The Dominus Project

Episode 8: Holy Habits of Mercy with Dr. Jennifer Morel

Dr. Brian Pedraza: Hey, friends. Welcome to another episode of Holy Habits in the House, and it is good to be among friends. I am Dr. Brian Pedraza, Professor of Theology at FRANU and the Director of the Dominus Project and I am joined by my good friend, Father Josh Johnson, again.

Father Josh Johnson: It is so good to be with you doing Holy Habits in the in the House!

Dr. Brian Pedraza: I’m in the house!

Father Josh Johnson: I'm surrounded by two doctors, Dr. Brian Pedraza and probably the best professor at Franciscan Missionaries of Our Lady University, Doctor Morel who is also, one of my favorite moral theologians, a parishioner of Sacred Heart of Jesus. The first-time I met you; you were actually at Notre Dame Seminary because you formed priest for the southern region of the United States of America, and now you're forming lay students and Deacons and religious sisters.  

Dr. Pedraza: Did you teach Father Josh?  

Father Josh: No, she did not. So, she came right after I would have entered, yeah. So, I heard about her, No, yeah. Apparently, allegedly, she is a great teacher, great professor, knows everything about morality, but nothing about music.  

Dr. Jennifer Morel: I know absolutely nothing about music.  

Fr. Josh: Let’s start with music because I know a lot about music and that's what I think I can teach you and then that would be great.  

Dr. Morel: You begin, so I can learn a lot.  

Fr. Josh: That's awesome, right? So, what Dr. Pedraza will do is sing a few songs.

Dr. Morel: Okay.  

Fr. Josh: And then when we're ready, we will give you A, B and C options, and you have to pick the artist that sings the song. You ready?  

Dr. Pedraza: (Sings Song)

Father Josh: A: Boys II Men, B:  SWV, C: TLC.  

Jennifer Morel: I'm going to guess, Boys II Men.  

Father Josh:  That was SWV

Dr. Morel: I heard, yes. I know the song.  

Father Josh: Doctor P, go easier.  

Dr. Pedraza: Oh. Oh, I get that. Okay, I gotta good one. Okay....Something, something, something. All right?

Father Josh: So, choices, A: Elvis Presley, B: Michael Jackson, C: Stevie Wonder.

Jennifer Morel: Stevie Wonder?  

Father Josh: That would be Michael Jackson.  

Last round. So, we're going to see, you are from Lafayette, Louisiana, I think? The Diocese of Lafayette. New Iberia?

Dr. Morel: Closer, like the Eunice area is, on the other side of Lafayette.  

Father Josh: So, Unice/Rayne.  Oh, you are, okay, so dear, so, you would know, you would know this dude. He is that guy that lip-syncs that song. “I wish you freedom. I wish you peace”. I wish you soft and soft and soft and so and so. Okay, NO?   No... one more.

“You say I’m enough...” Alright, so that's it.  

Choices are A: Laren Daigle, B: Whitney Houston, C: Maria Carey.

Jennifer Morel: It's Lauren Daigle, yes, she's from Lafayette.  

Dr Pedraza: Thanks, you set her up!

Father Josh: I love patients like; I can't do this. I was like, and Creole.  

Dr. Morel: And I would have to say my Parrein is actually like the leader of a Cajun Band, so I'd have to pick him just to be faithful, Cajun Tradition.  

Josh: Love it.

Dr. Morel: He was nominated for Grammy one year.  

Dr. Pedraza: So, Dr. Morel is an incredible colleague. She's on the Mount Rushmore of laughs, I love hearing her laughter because her office is right next to mine and is a woman of incredible resilience, if I may say, so, not only as a colleague, but as a friend. It's been such a joy getting to know her. One of the things that we wanted to talk about in this episode of Holy Habits in the House is finding joy amidst suffering. I know that topic might seem a little heavy for a lot of families, but we don't want to hide from the reality of the messiness of family life because we go through a lot of different sufferings. I lost my father this past Christmas, and there are all sorts of things that happen, illnesses, deaths in the family, job losses, things like that. One of the things that we were really praying with, as we were thinking about this episode, is the fact that the Lord took on our infirmities and bore our illnesses. This line from the end of Isaiah, that's a bit of a prophecy of how the Lord, he has this incredible mercy to take on the things that we're struggling with. Doctor Morel, not to start with something that's so heavy, right, but I know that you are a woman who has shown incredible resilience in the raising of your own family, in the midst of suffering and in the midst of trial. I mean, maybe to start there, just to hear a little bit more about your story and where you find the Lord’s strength to really cling to Him and allow Him to work through your family.

