Join Father Andre and Mother Miriam as they reflect on the importance of keeping God in the public sphere and the ongoing battle to uphold religious freedom. Through heartfelt stories and biblical references, they delve into the challenges facing today’s church leadership and the enduring hope required to inspire change. This episode is a rallying cry for listeners to actively participate in the mission and donate towards a vision of peace and mercy.
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 03 :
Praise be the most holy name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, now and forever. Amen. Mother Miriam, greeting to you.
SPEAKER 04 :
Hello, Father Andre. I’m happy and honored to be with you. And I want to say straight off that I just watched your opening message, which is very beautiful and very touching. You and I have something in common in different circumstances. I also brushed the dirt off half-eaten sandwiches as a child. very different circumstances. But you see, people say, why does God allow such things? And he works them all together for good. Look at this beloved Father Andre, a poor child persecuted in that land. And now he’s a messenger of the Jewish Messiah, the savior of the whole world. God is perfect in his ways. And before the program gets further on, I want to ask you all, I want to beg you. I’m not ashamed to beg. Apostle Paul says, I beg you by the mercies of God to present yourselves a holy sacrifice, which is your reasonable service of worship. I’m going to ask you and beg you all to support Father Andre’s mission. And they go to what? Missionofhopeandmercy.org. Is that it? Missionofhopeandmercy.org. It’ll give you that. You can donate online, I’m supposing. You can mail in money. You can take a trip and give it to Father. But I’m going to ask you right now, your year of end giving, he’s not saying this, he didn’t ask me to say this, but I’m very moved by his message and his life. So I ask you to partner with him in this, indeed, this true mission of mercy. God bless you, Father.
SPEAKER 03 :
Mother Mary, you know, sometimes in our lives, We end up holding some charcoals. Sometimes God puts in our mouth some lit charcoal as well. I guess one of his prophets said, I can’t spit it. And if I swallow it, it becomes bitter in my stomach, but it tastes like honey in my mouth. But then you put some message in my hand, and if I throw it, it’s burning cold. Jeremiah. Jeremiah. Sometimes caring for our people costs us a lot. and mission of hope and mercy, your religious vocation, just a journey from where you are at home in Judaism to where you became at the bigger home in God’s message in Christianity. the contradictions that you see, the hearts, thoughts that are revealed. We are in the last week before Christmas, what, exactly seven days, I believe, before December 25th. And I want to thank you because your message and support of the Mission of Hope and Mercy will be met as a sign of victory. I see it as one of the hits that St. Michael the Archangel will give as a blow in the head of Satan on his flying tongue. Whether represented by fake people or by people who do not want us to aid and to help our people. You know, we read in the Gospel of St. Luke chapter 2 verse 10 to 12. Do not be afraid. For see, I am bringing you good news of great joy. For all the people, to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign for you. You will find a child. wrapped in hand in bands of clothes and lying in a manger what i want to ask you inspired by the work of the mission of open mercy inspired by your religious consecration which is vows and your monastic consideration The shepherds today in the church, the shepherds today in the church, there is a Christ always in this image of this little baby sleeping in a manger, harmless, not even seen as a son of God except through the eyes of faith and the proclamations of the angels. How far are the shepherds today from Jesus in a manger? Through innocence, purity of heart, and Judgment by kindness, by love, by compassion, instead of the severity of judgment. And I know you have a diagnosis. I know on your daily prayers, you address the shepherds of the church, the bishops, the Holy Father, and everybody. How far are they from this innocent heart of Jesus?
