← The Spiritual Life with Fr. James Martin, S.J.
The Spiritual Life with Fr. James Martin, S.J.
Adriana Trigiani on the spirituality of "showing up"
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- [00:00]
A
Body, mind and spirit. We believe if one needs help, so do the others. As part of Catholic Healthcare's holistic approach to treating the whole person. Here, people are not viewed as symptoms or insurance claims. And when we treat the body, mind and spirit, we believe the whole person will thrive. Catholic Healthcare Learn more at wecareyouflourish.org Sponsored by the Catholic Health Association. Hello and welcome to the spiritual life. I'm Fr. Jim Martin. On this podcast, we reflect on how people experience God in their daily lives and in their prayer. And I'm joined by my excellent producer, Maggie Van Dorn. Maggie, good to be with you again.
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B
It's great to be with you, Jim. So we have an exciting guest this week. We have Adriana Trejani.
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A
She is a wonderful person, full of life, and why don't you tell us a little bit about her?
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B
Sure. So Adrianna is called one of the reigning queens of women's fiction. She's a New York Times bestselling author of 21 books of fiction and nonfiction. She is an award winning playwright, TV producer and filmmaker. And Adrianna wrote and directed the major motion picture of her debut novel, Big Stone Gap, adapted her novel Very Valentine for television and directed the award winning documentary Queens of the Big Time, among others. Her latest novel, the View from Lake Como, is being heralded as the most anticipated summer read. And Adriana has made regular appearances on NBC's Today show and Good Day New York. And she has been profiled by publications around the world including the New York Times, Virginia Living, Publishers Weekly, and Writer's Digest. And just like us, Adriana has a podcast. You Are what yout Read is a podcast in which Adriana and the luminaries of our times discuss the books that built their souls. So how did you first become acquainted with Adriana's work? Did you read her her great summer read?
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A
Well, you know, Maggie, I heard of her books. I had heard of her books, which are very popular, as people know, and I'd seen them all over the place. But it really wasn't until she invited me on her podcast that I got to know her and I just thought, boy, she'd be a great guest on our show. I know she's Catholic, she's Italian, she's 100% Italian. I'm half Italian. So that was a lot of fun. We connect on that.
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B
She's a very animated storyteller as well.
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A
She is a very. Yes, people will find. People will find out. And yeah, she's just, I don't know, I just clicked with her. I Just thought, she's a lot of fun, she's very upbeat, she's very positive.
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C
And.
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A
And, you know, when I started to delve a little bit into her Catholic background, I thought, boy, we have to have her on the podcast and our listeners will not be disappointed.
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B
No, not at all. And we will get to that conversation with Adrianna in just a minute. But first, we have a question from our audience, and this comes from Joel. And the question is, can you please share any techniques, best practices, or strategies for spiritual journaling?
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A
Well, Joel, that's a great question. And funny enough, I just came back from my annual eight day retreat where I did a lot of spiritual journaling. So, gosh, techniques, best practices and strategies. I would say the first thing is to obviously be honest in your spiritual journal. Talk about the consolations you've had, the places where you felt God's presence, the desolations, you know, places where you felt, you know, in a sense, that God feels a little absent. Mainly, I think it should be a record of your relationship with God. Right. Where did you experience God in your daily life and in your prayer, which is the theme of the show? So the spiritual journal, I think, should not just be about what happens in your prayer. Right. Because our prayer can sometimes be very dry. Right. That's really important. But where did you experience God in your daily life? Right. One thing that helps a great deal is also to do the examination of conscience, which is the prayer popularized by St. Ignatius, which is a review of the day. And that can help you see where God has been active. So I think marrying, in a sense, the spiritual journal with the examination of conscience at the end of the day is very helpful, I will say. It's really important to journal things that happen in your spiritual life because we tend to forget them. And a spiritual director said to me a long time ago that the evil spirit, the one that pulls us away from God, wants us most of all to forget the things that God has done for us. Right? Which I think is really, really important. That someone said just recently to me that faith is really a lot about remembering, right? And we see this all throughout the Bible. Sometimes the people of Israel, you know, they forget what God has done for them and they start to complain. Sometimes the disciples forget what Jesus has done with the miracles. Right. And all that, and they complain and they lose their faith. So I think journaling is really essential just to get down on paper what has happened to us and what God has done with us and to us and mainly for us. So great question. I would say that it's not something that's commonly done by people. But I think it should be because really to remember. Right. Which is such an important part of.
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B
Your faith and something that Adriana talks about in this conversation as well. You know, the Eucharist as a remembrance of Jesus.
