Join Father Andre as he reflects on his incredible journey from escaping persecution in Lebanon to advocating for religious freedom in the United States. This episode dives deep into the celebration of saints such as St. Teresa of Lisieux and St. Francis of Assisi, exploring their impact on faith and morality. Mary Flynn joins to share her personal insights on how the lives of saints can inspire us to act with love and compassion in our own lives.
One day you stole me, nuncia vit Maria, At age 10, Father Andre escaped Christian massacres by living in caves in Mount Lebanon with his family. Today, Father Andre works tirelessly to encourage American leaders to keep God in the public square, defending religious freedom at home and abroad, so that all might live in peace for the glory of God. Founder and president of the Mission of Hope and Mercy, Father Andre has learned the secret to safety, joy, and peace. Love God and one another. Now, let us spend 33 minutes on the Lord’s Day, retuning ourselves to the truth of love in the hands of God.
SPEAKER 02 :
Praise be the most holy name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, now and forever and ever. Amen. Who is going to save our church? Not our bishops, not our priests and religious. It is up to you, the people. You have the minds, the eyes, and the ears to save the church. Your mission is to see that your priests act like priests, your bishops act like bishops, and your religious act like religious. Most Reverend Fulton J. Sheen in 1972. Good Holy Sunday morning to you, my brothers and sisters. This week is very important. The first week of October is one of the most beautiful, spiritually strong weeks for us as Christians who are devoted to the life of the saints, to the history of the saints, and also to know about historical events that happened in the history of the Church, which affected our sovereignty, our freedom, the protection and the safety of the Holy Roman Church. You know, the first week of October we celebrate the feast day of St. Teresa of Lisieux, Teresa the flower. We also celebrate, yesterday we celebrated the feast day of St. Francis of Assisi, the founder of many of the traditions, but definitely the Franciscans in the world and many of the traditions, including all the way to the Capuchins. many layers of first and second and third orders, the little friars of St. Francis of Assisi, the saint who consecrated also into the life of vigilant consecration to the Lord in the life of virginity, obedience, chastity, and poverty and stability, Santa Clara and the founder of the Clarist also, who both of them were founded in Assisi. And then we celebrated of Saint Cybrian and Justina, the brother and sister who were magicians in the early centuries, yet coming to know the love of God through the martyrs that they themselves were actually hurting and killing, they ended up rejecting. and renouncing the black magic, and they both died as martyrs. We also celebrate the feast of Our Lady Queen of the Most Holy Rosary. October 7 is a date that is a very important date for the Catholic Church, for Europe, for Rome, for the seizing and the freedom of the Papal States and the Western Europe from the hands of the Turks, from the hands of the Ottomans. When in the middle centuries as well, a rosary was being prayed and the war of Lepanto. Many things that today we will recall on this beautiful, irrevocable podcast, unbreakable. You know, you cannot because remember that the stone which was rejected by the builders became the cornerstone. Today is such an honor again to have the friend for the mission of hope and mercy, the friend of many of us in the nation and a friend of me personally as Father Andre, Mary Flynn with us. Mary, I want to wish you a wonderful, happy feast days for all of these things and good Sunday morning to you.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, lots of feasts today, lots of celebration and great people, great, great, wonderful, faithful people to the Lord, right? And you are too, you’re a wonderful man.
