In Via

Traveling with Friends: Saints and Pilgrimage with Meg Hunter-Kilmer

June 04, 2024 • Verso Ministries

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What new best friend is just waiting to inspire you? Join us as we chat with Meg Hunter-Kilmer, affectionately known as the "hobo for Christ" and the "saint ninja." Meg shares her transformative journey from living out of her car for 12 years to settling in South Bend, and how she went from uninterested in saints to being a passionate storyteller of their incredible lives. Discover how a single book changed her entire outlook, connecting the dots between the stories of saints and their personalities and real lives. With her extraordinary knack for storytelling, Meg introduces us to lesser-known saints whose stories can profoundly influence our own relationship with Jesus.

We also dive into the unique narrative of the Catholic Church in South Korea, a church born out of self-evangelization by a group of courageous teenagers. Want to be inspired by this in person? Meg invites everyone to join her on a pilgrimage to South Korea, visiting significant yet often overlooked holy sites and learning about the grassroots fervor and martyrdom of early Korean Christians.

More about Meg
Website
Books:
Saints Around the World
Pray for Us: 75 Saints Who Sinned, Suffered, and Struggled on Their Way to Holiness

South Korea Pilgrimage

Joan:

Welcome to In Via, the podcast where we're navigating the pilgrimage of life. We are all in via on the way and we are learning a lot as we go. I'm your host, joan Watson. Join me as we listen to stories, discover travel tips and learn more about our Catholic faith. Along the way, we'll see that if God seeks to meet us in Jerusalem, rome or Santiago, he also wants to encounter you right there in your car, on your run or in the middle of your workday. Welcome back to In Via. In today's episode we are going to look at saints who have gone on pilgrimage, and who better to talk about that than saint expert Meg Hunter Kilmer? Meg is a Catholic speaker, author and campus minister who travels the world telling people about the fierce and tender love of God and helps people discover new friendships in the saints. I think you're going to love our conversation, meg. Thanks for joining us today on the podcast, joan I am so glad to be here.

Joan:

I would love for you to tell our listeners a little bit more about yourself. I usually restrict my guests to three sentences about themselves. No one really listens to that, so why don't you just tell us about yourself? Perfect.

Meg:

So my name is Meg Hunter Kilmer. I am an author and a speaker and a campus minister and a missionary. I just spent 12 years living out of a car, but now I have a house, so exciting. And all of the issues that come with having a house like that. My whole basement needs waterproof two months after I bought the house. But living here in South Bend, working in campus ministry at Notre Dame, writing some books, giving all the talks, keeping myself very busy.

Joan:

Nice, nice. So how did you I think a lot of people know you as the saint expert right, would you have you? Do you have a moniker? Um, you had a moniker when you were living in the car.

Meg:

People called me the hobo for Christ. People sometimes use saint ninja.

Joan:

That's probably my fault.

Meg:

I probably did that to myself but then I feel like, is that insensitive to?

Joan:

like but ninjas aren't real, so maybe it's okay I don't know, Just like.

Meg:

It's one of those words where you're like maybe this is not. Should I use that? Yeah, I don't know.

Joan:

Well, you definitely, I think in most people who know you in our minds are the saint expert, like if we want to know about a saint. I think what I love most about you is that you know all the saints that no one knows, because I mean, there's a lot of us that could spout off. You know the usuals, but I love coming to you and to your books for the saints that no one knows. Can you talk a little bit about how you got into that, like what attracted you to that?

Meg:

You know I really was not interested in the saints for a long time, partially because the way that people talked about them it kind of sounded like instead of Jesus, and I have absolutely no interest in anything instead of Jesus, like anything at all instead of Jesus.

Meg:

And people were like, well, you know, when I can't go to Jesus, rose of Lima she hooks me up and I'm like I don't, I don't love that. But I think also the way that I heard the stories told they weren't stories, they were just lists of random facts and they weren't about Jesus and how you make Francis of Assisi not about Jesus. I mean, this man was known as the most Christlike man since Christ and people made him into like a bunny snuggler and I was like no, I'm not interested. I'm not interested in these sweet, saccharine women gazing heavenward. Butter wouldn't melt in their mouth Like I'm a lot, joan.

Joan:

I'm a lot.

Meg:

And I'm good with that, I'm real comfortable with who I am. But when I was first coming to know Jesus and it looked like holiness always involved, quiet, meek, placid, gazing heavenward in a stained glass window while being skinny I mean it's just like it wasn't. It wasn't my jam, um. And I heard the story of Teresa of Avila and I was like, okay, like nobody can ruin Teresa's of Avila's saltiness Like.

