Ep47 Sanity & Sanctity with St. Thérèse: Book Study Part 1

“Her ‘little way’ was her means of holiness, and it was also what kept her sane.”
~ Fr. Marc Foley

It's book study time! At long last, Kenna and Pat are joined by Fr. Nathan LaLiberte to delve into the thought-provoking spiritual gem, The Love That Keeps Us Sane: Living the Little Way of St. Thérèse of Lisieux by Fr. Marc Foley, OCD. Drawing from the psychological and spiritual genius of St. Thérèse, they discuss the interplay between sanity and sanctity as a fruit of humility, the value of silence, and the complexities of human relationships. The conversation covers the perils of external validation, the significance of personal agency, and discerning what to share with others.

As the trio reflects on the opportunities and struggles of seeking sanity and sanctity in a broken world, the conversation offers illuminating insights that touch on the intersection of faith, mental well-being, and everyday life. Join them in the pursuit of authenticity in spiritual practices.

Be a part of our book study on The Love That Keeps Us Sane by Fr. Marc Foley, OCD: Order your copy here 

Episode 47 Show Notes

Chapters:
0:00: Introduction and Highs & Hards
12:51: Intro to The Love That Keeps Us Sane
26:01: Chapter 1: The Secrets That Keep Us Sane
37:12: Chapter 2: Finding Her Way
53:41: Chapter 3: The Sanity of Silence
1:06:56: Challenge By Choice

Questions for Reflection & Discussion:

1. What are your previous experiences and impressions of St. Thérèse of Lisieux? Is this book showing you a new side of her?
2. Fr. Foley says that Thérèse "had the genius of knowing how to love others without becoming entangled or enmeshed in their problems." When are you able to love like this? When you do you struggle to love without becoming enmeshed?
3. How would you distinguish between bad secrets that lead to shame and the "secrets of the King"? How do you decide whether to give someone access to your interior life?
4. Thérèse lived in complete commitment to humility, even anonymity. How are you motivated by fame & being validated by others? What would greater humility look like for you?
5. What do you think of Thérèse's personal motto, "the loser always wins"? How can such a counter cultural motto lead to greater sanity & sanctity for you?
6. How do you decide whether to speak your mind or to remain silent? What motivations, values, and consequences do you consider when making that decision?

Thank you for listening! Visit us online at thiswholelifepodcast.com, and send us an email with your thoughts, questions, or ideas.

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Interested in more faith-filled mental health resources? Check out the Martin Center for Integration

Music: "You're Not Alone" by Marie Miller. Used with permission.

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction and Highs & Hards
• 12:51 Intro to The Love That Keeps Us Sane
• 26:01 Chapter 1: The Secrets That Keep Us Sane
• 37:12 Chapter 2: Finding Her Way
• 53:41 Chapter 3: The Sanity of Silence
• 1:06:56 Challenge By Choice

Transcript

Kenna Millea [00:00:00]:
The paragraph goes on to say, she had the genius of knowing how to love others without becoming entangled or enmeshed in their problems. And when I read that, I thought, what a beautiful reflection of Christ she was. But that is who who Jesus is to us. He is so very interested, so very invested in our lives, and also continues to confer our free will. Welcome to This Whole Life, a podcast for all of us seeking sanity and sanctity, and a place to find joy and meaning through the integration of faith and mental health. I'm Kenna Millea, a licensed marriage and family therapist, and I'm with my husband, Pat Millea, a Catholic speaker, musician, and leader. We invite you to our kitchen table. Okay.

Kenna Millea [00:00:52]:
Not literally, but but you're definitely invited into the conversations that we seem to keep having once the kids have scattered off to play and we're left doing the dishes. We're excited to share this podcast for educational purposes. It is not intended as therapy or as a substitute for mental health care. So let's get talking about This Whole Life.

Pat Millea [00:01:22]:
Welcome back to This Whole Life, good friends. It is book club day. Hey. Oh, get

Pat Millea [00:01:29]:
excited. You've been waiting a couple of years actually to talk to this with hundreds of people.

Kenna Millea [00:01:35]:
That's an understatement. That is actually why the podcast exists just so I can impose upon them my favorite book.

Pat Millea [00:01:42]:
So you have a

Pat Millea [00:01:43]:
platform to force this book upon people? Yeah.

Kenna Millea [00:01:46]:
Yes, be my friends, and let's talk about things that I think are awesome.

Pat Millea [00:01:51]:
Oh, golly. Well, welcome to This Whole Life. If this is the first time you're listening to us, what a great opportunity for you. And if it's the 46th opportunity that you are with us, what a great opportunity for you.

Kenna Millea [00:02:01]:
Welcome back.

Pat Millea [00:02:02]:
It's gonna be a great time. If you don't know what we're talking about, we are beginning in this episode a 2 part book study of the book, The Love That Keeps Us Sane, Living the Little Way of Saint Therese of Lisieux by Father Marc Foley, who you just spoke with in our most recent episode, Kenna.

Kenna Millea [00:02:19]:
I did. And so if you missed that, feel free to hit pause here and come back to us after you've listened to that interview with Father Marc because I think just getting a sense of his heart, his perspective, and his integration of the faith and psychology, is a great foundation for really digging into this book and into this new way of understanding Therese and letting her speak into our life. So, yeah, loved that conversation with him.

Pat Millea [00:02:45]:
They say never meet your heroes, but I heard it went pretty well. Oh, yeah. Really? Oh, because they are so frequently disappointing.

Kenna Millea [00:02:52]:
No. He was he was even more humble and more wise than I would have expected. So, no, he only exceeded expectations. It was it was really great.

Pat Millea [00:03:03]:
Typical saint.

Kenna Millea [00:03:04]:
Yeah. No. I was like as I was doing, I was like, this is my job. Like, this is so cool. Like, maybe I don't know if it's my job, really, but Oh, gosh. It's been part of my job.

Pat Millea [00:03:13]:
Well, today we're gonna we're gonna do the first half of our book study. So we're gonna be discussing from the intro of our little book here all the way through chapter 3. So if you're reading along at home, if you haven't gotten that far, feel free to pause, read that, which will take you about half an hour maybe, and then come back if you want to. And then in episode 2, we're gonna cover the rest of the book, episode excuse me, chapters 4 through 6. But before we do any of that, we're gonna do our highs and hards like normal. We can go lickety split because we need to get to some great stuff here from Father Foley. Father Nathan LaLiberte, thank you for being here. Why don't you kick us off?

Fr. Nathan LaLiberte [00:03:47]:
Thank you so much. It is a great joy. So my high is completely secular. So I apologize if it offends anyone. I am a huge music fan. And so recently, I was invited to go to a concert of an artist that I love, AJR.

Pat Millea [00:04:04]:
Oh, seriously?

Kenna Millea [00:04:05]:
I don't know who this is.

Pat Millea [00:04:06]:
That's great.

Fr. Nathan LaLiberte [00:04:07]:
So there there are 3 Jewish brothers that are from, the New York area, and they have this unbelievable sound that's very unique. One of the band members actually he has, like, a brain disorder where he sees music. And so his compilation is just, like, so complex. And even in the show, they, like, stopped halfway through, and they just said, here, let me show you how you compose this. And so they were, like, gathering sound samples and overlaying him, and they're, like, this big screen. And they're, like, at first, it seems random, and then they hit play. And it's, like, it's actually the backtrack of the song.

Fr. Nathan LaLiberte [00:04:41]:
And it was just it was absolutely mind blowing, and I got to see the band. This is the 2nd time I've seen them. They were on with Dean Lewis who's from Australia who's also awesome. So

Kenna Millea [00:04:50]:
But, like, what category would you put them in?

Fr. Nathan LaLiberte [00:04:53]:
Probably alternative. Okay. I mean, some of their lyrics are not, Christian. Actually, all their lyrics are not Christian. They're not Christian. But, I mean, some of them are not great. They're not, like, horrendously offensive. But,

Pat Millea [00:05:08]:
That song Stay Awake that we really like

Kenna Millea [00:05:10]:
Yeah.

Pat Millea [00:05:11]:
That's Dean Lewis.

Kenna Millea [00:05:12]:
Oh. Yeah.

Kenna Millea [00:05:13]:
That's Dean Lewis. Not AJR.

Pat Millea [00:05:14]:
Oh, I thought you were asking about him, not AJR. AJR is more like Poppy.

Fr. Nathan LaLiberte [00:05:17]:
Yeah. Kind of poppy alternative. So, anyways, it was

Fr. Nathan LaLiberte [00:05:19]:
it was a blast to go to the concert. They did a great job, and it was just so speaking of meeting people that

Kenna Millea [00:05:24]:
Yay.