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A
Yes, exactly. And she gives a really interesting answer to your question, Joel, too, which is even more about kind of techniques that she has. But yeah, I would just say try to record as much as you can about what God has done for you.
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C
Great.
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A
So thank you so much, Joel, for your question. We really appreciate it.
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B
Yes, we do. And if you have a question for Father Jim, please write to us@thespirituallifemericamedia.org and.
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A
Now a word from our sponsor. Looking for a simple way to deepen your own spiritual life? Give Us this Day is a superb resource that helps Catholics stay rooted in both scripture and in prayer wherever you are, no matter how busy you are. It features both reliable and relatable spiritual reflections, essays on the lives of the saints, the daily Mass readings, and of course, prayers to accompany you throughout the day. I'm honored to be an editorial advisor for GIVE Us this Day. And I've been writing a monthly essay called Teach Us to Pray from the very beginning. And here's a great offer. Right now, listeners of the Spiritual Life can get 10% off their new print subscription. And by the way, the print version of this is beautiful. Just visit giveusthisday.org spirituallife and join this community of Catholics praying together again. That's giveusthisday.org spirituallife. And now onto our conversation with Adrianna Triggiani. Adriana Triggiani, welcome to the Spiritual Life.
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C
Thank you. I'm thrilled to be here.
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A
It's so wonderful. And also congratulations on the new book.
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C
Thank you.
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A
I'm very happy about it. I think there is a review coming out soon in America.
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C
Well, as a subscriber, it's the only right thing to do.
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A
That's right.
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C
Gotta run a review.
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A
So I want to dive right in. You come as I think all your readers know from an Italian American family, as do I. Half Italian. And you write with your family in mind. And so many of your characters are Italian American. How did that culture growing up shape your faith, would you say?
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C
Oh, I think it's everything. I could tell you a story when I was cause it's hot out at this time of year and my grandmother would make us go to daily Mass with her and we were basically, you know, when you talk about like the little Italian princess. Forget it. It was like Grammy's little field hand, her little cement mixer, car washer. I mean, we did the heavy lifting.
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A
Now, this is where for our listeners.
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C
We'Re in Pennsylvania for this. I grew up in big Stone Gap, Virginia, by the way. When my grandmother first came down there, I said, graham, what do you think of our town? And she said, I could never live in a place where they don't make cheese. So that's what she thought of Appalachia. That was it. Right. But when we stayed with her, we had to go to. And I would get very faint, and you couldn't have communion if you ate anything. So I'd be sitting there thinking, I'm going to pass out. I'm going to pass out. And one time I did, and the next thing I felt was her foot moving me. Get up and get up there and go to Communion. And the priest had been waiting there for, like, I don't know how many minutes because I was blacked out and I had to crawl out of that pew and go up. He was just impatiently waiting for me. And I thought, oh, okay. But that would tell you at the outset that it's the fabric of my family life. And my grandfather, her husband, who died when I was a little girl, he was very devoted to Our lady of Fatima. So everywhere he went, he did shrines to her everywhere. And he was really neat. I really loved him. And I soon learned that sometimes the men in the families weren't very devout, but the women were. But in my family, I'd say my father and mother were equally devout, as were were my grandparents. And then on my mother's side, same thing.
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A
How did this shape your faith? Were you pretty religious growing up, would you say?
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C
Well, I would never say I was a religious person even then. But I find great peace in the sacraments, in receiving them. And I would say, what has gotten me and has kept me Roman Catholic is the breaking of the bread. That's my thing. I see the breaking of the bread not as symbolism, but really God and spirituality made manifest. It's manifest in the room, in your place, with each other. And think about it. In my big Italian family, the most important thing we would do together was cook and put on meals. So to me, it was all part of a continuum, the breaking of the bread. It wasn't like a special thing. It was the thing always.
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A
Now, that's interesting. Were you always devoted to the Eucharist like that? Even as a girl, would you say?
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C
But I would say I was really Devoted and still am to the Blessed Mother and you devoted to the rosary.
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A
So many things to talk about. Okay, so first I want to talk about the Eucharist. So where did that come from? Because I think for a lot of Catholics, I mean, a lot of Catholics are obviously devoted to the Eucharist. I'm devoted to the Eucharist, but it's not the primary devotion. So did it.
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C
When did that develop? Well, you know, it's a recreate. I'm here, I'm talking to Father, like, he doesn't know. It's a recreation of the Last Supper.
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A
What is it?