Dr. Morel: First of all, I'd like to say, I absolutely love that passage. I think it's Isaiah 53, and it is read on Good Friday. Right? And so, it helps us to enter into that mindset of the Passion and what we're entering into and I think one of the things that has been, I'll tell a little bit about our family story as we go, but one of the things that's been really significant for me has been not just thinking about how the Lord took on our infirmities and how he suffered with us, but how when we suffer, we get to know Him better. So, this kind of came up, I used to teach at the seminary. I was there for about 5.5, six years in Notre Dame Seminary. It was a great blessing to teach men who were called to the priesthood, also because I had basically grown up in that kind of environment. So, to be able to give back to where I had received my faith from was a blessing. I taught the course on marriage, human sexuality and states of life. We did a lot on marriage there and it was really blessed. The Church has done a lot of work on this. There are a lot of popular lay theologians who have done some work on it and Cannon lawyers too. That was helpful and addressing a lot of what you call the messiness. Yeah, it was something...I constantly heard from people who are married too, life is messy, marriage is messy, but I didn't get married until I was 40 and I was able to transmit a lot of the church's wisdom. I remember even people who were married telling me like, “How do you know so much?”, I said, “It's not me.” This is literally we have over 2000 years and then add our Jewish history as well, just reflecting on these things and looking into them and understanding the way the human person works. Specifically, how the person works, male, female, united for the rest of their life and bringing children into the world.  

It took a very 3D picture when I, myself, was married.  Because, I thought, well, I have all of these tools to help me, right? I know exactly what couples are supposed to do when they're in crisis. I know, I read the authors, Catholic, secular, and at the same time, it just became clear in my marriage, unfortunately quickly, that the “fix it” wasn't going to “fix it”.  

It wasn't going to take something, that was clearly the will of God, I have no doubt and make it into the Catholic Fairy Tale that I think a lot of families, somehow, are led to believe in especially when we have our Facebook Catholic families, and this is what marriage between husband and wife is supposed to look like, this is the way we're supposed to raise our kids. It's not like we've never had pressure, I think couples have always had a lot of pressure. BUT when you see that as well, you kind of get into the you meld sort of like that with like watching Cinderella when you're little and you're like, “it all gets fixed” and it doesn't. Right? It doesn't always get fixed.  

Dr. Pedraza: Yeah, yeah, like the Instagram liturgical living accounts look so pretty and so pristine. But there's not, like the image of like the kid in total breakdown mode and mom and dad are totally upset and losing their temper, and things are flying. Right?

Dr. Morel: I remember many times like, right after Joy was born and she was still in the hospital and so John and I would be going to mass together or alone, and he was just learning to walk, so there was no space for me to pray even and I was so angry. I was like, you're not even going to let me get, like, a mass and I think what a lot of that does, and this kind of brings me back to your first point, is, it allows us to better understand the suffering that God has because of His love for us? One of the things that I always loved growing up was the book of Hosea. We'd sing a song about it at Mass, that was really strange, that we were singing a love song, right? At church, come back to me with all your heart, a fear, keeping us apart. Can you name that author, folks?  

Father Josh: What are you? Oh, I love. Yeah. Jesus!  

Jennifer Morel: Always sir, it certainly is inspired by that song, right? So, this book of Hosea, where God literally begins by telling Hosea, go out and marry a prostitute.  

Dr. Pedraza: It's intense.  

Jennifer Morel: I have my students read that and they're like, what is going on? They're too scared almost to ask the question, what's going on? Yeah, and then Hosea’s three children, have names that make it clear, “not my people, not my bullet”.  He doesn't know who the father is because she doesn't leave off old habits. Right?  When I used to read that, it was a story of, like, God's tenderness and love for us, and now when I read it, and this is the beauty of Scripture, it allows me to understand that a lot of times the suffering we have is a gift because it allows us to understand the way God yearns and pines and desires in his love for us.  

Dr. Pedraza: Absolutely, yes. This notion of love and how it, at least in our earthly existence, a lot of times manifests as sacrifice. There's a good theologian I respect and one of the things that he says is that this side of the fall, this side of Adam and Eve and the first sin, communion only comes about through sacrifice. That experience of unity with God and with each other is always going to have this element of suffering that goes with it, and it can be redeeming if we allow it to be. Isn't that the case from the start, Jennifer, I mean, I'm in awe of my wife when she bore and gave birth to our first child. I know that's something that you've meditated on before because there was a girl's night and Adrienne came home and said, “everybody was like, Jennifer was telling us about having her first child, we're all in tears and so amazed.”  What was it that you shared with them, if you don't mind breaking the inner girl circle and sharing a little bit.

Jennifer Morel: I think this actually was about me giving birth to Joy.  