Fr. Nathan LaLiberte [00:05:24]:
I mean, I didn't meet them, but I felt like close proximity. Yes. I encountered them. And then my, hards are I I heard people talk about you develop allergies as you age, but I didn't

Kenna Millea [00:05:36]:
Can you say that a little bit louder in the direction of my husband?

Pat Millea [00:05:40]:
Some people develop allergies. Yes. That's right.

Fr. Nathan LaLiberte [00:05:42]:
So it's just it's it's bizarre. So I my favorite flower is the lily. And so when Easter comes, I'm so excited because it's like all over the place. There's lilies and the flowers. I mean, the the parish is filled with them. You can smell it. And this year, like starting with the Easter vigil, like my mall started to get like really dry and then I was like itchy. And I literally lost my voice after the Easter Masses.

Fr. Nathan LaLiberte [00:06:06]:
Brother. And I was like, maybe I got, like, the flu or, like, sinus infection. And then, like, I came back, and sure enough, the same thing happened. And I'm like, okay. Maybe I'm allergic to something in there. It can't be the lilies. I popped a Claritin and, like, no issue. And so now, like, my hard is like, I'm allergic to lilies now.

Pat Millea [00:06:26]:
A priest in the Easter season allergic to lilies.

Fr. Nathan LaLiberte [00:06:30]:
I know! I just feel like a failure. And so I was just I don't know. It was it was it was actually this really strange kinda mourning thing because it was something I love, but now I'm like, I've gotta actually, like, take Claritin if I wanna be around lilies, which I love. So Yeah. Yeah. Pretty shallow highs and hards, but No.

Kenna Millea [00:06:47]:
No no no. Real stuff.

Fr. Nathan LaLiberte [00:06:47]:
Welcome to my life.

Pat Millea [00:06:49]:
Reminder of mortality. Yeah. It's the worst. Ladies second? After a priest. Take it away, babe.

Kenna Millea [00:06:57]:
Yeah. You know, I would say hard for me is, we were chatting. You kind of gentlemen were hearing me out on some of the challenges of my week and and just recognizing that there that this world, we are not made for this world to speak through Saint Therese, the world was thy ship and not thy home. And encountering those imperfections, encountering the brokenness, encountering the shortcomings in myself and in others and just in systems, in institutions because they're made by humans. Mhmm. They're going to reflect us. And so just like, duh, like, encountering that and then then the hard work actually becomes like, so what am I gonna do? Like, that is what it is. Like, how do I respond? How do I react? What choices do I feel like I have available to me? And all of that equates to, like, energy and thoughtfulness and prayer.

Kenna Millea [00:07:51]:
And, and so yeah. Like, once again, I do not get to live on autopilot in a sense. Thanks be to God. And, also, like, it's just required some inordinate energy this week to to navigate, yeah, not being made for this world and yet living with both my feet planted on it right now. So, that is the hard. The high is that it is it is spring and Pat knows very well that I grew up with a lot of prejudice around the sport of baseball. I also say that, like, we just weren't a baseball family. So, like, my dad didn't have a love we watched the NBA, tons of golf, but not any baseball.

Kenna Millea [00:08:30]:
And so, it's just not naturally where I go, but our boys are playing. At this point, just our oldest son is playing for his school and I am just loving the community aspect of it. Mhmm. I I get why they say it's America's pastime because you're just hanging out and chatting. It's unlike a base unlike a basketball game, which is the season we just came out of, where I am, like, eyes locked. Like, I do not talk to anyone. I'm so intense, you guys. I do not talk to anyone.

Pat Millea [00:08:59]:
You talk to the players on the court sometimes, but

Kenna Millea [00:09:01]:
Well, let's maybe not share that here. But anyways, so

Fr. Nathan LaLiberte [00:09:04]:
On the court. I I love way to go, sports fan. Yes. The court of baseball. Wonderful.

Kenna Millea [00:09:09]:
I want no. No. No. No. Court basketball. Like, you're saying

Pat Millea [00:09:12]:
In basketball she does.

Pat Millea [00:09:14]:
Kenna is a vocal basketball fan. We'll put it that way,

Kenna Millea [00:09:17]:
I'm a vocal everything. Let's be real. But, anyway, but I'm just enjoying, like, like, I love my son's friends, and so having their parents and their siblings there. Like, it's just been really fun, and it feels like this little reunion of some members of our community a couple times a week. And, yeah. And then when the weather is favorable, it's just a little cherry on top. But, yeah, that's totally my high.

Kenna Millea [00:09:36]:
Mhmm. I I reflect at the end of the day, like, that was so good to be in community with these people. So Yeah.

Pat Millea [00:09:42]:
Yeah. And I love the opportunity to be able to educate you about the great sport of baseball.

Kenna Millea [00:09:46]:
Okay.

Pat Millea [00:09:46]:
Our son is on the field, like, warming up, at the game last night, and Kenna goes, is he out there? I can't see where he is. And I said, oh, he's over there at short. And she goes, that does not help me at all.

Kenna Millea [00:09:56]:
I was like, I don't know what a shortstop is.

Fr. Nathan LaLiberte [00:09:57]:
So to the audience listening, you can't see this, but I've recorded with Pat and Kenna many times. I've never seen such a look of pride come over Pat's face as Kenna is speaking about a newfound love of baseball

Fr. Nathan LaLiberte [00:10:08]:
And Pat is just looking at her with, like, adoring eyes. Like

Kenna Millea [00:10:12]:
I think that's an I told you so look, actually. That's how I was reading that.

Pat Millea [00:10:16]:
If you

Pat Millea [00:10:16]:
are early in marriage and you are afraid that, like, it can't get any better than it is right now, I'm here to tell you it can get better. Yeah.

Kenna Millea [00:10:24]:
Soon I'll be watching Marvel movies, it'll be of my own volition.

Pat Millea [00:10:28]:
Be still my heart. No. You have watched some of those and then you have fallen asleep probably.

Kenna Millea [00:10:34]:
What's your high and hard, Millea?

Pat Millea [00:10:35]:
My hard is, just lately some, like, business finance related complications that you and I have had to talk about, Kenna, with with the business, with our own personal finance stuff. None of it is tragic. You if you want to send us money, that's great, but we don't need it. We don't need it. We are fine. But it is like this constant state that most of us, I think live in day to day, which is my expenses are right even with my assets and my income. Right? So it's just the spirit of poverty. Like, none of this is mine.

Pat Millea [00:11:12]:
All of it comes from the Lord. I've got to trust no matter what happens. The children continue to require things that need money, starting with food. So it it it's just the ongoing questions of what's really important, what's not important, rebalancing every year or so when things change a little bit. So that is difficult. I understand it. I'm learning to accept it, but there are just challenges that come with that. My high also related to sports, ironically, is that we were talking last night about how we are just glimpsing the light at the end of the tunnel that is having a 2 year old who will just wander onto a baseball field when no one's watching her or into a street if you're not paying attention, or she'll start trying to put someone else's shoe in their mouth.

Pat Millea [00:11:59]:
You know, like, all of our kids are getting to the stage now where they are a little more self aware, a little more able to just, like, play with their friends and be a little more independent. And we have older kids that can take the younger kid to the playground across the park, and we're not gonna worry that someone's not being responsible. So we're just getting there. So, again, if if you are where we've been for about 13 years and you have little ones and you're feeling like they will never grow up, I will never have two eyes to watch a baseball game with a child of mine, we are here to tell you, apparently, they will continue to grow if you keep feeding them like I was talking about before. So.

Kenna Millea [00:12:35]:
So It'll cost you, but it'll happen.

Pat Millea [00:12:38]:
So it's been super exciting and just a fun you know, we we got a ways to go yet. There there are lots of maturity to go with our kids yet, but, it's a good glimpse. It's a glimpse. That's true. Yep. Man, here we go.

Kenna Millea [00:12:52]:
You ready?

Pat Millea [00:12:52]:
Are you excited? Alright. It's gonna be really good. So so just to set the stage, beloved of mine, why don't you help our folks to understand, like, why why this book? What are we doing here? What of all the wonderful spiritual psycho psychological books out there, why are we doing a book study on this one?

Kenna Millea [00:13:13]:
Yeah. And they talked a little bit about this in the episode with Father Marc.

Kenna Millea [00:13:18]:
So, again, if you haven't heard that, that could be a good place to start. But in in short, I will say this was my first encounter, and I've read other great things as well. But my first encounter with a true vision of integration, Like, someone showing me how to think about my everyday real life experiences, my relationships with this awareness, with this sensibility of what it means to be human, to have a psyche, to have emotions, to have a will, and also an awareness of what I'm made for, which is which is holiness and greatness and sanctity and sainthood. And so I just I I feel like I've been mentored by Father Marc from the beginning of my career because I found this book early on. And it just it gave me this vision of, like, this is possible, especially in the field of psychology where I think they tell you that it's not possible and that actually a lot of things about faith in theology, in religious practices are counter to or are are the reason that we have psychological issues. This was like, no.