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C
Where the. Where the. That the sacrament happens in front of your eyes. And so I made that connection very early. Oh, this is a meal to which we are all participating. And everybody brings themselves to this meal in whatever state they're in. Some of us are starving. Some of us are. Okay. Some of us maybe not need that particular day. But it had, for me, a sense of continuity to the Italian tradition of the table tolla, tabola.
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A
All of it very well said. As well as the rosary. Was that a early rosary is a.
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C
Big one with me now.
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A
So you do the rosary today still?
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C
I still do it, especially when I'm nervous, yeah.
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A
Tell us about your experience with the rosary. Why do you like it? How do you pray it? What happens?
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C
Well, you know, because I'm Maud, you know, I look, meditation, all these different things. I find them all fascinating. And when I moved here, I said to myself, I am going to investigate everything. I want to learn about everything. And to a large measure, I did that. But I found like that the rosary, to me, was the grandmother of them all. It's very meditative. You feel a sense of accomplishment. On my father's side of the family in Rosetta, Pennsylvania, they had a thing called the procession every year for Our lady of Mount Carmel. We all walked in the hot sun, sang the rosary. In my family, we were encouraged to be very proud of our faith, even though there weren't very many Catholics in Big Stone Gap. We were like the island of Misfit Toys. It was like this lady, that lady, this guy, that guy, this family, that family. A lot of the coal miners who had come from middle Europe, we had black church members. That wasn't very common in the 1970s. We were real mixed. We called ourselves the island of Misfit Toys because people didn't really, you know, it goes back to the old country, the Scots, Irish and the, you know, the wars with the Catholics. It was like the Catholics and the Protestants So I don't think the people even understood why they didn't like us. They really didn't. It was just something in them. Right. So we worked really, really hard on that. And of course, by the time the nuns had left, and then there was this whole ecumenical movement where we were reaching out to the other churches. And then it. Then they started to get it, then they were okay with it.
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A
So there's a real sense of Catholic identity growing up. Devotion to the rosary, devotion to the Eucharist, to pick one of those. Where does the Blessed Mother fit in your life today? How do you relate to her?
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C
Well, she's, you know, we were just in your office and I saw her on your desk. Well, she's on my desk, but she's all through my home. I find the visage of her in my imagination and then in a statue. Very comforting.
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A
Yeah, let's talk about that. I don't think I've talked to any of my guests about Mary that much comforting. Why?
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C
Well, for me it kind of is personal. Because when I was 14, my 15 year old friend got pregnant. High school, middle school. And I could not tell my parents there was no place to go, but there was a place to go. So we went to mass. Our church was in the next town over in a city called Norton, Virginia. Don't think big city, small city. You could walk the main street. And there was a hospital there that was founded. By now I'm going to get the name of this order wrong and I should be shot at dawn. They're from Ireland and they came in in the 40s to start a hospital in this impoverished coal mining area. Okay. I grew up in what they call poverty stricken Appalachia. But anyway, they had the hospital there and there was a young nun there named Sister Susan. So this is the 70s, I'm a kid, my girlfriend is pregnant, she has no place to turn. I said, listen, there's a nun up there. I said, I go to Sunday school, I'll meet you. Because she needed a pregnancy test. I'll never forget this as long as I live. So I snuck out of Sunday school and went down the block, couple blocks to the hospital. And my friend was there. I don't think she'd mind if I said her name, Maryanne. And so I see Marianne and she's just scared to death. And I said, marianne, it's gonna be all right. Okay? So they go and her boyfriend is there and her boyfriend's best friend, who I have nothing to do with. Okay. You know, in school I Don't deal with those guys. They're not my jam at all, my friend. Okay, so she goes in with Sister Susan and I just remember the person who would become her husband just shaking the newspaper like he was trying to read the sports section, but he was shaking. We were all scared to death. So she comes out and Marianne is sobbing, she's pregnant. I was like, oh, no. So her boyfriend at the time, Dennis, gets up and he said, it's going to be okay. We're going to get married, gonna be fine. Now she's 15. I think biblically we understand that Mary was 15. So you see how it all kind of. It became like the embodiment of the living. Something to me about Mary. I saw her in my friend. So that was a Runway for me, I think in terms of Mary, like I felt Mary was with me. Now people can say all kinds of things that would listen to the PODC and say, it's terrible. A 15 year old girl. Abortion was legal then. She could have had an abortion. The young nun said to her, marianne, we'll take care of you. And they did all of her appointments. She had the baby at the hospital. You know, the whole thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I'm not going to say it was easy, but.
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A
So it kind of made Mary real to you, is that what you're saying.
