to all of us?

Absolutely. Absolutely.
I mean, I'm the kind of person that I never dreamt about being a mom. Like I had friends who couldn't wait to get married and be a mom.

And I was like, I don't know, like, I can't even imagine it.

You know, I'm just not that person. I'm like, I want to be a princess.
I want to be served. Like,

I don't want to have to serve and do all that all the time. But what's so awesome is that when I had my first child, when we had our first child, Abigail,

it would became, it was so natural. It was so natural.
This thing I was so afraid of. I'm like, I don't know how to be a mom.
I mean, I had a great mom and a very

affectionate mother. And so I was like, okay, I can do this.
And so we had our first baby. And I just think staring at the face of your baby is one of the most beautiful.

Things ever just to be like, this baby was inside me forming for nine months. And now I see the face of this baby.

And I would always think of how Mary would look at the face face of baby Jesus and just like, man, you got to stare into the eyes of our Lord. How amazing is that?

And so even to have that kind of meditation of how a mother holds a baby. in her arms and just looks at her child and gazes upon the beauty of her child.
And that's a couple things.

Like, so the fact that even in our own prayer, we can do that with Jesus.

Like we can imagine, I have sometimes imagined holding baby Jesus and looking at him in the face and what that would be like to delight in the baby.

But also the fact that our mother in heaven, Mary, delights in us as her children and looks at us with that kind of gaze of love.

Because I think some of us, we think that when people look at us, there's a look because maybe we have our own self-hatred and we can't imagine anyone looking at us with that look of love.

And so even to have that kind of imaginative prayer where we imagine that God the Father is delighting in us, I would, I would imagine myself sometimes in prayer as like a little girl and that God the Father is just wrapping me in his arms.

And I know for so many people, that's not an experience they ever had with their earthly father.

Maybe their earthly father never held them in their arms or loved them with affection or gazed at them with a look of love. So I've in my own prayer, imagined myself as a little girl again.

You know, you want your father's attention and love and just be wrapped in my heavenly father's arms and he's looking at me with that look of delight, but also with our lady.

We know as parents, no matter how much our kids make us so angry,

like we still love them. They could never lose our love.
And

we still delight in them and their little quirks and all the things about them. So I think for sure being a mom has given me a different perspective on even just love,

on loving my children and how I am a child and how my... our Mama Mary loves me and how God the Father loves me.
It just, it definitely has given me such a different perspective with all that.

Bobby, anything from your own experience just as a son or as a husband? It's beautiful to watch your spouse become a parent, you know, to go through that metamorphosis.

And it happens differently in women than in men. And but the self-gift, the self-sacrifice that gets unlocked, the digging deep.

You know, the loving in the ways when you're so tired or you're just so out of patience. And God loves us us infinitely more than this even.
The way you would lay down your life for your kid,

it's like while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

It's not that once I got straight A's or once I was really well behaved, as soon as I walk out of confession or I do the rosary with actual focus, then I'm loved. It's like, you're loved, period.

You are already loved and you are loved into existence.

And I think it is hard until you become a parent or a spiritual mother or father to realize, like, whoa,

that's God loves us beyond

in these really mind-blowing ways. I was watching Bobby as like I was going through childbirth and is watching Bobby's face as I'm like in so much pain.
And then all of a sudden, this baby is born.

And like seeing tears come to Bobby's eyes, like to watch your wife in so much pain and then all of a sudden baby comes.

It's such a cool thing to be like, that's the cross, right? And then all of a sudden like the resurrection, the joy of the resurrection.

And how it's funny how as a mom, you kind of, you forget the pain a little bit and you're like, let's do this again.

But I think of even Mary and Jesus. And it says in Hebrews, it says, for the sake of the joy that lay before him, he endured the cross.
And even how Mary,

you know, in Luke, they were like, you're going to have so much suffering, but it's for the sake of the joy that lay before them.