Kenna Millea [00:14:21]:
Like, this is

Kenna Millea [00:14:21]:
what my heart has been telling me from the start. And I just really felt myself come awake in mind and body and heart, and so have been so excited to share share it. Also, that this is absolutely what we would love for This Whole Life podcast. Like like, if if This Whole Life podcast could offer people something for their daily lives, it's in the spirit of this book Mhmm. Of being, of living up to the call that the Lord has placed in our hearts, to reflect him. And since he is love, therefore, we are called to be love, and to to be sane, to be able to engage in this life, because that's where he has us, at least for this day. So, yeah, that's my synopsis.

Pat Millea [00:15:07]:
Beautiful. Glad we're here. It's great.

Fr. Nathan LaLiberte [00:15:09]:
So one of the things it's maybe it's an idiosyncrasy, but, like, anytime that I come across a podcast and I'm like, hey. We're gonna do a book study. I immediately shut

Fr. Nathan LaLiberte [00:15:17]:
it off.

Fr. Nathan LaLiberte [00:15:17]:
And so just realizing that you may be of that temperament, stay on because you do not have to have read the book in order to understand what we're talking about. In fact, it's actually quite profound. We'll give you all the good quotes. It's like getting, like, cliff notes. Remember that when you were a kid? Oh, all too well. Yes. So just just do not do not feel like you have to turn it off. If you haven't read the book, you're still welcome.

Fr. Nathan LaLiberte [00:15:39]:
But if you want to support Father Marc Foley's work, which is amazing, and get all the nuances, this book is completely worth buying and worth your time.

Pat Millea [00:15:46]:
And you can find a link in the description to to get this book for yourself. And if you never wanna buy the book and you just wanna listen to the episode, you will not miss much. It's it's gonna be totally worth your time. Now I wanna start with the intro with a reference that Father will appreciate and you, my love, will probably not. Okay? It starts with the original Iron Man movie. Okay? Let me set the stage for you. They cast Robert Downey Junior as Iron Man, as Tony Stark, in the first Marvel movie of all this whole 20 now whatever movie series. And at the time in 2006, I believe, when that movie came out, he was not a safe play.

Pat Millea [00:16:25]:
Sorry. 2008. He was not a safe play as an actor. He would he had all these scandals around addiction, alcoholism. He was seen as unstable a little bit, just kind of not not a safe play as an actor and there were a lot of questions that people had like how is he gonna be able to do this job? We know now that he was one of, like, the mainstays of the most successful movie franchise in history. But what's the very first scene in Iron Man? He's sitting in the back of a Hummer driving through Afghanistan, and the very first shot is a whiskey glass of Tony Stark sitting in the back of a vehicle holding a glass, right? That Marvel, for whatever reason, went right at the fear, the major criticism, and instead of saying, oh, we we're gonna try to work a way around that, they said, no. He has this history. He knows exactly what it means to have demons and to have to overcome them.

Pat Millea [00:17:21]:
He is going to bring that to this character and we're going right at it. We're not avoiding these questions that you have. Right? Trans transfer that to this book. What is the first thing that Father Foley brings up in the intro? He says,

Fr. Nathan LaLiberte [00:17:36]:
If saints were to come back, they would not recognize the biographies of themselves.

Pat Millea [00:17:40]:
That's right. He says basically many people have an emotional reaction when reading Therese. This is on page 2. They are repulsed by her saccharine style, her overuse of diminutives coupled with the recital of her mortifications in the face of the trivial sounds infantile. Man, if there is one criticism of Therese, that is it. Right? So out of the gates, he comes forward and he says, I get it, but here's the thing. Don't give up on her.

Kenna Millea [00:18:07]:
Yeah. Yeah. Be have your minds open to see something new coming forth, and and maybe deeper, I would say.

Fr. Nathan LaLiberte [00:18:16]:
Because what I think to your point, Kenna, what this book does masterfully is it shows a real person. Whereas a lot of the biographies of the saints, it's called hagiography as it just shows, like, their miracles or their weird things, and it's like, I'll never be like so and so.

Fr. Nathan LaLiberte [00:18:31]:
And

Fr. Nathan LaLiberte [00:18:31]:
so it's interesting because as the biography is written to help you to get to know the saint, it actually discourages you from emulating the saint because it's like, I can't do these things.

Kenna Millea [00:18:40]:
Well, and it distorts them.

Fr. Nathan LaLiberte [00:18:41]:
Oh, yeah.

Kenna Millea [00:18:42]:
It's I think of that with, like, eulogies, and I get it because because it happens in my own life. Maybe I shouldn't have said that. But, like, it happens in my own life. Right? Like, after someone has died, the the good stuff rises to the top, and I I there's, you know, probably something very, healthy and sane about that as well, that that allows us to let go of the grievances, but it is a distortion. It's not real. And so you're absolutely right. When when we're looking at a saint to be like, how can I how can I learn from you? How can I be like you? And then we're like, forget it. Like, I can't there's no way.

Fr. Nathan LaLiberte [00:19:10]:
And the saints would not recognize themselves. If they read their own biographies, they'd be like, who is this about? Because they're like superheroes almost.

Fr. Nathan LaLiberte [00:19:18]:
I mean,

Fr. Nathan LaLiberte [00:19:18]:
and it's just like, like, Padre Pio, he's he's so fascinating as a person, but then what do people say? Oh, he bilocated.

Pat Millea [00:19:25]:
Yeah.

Fr. Nathan LaLiberte [00:19:26]:
has a stigmata. He could read souls. He could levitate. You know, like, he fought demons. It's like and he also literally was rejected by the Church. Right. Lived alone in a monastery for a while. Was misunderstood.

Pat Millea [00:19:39]:
Betrayed by his friends.

Fr. Nathan LaLiberte [00:19:40]:
Yeah. He had real emotions, and he chewed tobacco to stay awake to respond to his letters.

Kenna Millea [00:19:47]:
Stop it. I did not know that.

Fr. Nathan LaLiberte [00:19:47]:
Seriously. I was just spittoons all over his, like, but but so, I mean, you're just like, you you read that and you're like, well, that we we can't put that in TAN books.

Pat Millea [00:19:57]:
There was a a a young person that I worked with years ago in parish ministry in in response to this terrible tragedy in the parish community, there was a a college student who died in a car accident. Just horrible, terrible, tragic. And in the wake of that, there were a lot of these kinds of, eulogizing type conversations that people were having, very rightfully so. These are these are good and appropriate things to wanna celebrate the good of a person's life. But I remember to talking talking to one of this person's friends, and the friend was maybe had a temperament that was a little bit blunt and not afraid of the truth no matter how people took it. And she was expressing these feelings of, like, all these people are talking about my friend. She was kind of terrible sometimes, but she was she she was really holding that up. And I think what what we were able to identify with her is that she was seeing the injustice of people who didn't really know her friend as a person.

Pat Millea [00:20:57]:
Mhmm. And she was saying, no. There there is more depth here than you realize. Not that the the good stuff isn't true. Of course, it is. But when you know the person, it actually puts more flesh on the bones. And ironically, you know, just like for Saint Therese and for any saint, the the complexity of her as a person to me makes her even more attractive as a model of holiness, you know, more certainly more accessible, but I think even more inspiring that that she didn't have everything come easily to her. And it wasn't automatic.

Pat Millea [00:21:29]:
She wasn't just wired for holiness so the rest of us, sorry, we didn't get the same deal, you know. Like, it's just as possible for me as it is for her.

Kenna Millea [00:21:38]:
Yeah. No. Absolutely. Well, and I'm thinking to another part of the introduction on page 5. It says, Therese's sanity lay in her ability to be deeply involved in life without becoming absorbed

Kenna Millea [00:21:53]:
by it. And and if, you

Kenna Millea [00:21:53]:
know, you know anything about me, I love to talk about boundaries in an emotional way, of really being attentive to your own garden and being able to claim agency for for what is yours. But the paragraph goes on to say, she had the genius of knowing how to love others without becoming entangled or enmeshed in their problems. And when I read that, I thought, what a beautiful reflection of Christ she was. But that is who who Jesus is to us. He is so very interested, so very invested in our lives, and also continues to confer our free will. Right? Continues to uphold this boundary of saying, but the choice is yours, Kenna. And then the final thing in the introduction where I think Father Marc really sets us up well is in that last large paragraph. He says this book is about the choices that fostered her perspective, perspective being how she saw all things in the light of eternity.

Kenna Millea [00:22:48]:
And he lists these 5 choices. And, again, I just I think about that Viktor Frankl quote that we use often, in our presentations and in our work around the space between stimulus and response. In that space, there is a choice and in that choice lies our freedom. And so I just going into this was thinking, like, Therese saw that space and she took it up and she was like, I am solely accountable, solely responsible, and solely get to be in charge of these choices that I make.