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, there are, as we both believe, good and holy shepherds in the church, for sure, priests and bishops, cardinals. But it seems, at least to the sheep, that most of them have abandoned the faith. That’s what it seems to me and to the sheep. Our Holy Father, Pope Leo, cardinals, bishops, and priests, it appears that the faith is gone, that they are imitating the secular world for power, for position, for safety and not speaking out. So, it utterly, Father, it utterly, utterly grieves me every time I hear something from Pope Leo that’s against the faith, every time he appoints a bishop that sponsors LGBTQ, that sponsors what God said, homosexuals will not enter heaven, that speaks of a unity Separate from truth, I tell you, I personally, I get physically ill. It affects me that strongly that I get physically ill inside. So we don’t speak of all the shepherds. We speak of a number who have exposed, I want to say their hatred, if not unbelief, of the faith. And so many shepherds, we don’t know where they stand because of their silence. And a true shepherd cannot be silent in the face of the wolves, as Apostle Paul wrote to the Ephesians when he left, ravenous wolves will come in to lead the sheep astray, and that’s what’s happened. And how any bishop or priest can be silent Just so he’s not removed, so he’s not persecuted, so he can stay with his sheep on his terms is just a mystery to me because it’s only the truth that saves. Edmund Burke, I don’t know much about him except he’s the one who said the only thing needed For evil to persist is for good man to remain silent. So it’s an awful, awful time in the church. And yet my comfort and hope, dear Father, as you always speak about hope, and that’s our number one charism, daughters of Mary, mother of Israel’s hope, the hope of Israel, the hope and consolation of Israel as the Messiah. And our charism is hope. Why does hope fade with circumstances? No, because hope is based on the Messiah, on God, on the Savior of the world, who is allowing all this evil and destruction and apostasy. He’s allowing it. but he’s building his church against which the gates of hell will not prevail. That’s what we know. So I don’t have to second guess what God is allowing or doing, but it’s an awful time in the church. And it’s an awful time for people who don’t believe because very few are telling them the face.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, you have asked Felicia if she can ask me some questions when I get to know me. I want to tell you some things voluntarily. When I came in 2015 to establish the mission of Open News, I didn’t think about it. Mother Miriam, I was a rector of a cathedral. I was in St. Louis, Missouri. I would have had a wonderful career.
SPEAKER 04 :
Excuse me, I’m going to interrupt you. You were rector of the cathedral in St. Louis, Missouri?
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, yeah, for the Maronite Church. And I’m the first priest ordained by the first American-born bishop, Bishop Robert Shaheen, the first American-born bishop.
SPEAKER 04 :
Wow. Cardinal Burke is the one who started this.
SPEAKER 03 :
Cardinal Burke. Cardinal Berg used to come to my rectory and I would make him za’atar pies and I would sit with him. We would speak about the Christians in the Middle East and the persecuted Christians. I had the most amazing time with Cardinal Berg. I knew Cardinal Justin Legale before him as well. I know the whole stories of what used to happen in St. Louis. I know Cardinal Dolan who is in now a happy and blessed retirement that today he officially is leaving office and a new Archbishop coming from Juliet in Chicago to take his place. May God’s will be done. And this is your home diocese, I believe, in New York, if I’m not mistaken, right?
SPEAKER 04 :
In New York, yeah. I actually entered the Catholic Church. I was raised in Brooklyn, but I entered the Catholic Church upstate New York, yeah.
SPEAKER 03 :
So when I came to fund the mission of Hope and Mercy, it wasn’t really on my agenda. It’s not part of my personality. It’s not part of what I was pursuing. I had gained a presidential scholarship from St. Louis University under Father Biondi, which is a Jesuit university. And all of a sudden, in the month of May, In 2008, something happened to me, something strange. Today, when I meditate upon it, I say, God allowed that the doors of the castle will open, and I see the misery outside of the gates. I’m talking about the experience of Buddha, you know, in Buddhism. Buddhism, they say that Buddha was a son of that king, he was protected, everything came to him, and the silver platter, the fruits, the trees, the elements, the weather, he was never getting sick, never, never suffered anything. And all of a sudden on his birthday at the age of 18, his father said, open the gate and let him see outside. And then that was like, and then I think he saw death. He saw misery. He saw pain. And he got sick, right? Right. He saw everybody sick. He saw the homelessness. He saw the hunger. He saw the isolation. Almost like Mother Teresa, right? And also Mother Teresa of Calvary, you know? And I do not know. And I kept battling against it. I kept saying, Lord, that’s going to screw my life. That’s going to really hurt. I can’t do this. And the voice I kept hearing, and I want to tell you that, I do not know why. You know, 1,000 years ago, I told St. Francis, go and gather back the church of the poor, of the poor. Today, the pillars of the church are being shaken because of, there is a big battle against faith, against hope, and against love. And these are the foundational pillar. where my whole mystery has God revealed to save the world. Damn. And all three of them, faith, hope, and love, depend on your contact, depend on you guys, depend on the church. depend on the way you exercise, live the faith, live the hope, and live the love. And I could see immediately in the world, everything turned to gray. There was no shade. And I was walking outside in an area called Belmar. And as I was walking down the street, All of a sudden, I see the Holy Spirit almost left the world. And I’m not joking, Mother Maria. I see the Holy Spirit left the world.