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C
Made Mary very real? And also that we turn to her. I know I turn to her certainly when I had a baby. Any of those matters, you know, Mary encourages me to do this, I would say, is to show up. To show up. Notice how she shows up when things are at their worst.
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A
She does.
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C
She shows up. So that's a great example to have in life. Like don't shy away from a problem. Run to it and help out if you can. That's what I get from Mary.
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A
That's a great insight. I mean, Mary shows up by saying yes to God, right. In the Annunciation, she goes to.
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C
Wasn't happy about it. Scared to death, remember?
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Yes.
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Terrified.
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Yes. How can this be? She shows up for the birth, at the Nativity, obviously.
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Obviously.
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A
But also, you know, when I think about Cana, you know, she's at Cana, she's in a sense pushing Jesus, which is a great story. And then of course, you know, she's at the foot of the cross. That's a great image. So Mary encourages you to show up, show up.
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C
And in times of trouble, because, you know, when things are good, friends, everybody's your friend. But when things get bad, it's tough. And she Shows up.
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A
Let's talk about Mary's son and where she fits into you talk about your. Yeah, just your first impressions of Jesus when you were a kid growing up and how that's sort of lasted through your life. Who is Jesus for you when, you.
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C
Know, really, it starts with the baby Jesus in the manger. Who's not going to love that baby Jesus? I think it started there. I would also say, in terms of Jesus, I just love that Last Supper. And in my family tradition, I have one in my house. We have these hammered metal.
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A
Metal, sure. The copper.
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C
Yeah. That you got to polish and take care of. And so there's a presence always of Jesus. It's very interesting because I do have some evangelical friends and they see him differently from me.
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A
Yeah. Can you explain that? What do you mean by that?
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C
Well, I don't know if I can. I'm going to try. They see him as the alpha and the Omega and everything. And I've always seen him as part of a group.
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A
That's interesting. What he.
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C
The Holy Trinity. That's a crew with God. Right. I have a sense of God. That is. Jesus is part of that. But I understand that he's the way, the truth and the light. I get that. But let's just say I relate to all of the Holy Spirit. All of that, to me is like an energy. It's all an energy. Right. And then you add in the Blessed Mother. And I was always very aware. Cause the Baltimore Catechism escaped me because of where I grew up and how I grew up. But those rules, like I go back, I have the Baltimore Catechism because I said I should read this book. Right. Had little characters in it and stuff that did not speak to me in the same way as the actual mass and the connectivity inside of that mass did. In terms of Jesus, I understand that's his dinner party. That's his table. That's what he is giving us. As, you know, as we've been talking about this. That's really the whole thing for me is that breaking of the bread. And he initiated that. And he says those powerful words, do this in memory of me. Which I think every time I hear him in church, from the time I was little, I was like. It filled me with so much emotion.
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A
Why is that?
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C
Because to remember someone outside the context of this present moment is really huge. It's the calling of your soul. So that's where the power lies with me in terms of my faith. That's the fuel of it.
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A
It's really wonderful that so Many of your sort of spiritual experiences and the focus of a lot of your spiritual life is the Eucharist feeding. Was it hard for you to carry that childhood faith into young adulthood and adulthood and then into your professional life? Was there any. Or was it kind of seamless, would you say?
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C
Well, you know, the big issue when you're a Catholic kid is they really give you a hard time about sex. And if you're an Italian girl in an Italian family, the boys really were free to do whatever they wanted to do. They had autonomy and the girls didn't. But luckily in my family, there's five girls and two boys, and we're all very tight. I have to tell you, I love my brothers and sisters. I love them. And I just did a whole tour with them. The whole family participated. I mean, it was like back to Sacred Heart Church and Big Stone Gap. It really was. But in my family, it was really pointed out to me, even though my grandmother owned her own business, my other grandmother owned her own business, that my mother's generation. My mother was a librarian and founded the architecture school at the University of Notre Dame. My mother was a heavy hitter in her own right, but she put all that aside. Cause my father didn't want a wife that worked. Can you imagine such. I gave him a lot of crap for that later, but I saw being a woman as being, first of all, more problematic, more complicated, and less than. But I was out to prove him wrong on that front. So when you say, as I'm going into my teenage years, I mean, I just told you the story of my friend getting pregnant. There was a lot of stuff going on when I was growing up that I really did not have the acumen to deal with. So, you see, for me in that teenage year, to answer the question as directly as I can, it was like, what was actually happening in front of me? And how did my faith respond to that?
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A
Yeah. And what is the answer to that? What would you say? How did your faith help you to respond to all these things growing up and as a young woman and as a. As an adult?