Kenna Millea [00:23:19]:
And I yeah. That that really flies in the face of that, you know, kind of wilting flower image that we have of her of, like, no. Like, she was very much in the driver's seat of her life.

Kenna Millea [00:23:32]:
And that is a piece of her holiness.

Fr. Nathan LaLiberte [00:23:35]:
When when, when I was in seminary, you know, one of the kind of the staple readings was Therese's Story of a Soul. And so, like, you read it, and you're just like, that's kind of your badge. Like, you gotta collect all the classics. So I remember telling my my grandma. I'm like, yeah, grandma. You gotta read this book. It's so good. And so I gave it to my grandma, and she read it.

Fr. Nathan LaLiberte [00:23:54]:
I'm like, so what what did you think, grandma? She's like, too sweet. I put it down. I was like, what?

Pat Millea [00:24:00]:
Grandma!

Fr. Nathan LaLiberte [00:24:01]:
I know. I was just like like, in my grandma's like, she's like a lifelong Catholic, and she she was just she was articulating. Like, that's what she pulled out of. Like, that this is unapproachable, unrelatable. Like, she's in a convent. All of her sisters are nuns and, like, just a beautiful life, and everything's flowery. And then Father Foley zooms in on no. She was actually an authentic person who was intentionally living.

Fr. Nathan LaLiberte [00:24:26]:
Don't miss that.

Pat Millea [00:24:27]:
Mhmm. Mhmm. That she was surrounded by suffering of others that she had to endure. She was surrounded by difficult people. She had suffering of her own. She had darkness in her own soul and sin that she had to overcome. That that she was not living in this golden valley, you know. And I love that that line too right before when you started quoting Kenna off page 5 that this book is about Therese's spirituality as a means of preserving sanity in an often insane world.

Pat Millea [00:24:56]:
So if you've ever wondered where we get the tagline for this very podcast, seeking sanity and sanctity, you can thank Father Foley on page 5. And what he's not saying, we'll get into this later in the book as well, what he's not saying is that sanity is an effect of sanctity. Because the danger there, of course, is if I am having any version of insanity in relation to the world around me, if I am experiencing maybe severe mental illness at the end of the spectrum or just mental health struggles, challenges kind of on on the near side of the spectrum, what it must mean is that I am not holy enough. And that is categorically false. That is not cause and effect. That is not the way it works. Sometimes those do happen together, but they are not linked in this causal way. What he's saying is the more that we can be holy, the better chance we will have of being sane, and the more we can approach our crazy world in a sane way, the more we'll have this smoother path to holiness.

Pat Millea [00:25:57]:
So they're linked, but not necessarily causal as well.

Kenna Millea [00:26:01]:
Are you gentlemen good if we jump into the first chapter?

Fr. Nathan LaLiberte [00:26:03]:
Do it. Let's do it.

Kenna Millea [00:26:04]:
So I'm I'm intrigued by this because the first chapter is on secrets. Right? The secrets that keep us sane. And Father Marc is talking about, what I saw as a distinction between dark secrets and what happens to us when we keep those inside of ourselves, and I think a lot about our conversation around shame.

Kenna Millea [00:26:25]:
And that one of the antidotes to shame is bringing things out into the light, being in communion, and and the way to break through that isolation and the lies that come with that. But then talking about these other kinds of secrets of the king, these things that are meant to be held secret. And so, yeah, just honestly, first blush, I'm just like, yeah, how do we discern, like, what is appropriate to keep to ourselves and what is necessary to bring out? Yeah. Can we just start there?

Pat Millea [00:26:53]:
I love that quote that she has on on page 15 of talking about these good secrets, the secrets that are gifts and graces. She says there are certain things that lose their perfume as soon as they are exposed to the air. And I I I love that image, that metaphor, because I I have found it to be imminently true in my own life, that language will always fail to express certain realities in my life, definitely in my in my faith, these kind of peak really conversion moments in relationship with God, in prayer, in worship, that I I can describe it, but there's no way to really capture exactly what that is in my life to capture the full reality of it. So even the attempt does a disservice to the experience itself somehow. And even if I do let someone into that, all of a sudden, it's not just this beautiful moment with me and God anymore that it's become, not tainted, not ruined necessarily, but, it just loses the sense of perfume, you know, that that that sense of good secret. It's beautiful.

Fr. Nathan LaLiberte [00:27:58]:
And I think in in the other side, the bad secrets. Right? I won't go dark. Right? Is I mean, there's an adage in 12 step works is we're only as sick as our secrets.

Kenna Millea [00:28:07]:
Mhmm.

Fr. Nathan LaLiberte [00:28:07]:
And this is often what causes the person to keep moving toward an addiction is something's haunting them, and they can't get rid of it. So they just use some substance to escape. And so what what Father Foley is talking about is these are the secrets that we should not keep.

Pat Millea [00:28:23]:
Right.

Fr. Nathan LaLiberte [00:28:24]:
These are the ones that are making us sick. These are the ones that even Ignatius talks about in his rules of discernment is the enemy works like a jealous lover as he's just like, don't tell anyone. Don't tell anyone. And the second that you manifest it to a friend, a spouse, a parent, a a priest, and confection, a therapist, suddenly now it has less power. And especially when you say what's haunting you and suddenly the person's like, okay. What do you wanna do with it? And they're like, it has no power anymore.

Pat Millea [00:28:50]:
Yeah.

Fr. Nathan LaLiberte [00:28:50]:
And these are the secrets oftentimes that we we should not keep because it make us sick. But, like, I think the reason why Father Foley makes the distinction of good and bad secrets is because we do just kind of have a broad brush when you talk about secrets, and he's trying to make the distinction that there are secrets of the king. There are things that happen internally in the soul that as soon as you expose them, they lose their value. And this is one of the things that Therese did so beautifully in, you know, some of the miracles, the miracle of, the smiling Madonna. And the the she she Father Foley recounts this very beautifully. And, as soon as this was shared, every time that Therese heard it recounted, it was like it stole something.

Pat Millea [00:29:32]:
Mhmm.

Fr. Nathan LaLiberte [00:29:32]:
And and there are parts of our spiritual journey, even amongst us. Like, this is where, like, I think when Kenna and I will be doing a podcast on spiritual direction and in that kind of stuff, spiritual direction counseling and confession

Pat Millea [00:29:44]:
Right.

Fr. Nathan LaLiberte [00:29:44]:
Is like, do you do do you do group spiritual direction, or do you do spouse spiritual direction? And part of it's like, no, because there are secrets of the king. You just you don't share them with the spouse because there's something that's just between God and the soul.

Kenna Millea [00:30:00]:
And I'll be honest and say, you know, Father, you and I talked a lot about that idea as you began to direct me on my silent retreats because I was experiencing a lot of healing and, really just incredible intimacy with the Lord. And, of course, my natural instinct is to go home and to tell Pat. And there was this really, truthfully, like, there was this struggle for me on, like, how can he be my husband if he doesn't know some of the most, like, fundamentally important moments of my relationship with the Lord? But I think it is this this reorienting me to, like, that's actually not the order of things. Right? Like, Pat isn't actually the ultimate being that I am meant to be in relationship with, and that is hard. Like and vice versa. Right? I am not the ultimate person who Pat needs to relate with more than anybody else. Like, that is reserved for God. And so I think that the Lord has allowed us to experience that in this.

Kenna Millea [00:30:57]:
And I remember one retreat coming home and trying to tell you something, and you're like, cool. And I was like, no. You do not understand the the depth and the magnitude of what I'm trying to talk. And you were like, you're right. I don't. And I was like, dawg. So so I've experienced it, and I think those are those those severe mercies, those, bits of grace that the Lord's like, back on the path you go. Like, now do you see the wisdom in what I'm saying?

Pat Millea [00:31:22]:
I mean, how how much of our sanity, how much of our connection to reality is affected by how close we allow people to our inner garden, you know, to our to the core of our being. Whether whether we do that in a healthy way and we allow the people in that will be that will be caretakers and will walk gently, or if we do that in an unhealthy way. If we allow people too close that have not earned the right or or if we keep everyone out no matter what because we wanna be defensive, we wanna make sure that we are safe at all costs. You know? Father Foley talks about those good secrets as the secrets that keep us sane, and he talks about them as as sanctuaries in in the best sense of the term that it's the place for us to retreat. It's the place for us to be safe. It's a place for us to be connected to God in in a true holy location. You know? And he talks, you know, specifically with one of the images that you can use maybe on a daily basis and that we talked about early in our podcast on boundaries in episode 2 is this image of a garden, and he he makes this distinction about 2 extremes that we might get into in relationship to these secrets and the people in our lives. He says on one hand on page 19 we might be tempted toward a lack of discrimination concerning with whom we share our life.