And I think when it comes to childbearing and being a mom and that kind of pain that you know is going to come, but the sake of the joy of that baby coming out and even just watching Bobby, the tears come to his eyes, it was just such a beautiful thing to see the resurrection, to see the joy.

after watching his wife go through much pain. I'm not crying or I didn't.
It's shocking. I'm a crier.
I'm a total crier. And I didn't cry just because I'm like, thank God it's over.

But like, I get to hold the baby now. But even just enduring that kind of pain, the willingness to suffer like that

for the joy that's about to come.

And so I think that even in terms of our salvation and the resurrection and motherhood and all that stuff, that when you know and you have the perspective that there is joy that's coming, you're willing to endure any of the pain, right?

It's not going to last forever. But there is going to be joy and hope on the other side of that.

I think this is part of the beauty as well of the reality reality of our faith and something like a source, a type of grace or a form of the grace that we can receive in actually praying through the rosary is kind of going through the whole sort of cycle.

There is certainly a phase of the sorrow, but like that's not where it ends, right? Like then we go into the glorious mysteries. There is life.
There is resurrection.

And that's ultimately what has the, you know, the eternal victory. And that's like,

I've kind of talked about this when talking about the Beatitudes.

Like the first part is kind of like alluding to some sort of share in the cross, but then it's comma and it's some sort of promise of God. And the period doesn't happen until after the promise of God.

Like they will be comforted. They will see God, etc.
And that, you know, death doesn't have the last word. Death, it's real, but it's a comma towards like the glory and the resurrection.

And when we pray the rosary and enter into just the reality of...

our salvation history, we are also reminded of how this is going to be true for ourselves as well, that this is our destiny and our call.

And it can be a source of encouragement while we are struggling along the journey here. One way in which we can share in the cross, but there's a reason for it and it leads towards an ultimate joy is

having to do anything with another human being, right? This is called like the praying together.

But there's a joke, like, of course, about like religious life that like the greatest joy of religious life is the brothers. The greatest cross is the brothers.
Because they have a marriage, too.

Yeah.

What? And it's just so real.

Even in your situation where you're married to your best best friend and, you know, like Jack talked about the man of your dreams, like there's still struggle and there's still conflict and there's still places where we don't see everything exactly the same.

We don't want to do everything exactly the same, same pace, et cetera. But actually being together in it and staying together in it and kind of working through that.

It leads to like a deep communion and union, but also it leads, it like leads to our transformation and it's a huge source of grace.

And just to kind of like focus on this praying together part is people are going to be praying the rosary with me.

And it's going to be praying together.

It's a little bit of like a unique experience of it is, you know, I'm going to have my own pace and I'm going to have my own sort of voice and I'm going to share my own reflections.

And there's part of it, which may not be a person's preference, right? And this is real. We have like communal rosary in the friary.

And it's like, okay, this guy goes this, this speed, this guy goes that speed, whatever, whatever, whatever.

But real, or even you're at church, you're at Mass, and there's all these people doing stuff. And

I think like the Catholic perspective on this is this

together, like it is a gift. It leads towards communion.
It leads towards our own transformation. And it's a huge support for our own perseverance in whatever we're doing.

Like certainly the brothers being in the chapel is a huge source of encouragement for me to continue to come to the chapel. But also this is part of the offering.

Like part of the offering of our prayer isn't just me being as focused and as like really locked in and like doing everything I want to do as well as possible.

Like the annoying things happening actually are part of the offering and part of the sacrifice, and something really like beautiful and pleasing to God.

You guys praying together as a couple, praying with the family, certainly with the kids and things like that. There's a lot of ways in which prayer now isn't what it was when you were single.

How have you kind of come to like appreciate, or have you come to appreciate just the experience of like the value of praying together, even though

there's a cost to it? Yeah, I'll let the introvert who likes time alone go first.

I have a lot of thoughts. That's the death to self is getting over my preference.
You know, this is the way the pace that I would like to go.

This is how the reflections I would like to be and like letting go of that. And that can be a bit of a kicking and screaming internally, the death throes of my ego and what I prefer.