Meg:

I haven't even heard people try to make her sound shy and retiring so I was like, okay, one time there was a salty female saying we are going for two. Right, but I kind of wrote the whole category off as being irrelevant.

Joan:

Yeah.

Meg:

And then I read a book called Modern Saints by Ann Ball and she actually tells the stories and they're interesting and they're compelling and they're about Jesus, and I was like, oh, this is what I was made to do, because I have always been a storyteller. Yeah, and I have like a weird, almost robotic memory for stories.

Joan:

Yeah.

Meg:

Like other facts, I got nothing. I am thrilled every time I go to a zoo because I learned for the first time again these things that I have learned every time I've ever been to a zoo. Like my brain just does not retain these things that I have learned every time I've ever been to a zoo Like my brain just does not retain but stories. I've always hung on to like a steel trap and and realizing that this is a way that I can tell the story of Jesus.

Meg:

Yeah, Right Like in in many places in this country and with many people it feels invasive to just be like excuse me, can I talk to you about? Jesus Right, so you got to find a side door but, everybody wants to hear a story of a hermit who spent every night with a different prostitute and then got canonized. And you're like, I'm sorry, like what, what?

Joan:

now that one St.

Meg:

Vitalis of Gaza. And so when you, when you tell a story and then you make it about Jesus, because they are about Jesus and that's the only point of their lives well then you can preach the gospel to people who maybe didn't want to hear it, but you can also preach the gospel in a way that speaks very specifically to the wounds in people's lives and make them feel ineligible for the love of Jesus.

Joan:

Right.

Meg:

You know, I can say God loves you and your addiction. And you're like, yeah, you have to say that you've got the bumper sticker. Like I get it. Jesus loves you. But it feels like people are just trying too hard to make you feel welcome. And then I'm like no, like St Mark G Tianxiang was an opium addict for 30 years, never went to confession about it and died and he is a canonized saint. Like this is what addiction looks like with a halo on it, right. This is what divorce and remarriage looks like with a halo on it. This is what being a scientist looks like with a halo on it. This is what a limb difference looks like with a halo on it, right. Like all of these different things that people feel like they don't belong in the church for whatever reason, you know sometimes. Sometimes it's something that causes great suffering and sometimes it's a great love of theirs where they're like oh, you can't be a musician and a saint and I'm like, oh, sit down, like I can do way better than Cecilia.

Meg:

And so just recognizing the power this could have for evangelism and the way that people just need to feel seen. And so I have spent the last eight or nine years really digging into all of these stories so that when people talk about the particular circumstances of their lives I can say, hey, like do you, do you want a saint friend who had that same experience, who had that same mental health diagnosis, who had that same hobby, who had that same family situation and the way that it just like people sit up straighter situation.

Meg:

And the way that it, just like people sit up straighter. You know, because it's a. It's a, an official cry from the Lord you are wanted and you belong.

Joan:

And I, I'm seen, I, they, they feel seen, because I can be a part of this body of Christ, because others have gone before me with what I thought was a hurdle and what actually could be my cross and my, my way to heaven.

Meg:

Exactly.

Joan:

It's wonderful. Um, so you are going to South Korea, Very excited about that. Um, you can talk a little bit about South Korea, but what? Um, you know you're going on pilgrimage and this podcast is all about pilgrimage. So I'd also love to say, like, why pilgrimage? Like, why are you leading this pilgrimage to South Korea? What, what in your heart thought, so let's go to South Korea on pilgrimage?

Meg:

You know, john Paul, uh, who is the head of Verso, reached out to me and was like, would you like to take a pilgrimage? And I was like, oh my gosh, john Paul, south Korea.

Meg:

And he was like, really, so I mean he was like all about it, but you know everybody wants to go to Italy, everybody wants to go to the Holy land, everybody wants to go to Lords and not to be an obnoxious hipster who doesn't do things everybody else does but piano man. The church in South Korea is just amazing. It's the only country ever to have evangelized itself. Everyone else had missionaries. South Korea had some teenage boys who found a book about Jesus, studied it for 10 years and then were like let's do it, and it smuggled one of their buddies out of the country to get baptized. He got baptized in China, got smuggled back in, baptized his friends. They baptized 1,000 people in six months, just some like 20-something-year-old layman who had been baptized for 15 minutes. The church in Korea the first 50 years there was one priest for six years total and he was an undocumented immigrant from China.