Pat Millea [00:32:45]:
And so you can think of maybe your classic over sharer, somebody who broadcast to the world things that are really ought to be intimate. Things that are really reserved for those who have earned the right, earned the trust to be shared to to have these secrets shared with them you know this kind of indiscriminate self disclosure and one of my favorite new biblical images that I think about frequently but especially with this is this random image from 2nd Kings of King Hezekiah who was the the the king of Israel back then, and these messengers come from Babylon. Okay? So this is before the Babylonian exile. These messengers come from Babylon because King Hezekiah is sick and they're just doing this goodwill visit, basically. But while the messengers are there, King Hezekiah brings them into the temple into the palace, I should say, and shows them all of the riches of Israel. He shows them everything. The the the weapons, the armory, the spices, the gold, the treasures. He shows them everything.

Pat Millea [00:33:48]:
And then he sends them on back to Babylon. Good visit, guys. Thanks. And, I'm forgetting which prophet it was. I wanna say it was Isaiah with Hezekiah. The prophet Isaiah comes to him as like, what did you do? And fast forward, here come the Babylonians later on to capture, pillage, and loot, and they take Israel off into captivity. Right? Because Hezekiah was not discriminating about who had earned the right to be shown the treasures that the Lord had given him, you know. So that's one extreme is that kind of brick wall around the garden that or excuse me, the the invisible fence, that we might have that lets anyone come into our garden at any time, no matter what we say about it.

Pat Millea [00:34:28]:
And then the other extreme, of course, is he says, quote to have a wall that completely encircles our garden. A wall so high that nothing gets in. Even sunlight. Because a lack of human warmth and connectedness, our flowers wither in the darkness of loneliness, and we shiver with the cold fear and anxiety of isolation. So there is this other extreme that keeps us protected in one sense of the word, but it also leads to isolation, self protection, a lack of vulnerability, a lack of connection, a lack of love at the limit. So right in the middle, we've got this healthy, dynamism of keeping the secrets of the king and letting our secrets breathe that would otherwise bring shame, self loathing, isolation.

Kenna Millea [00:35:17]:
Beautiful. Beautiful. Beautiful.

Fr. Nathan LaLiberte [00:35:19]:
So there's just one thing about the secrets of the king that I learned when I was doing my spiritual direction training. And the director, he said, you know, my my mother makes the best blueberry pie ever created. And if she gives you a pie and you just have one piece and then you throw the rest away, it's sacrilege. He's like, you you take the piece that she gives you, eat it, and then you save the whole pie and you freeze it, and you just gradually kind of siphon off of it until it's all gone. And when God gives the soul a grace, especially if it's under those secrets of the king, it's it's meant to be savored in a place that you keep going back to. And and I think that that's why the more that you expose those secrets to the king, it's just like, again, someone pillaging that beautiful thing that's supposed to nourish you for a long period of time.

Fr. Nathan LaLiberte [00:36:10]:
And so this is why it actually matters that we protect it, just like the Hezekiah example. I thought that was great. Mhmm. Is if we just expose the secrets of the king, we may not have the nourishment that we need to go through whatever the storm is because God gives us our daily bread, but we have to be the ones that don't squander it. Mhmm.

Pat Millea [00:36:28]:
And it's one of the ways that memory can really be anointed, that that the Lord can really use our memories in the best way to return to these encounters so that we do have strength for the things that come in the future.

Kenna Millea [00:36:40]:
Isn't it a Ignatian principle, like, revisit your constellations frequently?

Fr. Nathan LaLiberte [00:36:44]:
It is. And actually, Foley actually talks about it on page 18 with John of the Cross even referencing it. It's like the grace is, like they're not cheap. So, like, they they, like, keep having value over and over and over again. But Ignatius picks up on it too. And I mean, it's just it's a it's a kind of a it's a spiritual truth no matter what saint says. It's just it's so true and accurate, but we can we can move on to the next chapter too. Sorry.

Fr. Nathan LaLiberte [00:37:07]:
I didn't belabor it. I'm just savoring chapter 1. Yes. Yes.

Kenna Millea [00:37:11]:
Oh, it's so good.

Pat Millea [00:37:12]:
So chapter 2 is called Finding Her Way. And, one of the kind of, you know, maybe the the cornerstone, quote that can get us into this topic for chapter 2 is, the quote that Father Foley uses right on page 21 right off the bat from Ida Gorres. And, she says about Therese, at all costs, she did not want to be interesting. Not mysterious, noteworthy, enigmatic, stimulating. She did not want to attract the curious glances of the others to seem admirable or heroic. The veil of ordinariness, averageness, commonplaceness was the guardian of all secrets between God and the soul.

Kenna Millea [00:37:53]:
I'm not gonna lie. That's really convicting.

Fr. Nathan LaLiberte [00:37:56]:
So she would have a superpower be invisibility.

Kenna Millea [00:38:03]:
I still choose flight. Whatever. I'm gonna go with efficiency. I I feel called to authenticity out of this chapter, and I choose efficiency. That is the desires of myself.

Pat Millea [00:38:16]:
Efficiency over humility. Yeah.

Kenna Millea [00:38:19]:
Oh my gosh. My world. No. But but truly, like, that is so counter to our culture. And and and by culture, I think I mean human nature. I mean, that's something that Father Marc and I talked a lot about in our conversation is I would, you know, ask him these questions about contemporary culture, and he's like, Kenna, like, we're just talking about human nature. Like, it's it's showing up in a new way in social media or through technology or through globalization or what have you. He's like, but this is human nature.

Kenna Millea [00:38:44]:
And and

Kenna Millea [00:38:45]:
so that desire to be seen is so special and so other, and so set apart, that runs deep for me.

Pat Millea [00:38:54]:
It's such a grave temptation for all of us. And I think those of us in the church are not immune to this man. Like, I I think about all the ways that, you know, look at look at all of the let's let's say, like, Catholic speakers, Christian speakers that we love and admire, and we watch their YouTube videos, and we go to their talks, right, of, like, good holy people who I all the ones that I have met, by the way, are doing this for all the right reasons. This is not to slander anyone who's doing the Lord's work out there in kind of a broad public way. Right? But every single person who's called to that kind of mission has to do some really serious introspection about why am I doing this? Am I doing this, almost, resistantly, hesitatingly because I've been called to it? Or is there a percentage of my soul that really wants the applause and really loves the attention? You know? And then you take that to social media, and holy cow does that get turned up to 11. You know? Unfortunately, the way social media works is if you're gonna get a good message out there, you have to make yourself attractive, and you've gotta look for clicks and likes and shares. And man, that's that's at the heart of humanity is dividing that line of how much of this is God's and how much am I willing to do what he's calling me to because some people are. We would not have a John Paul the second if he wasn't willing to step into the spotlight in appropriate ways.

Pat Millea [00:40:22]:
But, man, we've gotta fight that urge to desire the spotlight.

Kenna Millea [00:40:25]:
Well, I think we have to I think we have to return to prayer to purify and and to check-in and make sure that, like, this is what god like, that god continues to encourage me on. And I imagine that there are ways that those who have those kinds of, you know, Catholic celebrity type roles would say that maybe they have stepped off the path. And and it doesn't mean that the call wasn't authentic and that the Lord isn't asking them to continue being this spokesperson because we need that in this world. But, just to return to the source and to remember, oh, that's right. Like, this is about you. This is about your work, not me.

Fr. Nathan LaLiberte [00:41:02]:
Yeah. And, you know, one of the things that's interesting too is Tres was fighting against a particular emphasis that was very commonplace in that time frame. Right? It's like the more mortifications you could do, the holier you were, I mean, the more obscure the penance that was, of course, visible. Yep. It's like they would have, like, you know, these metal crosses with, like, I don't know, like

Kenna Millea [00:41:22]:
Like, spikes.

Fr. Nathan LaLiberte [00:41:23]:
Spikes and stuff that they would wear around their chest.

Kenna Millea [00:41:25]:
And it

Fr. Nathan LaLiberte [00:41:25]:
would, like, and Therese, like, just couldn't do it because she was like, it's it's it's wrecking my my health. It's not making me better or closer to Christ. And so at the core of it, right, her pursuit was authenticity.

Fr. Nathan LaLiberte [00:41:39]:
And I the first time I really encountered kind of this, like, chest beating of, like, who's got the better penance was actually in seminary. Mhmm. And it was fascinating. Like, the first Lent that I went through in seminary, I was just 18.

Kenna Millea [00:41:52]:
Was it, like, Exodus 90 on steroids?