And especially as parents, trying to introduce your kids to prayer, sitting still-ish,

trying to do like we do a Decade of the Rosary. We have a book that every hail mary has a little short one sentence

and the older two kids can read and so they trade off on doing it but you know around the room one kid's picking his nose another kid is having a pillow fight with the other and

you know learning to let go of the ideal of the perfection of what you know we're not all levitating we're not all you know uh have perfect poise or anything but like something's sticking and and some of our favorite saints, Saint Therese, John Paul II, Venerable Fulton Sheen, all mention praying the rosary with their families as little kids.

Like that memory stuck. Not that it was always perfect and it was clean and it was focused, but like they did it as a family.
That stuck with me. As much as I have my preferred ways of praying,

I think we both need, as spouses, need to nourish individual prayer as well as prayer together. And now, as parents, how are we leading our family in prayer?

And that it's something that we do, just this is a part of life and this is important and it's going to be messy.

We're going to do it anyway, not expect perfection, not make it something miserable either, where our kids end up hating it because we're so rigid or we're so strict with it, it backfires, you know?

Yeah, because like really, it took us a while to learn too, that kids under the age of reason, and that's different ages for different kids. 22.
Yeah, 22.

I mean, for our girls, the age of reason has been about five and a half. For our boys, it's been like seven.
So it is different per kid, per boys and girls.

And just recognizing that a three-year-old doesn't sit still and me yelling at them during the rosary to try to sit still is not actually going to help them love Jesus more.

It might actually make them hate the rosary.

So, so we've had to get over ourselves, even in our parenting and and and realize when they do hit the age of reason it's so glorious it's like a cloud party it's a glorious mystery it is a glorious mystery like oh my gosh they can actually kind of sit still now they can actually read and yeah they're still squirrely but it even at mass like having that

that knowledge that the age of reason is something different than when your kids are toddler and going nuts and all this stuff and super squirrely. Well, and that more is caught than taught.
Yes.

So they're watching us all the time, our habits with our phones, our habits, how we talk to each other as spouses. And so even in prayer, again, we all get distracted.

We all just, it can become a check the box before we do other evening activities. But

are they, are mom and dad taking it seriously? Are they

doing it out of love? Yeah. One of my kids' greatest delights was when I admitted that during Mass, I got distracted and they were like,

really

you're so but you're perfect right it was like when I admitted I said you know what my favorite food is and they're like what broccoli and I was like no it's candy and I could eat candy all day and they were like oh my gosh so when I you know when you admit as a parent that you're not perfect and when I admitted that I got distracted during mass they were shocked but they were also like oh you're real.

You're a real human. You're not just my parent who pretends to be perfect and everything.
And I said, okay, I get distracted during Mass. And here's what I do.

So, even during the rosary, I get distracted. And here's what you can do when you get distracted.
You acknowledge that you're distracted and put that little thought over here and come back. It's okay.

It's okay because you're human. You know, I know our last name is angel, but metaphysically, we are angels.
And so, we are human beings.

And so, you are going to be human beings even in prayer and you're going to have distractions. So, even during the rosary, when we pray it as a family, oh, it's chaos, you guys.

It is not like we're sitting around perfect little angels everywhere. It's like it is, our house is chaotic during even the rosary.

It's not even just kids picking their, it's like literally throwing around their rosary, hitting each other. I mean, it's nuts, but but it's worth it.
It is worth it. And surrendering that.

Yes, and surrendering that and being okay. Like, this is not going to be like this, how it is forever.
So when Bobby and I first started, when we were first dating, we had to have a discussion.

How do we like praying alone? And how do we want to pray together?

And we, you know, we talked about, you know, he likes the liturgy of the hours. I love reading scripture.
And I actually like doing a rosary by myself, but I will, we will do rosaries together.

We'll do no Venus together.

We'll pray with each other, over each other for different, different times, you know, that we need prayer. So we just had to have that conversation.
And guess what?

For in different stages of our lives and our marriage, as with each kid, our prayer lives have changed.