SPEAKER 02 :
Thank you, Mary. Looking at the life of these beautiful saints, every one of them, I mean, of course, if we, I do strongly recommend that people watch the life of Santa Teresa, the little flower of Santa Teresa de Lisieux, Saint Francis of Assisi, namely. What do you think we as Americans can learn from the life of these saints? And a small spiritual thought from you.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, you know, I love my mother had a great book, a little tiny book of saints. And I don’t remember the author, but she collected many old, old books from Germany when they were in Germany. OK, even the Bible that we had as kids growing up came from this place in Germany where I was born in. My father was his last tour, army tour. And this one book in particular was just amazing because it it was a story stories of saints. And each each chapter was about these saints. And many of them were the saints you’re talking about. And, you know, so these were people and I loved reading them. That’s that’s really why I started learning about what the saints did. who they were, but what their reasoning for the Lord, how they became saints. But these saints were not perfect people. They came from imperfect, like us, ways on this earth and families. Many had very hard struggles with alcoholism and domestic violence and sadness of women. Many of the women saints lived through a lot of kind of torture and so forth. sexual hurting, you know, and so forth. And so they’re not perfect. They were not perfect people. But yet they aspired to listen to the Lord, to listen when they finally found His voice. I always think of seeing Augustine. He was a tough kid growing up. His mother wanted him to be a better kid and so forth. And he was just a kid that was always getting into trouble. So they did these things. And then when they found the Lord and they found what their purpose and their mission was, they blossomed. They became exactly what the Lord’s wanted them to be. And they obeyed him and they made a difference on this earth. And if you look at these people, these people are people that we need to pray to that will still help us, you know, still be part of our lives, which is so amazing in the Catholic faith, these saints. They’re just amazing. I’ve prayed to Padre Pio. I’ve even prayed to Assisi. Now everybody thinks, you know, the animals, when they think of, they think of the patron of animals, right? Of Assisi. Yes. But he did so much more. There were so many more things that he was a patron of, a patron saint of, you know?
SPEAKER 02 :
I want to tell you there’s something remarkable. If you look behind you, there’s faith, family, and the freedom, I believe. You have a sign behind you, right?
SPEAKER 03 :
Yes.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yes. And definitely when you look and you speak about the saints, it’s almost you have to consider that they are promoters of faith, promoters of freedom, promoters of family, right? I mean, if you look at the life of Santa Teresa, the little flower, her mom and dad were nobility. They had rank in society. And then of course, the five girls, all of them become nuns. And obviously in our Catholic tradition, it is very ordinary. It seems that in old days when we had large families of 12 children. Yes. seven children and 14 children and 10 children, that many of them would go to life of consecration. The family, the mom and dad always consecrated one member, at least one member of their children. They said, this child will be a nun, this child will be a monk, this child will be a priest. And it’s almost a beautiful heritage for us. I want to say that in the life of the saints, definitely faith is being promoted. The family is being promoted and the freedom is being promoted. Santa Teresa, the little flower, for instance, you know, in her short life on planet Earth, you know, she entered into the Carmelite order at the age of 15, at the very, very, very early age. And she followed her sisters. But yet at the same time, the very first work she wanted to do is to be this big saint. At the age of 15, she would want to carry these huge, uh lumbers on her shoulder and walk with the nuns but she had the lung disease unfortunately she was very fragile she was very sick and then she couldn’t do those big huge things so she goes to the church and she writes a following to her lord jesus christ in her diary she said i will do the little things with big love I will do the little things with big love. And of course, there’s something very important that she consecrated her entire monastic life for, which did not even stay probably for 10 years because she died very early at the age of 24 when she died, unfortunately, from her lung disease. She consecrated her life for the repentance and the conversion of the hardest serial killer in France. who killed hundreds of people and buried him in the backyard. She prayed for his conversion. And obviously when they came to give him the death penalty and the priest came to, the priest who was supposed to come to anoint Santa Teresa, the little flower, came late. She was in her agony. She suffered terrible agony upon death bed. So the priest was late. Pauline, her sister, she was a superior of the convent. She told him, why are you late? My sister cannot die. She’s like so much in suffering and she’s so scared. She can’t see heaven because Teresa, before she died, she said, I can’t see it. I can’t see it. I’m not going to die. I can see it. And she was coughing blood and she was getting out of breath. And then Pauline would try to console her because her agony was with a tremendous pain and suffering. And then the priest walks in with a newspaper in his hand. He said, praise the Lord. I’m sorry I am late, but can you believe it? that the worst criminal in the history of France repented. And before they gave him the death penalty, he asked to confess his sins and to repent. So Teresa looks at Pauline, she says, that was my wish. This was the person for whom I consecrated my entire monastic life. So Pauline, now I don’t die, but I enter into life. And from heaven, I will spend my days in heaven, showering roses forever. on earth with every sinner who repent to answer the graces of god and she passed away immediately because she refused to die she refused to die not until jesus granted her the wish that the hardest criminal the worst sinner that there could be in france as a criminal right before receiving his death penalty he actually decided to repent or confess his sins regretted his sins and confessed And died after he has been to confession. So death penalty seems today to have come back to our… Yes. Would you like to talk about that? Because I do not want to… I’m not going to ask you the question. So who brought up the death penalty and pro-life? What is the story? What’s going on?