SPEAKER 04 :
No, I’m following you and I believe you. Go ahead.
SPEAKER 03 :
And I was so saddened. I really felt deep sadness. I said, Lord, why did you leave us? He said, now people will have to just choose me out of their free conscience and their own good nature by remembering what I did for them. and all of a sudden colors were leaving the trees the elements from the buildings that were around were leaving and all i saw was just gray shapes of things that if you would breathe on it it would fall there was no life there was no life and then of course i started getting exposed to i was persecuted when i was a child i was in war we lived in caves and then You know, when the new bishop came in the office, he gave the full permission to establish the mission of mercy. The former bishop told them, don’t stand against, you know, the will of God for Father Andre. And the Virgin Mary is behind that. And it seems this is good for the Christian in the Middle East. So the mission of hope and mercy was founded actually by divine inspiration, but as one of the tools to grant hope to many persecuted in the world, to many rejected. to any dejected. I did not know that the number of the persecuted Christians at the time was about 250 million Christians persecuted. I did not know that out of the almost 70 million Christians who were killed, who were killed throughout history, for their faith, they were killed strictly for their faith. And there are, you know, proofs online to see them. It’s happening today? And it’s happening today. I did not know that about 40 million of them 30 to 40 million actually were killed only between the first and the second world war just in the 20th century i did not know that the nations in the west the european nations failed in their christian heritage and chose violence chose to betray jesus christ and then of course in that context i did understand that the second council of vatican happened to address this nature of violence, this failure of Christianity. I mean, what was the best thing Christianity did in Europe after 2,000 years? They killed about 350 million people, blew up the world in two major wars, and conspired against the Orthodox Kingdom in Russia, and the only Catholic kingdom in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. There’s a lot of history. I’m a historian by trade. That’s what I study. I’m a liturgist by trade. This is what I study. Right.
SPEAKER 04 :
My mother’s from Russia, my father’s from Hungary. Go ahead.
SPEAKER 03 :
So in all of this context, I told Our Lady, I said, Mother Mary, if you want the mission of hope and mercy, Apostolate of Our Lady of Hope, Mission of Hope and Mercy, St. Raphka Mission of Hope and Mercy. I said, they’re gonna kill me. They’re gonna crucify me. They’re gonna hurt me. And I could always hear that voice. The grace of my son is sufficient for you. The grace of my son is sufficient for you in our faith. When we started feeding people, you know, Like in April 25, in our mission report, we shared a remarkable story. I want to tell it to you about how the support of the donors, the support of the people that you invited to donate at the end of this year to help us realize our goals. We partnered with Umm al-Nu, the Mother of Light, and this week we are celebrating Hanukkah, the Festival of Lights. I want to ask you about it. Omenor or the mother of light is an institution as one of Lebanon’s most respected organizations helping individuals and families battling addiction both in rehab and in treatment and in follow-up to put them back in society for work. Addictions has devastated countless lives in Lebanon hundreds of thousands if not over millions of the young people in lebanon during the war you know they were severely exposed to addiction i have the children and younger people who are exposed since the age of nine years old to heroin to cocaine you know to heavy heavy drugs people do not know what does war do that you know the addictions is another demon right it’s a big satan that breaks the bones of the children mother maria i would see young people that i help myself believe And I always did that in my life. They would jump in a bad standing. They would jump like two or three meters high because they did not want to go back, you know, to take the shot under their skin. They did not want to take the pill to try to withdraw. They would run with me. They would run with me in the mountains for miles and miles and miles and scream their lungs out. The odor that comes from them, the perspiring, the sweat that comes from them. It’s horrible to see those children in addiction. So Mission of Hope and Mercy pledged that we will help the center. We will send them every other month 70 boxes of food for their inmates. And we send food boxes for their teachers and their psychologists. and the people who treat them, basically. And then we support their kitchen also with food. So it costs us almost nearly 1,500 pounds of food every eight weeks that we have to provide for the only one center of the Mother of Light of Aminu. That’s only one facet of your work. That’s only a tiny facet. Only one facet of that work. And I want to thank you for asking the people to support Mission of Hope and Mercy. I just wanted to say that it wasn’t part of the opening. The opening was going to be about being out of faith and the festival of life that I wanted to go back to ask you. But I wanted to thank you for asking the people kindly to support the work of the Mission of Hope and Mercy.