When I gave birth to Joy, I wanted to have her immediately Baptized. So, my daughter has what's called Esophageal Atresia, which means that when she was formed in my womb, the two ends of the esophagus were not connected and so, if that isn't immediately addressed, she can choke to death on her own saliva. They wanted to make sure that they controlled her birth, and I wanted to make sure that she had immediate Baptism, so I told the nurse, and all the nurses passed this around and we planned for a Cesarean and one of the things that I didn't know, because I was able to have John naturally normally, however you say it was that a Cesarean is very much like being on the cross. Right? So, your legs are together, they give you an epidural and you can't feel anything all the way down. They literally stretch your arms out, tie your wrist down and because of the medicine that they're giving you, so that you're not screaming in pain as they cut you open, is you're constantly drifting in and out of consciousness. They don't want you too far gone, so if you start to drift too much, they call you back, and I was meditating on that. Christ on the cross, because what does Christ do on the cross? He gives birth to the church. One of the things that they do now with the Cesarean is, they have a little blue sheet so you can't see them cutting you open to give birth, for this child to be literally pulled out of your womb, but they have a little window in it so you can ask, in the moment that they pull that child out, they open the window up and you literally see the child being lifted out of your womb. I saw that, I saw Joy being lifted up and they brought her to me.  She was kicking and screaming, which was such a gift because she'd been so early, we were worried for her lungs and they had to give me a steroid for that and I'm still there on the cross. They put her in one arm, they loosened the wrist of one, stuck my finger in the holy water bottle, and I was able to Baptize my child.  

Dr. Pedraza: Wow. Wow. I feel like people watching this episode if you need to hit pause. I get it. Go pray for a little bit and we'll come back.  

Father Josh:  Just speaking on a sacrament of baptism, why was it important for you to baptized her at birth?  

Dr. Morel:  Baptism is the only sacrament that is necessary for salvation.  

Fr. Josh: 1 Peter 3!

Dr. Morel: And for me, it's always had a very special place. I grew up, although my family's from Lafayette, I grew up in the Bible Belt, and it was a sacrament that I shared with all of my friends. Right? So, to know that my daughter could have that immediately after she was born, and then, as a mother and as a theologian, to give, first natural biological life to my daughter, and then to give her supernatural life a minute later was...

Fr. Josh: That's powerful!  

Dr. Pedraza: And the common priesthood of all the moms coming through in a powerfully feminine way. That's so beautiful, yeah so beautiful!

Now Jennifer, I'm thinking about families who are watching this and they're all going through sufferings of their own. In the midst of a lot of suffering, what would you recommend or offer to them? How do you find the Lord in the midst of that? How do you help your family become holy? How do you cultivate that environment in your home when it feels like there's so much going on. There's so much pressure, it's so much suffering.  

Dr. Morel:  I think one of the things that's been very helpful for me, at this point, has been my prayer bank. Anybody who's read, for example, I think it's the Five Love Languages, he talks about your love bank, but I've also come to think now, that all of us have a prayer bank as well. As I said, I didn't get married until I was 40 and that really gave me a chance to cultivate a prayer life and a spiritual life on my own terms. I could get up in the morning, have my cup of coffee, I did morning prayer with the liturgy, I’d meditate on the Gospel, I journal, I could go to daily mass, at least five times a week. I could hit the Sacrament of Confession every two weeks, and I was having, could always go on retreat, silent retreats. I had all of this prayer time, which was absolutely amazing. I realize now that I'll get up in the morning and it was always my goal to at least get a Psalm and after I got married, I asked my Spiritual Director. I'm like, “how am I supposed to pray? Like I feel like I can't even get out of bed because my husband's going to wake up and he's going to be like, where did my wife go?”  Whereas before I was like, I know I got to get the hour and a half, 2 hours in the morning and he was like, he said, “a Psalm and a spiritual song Jennifer, that's all you need.”    

I'll be honest, there are days I do not get my Psalm in because I'm woken up by crying child, but two things that are really helpful. One is that I've had all of that time of prayer. What does that mean? It means that when I'm in the car and I'm going crazy in my head or trying to take care of my children and do so in a loving and gentle and patient way, when I'm sleep deprived or trying to do that also with my students. I have scripture verses that I have meditated on, that I have chewed on, that continue to give me grace and support. There's one for morning prayer in Hebrews and it says, “The Lord disciplines those whom he loves.”  and if you read further in Hebrews, it literally says like “the Lord flagellates those whom he loves”.  I know I shared this with you, Dr. Pedraza, when I'm like, this is tough, I can think of that and meditate on that and be like, this is a sign of God's love and he loves other people more than us.  