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, the pro-life, yeah. So, well, the Pope was, Leo, he was asked by a great little reporter who asked about this. And it’s very Durbin, Senator Durbin. I mean, this is in the news now, right? This Senator Durbin receiving this lifetime award kind of thing or whatever they’re doing. I mean, I just, it’s ridiculous to me, those kinds of things. Yeah. You got to be careful with those kinds of awards because, you know, I mean, what you’re talking about is, you know, people repenting and forgiveness and all that. That’s when people need an award, you know, to be able to be honest and say your sins and give it up. And that’s what we need more of today is, you know, some of these politicians, they need to come clean and just tell the truth. And boy, does that set you free. You know, so so so the death penalty now down here in Florida, we have the death penalty with, you know, rape, raping a child. OK, that’s that’s a that’s a death penalty. I’ll get you the death penalty. Now, I, you know, with my study and what I believe, and the Lord may not like it, but I don’t believe that anybody should be, you know, held aside. I mean, you know, the saying of rather have a… What is that saying? I just had it this morning. We were talking about around your neck and thrown into the bottom of the sea. That’s a that’s a to me a sentence of death. OK, the millstone millstone tied around your neck. And people do relate that to child rape or killing or things like that. And so that is, you know, this determination of. You know, maybe it meant that’s the death penalty to me. She can’t survive that unless you have a miracle, unless the Lord saves you from that. Drowning and that’s not a good way to dry to die. So the death penalty. Yes difficult for us to judge and make a death penalty, but there are reasons for I believe that, you know, I don’t have any kind of patience with anybody that hurts a child. I’m done with this with this child mutilation and killing so as far as you know that and my soul is concerned. I look to that scripture and I and I say, you know to me that’s that means the death penalty.
SPEAKER 02 :
So I want to tell you, I do not know for the sake just of history up to 1969. Yeah, 1969. Actually, the Vatican state had capital punishment, had death penalty. That’s right. That’s right. That’s the other thing. In our punitive code, we did have death penalty. And for instance, one of the reasons for death penalty is for anybody who attempt to kill the Pope. Yes, that’s right. They would condemn them with a death penalty. But of course, with Pope Paul VI in 1969, he removed the capital punishment from the status of the fundamental law of the Vatican City. And then Pope Francis again in 2018 solidified that this is now inadmissible by the Catholic Church because it’s against the integrity of the Catholic Church. person of the christian of the human of the human person and somehow but we see how pope leo is telling us listen you wanna be pro-life today pro-life um is no longer the defense of the unborn uh the stance on pro-life it seems uh pope lee is trying to tell us uh there are um many causes under pro-life it’s no longer only the cause of abortion is this how you understood it
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, well, yes, because everybody well, yes. I mean, you know, everybody knows pro-life is associated with abortion, pro-abortion, pro-life. OK, it’s always been that way. It’s been that since I was a little girl and my mother was fighting for pro-life, which was against fighting against abortion. So, yes, he so he’s now twisted this and tried to change what we were talking about earlier was changing this messaging of this. Now, I want to step back a little bit because I was reading Taylor Marshall, Dr. Marshall’s response. And I found this very interesting now. Now, he’s a converted, you know, Catholic, right? He was a product, I believe, a Protestant Christian. minister of some kind, some kind of clergy or some kind of a leader. OK, I don’t really know his background, but I know he’s converted to Catholicism and so forth. So he says, Pope Leo. said that if you support the death penalty, then you are not pro-life, right? That’s what he said. So he says that means that Moses and parts of the Pentateuch, and I say that wrong, Pentateuch, right? Pentateuch, Pentateuch. Pentateuch, yes, are not pro-life. It means dozens of popes were not pro-life and were heretics. He says that’s obviously false. OK, so there’s a view. OK, there’s a view that he’s he’s taking stance on, which is going back to Moses. I mean, that’s that’s interesting that he says that you might want to familiarize yourself with the Catholic, the catechism of the Catholic Church, which is the CCC, which you’re talking about. Right. Right.