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C
Really? Really, Father Jim, to show up for my friend, to make this less of a burden, for her, to make it doable and not scary? Even though I didn't know what I was doing, I had no idea what I was doing. I just seized the opportunity.
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A
You just talked about the difference between how men are treated, how women are treated in the church, also in society as well. How did your faith help you to embrace your autonomy as a woman? And how did It. How did your spirituality help you into that phase of your life that probably.
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C
Blossomed at St. Mary's with the Holy Cross sisters in college. St. Mary's College, yeah, because the whole wrap up there was you had this incredible women's college next door to Notre Dame, which was traditionally all male. And St. Mary's is still all girl, but Notre Dame is now co ed. And it was when I went there, okay, in the 80s. So those nuns that experience, by the way, and the other girls that were Catholic, because there are some girls I went to college with, they don't want any part of it. There are others that say things to me like, I'm not going to go to another church, but I'm disappointed in my own. So women bring it to the. They bring the conversation forward about this and then you hope for signs of change and growth. And one of the things I understand about the eternal nature of anything on this planet, I don't care if we're talking about the theater or the church or whatever institution you're going to talk about show business that I'm in or whatever it would happen to be, is that there are some principles there that made sense to both men and women. And I always say, I'm in there slugging. So as a woman, I think you got to be in there slugging. And you just have to say, hey, that ain't right. Let's look at it this way. There are great signs of hope for me, but I'm not somebody who believes in burning down the barn just to rebuild it. I'm really not that person. Now, regardless of what we're talking about, when things have been done that are immoral, illegal, criminal, whatever that is, that's a separate basket that we have to cope with, whatever those things could be. Okay? But for me, in the waft and weave of my daily spirituality, to go catch a mass, it's very comforting to make prayer part of my daily life essential. And it's very interesting. Like, I don't beg God for things that I think I want. I really never do that. Like, I would never beg to be a New York Times bestseller. I wouldn't pray for that.
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A
Why is that? I'm sure a lot of listeners.
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C
Well, I think that that's ridiculous because. Because prayer should be for people.
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A
Prayer should be for other people. Do you ever pray for things that you. You want, though? I mean, you know, good things like good health or.
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C
Not really? No, I don't even. I don't do that. I pray for other people's Health for my own. Oh, no. How can I say that? I ask God to give me strength and energy. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I do do that, but for the material things. I grew up in economic uncertainty. So the first two, three times you pray for something and it doesn't show up, you kind of give it up or you're an idiot. So I gave up praying for things because it didn't make sense to me. I would be ashamed to ask for something stupid.
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A
All right?
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C
I would just be ashamed.
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A
Let me bring you back a little bit. You mentioned the sisters at St. Mary's yeah. So what did they instill in you as a young woman?
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C
First of all, I saw they were good business people. And you may say, Father Jim, what are you talking about, business people? They were nuns, okay? Sisters, first of all, they paid their professors. This goes back to a woman named Sister Madeleva Wolf.
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A
I know that name. She used to write for America.
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C
Did she write for. But here's where she was a visionary. Those nuns were on the payroll, okay? They got Social Security. When that came in the 40s, she said, I gotta take care of these girls. They're my girls. So now at St. Mary's there is a state of the art. Because all the nuns are very old now. State of the art nursing homes for them. And they are part of the college life, part of my life. But I watched them run a business. Cause a school is a business, you know, and ain't no man in there telling them how to do it. They were doing it themselves. And they. That behemoth across the street that sort of kind of weirdly looked down on us. But why? This is where you're getting your girls for whatever you're doing. Of course, now it's co ed. I actually have a niece there, Co ed now for what, 40, 45 years? 50 years. But they've maintained their dignity, their strength. You know, I don't think a lot of people know this, but the religious aren't often cared for in old age. And what kind of. What kind of an operation are we running here? That's the first thing we need to fix. And then, you know, you see them operating at this high level, you go, they know what they're doing.
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A
That's a great. No, great role models. I. You know, I always say sisters are my heroes. And I think that we would agree that there's so many kind of bad stereotypes of them. But here they are, as you're saying, Sister Madeleva, who's so well known, you know, running colleges and running businesses, writing poetry, hospitals and poetry. And I think one of the things that a lot of people don't know is exactly what you said, which is that they took vows of poverty. They often were not paid very well or paid at all, or paid at all. Particularly if they're working for dioceses and diocesan schools and parochial schools. And now they have very little. And people say, oh, the church has so much money. But these sisters orders and some men's religious orders as well because of these low paying jobs and their vows of poverty are really struggling these days. I want to put in a plug for the retirement fund for religious at the usccb. Another group called soar, Save Our Aging Religious. They do really great work. We're gonna pause now for a short break and we'll be back in a minute. Let's look at writing fiction. How does your spirituality feed into the practice of writing? What would you say to that?