You know, St. Teresa of Calcutta said something similar, I think she had this vision of the suffering she was going through. We know she lived in a dark night for many years, and she said, “Christ, this hurts too much!” and He said, “I'm hugging you while I'm on the cross.” He said, “but if you want it to hurt less, I have to let you go.” and she said “hold tighter, hold tighter.”  

I think it's in and from these moments that we can pull, I read on her life before and I read scripture before, and I can pull that out. That's the first thing, have your prayer bank because you need things you can go back to, and the second thing is the raising of children is such a gift because there are so many moments of prayer there. Like I said, I get the song in most days. Why? Because I'm singing to my children.... Jesus loves me, this I know. We have all these Vacation Bible school songs that we all sang or all these God songs that we sing or Glory and Praise songs that some of us remember, but we can go back to them and pull out. They can also be, they could be Jesus' songs too.  

For example, on Sundays, I say, “Today is Sunday, a piece of the resurrection. We're going to see Jesus at Jesus' house!” and my son knows we do that. Now, what happens when he's working on his Legos or on his blocks? He's making a Jesus house. Right? John is awesome at Jesus houses; he loves to do that.  

Father Josh: Yeah. So finally, you're not able to pray today, the way you were, nor are you called to pray like that? So, I think a lot of parents struggle with that, especially parents who were invested in ministry and like I said, go to retreats and day Mass and Holy Hours and all of a sudden, you get married and you have kids and you realize, my life is not my own anymore. I can know, which is also a grieving process, because God called me to that for a season, but now I'm called, my mission trip now is Walmart. When I go to Walmart, that's a mission trip!

Jennifer Morel: Your kids are there, right and you are supposed to teach and to do that with joy. You find what makes that a fun time for them. You're a witness and to the people who go to Walmart every Sunday. Like our Saturday, you also learn important social skills. I realized I had to teach John to fist bump, because that's what the greeter wanted and I was like, okay, that's an important masculine social skill that we are like incorporating into. They do it with Joy too, so it's also for girls. But yeah, I think you make a really good point there, Father. We're not called to Pray like we used to, because it would be unholy for me to get up, you know, at 3:00 in the morning instead of getting the sleep that I need to take care of my children.  So, I could try and attempt it with peril, I cannot afford to ignore their needs, right?  

Dr. Pedraza: This is the beautiful challenge that I think that you are calling us to and families who are watching this, because a lot of people undergoing suffering would think like, the Lord's absent, that's what I'm experiencing.  

I remember Francis Xavior Nguyen Van Thuan, who’s cause is up for canonization is a Vietnamese Cardinal who was imprisoned by Communists. He has all these writings that he was able to write when he was in prison and think eventually, he was released, he's passed away now. One of the things that he mentioned was He was thinking about all of these gifts, all this ministry that he used to do, and he's like, “Lord, I can't do that. I'm suffering. I'm here, I want to do all those things” and the Lord really put it on his heart.  “I can do all that, but I'm right here right now. It's not about my ministry, it's about me” and that's the most important thing and I just feel like so called to that by your words, Dr. Morel, an incredible gift to be reminded of that as a witness, or a witness.  

Jennifer Morel: Yes, so this is actually one of the things I spoke about earlier, with Jennifer, was that reality that and this is a meditation that comes out of Song of Songs, is that idea that, a lot of times when we don't think God is with us, that he's actually playing “Hide and Seek” with us.  If you read the style of Songs, that it's structured, it's meant to go from point A to point B to point C to point D, to point C to point B to point A, which is a typical way of writing poetry so that you find the center, you find the most important part. Yet the Fathers meditating on this, also bring out the fact that God is like a child, in his relationship with us. There's no intrigue, there's no manipulation, but there's this beautiful desire to be sought for and to be loved, right? John and Joy are at the idea at this age, where Joy just started playing Peekaboo, but it makes no sense for her to play if Mommy isn't going to look. Right? John loves to go play hide and seek, but what fun would that be if he's on the stairs for 20 minutes? He loves it so much that often he comes out before we finish counting. God is doing the same thing, right? Like sometimes He hides from us because He wants us to search for Him, in that moment and when we turn around, he can be there waiting for us.  

Father Josh:  One of the takeaways I want to invite our families to do this month is to establish a Prayer Bank in the way we can encounter God throughout the month. One way that we can do this, practically, is to introduce our families to different methods of prayer. That way our kids grow up learning, whether it's through Divine Mercy Chaplet, Lectio Divina, pray with music, pray with songs, prayer in silence, but begin to put together a Prayer Bank so that when we go through the season of suffering, because Christ did not come so we will not suffer, He suffers with us, but when we go through the season of suffering with Christ crucified, we can add that prayer to help us to persevere on our way to Joy Amen.  

So, thank you so much, Dr, it's such a gift having you with us.

Dr. Morel: This is a gift to be here.

‍