SPEAKER 02 :
I’m not going to enter into debate, but I want to tell you, Pope Leo knows his dogma, knows where he’s coming from. And I want to tell you why I am saying this. There is an encyclical which was written by Pope Leo XIII, Rerum Novarum. I do not know if you have ever heard of it, Rerum Novarum, of the new things, basically. Okay. And this encyclical was also commemorated later on by Pope John Paul II in 1987, because it was written in 1887, in an encyclical called Solicitudo Re Socialis. Okay. Celebrating 100-year anniversary for the new things. But it seems that the Holy Fathers, since Pope Leo XIII, so 130 years ago, let’s say since 1887 all the way till 2025, how many popes we have, every one of these popes started going more towards the social teaching of the church. Before that, and it’s important that we explain that so you know, like a person who is very well knowledgeable and has critical opinions to give actually and to advise people, public officials all the way probably from the highest office in the land to the most organic workers in the field and vineyard of our nation and of our Lord. The popes in the 20th century, since Pope Leo XIII, they moved away from the divine revelation and the divinity of Jesus Christ. And they started talking more about the social teaching of the church.
SPEAKER 03 :
That’s right.
SPEAKER 02 :
And in terms of the social teaching of the church, they admitted that the structure of our humanity does not depend alone on the divine revelation. I’m not advocating. I’m just telling you what we learned and what they wrote. These are encyclicals, apostolic exhortations, big conferences that the Pope’s ran. So the position of every Pope has been more and more leaning towards admitting the social science of sociology, the social science of sociology as a defining character. in the moral teaching of the church not only the divine revelation of course the doctor that you spoke about a few minutes ago of course he’s right in referring to the holy bible but the holy father say clearly the holy bible is not the only source Looking at the moral crisis and the moral identity of the human being. The social sciences or the human sciences, we call them in French, les sciences humaines, such as psychology, such as anthropology, such as sociology. Those sciences for the church, they mean a lot. Yes, they do. um uh pope i i noticed that pope leo when he was asked about a month ago what else was popular asked about um something regarding his meeting i guess with the priests and the vatican that priest and that sister i i he was asked to he was asked something um after he met with controversial priests i believe and uh and the pope leo answered well we look at the human crisis we look at the human crisis not only under the light of divine revelation but also based on sociology as a matter of fact as a matter of fact the first encyclical that pope leo now is writing yeah is anthropology wow what are you gonna say go ahead oh no you i i mean
SPEAKER 03 :
Why are we going there? Why does he have to do that? You know, why would you do that? The Catholic 101 is no exception. I have it here. Abortion, no non-negotiables. Abortion, euthanasia, embryonic stem cell research, human cloning and same sex marriage. OK, it doesn’t mention anything about death penalty. whether it’s right or wrong. It’s just about, you know, what, what can, what are we going to negotiate? And that is, you know, euthanasia. I mean, these things have been corrupted the way they’ve done these things, the abortion, you know, issue was, you know, we didn’t have medical attention. We were doing it in closed doors behind closet doors with terrible, you know, mechanism, you know, so, so now we’re here at this point where we are killing, we are the you know lowest birth rate of all time history in every nation so we’ve killed you know millions and millions of babies in the womb you know so we’re why can’t he make a stand never mind anthropology never mind that nonsense with him he’s he’s these leaders they infuriate me they really do because can’t you look at the whole picture of, you know, through Christ’s eyes and understand the satanic, the very much evil and why we have killed so many, sacrificed so many babies. There’s a reason that they are doing this. And why can’t he see this? Why can’t he see this and say, no, no more abortion? No, everybody, no more abortion. Why can’t he do that?
