Podcast

J1ST 091: The Little Flower

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Hi Friends!

Happy Feast Day of Fatima (if you’re checking this out Sunday evening). October 13th, 1917 is “The Day the Sun Danced.” It’s a great day to pray the rosary!

Speaking of roses…. It’s October and we’d be remiss if we didn’t share about one of our favorite saints, St. Therese of Lisieux, The Little Flower. Before St. Therese died, she declared “I will send down a shower of roses from the heavens, I will spend my heaven by doing good on earth.” Since then, many Catholics have asked St. Therese’s intercession and have received roses, both literal and figurative at times, as their answer.

St. Therese was the youngest living daughter born to St. Zelie and St. Louis in 1873. From a very young age, she knew God wanted her to be a Carmelite Nun. She faced years of waiting despite going to visit the bishop and even the pope himself to ask permission to enter the convent. Finally, at the age of 15, she was allowed to enter the cloistered community.

She lived a very quiet, somewhat uneventful life in the convent. She was sick frequently and often fell asleep during prayer. In fact, after she died, her sisters were at a loss as to what they should write in her obituary. But, if you read her autobiography, written under obedience to her superiors, you get a glimpse into the holy simplicity and smallness with which St. Therese lived her life.

Today on the podcast, we have a guest, Nancy’s sister-in-law, Bobbi Verly. Bobbi grew up with a love of St. Therese that blossomed into a deep devotion. Through her prayers, Bobbi’s vocation was revealed in jarring detail from a relatively young age. Though it took years to come to fruition, Bobbi peacefully waited to see God’s plan come to life. It’s truly an amazing story you’ll want to hear!

Nancy and Katie both have some St. Therese “Rose Stories” to share as well. It’s funny how someone so small and ‘weak’ in the eyes of the world has touched the lives of so many from Heaven. As it says in First Corinthians 1:27, “But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong.”

We hope you love our Little Flower Stories. If you have received a rose from St. Therese, please reach out here, via e-mail, or on Facebook to share your story!!

Your Sisters in the Small Things,

Nancy and Katie

Mentioned in this episode:

The Story of a Soul (St. Therese’s Autobiography)

The Way of Trust and Love by Fr. Jacques Philippe

J1ST 090: Miracles of the Rosary

by Nancy Bandzuch · 1 Comment

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Hi Friends!

Happy October!!! You probably know that October is considered the month of the Holy Rosary, but do you know why? If you’re listening the evening this episode goes live, it’s the eve of Our Lady of Victory’s feast day, also known as Our Lady of the Rosary! This feast day was established during the pontificate of Pope Pius V after an astounding victory of Christian forces against the Ottoman Turks on October 7th, 1571. The Battle of Lepanto! The Christian forces by all accounts shouldn’t have won… They were outnumbered and fairly inexperienced with naval battle. But the leader, Don Juan of Austria, issued a weapon to each of his soldiers upon the eve of battle: a Rosary. And all the soldiers knelt and prayed it together before heading into battle and Our Lady came to their aide.

In this episode, you’ll learn all about the Battle of Lepanto, hear some personal rosary experiences of ours, and learn about some other miracles attributed to the rosary, one of them in late 1970s!

Our Lady has been clear: over and over she has asked us to pray the rosary daily for peace in the world. She never said it had to be prayed all in one ‘sitting’ or while sitting in a chair with candles lit. We need to pray it as we CAN not as we CAN’T. A decade here, another decade there, maybe even a decade or two as a family or with your spouse. And as evidenced by our miracle stories today, Mary honors our efforts. To close: here are a few quotes to inspire and encourage.

“Some people are so foolish that they think they can go through life without the help of the Blessed Mother. Love the Madonna and pray the rosary, for her Rosary is the weapon against the evils of the world today. All graces given by God pass through the Blessed Mother.”

-St. Padre Pio

“Say the Holy Rosary. Blessed be that monotony of Hail Mary’s which purifies the monotony of your sins!”