Meg:

Everything else was organic, grassroots, lay-led, and to encounter a church that began in the modern era without any ties to imperialism or colonialism where you don't have to sift through those roots and say, okay, well, what part of this was forced on us or what part of this was their like societal pressure. It's like like Korea heard the name of Jesus and was like, let's do this and there were tons and tons of martyrdoms, on the order of 10,000.

Meg:

And that has left us with 103 saints, 124 blessed, 252 servants of God and a venerable. The numbers are unreal and the church in Korea has been so good about collecting the stories of these martyrs with an individuality to them, a lot of these big lumps of martyrdom. We maybe know their names and perhaps the way they died. But the Korean bishops have made sure that we know their occupation and their family history and often even their personality, which it is really unusual in groups of martyrs for personality to come through.

Joan:

And that is so much of what I love is getting to know the personalities of the saints.

Meg:

So I went to South Korea, kind of by accident, in 2017. I wanted to go to Australia and then my friend was like while you're on that side of the planet, you should come to Korea, which is sort of like saying, while you're in Chile, you should come to Seattle. But it's actually not like that, because the flights are much cheaper. So then I started planning around Korea. I didn't end up going to Australia. I went to see a friend in South Korea, did a bunch of speaking on military installations, but I didn't know the South Korean saints at all. I was like brand new and loving the saints, um, and so I hadn't done any research into them. And then I got there and there are just saints everywhere and the churches are packed. Like you go to a 10 AM Tuesday mass and there's a hundred people there, right.

Meg:

And like I discovered the story of the founding of the church at the site of the foundation which is like way out in the country we're going to be going there, it's so cool, and I, we pulled up and the guy in the guardhouse, his jaw dropped and he started like babbling and excitingly, excitedly, like rifling through this box of papers and then he pulled out an english language book telling the story. That was like brittle with age and had a coffee stain on it and you could tell he was like oh my gosh, oh my gosh, white people I bet they speak english like I don't I don't know that an american had come to this location.

Meg:

Yeah, Right. At least an American who didn't speak Korean right. Like a white American, maybe I don't know, I don't know what it was about me, but he was like oh, this girl, maybe it was just the Holy Spirit was like yeah let her know about this.

Meg:

But so I'm just like at this, this pilgrimage that nobody goes to cause it's in the middle of nowhere, it was the smallest mass I went to the whole time. I was there with like six. Everything else was no joke, joan, 100 people. And I'm reading this booklet and I'm like, oh man, like I knew this place was cool with all these saints. But to hear the way the Holy Spirit just did this like wild and incredible thing in this community, and I mean it was persecutions nonstop for 80 years to the tune of thousands and thousands of martyrs and they just wouldn't quit. Right, and the church today is 11% of South Koreans. Protestants are 17%, right, so it's, I mean, it's a good, a huge chunk, particularly for an east asian country that's not the philippines, and that, yeah, it's just, it's beautiful and the faith is alive and these saints are so real and so tangible and and I really encountered that sort of accidentally- by going on this pilgrimage.

Meg:

I don't even know how we found this location, because it's like impossible. I mean, when we were planning the the pilgrimage, I was like, okay, this is how I spelled it when I was there, but I don't know what to Google. Like I'm Googling and nothing's coming up and it's hard to find them. Google maps, and we figured it out, but I don't know how the woman who was hosting me, who was also just like some American woman who doesn't speak Korean, I don't know how she found it, but I like brought my friend back there and and now I'm bringing this whole group with us, because there's something about being in that spot, right? So this is like it's wilderness. They have cleared a space where they're going to build a massive church that they expect to take a hundred years, which is wild in the 21st century.

Meg:

I didn't know that was still a thing that happened, other than, I guess, the Sagrada Familia, but most pilgrim sites that you go to it's like. Here is a pilgrim site surrounded by a bunch of stuff that's been built up since that saint was there. Right, it's you know you go to Lords and it's Catholic Disneyland with Sagrada, or you go. Maybe you want to visit the tomb of St John Neumann in Philadelphia and like nothing around that cathedral is anything that he would have seen.

Joan:

Right. Takes a lot of imagination.

Meg:

Exactly In America we don't have as many pilgrimage sites as you do, Obviously, all throughout Europe. But you know, South Korea is a very small country to have that many saints that is, 10 times as many canonized saints as we have. But you know, when we have these pilgrim saints here, for the most part it's like just this spot, and then you step outside and it doesn't feel that way. And it's the same way in South Korea, where most of the pilgrim sites, like in the church, you're somewhere sacred and then you step outside and you're back to where you were but Chongjinam, it's 1795.