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yes. And I don’t know that you know or others know, but I was a women’s jail chaplain in my Protestant years for over 10 years. And most of the women there were addicts, drugs, put on the street at 11 years old to support their mother’s drug habit. You know, prostitutes at 10, 11 years old, just awful, awful suffering. And a number of people judge them for. You can’t. You can’t. It’s just… They used to spit at me, some of them, saying, you straight… women, they didn’t say women, they said, you don’t know what we suffer. And I said to them, you’re very wrong because you shut it out with drugs and we don’t. So we suffer somehow, you know, in times more than you. But the situation in Lebanon, it wasn’t their choice. And it was awful. And, you know, I’ll just tell you that even though this religious order exists, Father Andre, more women are coming in. We have quite a bit of land. We can be a refuge. We don’t need anything. We always need food and all that, but that’s what everybody needs. I don’t know. I mean, it’s 24-7. I keep thinking, what more can I do? What more can I do? And As a religious order, we take vows of poverty, chastity, obedience. And poverty is not necessarily to do without, but it’s not to keep more than you need. It’s to give it away, which we do. But I live in pain. I’ve never said this on the air. Only those very close to me know this. I live in pain 24-7. John Paul II said this, we are made to give our lives away. We are made to give our lives away. We are made to be a gift of self. And no matter what we do, it’s never enough. In my heart, it’s never enough. We have to do more. And so I don’t know what God has, but I’m so happy and honored to meet you. We just have to do more. There’s a world that’s dying physically, but they’re dying spiritually. And people are praying for… Can I tell you a silly dream I had?
SPEAKER 03 :
You’re telling it to about 4,000 people only who are now watching us live, actually.
SPEAKER 04 :
Okay, here’s a dream I had some years ago. I saw, I learned about in the Protestant realm before I was Catholic, left behind that Jesus is going to come for the rapture. It’s not Catholic teaching that the rapture is the end of time, but that Jesus is going to come and he’s going to take those who believe up in the air with him and everybody else is going to suffer. And it showed a picture of a man mowing his lawn, and his little boy with a toy mower mowing alongside him. And the mother’s in the kitchen cooking. And then up to the clouds. And it went back to the man mowing the lawn, back to the boy with him, back to the mother in the kitchen, they all had a little girl, and back to the clouds. And then back to the lawn, but the man wasn’t there, just the lawn mower. And the boy wasn’t there. And to the kitchen where the pot was on the stove boiling, but there was no mother. And the nine-year-old girl ran into the kitchen and said, Mommy, Mommy, where are you? I was a new Christian. I was so horrified that everybody was taken and this nine-year-old little girl was left behind. And I don’t know how to describe it. I was so horrified and so physically ill for whatever truth this was, even if it wasn’t truth or presented right, for all the people in the world that don’t know Christ. And I was driving to work the next day and the clouds were like they were in the film. They were beautiful, gorgeous blue sky with fluffy white distinct clouds. And I saw those clouds. I know this is gonna be crazy, but I started sobbing. I started sobbing and I hollered at God. I’m driving in my car and I say, you stay up there. Don’t you come. You stay up there because the world has to know you first. Don’t you come. So people pray Baranatha. I don’t. The world has to know him. We’re his missionaries. And shame on us if we don’t preach the gospel to every creature, which our Lord said, once the gospel is preached to every creature, the end will come. I don’t want the end to come. I want people to be saved. Why do I believe? I don’t know why I believe. Why don’t others believe? I don’t know that either. I know, but they must. There’s no other name under heaven by which men must be saved. Acts 12. So, I live for this, and I say to everybody, many people, my best friend said, Roz, Rosalind, my given name, she said, I want to spread the gospel too, but I have a home, I have a husband, I have children. I can’t do what you do. I said, oh, yes, you can. While you’re at the sink, you could teach your children to give 10% of their allowance. The Jews used to give 30%. People don’t know that. Wow. We can do this.