And even how we've prayed alone has changed, how we prayed together. Then as kids get older, we're like, how do we pray as a family? So

we have like an evening devotion. We try to do an evening devotion after dinner where we have scriptures that we like to go over that we've memorized.

We pray a divine mercy chaplet or we pray some decades of the rosary. And that will continue to change as our kids get older.
Because right now our kids are ranged from 11 to 2.

And as they get older, they'll be able to pray more decades of the rosary. We'll be able to do different things.
So every family in different stages can discern these kind of things.

It doesn't all have to look like us. It can look different.
And what do we like to do apart? What do we like to do together? And it just needs to be talked about. Communication.
Yeah.

Saves everything.

Saves nations. Saves nations.

Yeah.

A last kind of invitation. I think, you know, or a last kind of sort of word of encouragement.

Praying, you know, the rosary every day. For it is a habit that we have to build up to.
And there can be like a monotony to it.

There can be some struggles with discipline there could be struggles with distraction there's a lot of ways in which as you kind of said like we come to this as human beings living in real life in real context with real sort of human struggles and we're just not angels you know um

and god knows that i really do believe that like a sincere and our best offering is a pleasing offering to the lord even if it's an imperfect offering um he can he kind of makes it perfect or it's received perfect by the the love of the father so just for those who are who are praying or those who are maybe struggling to pray or struggling kind of with getting to like getting concerned if they're doing it right or they're struggling with discipline or they're struggling with distraction any just last words of encouragement about their own like the value of it and like why persevere and maybe how to persevere what comes to mind is that it's working it's doing something

and i think to use an exercise metaphor like when you first start out Maybe you see a lot of improvement right away and it's exciting. It's new.
It's but then there's a monotony.

There's a plateau point and it can just feel like going through the motions. And yet, it's something's happening.
The more you're showing up, the more of a routine it's becoming.

Growth is happening even at a very microscopic level.

And so, I think sometimes we're all just products of the culture and this time period we're in where if we don't see physical results, if it's not exciting, if I don't get the warm fuzzies, then I, it's easy to just trail off and fade off to remember that there are spiritual things happening.

There are things happening in my soul, in my character, and just showing up and offering

what I can.

It's working is what I would give to anyone who might be hitting a plateau, hitting a point of struggle or distraction, or

should I keep this up? Should I keep going? It's working.

It's doing something. Yeah, I would say know thyself

because Bobby is a melancholic and melancholics, he's just like a steady worker, right? He does things and he's just one day at a time steady worker.

And I'm a sanguine, I am like the biggest squirrel and I'm like a blitzer. So like I am such a procrastinator, I'll procrastinate to the last second, but then I will get things done.

And so I do that even with prayer, with books, like I'll start seven, eight books and then I won't finish any of them.

Whereas Bobby finishes every, you know, so knowing yourself is very helpful. Knowing like sanguines and phlegmatics are a little more ADHD and we're a little more squirrely and we're procrastinators.

Those who are melancholics and colics maybe struggle a little more with scrupulosity,

imperfectionism. It's good to know yourself.
And these are like the temperaments because when you do, you even see how it affects your prayer life. And when it comes to the rosary,

I do these 54-day rosary novenas and I blitz it. And then I'm like, I'm so tired.
I don't want to do another rosary again.

And so what Bobby just said, even just the little, like, I love the phrase poco a poke a little by little, just do it, even do a little bit, right? Just, just show up and do that.

We, I can even see it in our working out. Bobby is so good at working out every day.
And then I get really excited and I start working out and then I don't do it for months.

And then I get into it again. It's just our personalities.
It's funny to, when you know yourself, you see your pitfalls and you see your strengths. And

so it's good to know that even with the rosary and things that you maybe want to do daily, it's, it's good to know, okay, are there places for me me that are easier so for me going to daily mass is good because like I actually have to go somewhere like I actually have to go to church and it happens at a certain time and I can't procrastinate that you know and so maybe that's where I'm going to pray my rosary maybe that's where I'm going to pray my morning prayer it's just it's helpful to have kind of some plan and know yourself well and where in the time of day things work best and do you have to go somewhere to do it or

is are you fine at home you know i don't know it's just it's just figuring out your little plan for yourself and how your personality where you do well, where you don't do well.