Meg:

Wow, you know, because there isn't like you drive up to the parking lot and then there are no longer roads. There are there are trails that you climb up and then you get to the cemetery and, like, the gravestones are obviously not well, I guess the gravestones are not 1795. The gravestones are obviously not well. I guess the gravestones are not 1795. The gravestones are much newer.

Meg:

The bodies were recovered um I think in the eighties and they did DNA testing to currently living descendants of the founders of the church to identify the remains, which is really cool, but like you're walking through the woods, hiking up this mountain to get to this spot, and you're like this is how they would come back from going home to visit their families. Right Like like some of these trees. I don't know how old trees get in South Korea Maybe. Maybe they're not 250 years old, but like I mean it's the same kind of tree it's the same kind of feel.

Meg:

It's the same kind of silence and so just feeling like you are really walking in their footsteps. There's something very special about that and it does feel like a step back outside of time to walk with Servant of God John Baptist Ebyuk and Servant of God Peter and to feel the excitement that they felt at being able to bring the gospel to people who had never encountered Jesus before. It's just, it's incredible. I hate hiking Joan more than really almost anything in the world, like sin first and then bananas and then hiking, and I like I go to Alaska and I do not bring appropriate shoes so that people can't make me hike, like I hate hiking.

Meg:

I have to stay home and I went back a second time to hike this mountain again.

Joan:

Wow.

Meg:

Because the feeling of encounter was so tremendous.

Joan:

Yeah, it's hard to explain to someone who's like, well, I'll just read a book about their life and it's a great story, meg thanks. But to be there it's almost like just try it right, just try. And I think sometimes it's hard to explain to someone pilgrimage when they're like, well, I can pray here, I can pray in my own church, of course you can, that's great. But there's something about encountering Christ and encountering these people in the place that is kind of indescribable until you experience it.

Meg:

Exactly. And pilgrimage is possible locally, right. You don't have to be going to a place where a saint lived. Although if you are in the US and you are looking for a local place where a saint or servant of God or venerable lived, I can hook you up, because if you're in the Southwest you have to drive a little farther, but in much of the country you're within five or six hours of someplace like this. But you can also make a pilgrimage to your cathedral, and maybe your cathedral is nothing to write home about, but it is your connection to the universal church, it is your connection to your bishop as your spiritual father who ties you back to the apostles who walked with Jesus.

Meg:

Like it doesn't have to be this major financial layout for you to go on pilgrimage, right, you can find a way to make local pilgrimages to sites that are meaningful, even if a saint never walked that images, to sites that are meaningful even if a saint never walked at. But if you have the ability to go and be where the saints walked, to visit their homes, to visit their bodies right, to hear the wind move through the trees that they walked under, I mean there's something there where you're like, let's go. Like I visited Carlo Acutis when he was still in the cemetery in Rome. Like I knew him when, uh, he was a servant of God, wasn't even venerable yet Like, and I hunted him down in this cemetery and I have seen so many saints right Like. I have been on pilgrimage so many places, sometimes on purpose, sometimes by accident, um, but there was something about standing in front of his body in the cemetery and being like, like, looking at his tombstone that said 1991.

Meg:

Yeah, and thinking what have I been doing with my life? And my priest friend who was with me was like well, not dying. So that's, that's the first thing holding you back from canonization. Meg in case you were just trying to figure that out. Right, but there's something about being there and the way that it just invites you to reexamine your life and to say can I belong more to Jesus than I have? Can I be his in a more real, a more immediate, a more powerful way?

Joan:

Yeah, and maybe there are no saints buried in your local cathedral, but maybe a saint has gone.

Joan:

like there's so many people in heaven, we don't know their names and so you're also walking with the saints wherever you're walking, because a saint has gone there before you, whether you know their name or not. And I love the idea of Carlo because we can make pilgrimages to Carlo. But we can make pilgrimages with Carlo, um, you know, I think, just being in these places where we have photographs of Carlo being right, um, we went to Santarem outside Fatima, the Eucharistic miracle site, and he has a, you know, a. There's a picture of Carlo standing outside the church. He got his picture taken, so we all took pictures in the same spot and it's like we're not just walking to these places, but we're also walking with these saints and we're walking. We're not the first ones to do this. Can you talk a little bit about saints who have gone on pilgrimage, that we're not just pilgrimaging to them but we're pilgrimaging with them?