Fr. Nathan LaLiberte [00:41:54]:
Well, it's before Exodus 90 existed because I'm old, you know? And so but it was it was interesting because there wasn't a program to be, like, a baseline. So you hear someone say something like, oh, I got I gotta do that too. I got 1 up. I gotta do that too. And then, like, you know, you're just, like, casually sharing, like, yeah. I don't I can't even remember the last time I had a warm shower. And, like, yeah. I sometimes I'll just put rocks in my shoes on purpose so that it just, like, I I notice how uncomfortable other people's walks of life are.

Fr. Nathan LaLiberte [00:42:21]:
And so, like, it's like, well, that that's fine, but then why are you telling me? And so this great quote by Father Foley on page 25, it says that she knew that we can very easily take pride in our penances. Yeah. And then talk about ourselves in such a way so as to create an image of sanctity. And and this is the thing that's so interesting is when you even do, like, do an actual reading of the biographies in the lives of the saints, they often were found out doing penances. Yeah. Like, either in their death or like someone was doing their laundry and they're like, why is there all this blood on? Like like they, the saints would never volunteer it. Yeah. Where so often, I mean, I think there's, like, this desire in us that if we're doing something worthwhile, it has to be validated by someone else.

Pat Millea [00:43:06]:
Right.

Fr. Nathan LaLiberte [00:43:06]:
And, like, even at the start of Lent, what is the gospel passage that we read? Like, go into your you know, do not let your works be seen. You know, your Father who's in secret sees it at the beginning of Lent, just to be like, in case y'all didn't get this

Pat Millea [00:43:18]:
Yep.

Fr. Nathan LaLiberte [00:43:18]:
We're gonna start this journey together on the same page.

Kenna Millea [00:43:21]:
Yeah.

Pat Millea [00:43:21]:
And even beyond actions, I mean, one of Therese's quotes that I've loved for a long time over the years, it's a really good self check for me, is, again, on page 25, she says, there is so much self love mingled with spiritual conversations that even when people who are passionate about the faith who are all speaking about true things even when they're talking about spiritual realities, there can be this insidious little thread of like, look at how holy we are. Look at those holy people talking about whole we're not talking about worldly things like those worldly people. We're talking about prayer and penance and holiness. And, again, those things are beautiful to talk about. We would not have a podcast if we didn't think these things were valuable to talk about. But man, it can be it can be tricky if we're not conscientious, if we're not taking that to God for guidance.

Kenna Millea [00:44:10]:
Well, and I think this chapter for me really, cements some ideas that that I have around, the idea that how don't wanna say this. I call it interior confrontation and interior validation, and Pat thinks I should find less clinical sounding knowledge from that. But, he's like, that's a lot of words in your mouth, which is fine. Whatever. I'm working on it. But, but this idea that that what ultimately matters is that the Lord, like, blesses that he sees, what I am doing, what I am thinking, what my motivations are. And I think throughout this chapter, he really speaks to that, this idea that in the hidden life, then, it really does hold my feet to the fire of, like, okay, this is about what God sees. This is about what the Lord knows, not about the exterior validation of others, of them telling me, yeah.

Kenna Millea [00:45:07]:
Good job. Good job. That's a great penance. Yep. That makes sense for you. Yeah. That that does seem really hard. That's the hardest thing I've ever heard of.

Kenna Millea [00:45:13]:
Like like, those exteriors, also, I think, distract us from what is ultimately important. So that's the sanctity piece. And then in the sanity world, as she talks about, we become more and more dependent upon what others think of us. So, again, on page 25, not only does pride damage our souls, it is also a main source of insanity because it feeds our fear of what other people think of us. Pride gradually transforms forms us into actors upon a stage who become more and more dependent upon the applause of an audience. A 100%, I agree with that. Like like, absolutely, in my own life, I can attest to the reality of when my eyes start to drift from, like, Jesus, you are the one who I'm trying to please and glorify to, like, but what does so and so think of how I did that thing?

Pat Millea [00:46:05]:
Mhmm.

Kenna Millea [00:46:06]:
And how that erodes the relationship with him, but also my my sense of self, which leads to anxiety.

Fr. Nathan LaLiberte [00:46:13]:
I love the quote that he has on on the bottom of 26. It says, in the minds of many, Therese was a mediocre nun. Yeah. And it's just, like, case in point

Pat Millea [00:46:25]:
This doctor of Church. Yeah.

Fr. Nathan LaLiberte [00:46:27]:
Before God's eyes, Therese was a heroic saint who is going to change the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. In the eyes of her fellow nuns, she was mediocre. And, like, there there is a, an interesting book called The House of Bread or Breed. I don't know how you pronounce it.

Kenna Millea [00:46:44]:
Oh, I love that book.

Fr. Nathan LaLiberte [00:46:45]:
But it it's interesting because it traces how nuns are interacting. And, like, even as you read, like, Foley's account or even the the primary documentation of Therese's book, like, the nuns are mean. Like, they are mean to each other. And it's just I think it's actually shocking to, like, especially the lay world who I think

Kenna Millea [00:47:02]:
It was a little scandalous. I'm not gonna lie. Yeah.

Fr. Nathan LaLiberte [00:47:04]:
Yeah. Like, why would I wouldn't say that to someone. These are, like, supposed to be holy nuns, but, yeah, what happens is you just get so catty because the external world distractions are taken away. Our human nature is still broken. Mhmm. So So instead of picking apart big, you know, political or socioeconomic things, we just pick apart the convent. Mhmm.

Fr. Nathan LaLiberte [00:47:23]:
But so, like, the the the core isn't to remove the issues in the world because even if you retreat to the convent, there's no issues, but it's the disposition of heart internally. And that's what a penance is supposed to do is to correct the disposition of heart that's erroneous, not to feed the grotesque deformed part of us through pride.

Pat Millea [00:47:45]:
The I think a lot about, there there's this understanding in our Christian tradition that there is a hierarchy in heaven, which is good and appropriate that that there are some people who are, higher in the heavenly hierarchy than others. It does not mean that anyone is unhappy. It's the people in the lower levels of heaven totally understand the justice and the goodness of the people who are rightly above them in heaven. Right? So I wonder sometimes if there are saints in heaven who are the most, near to the throne of God that we have literally never heard of in our entire lives. Mhmm. Because they they were so good at taking the back seat, at embracing humility, at doing penances literally that maybe weren't even physical, just interior spiritual penances that no one could even identify. No one found out at their funeral, No one knew by by accidentally stumbling upon them in prayer that we just don't know. But God sees all of it, And if we think Therese is holy, oh, wait until you meet this random guy from Africa or this random lady from East Asia.

Pat Millea [00:48:59]:
You know, I just I I'm fascinated and really excited about that part of please God heaven to meet some of these heroes that have been praying for us more powerfully than we ever could imagine because they excelled at this exact principle you know

Fr. Nathan LaLiberte [00:49:14]:
so one one of the things I thanks for sharing that too I have I hope for that reality. I really do. You know? So in this chapter 2, I mean, with with the penances, right, it starts out talking about a lot of the externals and then fully brings in this beautiful thing. Again, anchoring insanity about perception. And I'm just gonna I'm just gonna read this little section on 28 because it shows and I mean, again, it's it's just such a brilliant vignette. It starts out it says, picture yourself about to give a talk before a group of colleagues. You are prepared, but feel a little nervous. You do not know how the group will respond to your material.

Fr. Nathan LaLiberte [00:49:54]:
5 minutes into the talk, you feel yourself calm down because you notice that the group is interested in what you're saying. Some are nodding their heads in agreement, and a few are even taking notes. However, a few minutes into your talk, you notice a change taking place. There's restlessness in the audience. You notice that some people are yawning and others are looking at their watches. There is even a couple in the back of the room snickering to one another. You begin to feel nervous. This affects your concentration.

Fr. Nathan LaLiberte [00:50:22]:
You lose your place and begin to stumble over your words. You're finding it difficult to breathe. You're beginning to panic. You hear a nervousness in your speech speech, which increases your fear because you know that your audience is picking up on your anxiety. You're afraid that you're going to fall apart in front of everyone. Now I I love this vignette because it shows, okay, if you are dependent on external realities, it changes everything in your life.

Pat Millea [00:50:49]:
Yeah.

Kenna Millea [00:50:51]:
Which is going back to to beat the dead horse about that interior validation and then interior confrontation. Like, clients will come in, and what they're describing is this emotional chaos. Right? Like, I just I thought I was doing the right thing and then, no. No. No. And I'm getting this feedback and I'm not sure what and I pause and I'm like, what do you think Yes. About the choice you made to move to Minnesota? Or what do you think Yes. About the choice that you've made to have a 6th child even though your in laws think it's insanity and that you can't handle yourself already? Like like, what do you think? What what in your conversation with the Lord have you been able to figure out about your authenticity, about your personhood, your call? And for many of us, myself included, we can have these seasons where we do not know how to pause and be present to to what is true for us, to have that sense of interior validation where perhaps all we get is affirmation from the Lord that, like, yep, you're on the right path.