Some dramatic, very significant doors have opened and graces have happened in my life that had never happened before that I can't help but kind of have some sort of thought that,

you know, people praying and this Rosary in the Year thing is already working in my own life. But also there's a way in which like our prayers and how we are praying

like are for the whole church. We're persevering for our own growth and holiness.

But also like when we are praying and we're praying the rosary, it is on behalf of like the whole church and for all the people of God. And we're winning grace for everybody.

And, you know, you shared, you know, Jackie, you're praying the 54 De Novena and somehow like God's grace was at work, you know, in Bobby's life and bringing you together.

And what I shared at the very, very, like, you know, at the very beginning is that

I had my conversion kind of out of nowhere.

October of 2003. So I was a freshman in college, October of 2003.

And I was just, it just kind of happened where it was like, I believe and it needs to affect my whole life.

October of 2002 is when John Paul II began the year of the rosary, put out his apostolic, you know, exhortation on the rosary. And that ended in October of 2003.

So it was right at the end of the year of the rosary that I had my conversion.

And I can't help but think that my conversion and really like my vocation in priesthood was the fruit of a lot of people's prayers.

And so my encouragement to everybody is to continue to persevere in prayer for our own growth and holiness, but also with confidence that these prayers are being answered, that they are working, particularly on behalf of, you know, the needs of the whole world.

So

before we kind of bring it in for a final landing, any last words?

I just, Our Lady loves us and she is such a powerful intercessor. And the amount of grace, just what you said, Father, when I pray the different

mysteries, this is part of the 54-day Rosary Novena, is that the joyful mysteries are white roses.

And so I imagine every Hail Mary, I'm like saying, Hail Mary, full of grace, and I'm like smelling this beautiful white rose, and I'm handing it to our lady.

And then, as I'm saying, Holy Mary, Mother of God, I just imagine she's taking the petals and they're pouring like grace into the heart of either me or the person I'm praying for.

The luminous mysteries are yellow roses, the sorrowful are red roses, and then the glorious are like it says, like white roses tinged with yellow and red.

And I'm such a visual prayer and an imaginative prayer. And it's just so beautiful to see see that every Hail Mary is a rose to our lady.

And in the Novena, it's like you're like making a crown of roses for her. So the whole rosary is like this beautiful crown of roses.

And so for anyone who is an imaginative prayer, I love imagining that and just seeing the grace. When I pray for grace for people, I just imagine that God's pouring that grace into their hearts.

And it is.

It's efficacious. It's what Bobby said.
It is effective. It's actually happening.
When we pray, mountains are being moved. When you have faith and you pray, you are literally moving mountains.

And that could be the mountains of someone's heart. It could be the mountains of your own heart.
So just know that, gosh, prayer is so efficacious and that grace is really coming.

And Our Lady is such a powerful source of grace. So that's why I just want to leave that with people.
And that we're praying for those who've stopped praying.

That appeal was made to me. when I was discerning the priesthood, we had to pray morning prayer and evening prayer, liturgy of the hours, which I still try to do morning prayer at least every day.

And that was pitched to me. It was like on days where you feel dry, your heart's not really in it, you're just going through the motions.

Remember, we're also praying for the world, for family members and friends who've fallen away, who've stopped praying, people that don't know the Lord at all.

So, if you're looking for motivation, consider that it's not just ourselves.

We're also praying for the whole body of Christ and for the world and for those who are far from the Lord and for them to have those mountains of their heart moved,

stony hearts to be broken open, and Mary is absolutely interceding for us and with us all along the way. Amen.
Well, beautiful, Jackie and Bobby. Thank you.
I'm glad we were able to connect here.

And thanks, everybody who has continued to be on this journey and praying along. It's working.
It's working. So we will continue the journey, Poco, Poco.
All right. God bless y'all.