-St. Josemaria Escriva

“You always leave the Rosary for later, and you end up not saying it at all because you are sleepy. If there is no other time, say it in the street without letting anybody notice it. It will, moreover, help you to have presence of God.”

– St. Josemaria Escriva

“The rosary is the book of the blind, where souls see and there enact the greatest drama of love the world has ever known; it is the book of the simple, which initiates them into mysteries and knowledge more satisfying than the education of other men; it is the book of the aged, whose eyes close upon the shadow of this world, and open on the substance of the next. The power of the rosary is beyond description.”

– Venerable Archbishop Fulton Sheen

Have you experienced a miracle through the rosary? How do you get your rosary in every day? Share your tips in the comments!

Your sisters in the Small Things,

Nancy and Katie

In this episode:

Nancy’s new Rosary Board Books

Fr. Calloway’s lecture at Steubenville

Fr. Calloway’s book Champions of the Rosary: The History and Heroes of a Spiritual Weapon

Chesterton’s poem Lepanto

This image of Mary wrapping the infant Christ in her mantle

J1ST 089: Our Lady of Where?

by Nancy Bandzuch · Leave a Comment

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Hey Listeners!

Welcome back and happy New Week to you! What’s your favorite Marian Apparition? Is it Lourdes or Guadalupe or Fatima? (both ours are one of those so don’t feel bad for being ‘predictable’)

This week we are exploring some lesser know apparitions. Ones you didn’t hear about in Catholic School. Ones Nancy and I found out about through an amazing lecture by Fr. Don Calloway (see link below) and then read more about in his amazing book Champions of the Rosary.

In a way, Marian Apparitions and Miracles of the Rosary are a bit like our Saints, aren’t they? There is always more to learn which is pretty awesome. One way to get your kids (or students) excited about learning is for them to see you excited about it for yourself.

The first of the two lesser known apparitions we discuss today is Our Lady of Las Lajas (or Our Lady of the Rocks). This apparition happened in the 1700s in Columbia. The visionaries were a mother and daughter and as a final gift, Our Lady left her image in the rocks of the cave where they had visited each other. Not ON the rocks. IN the rocks. Geologists have found the image is actually several feet into the wall of the cave with no evidence of paint dye of pigment. Oh. And this image appeared after the daughter had been brought back to life through the intercession of Mary. (WHAT???)

More recently, there were multiple appearances of Our Blessed Mother in Kibeho, Rwanda in the 1980s to a group of school children. Because this was such a recent event, you can hop on Youtube and see actual footage of people going into ecstasy when Our Lady appears and speaks to them. She requested a renewed devotion to the rosary of her seven sorrows (we spoke about this particular rosary in this episode) and warned of a ‘river of blood’ in Rwanda unless there was prayer and repentance. Unfortunately, some say because Our Lady’s warnings weren’t heeded, these apparitions were followed by the Rwandan Genocide in 1994.

If there is some lesser know Marian Apparition that you LOVE that you suspect we haven’t heard of, we’d love to hear from you. Please reach out and share with us!

Your sisters in the small things,

Nancy and Katie

In this episode:

Fr. Calloway’s lecture at Steubenville

Fr. Calloway’s book Champions of the Rosary: The History and Heroes of a Spiritual Weapon

An article on Our Lady of Las Lajas

An EWTN special on Our Lady of Kibeho

J1ST 088: Natural Family Planning

by Nancy Bandzuch · Leave a Comment

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Hi Friends!

This week we’re diving into Natural Family Planning or NFP. What is NFP, you may be wondering? NFP is any method of observing your monthly fertility signs and using them to plan when to ‘renew your vows’ with your husband.

Fertility Awareness is not just for deciding when to try for a baby though. Many health issues can be traced back to cycle or hormonal abnormalities, so women of all ages and stages can benefit from becoming aware of their fertility signs.