SPEAKER 02 :
Again, I’m not going to advocate, but I’m going to tell you how they operate, how they think. Exactly. That’s what I want. That’s what I want you to say. The social concern of the church has grown tremendous, has grown tremendous and as important as the divine revelation. Pope Benedict XVI used to say, and I was close to him, I was honestly close to him, I had the most privileged time in my life, I believe that would fulfill my eternity, to have been in contact with the umwelt, with the Weltanschauung of that Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI. He used to say, that the church 500 years ago stopped going towards the kingdom of God. Right. 500 years ago, and he was referring to 1510. That’s right. It was King Henry VIII and Pope Leo X. That’s right. yeah the problem of the indulgences the problem of uh you know um building the basilica of saint peter and the cardinals and the you know the the the middle age crisis of the church which produced the reform the protestantism and the counter-reform the 200 years of wars between protestantism and catholicism that’s right millions of catholics ended up being killed the church was a chastise inside the great britain the anglican church the english church was born was Henry the eighth and then with Mary and Edward and Queen Elizabeth the first. And after that, the role that the Protestant Kingdom of Great Britain played to make sure that the emperor of China and the emperor of Japan also chastise and kill and murder and abolish every Catholic institution in Asia and in eastern and far and far Asia, which they did. And they did. And they did. They killed hundreds of thousands of laity and priests and Catholic people and they ended up being underground. The French Revolution of 1789, which produced the reign of terror. It produced the reign of terror for 17 or 15 years or 20 some years. Over 60,000 Catholics were killed, massacred, exiled, dunked in the sand, in the river, and in north of France as well, in the river. A priest started being called Monsieur Le Cuvier. Napoleon rendered that all the private properties of the church now, including in the Papal State, because he occupied Rome as well as France, became the property of the French government and the French people. But nobody realizes, by the way, the Vatican accepted all of this. The Vatican in 1929 accepted this with the Concordatio Lateranese between Mussolini and the Pope and the recognition of the state of Italy by the state of the Vatican of the state of the vatican by the state of italy depended on this on territorial recognition that the vatican uh they will give the territories to the italian government they will recognize the italian government and they maintain the vatican as their own state and that’s right the vatican became a state then i want to continue to to tell you there is something even worse a little bit do you know when we moved from the italian lira to the euro. The Vatican was the very first quarter that was ever printed. I do not know if you know that. I do. I saw it. With the euro. And then the properties that the Vatican, that were confiscated by the French government since 1700. Since 1700. 08 or 02 was Napoleon and after Napoleon. were given back to the Vatican as a lease, not as an ownership. And the Vatican paid for the very first thing in the euro to the French government, one euro paying back as a lease to permanently lease back their own territories, which once were the papal territories inside the France.
SPEAKER 1 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 03 :
Now, isn’t that interesting? Because, you know, here we have a new world that’s been discovered in 1700s America. You’re right. 1776, but that’s an interesting… Now, so you just gave a history of pre-America, right? Of pre-United States, really.
SPEAKER 02 :
And the crisis of attacks against the church. I think these attacks opened the dent inside the church and there was infiltration inside the church. And then the church realized that it can no longer find a justification for the persecution. There is this movie called The Silence. That’s right. About these Jesuit priests who went into, I believe, into China, if I’m not mistaken, or into Japan. And then how one priest had to reject God because his mind was so much manipulated by the emperor due to the inflicted pain that they gave him. And God was silent. God never responded.
SPEAKER 03 :
No, I know.
SPEAKER 02 :
You know, they say that Pope Pius XII had nightmares. Pope Pius XII had nightmares. And in his personal writing, he had so many dark writings. Dark, yes. Dark writings.
SPEAKER 01 :
That’s right.