Meg:

You know there's one of my favorite stories of saints, devotions to saints, we'll say there was a guy in France in the late 18th, early 19th century and he was in seminary and he was just so bad at it. He was just so bad at it and he kept failing and they kept threatening him like you are not going to be allowed to be ordained, and he just felt so sure that God was calling him to this. And so he was like you know what? St John Francis Regis, right, he was a 17th century Jesuit in the mountains of France.

Meg:

He was like that guy was such a good priest, Like I want to be a priest the way that he was. He would hear confessions for 12 hours a day. Right, like he was just so available to his people. He was so good, he was so holy. And so he went on this massive pilgrimage up an enormous mountain to this incredibly inaccessible town called La Louvain, and this seminarian knelt down at the tomb in the church of La Louvain, at the tomb of St John Francis Regis, and he just laid his vocation on the altar there and he said I need you to pray for this, I need you to make this happen, and St John Vianney for the rest of his life, credited John Francis Regis with his priesthood. He said everything good that he had accomplished was due to the intercession and the witness of St John Francis Regis.

Joan:

Wow yeah.

Meg:

I mean John beyond me, right, and like we know the story of like he was bad at being a seminarian and then he got to be a priest and he was so good at whatever, but like to consider that for him, in that moment of like a desperate need to follow Jesus, he was like who understands this struggle, right, jesus, he was like who understands this struggle, right, who knows what it's like to want so desperately to serve the Lord in this way and to be unsure if that's even going to be possible, and for him to go to his big brother and be like John Francis, just will you pray for me, cause I just really want to be a pre, and I just think it's like the most, the most darling thing. Um, it's also, I think, especially cute, because John Francis Regis was like six foot five and John Vianney was like I don't know four foot, nothing or something.

Meg:

He was. I mean, he wasn't that short, but I think he was like five foot one or five foot two, Like he was a little guy.

Joan:

And so it just feels cute to me.

Meg:

I also love the story of St Mary of Egypt who, um, for the sake of young years who may be listening, we will just say uh was not a PG 13 kind of a woman. Um, she made a whole lot of bad choices, uh, with partners both willing and unwilling, so like bad bad y'all like, not St Augustine, bad like, bad, bad, uh.

Meg:

And she went on pilgrimage to the Holy land for the challenge that it posed in terms of her ability to engage other pilgrims in her favorite activities.

Meg:

Um, and everyone was going into the church of the Holy Sepulchre and she was like, well, you know, I might as well see what's happening. And she was barred from entering physically, could not walk through the door and all of a sudden was confronted with the reality of her sin. And for some people that would be so shame-inducing that it would be devastating and they would never recover. But the Lord knew her heart and he knew that she needed this confrontation with the reality of her life. And she was so convicted that she immediately renounced all of her sin and she went presumably she went to confession, but then she went to communion and then she went on into the desert and she spent the rest of her life living as a hermitess. And it's beautiful, because so often these stories it's like she was very wicked and then she had a conversion and she never sinned again and you're like good for you Can't relate to that.

Joan:

That is not my story Exactly.

Meg:

But with her she had lived in her sin for 17 years, and then for 17 years in the desert. She struggled.

Joan:

Wow.

Meg:

She lived with shame and with temptation, and then, finally, she was set free and she became a saint so holy that in the Eastern church her feast is celebrated on a Sunday. Wow.

Joan:

Yeah, there's four of those. That's incredible.

Meg:

Yeah.

Joan:

Ooh, tell us the four.

Meg:

Oh, I know I couldn't tell you that, sorry, sorry. All I know is that, yeah, that's a good fact too. Yeah, four extra biblical, I suppose there's four. That's a good fact too. Four extra biblical, I suppose. Oh, that's true, yeah.

Joan:

Was she known during her life? Was she known? Did people go out to seek her counsel or anything?

Meg:

No, or did she?

Joan:

live in relative obscurity.

Meg:

She was discovered at the end of her life by St Zosima, who was also a hermit, and he had received a revelation telling him to go out into the desert and he encountered her there and she told him her whole story and he wrote it down and she said will you come back in a year? Um? And he went back and discovered that she had just passed um, and so he's the one who told her story. But she, but she was living in obscurity. Wow.

Joan:

Because sometimes you hear about saints who kind of themselves. People go on pilgrimage to them while they're still alive, right?

Meg:

Yes, like to go seek counsel. That seems exhausting.

Joan:

Those are two very different stories of pilgrimage, which I love. That again, the saints nothing really is new, right? We can all relate to various things in the lives of the saints, and whether we're a great sinner, we can take a pilgrimage right. Whether we're, you know, john Vianney was probably pretty holy even when he was a little humble seminarian, just showing that pilgrimage is for everyone.