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C
Well, I'm going to drop a bomb here. I think it's all God given. I have no really human explanation for what the process of writing is. I cannot explain. Isn't just a muse, it is a creative well that sustains me every day in my work. I can only believe this is the only thing I could believe, is that this comes from God. Because I don't know these people. How can I be right in 1942? I wasn't born yet. How do I know them? How am I in the scene? Why do I know that? So it's keeping those channels wide open and opening them farther and farther as you go on in it that is the exciting part. But when we're talking about God, we're talking about a limitlessness. So I never get writer's block. When I sleep, I work, plant those seeds. It's all going to be there in the morning. And it is. Now, I'm not saying it's magical, sure, because it's not magic. It actually is a spiritual mission. It is a spiritual mission to create. You got two things on the planet, creativity and destruction. Which side are you on? Creativity is the work of God. Destruction is the work of you know who.
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A
That's a great insight. Let me ask you something. Well, first of all, how do you keep those channels open? There might be some aspiring writers or even just in life. How do you keep those spiritual channels open and not going to close yourself down?
- [32:01]
C
Well, to get to the heartbeat of your subconscious, which is the seat of your soul. It's a very simple thing. You actually address it. So this means. And I do this every night And I did it before I knew what it was, which will tell you that it's real. So what that is, is your subconscious. Never. It's the thing in you that will never die. It's part of your soul, the subconscious mind. And what I tell that subconscious becomes true for me as I'm moving through the world. Somebody asked me once, well, how do you know what it is? I said, okay, you know when you're going on a trip and you have to get up at 3:30 in the morning and you've set all your alarms and called your husband, you better wake me up. I gotta get the bus to the plane to the thing or I'm gonna miss the whole trip. And then 3:30am ungodly hour. You're not gonna get up then, okay, you have everything set and you go to sleep. And you wake up one minute before 3:30. Has this happened to you?
- [33:01]
A
Yes.
- [33:02]
C
That's your soul. You told it. You told it repeatedly through other people and yourself. I've gotta get up at 3. Gotta get up. So now just start doing that with your work. Go. Okay, I gotta talk to Father Jim tomorrow. I've read his books. What should I ask him? I wake up, put the coffee on, and I'm writing out the questions. Everything is within you. Because this is the part of us that's gonna go back to him to see his face, which is gonna be something that I'm very interested in. And we're gonna go back to him.
- [33:36]
A
So you really. So there's a real connection to grace and to God's working through you as you're being creative. Let me ask you something about. What's your spiritual practice like today?
- [33:47]
C
Well, I think to remain connected is very simple for all of us, whether we live in New York City or a small town, wherever we are. I would say even for people that are in prison, listen to this. Wherever you are, where there are other human beings, is open up your heart to them. That, to me, is the greatest spiritual practice of all, is to be very open to others. Now, what does the mass and church and being in the pews next to other people mean to me? I find that very sanctifying.
- [34:27]
A
In what way?
- [34:28]
C
Because I know everybody's there with the same box of problems I got. I feel very welcome. And even if I don't know the people, I feel like, oh, okay. You know, by coming in those doors, you're admitting. You're admitting you need help. That's really what it is to me. It's like, I need you people Right now, you don't know me from a hole in the wall, but, boy, I feel better that we're all in this together, even if I don't know them.
- [34:57]
A
What's your. Yeah, to get even more personal, what's your prayer like?
- [35:01]
C
Well, I do a thing first before I do anything. And this. This came from the. The Glen Mary nuns, But I. I kind of. Just from head to toe, I'm lying there. I start at night, and I. I send a white light through my whole body, down my fingertips, down to my toes. Slow, very slow.
- [35:23]
A
That's from the Glen Mary Sisters.
- [35:26]
C
Yeah, it just kind of washed my spirit, you know, Give it a. Give it a shower thought, a good thought, you know, just. But no matter what's wrong with me or if I fall ill or something, I still did it. So that's the first thing I do. And then I talk to God, and then I do my rosary or my Hail Marys, however many I'm doing. I've always loved the glory be. I love that one. I think that's a great one. And I was always told if you said that one, if you're gonna pick one, say that one. Were you ever told that?
- [36:00]
A
No, but it's a good one to say just to back up. You talk to God. Can you describe that? What does that mean?