Kenna Millea [00:51:44]:
It doesn't mean that you're not suffering, but, like, this is it.

Fr. Nathan LaLiberte [00:51:46]:
Do you wanna hear a funny story about it from preaching? Because, like, when you're preaching, you're, like, always watching people.

Pat Millea [00:51:51]:
Oh, I bet. Yes.

Kenna Millea [00:51:51]:
Oh, I can't imagine. It It sounds nerve wrecking.

Fr. Nathan LaLiberte [00:51:55]:
I went through a parish that it was not my home parish. I was subbing, and there was a person, there was an older older woman. This is a daily Mass. And, like, as I'm preaching, she's shaking her head back and forth like, no. Like, it just looks like she's saying, like, no. No.

Fr. Nathan LaLiberte [00:52:09]:
No. And so, like, I'm, like, getting a little offended. So I'm trying to, like, make my message a little bit more appealing and she just keeps shaking her head. No. No. No. And I'm like, what am I saying that's so wrong? You know? So controversial. I'm just like I'm like super I'm getting really upset and agitated.

Fr. Nathan LaLiberte [00:52:25]:
My homily is tanking because I'm like, I'm literally catering to this one person shaking their head. So then mask gets done, and I call the pastor, and I just and I said, like, hey. Look. I know you're on vacation, and I'm subbing, but, like, I just need to ask you about this person. And they said, like, does it look like this and this and this? I'm like, yeah. Father, she has Parkinson's. Like, literally, her head is shaking uncontrollably.

Fr. Nathan LaLiberte [00:52:47]:
So I literally sat back, and I was like, I

Kenna Millea [00:52:52]:
Holy buckets.

Fr. Nathan LaLiberte [00:52:53]:
Like, she had no she had no thought about my homily. Yeah. But my perception suddenly changed my message.

Pat Millea [00:53:01]:
Mhmm.

Fr. Nathan LaLiberte [00:53:01]:
And, like, it was such a sobering reality for me to say, like, whoa. This is not okay. Yeah. And, like, this poor woman as well. Just to judge that she's suffering, but, like Yeah. I I mean

Kenna Millea [00:53:12]:
Like, the no no fence. Right? Yeah. No fence. And so just whatever comes enters into your world, and it just turns upside down. Exactly. A moment ago, you're confident in your homily, and now you're like, oh my gosh.

Fr. Nathan LaLiberte [00:53:22]:
I can't wait to get out of this parish. I'm never coming back here. And it's like I mean, what if what if what if her Parkinson's would have manifested as a yes? Yeah. Right.

Fr. Nathan LaLiberte [00:53:29]:
I would have, like, preached, like, 2 times as long because I would have been, like, dude, I'm crushing it. This woman loves it.

Kenna Millea [00:53:34]:
And either way, I am being impacted by the whims and the response of the people around me. Yeah.

Pat Millea [00:53:41]:
So that conversation about, speech and silence is actually a really good transition to chapter 3. It's great. Father Foley reflects on the sanity of silence he calls it in chapter 3. On page 34 and 35 he talks about reflects on the idea that it was silence above all else that kept her sane. And this is this this struck me in particular as very appropriate. The very first parish I ever worked at, a pastor for didn't force me. He invited me. He recommended that I go on a silent retreat, and there was nothing more terrifying to a 25 year old extrovert than going on a silent retreat, but I did.

Pat Millea [00:54:18]:
I went for a a 1 week silent retreat, an individual retreat at the shrine of Saint Therese of Lisieux in Darien, Illinois right outside Chicago. So so Therese and I have had lots of experiences of silence together, and I can really appreciate her approach even though it was really difficult for me on the front end.

Kenna Millea [00:54:35]:
Well and I, was thinking too again, he makes this distinction between not silence out of, like, lack of courage and cowardice Right. But a silence that is well discerned and, and is at the service of relationship with the Lord and and this deeper sense of interiority and this deeper orientation to, like, hear God's will. And one of the things that was challenging for me this week is is something that happened in an organization that I'm a part of, and, there was this this, a conflict within the group. And one of the group members was very courageous in speaking up and saying, I I don't think this is right. I don't think the decision that we're making is correct. I don't think this has been well discerned.

Pat Millea [00:55:21]:
Mhmm.

Kenna Millea [00:55:22]:
And for me, that was a good example of, like, the use of my voice in a in a in a well discerned way, that this person had a lot of evidence for why it was important to to speak up. And so I just was thinking about that in in contrast to, on page 36 in particular. Again, this idea, I'm really trying to sell it to you guys, about interior confrontation, and this reality of, like, at the end of the day, I have to be accountable for the consequences of my choices. And so to go, well, I ended up not doing that thing because everybody around me seemed to think it was a bad idea. Are all those other people gonna help you when that choice yields negative consequences? No. Like, it is yours to own at the end of the day. And so at the top of page 36, he writes, Therese took sole responsibility for her choice, and he's reflecting on this situation where Therese spoke up, used her voice to address what she thought was an unhealthy relationship between one of the sisters and their prioress. So he says, she did not bind sister Martha to secrecy, which could have put sister Martha in an awkward position.

Kenna Millea [00:56:34]:
She was willing to bear the consequences of her action. And again, this is something that I talk about with clients of, like, we always have choices before us, and the real question is, can you see it through? Like, that is what is going to make you sane. Is can you can you trust? Like, there are always natural consequences. There's always fallout from whatever choice we make, to take the job, to not take the job, to be open to, you know, conceiving this month to not. Like, always consequences. But can I stand by that? Can I have enough conviction, enough courage, enough trust in god's providence to go, yeah? I made that choice.

Fr. Nathan LaLiberte [00:57:13]:
I really appreciate that, Kenna. And I just I think that it just gives people back their agency as well. Is I mean, like, you don't need to be paralyzed by your choices. You need to own the consequences of the choices. And, like, this is part of what life is is we have to make these choices. And and sometime and this is what I loved about how Foley depicts Therese is sometimes she had to speak up and be very assertive, especially when she was working with the novices. And other times, like, when she was accused of things wrongly, she would go silent. Yeah.

Fr. Nathan LaLiberte [00:57:45]:
And, I mean, this again, this is where you see the beauty. She's modeling Christ. Where there are times where Christ would speak up, if you are striking me on the cheek, what wrong have I done? And then there's other one where Pilate's like, why are you why aren't you talking? Why are you being silent? He's like, I got I'm I'm like, I already told you. Like, I I am the truth. And you're like, what is truth? I got nothing else to say. Sorry, buddy.

Pat Millea [00:58:09]:
Yeah.

Fr. Nathan LaLiberte [00:58:10]:
So, I mean, like, this is part of the beauty of Therese. She can weigh when to speak and when not to, and it's coming out of a place of authenticity. She's not defending herself. She's not trying to shame or hurt someone. And it's just it's just this beautiful representation of what the human person can do and maintain peace in the midst of it.

Pat Millea [00:58:26]:
One of the sections that really stood out to me in terms of that idea of maintaining peace was this section in chapter 3 on minding one's own business on page 44. This amazing reflection on Therese's refusal to engage in vapid curiosity just for the sake of knowing what's happening out there with other people. You know? And I immediately I mean, if if anything is appropriate in the 21st century, that might be it in this world of 24 hour news cycles and social media where I today, if I wanted to, I could get on social media, and I could find out exactly what is going on in the personal lives of thousands of celebrities that I will never meet in my entire life. I can find out intimate details of their lives, and I can find something to criticize all over the world, you know. But he says on page 48, being able to focus on the task at hand when the whole world is falling in around us, not only can keep us sane, but also may be a sign of deep holiness. This this beautiful ability to not go looking for things to complain about, but to just do what God has put before me because that is certainly his will for me. The what's going on in the Holy Land may be really valuable for me to pray for, And what is happening in someone's life that I'll never meet may be really valuable for me to pray for. Those may be God's will for me, but what I know is God's will is the family, the work, the prayer, the situation that he's put in front of me right now, and to not go looking for things to get angry about, not go looking for things to entertain myself with by being occupied in other people's business.

Fr. Nathan LaLiberte [01:00:16]:
Yeah. And, you know, one of the things that I don't know if the listener is aware of or not, but Therese actually had a motto.

Fr. Nathan LaLiberte [01:00:22]:
Do you know what the motto is?

Pat Millea [01:00:23]:
No.

Fr. Nathan LaLiberte [01:00:23]:
The motto it just says at the bottom of page 40, it says, Therese's motto on her on the coat of arms was the loser always wins.

Kenna Millea [01:00:31]:
Oh, that's right.