SPEAKER 03 :
Three types of tithing, right? Three types of tithing.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yes. A total of 30% of the gross, not the net. Of the gross, not the net. Of the gross. And so what can we do, beloved? What can we do? Well, we can give to Mother Miriam. You can. But if I had a choice to give to Mother Miriam or Father Andre, I’d give to Father Andre. But what if I share it? 1% to Mother Miriam, 99% to Father Andre. I live with pain and a desire to do something to reach out to the world, to the poor, to bring them the gospel. And here we are in the country living a very nice life. We work, we do this, we sacrifice. It’s nothing compared to what Father’s been through in Lebanon. So that’s why Father and I didn’t talk about this before, but I’m asking you to give to themissionofhopeandmercy.org today. Today, I want him to have over a million dollars in donations today. Over a million. Blessed Mother, please, today. Okay.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, I did not dare to ask you, O Lord Jesus Christ, because I don’t have the courage of Mother Miriam. and you have chosen to beat me on a cross that is very heavy but thank you for bringing a simian the siren thank you for bringing nicodemus thank you for bringing your mother the virgin mary and mary of cleopatra thank you for bringing john the beloved thank you for bringing joseph aramithea we thank you for bringing the good the good people of god the wonderful Jewish people who stand now in this fullness of the Bible being executed, where you are the Maranah, the Lord who has come, the Lord who wants to save, the Lord who will come again. O Emmanuel, I thank you. I am not worthy that you enter under my roof, but only say a word. My soul shall be healed, and so are the physical essential needs of many of your poor people on earth. I want to thank you, Mother Miriam, for doing this. You know, in our Bible, we pray about 365 times, in Aramaic, means, be not afraid, be not afraid. When I met you, you and Father James Altman, when I met the courageous Father Pavone, when I met the courageous Bishop Strickland, and many other priests, I was impressed by your courage. And I think because I was so viciously attacked, I do not want to say in what ways, but sometimes, you know, when leaders use their abuse of power to crush a soul, it’s easy to hurt the people, Mother Mary. It’s easy to destroy a human being. And your words today build up. Your words today They make the light shine in the darkness, truthfully. I want to thank you for allowing and telling people and making the wish for a million dollars. This was our secret wish, me and my team and the mission of… Really? And I didn’t know.
SPEAKER 04 :
A million dollars today, beloved. You know, if we give… David, King David said, I will not give the Lord… what I don’t have, but I won’t withhold for him what I do have. And somebody, I don’t, I’m not a prophet, I don’t know this, you may find it’s too nervy, but someone can write a check for a million dollars. Two people can write two checks for half a million each. You can do, it could be a lot of donations, which would be, a lot of donations equaling over a million would be just fabulous. But the fact is, There are thousands of people, millions of people that won’t hear the gospel unless those that God has prospered are going to give. If God gives you the gift of giving, which is 1 Corinthians 12 and Romans 12, he gives you the gift. He gives you what to give. And Father, you’re not totally truthful. And the reason I’m saying this is because you are courageous. Look what you’ve lived through for life. You are courageous. And I want to say to every priest and every bishop to be an altar Christus. Shame on you if you’re not. Shame on you if your fear holds you back. Shame on you. Our Lord, you are to imitate Christ. Our Lord, you think he wasn’t, he was tempted, he wasn’t, he didn’t sin, but he was tempted in all points as we. Do you think that he didn’t know fear? I think he did. Father, why has thou forsaken me? I think he knew fear. He never gave in. He never gave in. And Father Andre, I have a PhD. I’m going to tell you this publicly. I didn’t graduate high school. I never said all this thing on the air before. But I have a PhD. And it said never giving up. I’ve earned it my whole life, PhD, in not giving up. And that’s what you have. And that’s what we all need. Never, ever, ever give up.
SPEAKER 03 :
Felicia, we have to write this big I have PhD for not giving up. That’s it.
SPEAKER 04 :
That’s it. That’s my PhD. It’s my entire life since I’m an early child. I have practiced since this community began. I’ve been put out of two dioceses and been threatened and all that. And you, more than me, I don’t give up. Full steam ahead. If God stops me, that’s fine. Excuse me, I have to plug my computer in. It’s
SPEAKER 03 :
Yes. I did not know if you can put it like in big and let people share that tweet. Mother Miriam said, I have PhD. I never graduated from college, but I have PhD.
SPEAKER 02 :
I didn’t graduate from high school. I never graduated from high school. I’ve been working since I’m 13. I have PhD and not given up. That’s right. Thank you. Thank you for this beautiful day.
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.