- [36:07]
C
It's very direct.
- [36:08]
A
Okay.
- [36:09]
C
Like, you. Like, if I say this. You gotta be kidding me. Like, this is what. This is what I have to contend with here. You know, One of the most trying times I ever had was when I made the big Stone Gap movie. I was writing and directing it. I couldn't communicate with the producers. I just couldn't commute. And I thought I could communicate with anyone who was raised in Appalachia. Come on. But they had an idea, and I had an idea. And I just very directly went right to God and said, you got to help me crack this, because this ain't good. And I used all the tools. First of all, I made sure that my mentor priest came and that he was part of the movie. I just made sure he was. So I felt like I had my army there a little bit, but he had a way of. If I just said what it was, and this is. The great priests are this way and the great sisters that. You just say it and you already feel better that you communicated it. So when answering very directly about my communication with God, I always feel heard. I do not feel I am not heard and not in any way that's artificial. Like, I'm right now. When I'm talking to you. I feel my subconscious just tapping into that God stuff. It's the spirit of the Lord.
- [37:31]
A
You feel heard? Do you feel answered?
- [37:34]
C
Well, now, that's where my questions come in. Because my job, I think, is someone who's created by God is to posit is not essential that I be answered. It's essential that I be heard.
- [37:51]
A
That is a beautiful place to stop. We have an audience question, though.
- [37:56]
C
Okay.
- [37:57]
A
And this is a great one to ask a writer. So it's from someone named Joel. This is a great question for you. Can you please share any techniques, best practices, or strategies for spiritual journaling?
- [38:11]
C
Yes. Okay. You should have a journal that's only about your spiritual journaling. Okay. Go get some cheapo notebook and the best pen you can find. And don't judge what you're writing down. And when you're struggling, just automatically write. And you will look back on that and go, I get it. Fill both sides of the page. Date it always. And I would always write the question down that you're spiritually seeking the answer for. The other thing I want to tell you is, and this is really important is you must have a sacred space. Even if you're in a prison cell. I don't know where you are. Maybe you are, but you must have an area, a place, whether it would be a little table or a chair or something that is only there for your spiritual connectivity. I always have a candle going in particular scents or particular candles. I have a candle that is very much my prayer candle. It has frankincense in it because it reminds me of church. You do you however you want to do it. If you don't want to do a candle, just do a little lamp. You need light. You need light to go into this state. And then you sit there and make it a habit each day and tell yourself at the first time you do it five minutes, and pretty soon you find yourself sitting there for a lot longer.
- [39:31]
A
That is great advice. Adriana Trigiani, I want to thank you for sharing so much of your family's faith.
- [39:37]
C
Oh, my God.
- [39:38]
A
So much of the sisters and priests who helped you, and really so much of your faith. It's wonderful listening to you. I have to say, I really was moved by. This is not a recap, but I was really moved by listening to your devotion to the Eucharist. Thank you so much for sharing all that, and thanks for being our guest in the spiritual life. And congratulations on your new book.
- [39:58]
C
Thank you, Father Jim. So happy to be here.
- [40:23]
A
This episode is brought to you by Lifelock. It's Cybersecurity awareness month and LifeLock has tips to protect your identity. Use strong passwords, set up multi factor authentication, report phishing, and update the software on your devices. And for comprehensive identity protection, let Lifelock alert you to suspicious uses of your personal information. Lifelock also fixes identity theft, guaranteed or your money back. Stay smart, safe and protected with a 30 day free trial@lifelock.com podcast terms apply. So, Maggie, what stood out for you about our conversation with Adrianna?
- [41:10]
B
Yeah, it was great. First of all, just to be listening in on this conversation. Adriana is very other centered. I noticed in her prayer, she doesn't pray for herself for the things that she wants. She talks a lot about praying for other people, and it kind of made me feel selfish for the amount of times that I do pray for what I need and want. What do you make of that? Should we be feeling. Should we be more like Adriana?
- [41:37]
A
Well, I'm glad you brought that up. I talk about that a lot in my books on prayer, like learning to pray. It's natural to ask for things that you want and that you need. Right. And I think it's very generous of her not to pray for herself. I think that's somewhat unusual but very laudable. By the same token, people shouldn't feel bad about, you know, praying for things that they need. And I always point out that the Our Father, after all, is a prayer petition. Give us this day our daily bread. They're asking for bread. You know, forgive us, asking for forgiveness. Deliver us not into temptation. Right? So you're asking for things. And so I think that's kind of natural. And it's also, for a lot of people, it's part of being in an honest relationship with God. I mean, if you're really struggling and you feel that you can't ask for something, and this is not what Adriana was saying. She was just saying it out of a sort of a generous heart. But if people feel that they can't ask for something that they need, you know, healing or some sort of reconciliation in their life, they might feel blocked in prayer with God. Right. So I always encourage people to, as she was saying at the end, to be honest, right? About where you are and what's going on. So I think it's all about honesty. But it is okay to ask for what you want.