Pat Millea [01:00:31]:
I saw that.

Fr. Nathan LaLiberte [01:00:31]:
The loser always wins. That is brilliant. Like, there is the the more there's more virtue in losing than winning. And it's true though like if you've if you've ever lost something like you you have to actually possess more virtue If you win, it's like the natural consolation is like, you're like, oh, I'm boss. I'm so good.

Fr. Nathan LaLiberte [01:00:52]:
But it's when you lose that you really have to struggle.

Pat Millea [01:00:55]:
It's the crucifixion. Right?

Fr. Nathan LaLiberte [01:00:56]:
Yeah.

Pat Millea [01:00:57]:
That is Jesus is the ultimate loser, and that is not heresy. That is what Therese is saying. That's the truth of the situation because it's only by dying that you can rise.

Fr. Nathan LaLiberte [01:01:06]:
I know. And and Therese has this great quote too. I'm sorry. Father Foley on page 40 again. When I find myself spending a $100 of emotional energy over a 10¢ issue, I try to remember the wisdom of Therese and ask myself the question, is it really worth it? Yeah. So Good. If I were to look at my, like, emotional bank account, I I'm probably overspending. Nate, you spent half your holy hour thinking about this issue.

Pat Millea [01:01:42]:
I mean, what what what what is it? Like, what? Someone looked at you across? Like, someone didn't agree with the decision you made? Like, okay. Like, it it's have a discussion and it'd be done and move forward and talk about Jesus. You know? Yeah. But you just spend so much money on this stuff, and it's all about the perceptions. And it would be better just as, like, to go back into the silent recesses of the heart and just be, like, all is well with my soul. Isn't that the quote you always like to say? Is that the Julian of Norwich?

Kenna Millea [01:02:09]:
All shall be well.

Fr. Nathan LaLiberte [01:02:09]:
All shall be well. Yeah.

Kenna Millea [01:02:11]:
We have a clinician here, Megan, who we interviewed, can't remember the number of episode, but on body image and eating disorders. And and she reminds us often, like, nothing is worth losing my peace. Like, she says that often in when we pray together, Nothing is worth losing my peace, Lord. Like, remind me that nothing is worth losing my peace. And and when I think about what that means for me, peace is this awareness of of God's providence, like God's hand upon me in the midst of the chaos and the discomfort. Like, that that is like, his promise to be near me. And so to lose my peace is to lose sight of the fact that god is with me. And so when I hear you saying, Father, yeah, it's a $100 worth of emotional energy on a 10¢ thing, like, that's forgetting, like, oh, but, Lord, you're here.

Kenna Millea [01:02:58]:
So, like, I don't have to overspend emotionally on this because you are with me.

Pat Millea [01:03:05]:
The loser always wins.

Fr. Nathan LaLiberte [01:03:06]:
The loser always wins.

Pat Millea [01:03:07]:
Before we get to our challenge by choice, any closing thoughts from you, wonderful people, about the first half of the book here?

Kenna Millea [01:03:13]:
Well, I guess one final thing on page 49, you know, in particular, I know that there can be a lot of criticism about contemplatives as not being, concerned with or actively trying to, abate the suffering of the world. And so I thought this quote, at the top of 49 when Foley's talking about Mother Teresa, now Saint Teresa of Calcutta and Therese. He says, an enigmatic sanity characteristic of sanctity, that they both had this enigmatic sanity characteristic of sanctity, a sanity that is deeply moved by human suffering but strangely unperturbed by it. And, and I'll be honest, I experienced that with Father Marc when I speak to him. I I experienced this this way in which he is attentive and present to me, and also does not get wrapped up in things that I am saying. And and I would say, let that fence be there. Let that boundary be there. But I thought that was so beautiful, like, that like you said, Pat, there's a lot going on in this world that I could really tie myself up into a pretzel anxious knot over, because of my awareness of my lack of influence and ability to control it.

Kenna Millea [01:04:27]:
Can I can I be moved? Can I can I let my heart be moved with empathy and compassion to pray for it even and also, like, not get tied up in it, not lose sight of what is my role in regard to things like war in the holy land or hunger, you know, across the globe? Mhmm. So yeah. So I thought that was a a quiet, maybe even response in my own mind when people criticize contemplatives. Yeah. Like, hey. There's this way I can still be moved by suffering.

Pat Millea [01:04:54]:
I love that.

Fr. Nathan LaLiberte [01:04:54]:
Do I

Fr. Nathan LaLiberte [01:04:55]:
get a closing comment too?

Pat Millea [01:04:56]:
Yeah. Get in there.

Fr. Nathan LaLiberte [01:04:56]:
So I I there's a quote by Saint Teresa of Avila that he mentions, and I just absolutely love it. It's on 48. And he says, sometimes the devil gives us great desires so that we will avoid setting ourselves to the task at hand, serving our lord impossible things, and instead be content with having desired the impossible. And so, like, I in doing spiritual direction, I just see this a lot, is it's an it's an amazing source of discouragement for the soul as well. It's like it's like, well, I've gotta do this or this or look at this person. And I think, kind of, you mentioned in several other podcasts, like the the Instagram mom, like, where you're just like, I just gotta do this. And, like, these are if I was just to be able to kind of set about on the ordinary what I have before me with great simplicity, no show, that's probably actually the Lord's will right now. But we always think, like, if the Lord's calling us, it has to be something flashy or grandiose.

Fr. Nathan LaLiberte [01:05:52]:
And to your point, Pat, about who's gonna be at the the highest eschalons of heaven Yeah. It's probably gonna be, like, some random, like, you know, hi. I'm Rick Peterson.

Fr. Nathan LaLiberte [01:06:00]:
Like, I live down the street from you

Fr. Nathan LaLiberte [01:06:01]:
and you're like,

Fr. Nathan LaLiberte [01:06:02]:
oh, well, good good on you, man.

Pat Millea [01:06:02]:
There's a scene in The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis where the main

Pat Millea [01:06:09]:
character is walking through kind of the entryway of heaven, the lowest threshold, and here comes all of a sudden this parade of people, like, leading the way for this beautiful woman who's on a chariot and there are people, like, throwing flower petals and the the main character goes, oh my gosh, is that is that her? And you get the sense that you saw about Mary. Right? And the his kind of guide says, Oh, no. That is not her. He says, but no. That was a woman that you would never have known. Her name was Sarah, and, she was just a a holy woman, and she did everything that she was asked to do. It's just this, like, beautiful image of, like, anonymity in this life that only God sees, which means the even greater glory in the next. Just just beautiful.

Pat Millea [01:06:56]:
So that's the call. It's easy. Right? So challenge by choice number 1. Number 1, read the second half of this book. Again, it'll take you 20 minutes probably. That's number 1. Number 2 is challenge by choice. Find a way in the next week to put on this invisibility cloak of holiness from Harry Potter.

Kenna Millea [01:07:16]:
Hidden life.

Pat Millea [01:07:17]:
Of find a way to do great things that are great in God's eyes and that no one else will notice. Literally no one else. Not your spouse, not your kids, not your parents, not your coworkers.

Kenna Millea [01:07:29]:
And I'm willing to bet life is actually just gonna give it to you. You don't even have to go look for it. Like, it's just gonna be handed to you, and you're gonna make that choice. Okay. I'll talk to myself. I'm gonna have to make a choice to just let it be hidden. Mhmm. Alright.

Kenna Millea [01:07:43]:
Pray us out of here, Father.

Pat Millea [01:07:44]:
Take it away, Father.

Fr. Nathan LaLiberte [01:07:44]:
In the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen. Heavenly Father, we thank you for the great depth that you have given, to Saint Teresa of Lisieux and our ability to understand what it looks like to live sanctity and sanity in this world of chaos. May you grant to us her powerful intercession that we, like her, would choose not to live on the externals, but would be able to live in the internal recesses of our heart with you, our King. We ask all these things through Christ our Lord. Amen. Amen. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Kenna Millea [01:08:17]:
Thank you, gentlemen. I'm already looking forward to our next conversation to finish out this book, and thank you, listeners, for being along for the ride as always. Feel free to check out the, discussion questions in the show notes. You can check those on thiswholelifepodcast.com and continue following along this journey of sanity and sanctity on social media, @thiswholelifepodcast on Instagram and Facebook. And until next time, God bless you.

Pat Millea [01:08:48]:
This Whole Life is a production of the Martin Center For Integration. Visit us online at thiswholelifepodcast.com.

Pat Millea [01:09:08]:
You tell

Pat Millea [01:09:08]:
me when you're ready over there.

Kenna Millea [01:09:11]:
Me?

Pat Millea [01:09:11]:
Yes. You.

Kenna Millea [01:09:12]:
I'm ready.

Pat Millea [01:09:12]:
You. Alright. Great.