SPEAKER 02 :
About him and God and how God doesn’t respond. You know, I think the church right before Vatican II was Pope Pius XII. So until 1958, this is when he died. That’s 1958, yeah. You know, the Pope was given a report and he was saying, well, look at the inheritance of Catholicism in Europe, Holy Father. Look at Christianity in Europe. What did we produce since the reform, 1510, back again to that date, all the way till the time of the World War II when it ended. That’s right. Over 300 million people died. That’s right. The church felt the failure totally to preach the kingdom of heaven. So for the church to take people, to usher people towards the kingdom of heaven, the church had to go in a direct line towards the social teaching to bring people together. into an envelope of dialogue, mutual respect, human dignity, and you started hearing, talking about the human values. There is nothing called the human values. What is the human value when Adam and Eve ate from the fruit? What is the human value? It doesn’t exist. The only human value is for the human being when they are baptized to Jesus Christ before Vatican II. That’s right. But after Vatican II, I think the church being so traumatized. Yes, traumatized. So traumatized by the many massacres, the many murders, the many killing, the many wars which are produced by, unfortunately, Christian hands as well. Christian empires, Christian kingdoms.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, the monarchy, right?
SPEAKER 02 :
The monarchy.
SPEAKER 03 :
That was our thing, was the monarchy. And that’s the Protestant church, you know, and the Catholics were. I mean, you know, I just watched a great movie on the Guinness family. And people should watch this. And I mean, I’m not a Netflix fan, but. I’m an Irish family. We’re from an Irish Catholic family. And I am very, very interested in the fight between the Protestants and the Catholics. And history is just amazing when you think of this new world that they had discovered here in the 1700s, this United States, coming from all the… turmoil you’re talking about all the you know mess from europe and the way protestants the monarchy were talking about the monarchy control and the crazy kings and queens we had right they were crazy people some crazy very very rare was it a good you found a good faithful one that was uh You talk about socially, you know, who was who was a good person to its people. You know, he would he treated people with humanity, good humanity, you know, good, good guy.
SPEAKER 02 :
You know, there was literally you can literally say because our people from KLZ radio station now and our listeners in the state of Colorado, we want to thank you for being with us. This is 33 minutes on the Lord’s Day on KLZ radio station with Father Andrew and Mary Flynn. And you can continue following us with irrevocable podcasts to watch our conversation by logging on to our website, missionofhopeandmercy.org. That is missionofhopeandmercy.org. Speaking about the issues of today, speaking about what Mary just concluded with, that the United States was formed at a very crucial time where Europe and God… including the church and God were going into turmoil, into an age of massacres, into an age of a lot of tribulations. A nation was formed by divine presence, by divine providence, obviously, and by the hand of its founding fathers in order to be one nation under God. To continue such a conversation and know what is it that God is asking us today to do as Americans and how Should we look at all the issues and the crisis in the world today? And how can we help surviving, saving our nation and saving others, accomplishing God’s divine will, promoting peace and justice in the world? And of course, with the charity and good act of equal rights, equal protection to all. Please continue watching us on Irrevocable by going to missionofhopeandmercy.org. And I want to thank you to please, I want to ask you to support the work of the Mission of Hope and Mercy. We count on your support. That is missionofhopeandmercy.org. And may Almighty God bless us all, protect us from all evil, forgive us our sins, bring us to peace and joy and victory in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. And may God bring us to everlasting life. Happy Feast Day of St. Teresa and St. Francis. And may you have a wonderful Sunday.
SPEAKER 01 :
Thank you for listening to 33 Minutes on the Lord’s Day. To hear previous programs, visit the show page at missionofhopeandmercy.org. Listen to Father Andre every Sunday morning at 7.30 on KLZ as he speaks on the unity of Christians, religious freedom, and the biblical foundation of Judeo-Christian values and traditions. Join him in bringing hope and freedom to people across the globe while also strengthening your own faith, family, and community right here in Colorado. Reawaken the spiritual strength of America. Go to missionofhopeandmercy.org.