- [42:51]
B
And I noticed that she is so honest and so very much herself in conversation. And so even if it's like the way that she speaks to God at night, before she's going to bed and thinking about what she wants the next day. There's a real candor in her spiritual life, even though she is still very other centered.
- [43:11]
A
Yeah. And I had never heard. I mean, I've been accompanying people for a long time in the spiritual life. The Glen Mary sort of meditation that she shared with us about the light. Yeah. Which was quite beautiful. And, you know, that's a, you know, Christ is the light of the world. Right. So there's a sense of kind of it cleansing you and preparing you. And I've heard other prayer methods. I thought she was going to talk about physically sort of relaxing yourself, which I guess it does. But I found that really powerful. I found her spiritual life, and especially, I can say her focus on the Eucharist really quite powerful and moving. That is not the first thing that a lot of Catholics talk about. I mean, you know, many Catholics are devoted to adoration. Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. You know, I would hope that people who are Catholic out there believe in the real presence as I do.
- [44:01]
C
But.
- [44:02]
A
But that's not the first thing that a lot of people talk about. They'll often talk about Mary or Jesus or whatever. So it was really powerful to hear her talk about how much the Eucharist meant to her and how it connected to, you know, her family history. What else struck you in the conversation?
- [44:18]
B
I mean, you noted it when she said it. But when she's praying to God, she doesn't need to be answered, she wants to be heard.
- [44:27]
A
Yeah. Also very, I would say, fairly unusual in that, you know, she's focused on being heard and not answered because most people are focused on, you know, the last part, you know, are my prayers getting answered.
- [44:41]
B
But what do you think is that, what, what's that difference then between being answered and heard? I think I have a felt sense of that. But I'm curious, as, you know, a spiritual director, what do you hear in that kind of desire?
- [44:55]
A
Well, you know, it reminds me of something that Carl Rahner said. Carl Rahner said that Jesus was the example par excellence of the prayer. And the reason is, says Carl Rahner, because first of all, he's honest. So he uses the example of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, you know, remove this cup from me. Second of all, he trusts. Right. I know that you hear me. That's a line from the raising of Lazarus. But third of all, he accepts. Right. Not my will, but your will. And so I heard a lot in her description of prayer of that, this sort of as Long as I'm heard right. That's all I need. A lot of people, though, really do look for answers. Right. And I will admit that, you know, I'm one of them. Right. I'd like to have a sense of being answered in prayer. I just came back from my annual eight day retreat where I felt a lot of answers in prayer. Insights, emotions, memories, desires. But a lot of people also want it in their daily life. Right. But I think she's a fairly unique person in that she is comfortable with just being heard, which to me connotes a great deal of trust in God. Right. All I need to do is have you hear it. Right. And then I trust. Right. And that's all I really need.
- [46:12]
B
I see also this connection to her love of the Eucharist. The Eucharist is about Christ being present, Right. Like there's a. There's presence there. And that is what I feel when I feel I have been heard, that I am met with God's presence.
- [46:29]
A
Right. With that beautiful presence. Yes. Which she definitely experiences in the Eucharist and. Right. And other people experience in other ways in their daily life. Well, Maggie, thanks for a great conversation. Another great podcast.
- [46:41]
B
Yeah, it's great to be with you, Jim.
- [46:44]
A
The Spirit Spiritual Life with Father James Martin is a production of America Media. It's produced by Maggie Van Dorn and our executive producer, Sebastian Gomes. We recorded in the William J. Loshert Studio in New York City with the production assistance of Kevin Christopher Robles. Our audio engineer is Noah Levinson. Adam Buckmuller edited the video of this episode, which is now available on America Media's YouTube channel. The theme score is courtesy of Teddy Abrams and Nate Farrington. You can follow me across social media at jamesmartinsj. Also, please help us grow the show by leaving a five star review on your favorite podcast platform. If you love the spiritual life, then we have even more to offer you on America magazine's website. Keep informed and inspired about our Catholic faith. Become a subscriber today@amer America magazine.org subscribe or click the link in the show notes. Thanks so much and God bless you.
- [48:01]
C
Sam.