Today we have a special guest, Katherine Young, a real life Fertility Care Practitioner This means she helps women learn how to observe and chart their fertility signs using the Creighton Method of NFP. In her own words, her goal as a practitioner is to:

“help build a culture of life through empowering women and couples to understand their fertility and respect God’s gift of sexuality and the dignity of the human person.”

Pretty awesome right?

We’ll cover why The Church teaches what She does with regards to contraception and the important differences between contraception and natural family planning. We’ll also touch on the variety of methods available to grow in knowledge of your cycle. Some methods work better for different women… or even different stages of life and it’s more than Okay to switch methods when you need to.

Finally, we’ll discuss the importance of having a teacher for whatever method you choose. There is So Much information out there on the internet (and in books) regarding fertility awareness, but a teacher can be in impartial third set of eyes on your chart and build your confidence.

We hope you enjoy today’s episode!

Your Sisters in the Small Things,

Nancy and Katie

PS Interested in learning the Creighton Method with Katherine? Her email is [email protected]

Things we mentioned in this podcast:

This John Legend song

This website has a good overview of all the available methods

Naprotechnology: using fertility signs as clues to figure out what isn’t working correctly within the woman’s body and restore health and fertility

A great lecture that goes even more in-depth on the differences between NFP and contraception

J1ST 87: The Seven Sorrows of Mary and Infertility

by Nancy Bandzuch · 1 Comment

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Hello Listeners!

With yesterday being the feast of Our Lady of Sorrows, in today’s episode, we’re taking a closer look at the Seven Sorrows of Mary along with the concept of being open to life, even if it leaves your arms empty (or emptier than you want them to be). We’re talking specifically about infertility but as Catholic Women, practicing natural family planning can leave our families looking very different than we’ve envisioned, so everyone can get something from this episode (we hope 🙂 )

The devotion to Our Lady of Sorrows is closely connected with the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross which has been celebrated since the year 326. Many of the great saints have written on her sorrows and Mary recently encouraged this devotion in the 1980s when she made several visits to school children in Kibeho, Rwanda. There is also a religious order that originally formed around a devotion to Mary at the foot of the cross called the Servites, formed in 1239.

The Seven Sorrows are:

The prophecy of Simeon
The flight into Egypt
Loss of the Child Jesus for three days
Mary meets Jesus on his way to Calvary
Crucifixion and Death of Jesus
The body of Jesus being taken from the Cross
The burial of Jesus

There is even a special form of the rosary with seven ‘septets’ instead of five decades (maybe you have one in your house put to the side because you thought it was defective. haha).

We talk about the temptation to compare joys but also compare sorrows… She has it better than me. Or my struggle is more difficult than hers. But the fact is: there is no way to objectively rate someone else’s pain on a scale of 1 to 10. God doesn’t rate our suffering.

Katie speaks about the loneliness and ‘compassion fatigue’ (or maybe burnout?) that comes with infertility. It’s hard to be sympathetic with a friend who is ‘accidentally’ pregnant or suffering from morning sickness, but the fact is their suffering is real too. And pain is only magnified when we’re trapped in it. Our Mother can help us with our sorrows. She is with us in this pain. She knew loneliness (Exile in Egypt), anxiety (the Christ Child is lost for three days), and desolation (seeing her son crucified).

There is so much to learn and so much comfort to find meditating on our mother’s sorrows.

One More Thing: If your parish or diocese is offering some sort of a ministry for those facing infertility: Please share with us! We’d love to get more happening all across the US.

Your sisters in the small things,

Nancy and Katie

Things we mentioned in this episode:

Katie’s New Book: Waiting with Mary: A Seven Sorrows Devotional for Catholic Women facing Infertility… Available Here!

Naprotechnology: medical treatment of fertility issues that are in line with Church Teaching on Human Dignity and Sexuality

Organic Conceptions (Online emotional support program for couples dealing with delayed conception/infertility; Coupon Code for J1ST Listeners: JUSTONESMALLTHING)

This instagram post