Joan:

I think sometimes, especially here at Verso, we get the idea like, oh, you can go on pilgrimage when you're older, when you have the money, when you? No, that's not the point. I mean, it'd be great if you go on pilgrimage and like we love it, right, but to go on pilgrimage now? Pilgrimage is for everyone saints, sinners, old, young and just this variety of what pilgrimage can give us.

Meg:

Yeah Well, and I think my approach to pilgrimage is exhausting, and so the prospect of doing that when I'm old is just I'm like I will be too tired for the way I do pilgrimage.

Joan:

You can't walk up that mountain. I can't walk up that mountain, I mean.

Meg:

I just keep ridiculous hours. I'm like, well, there are 14 saints in this country, so we will see all of them. And you're like Meg, it's a very large country and I'm like we will see all of them. I don't understand the problem.

Meg:

So, yeah, I mean, I think that there's a different way that you can do pilgrimage when you have all kinds of energy, as opposed to a way that you can do pilgrimage when you maybe have a little bit more time and you can. You can take it more slowly, cause you don't have to get back to kids that you know you don't have a job breathing down your neck, Like it's just it's going to look different in different seasons, Right, and there are going to be times when you can, like do a kind of a really big and exciting pilgrimage and there are times when you can bring your kids to the adoration chapel in the next town over and you're gonna be like this is a pilgrimage. And there are some like backpacking through Europe when you're 20 kind of pilgrimages and some pilgrimages that are, you know, going to require more advanced planning and more intentionality and like visas and things that you maybe aren't going to get all of your ducks in a row in other phases of your life, and God works with it.

Joan:

All God will work with it all, absolutely. I think you had a story about a saint you met on pilgrimage.

Meg:

Yes, was in um, I was in italy and I think I was. I was probably there giving talks, um, but I was staying near padua and I was like, oh, we should go see saint anthony, obviously. And then I thought, well, you know, it's italy, there's not going to be just one saint, right, like they've got so many saints, I was gonna wonder who else is in padua and so I looked it up at saint luke.

Joan:

No big deal. Um, isn't that strange. I hate to interrupt you, but isn't it funny to be in padua. And then you're like, oh, what's in this big church? Oh, it's saint luke, right. Like come again. Like padua's. Like yeah, we have saint anthony and saint, and like nobody was in the church, it was empty. I was very I tend to be rather a skeptic about relics that ancient.

Meg:

But so I was like okay, sure, St Luke, like my theory is it doesn't hurt, yeah, it doesn't hurt to act like this is St Luke, because if it's not, god's not like well you venerated the wrong shin bone.

Meg:

He's like you venerated that with the graces that are being given. But you know, I tend to hear these things and I'm like sure, okay, fine. But they did DNA testing on him and those are the remains of a Syrian man who died between the years 70 and 300. And I was like what are the odds they got the wrong? Syrian man from the first century.

Joan:

Like it seems to me.

Meg:

If that's who they accidentally found that's probably the actual guy. But there's a guy named Leopold Mondich whose church had a convenient mass time. So I was like hey, how about we go to this guy's church? And my friend was like sure, yeah, tell me about him. And I said he was short and she's like that is probably not why they canonized him. And I was like great.

Meg:

That's. The only thing I know about him is he was short and she was like, great, well, let's go visit the short state. Now, in fairness, he was four foot five, like he was not. He was not John Vianney short, he was like remarkably short, um. And I went to visit him and was like, oh, okay, leopold Mundage. And I started reading his story just in the signs on the wall and I was like, oh, oh, I love him. Oh, I mean, like he's on my water bottle. Look, I like this right here.

Joan:

This is St Leopold Mundage.

Meg:

He's like top five best friends in the world.

Joan:

I think right now he comes in at number three Wow.

Meg:

Yeah, yeah, he was Croatian ethnically. He grew up in I think it was Italy at the time, but it's now Slovenia and he was Felt so convicted that God was calling him to end the great schism.

Joan:

You know that division between the Eastern and the Western church and at that point was 850 years old.

Meg:

He was like put me in coach. Like I got it. So he became a Capuchin and they sent him to Italy and there are like six Orthodox Christians in Italy. So he's like absolutely Like, I will obey, but I really think God is calling me to this. Will you send me back? And they were like go to the confessional. And so he, like John Vianney, like John Francis Regis, would spend 12, 14 hours in the confessional every day and he would spend three or four hours praying every night for reconciliation in the church and he would console himself that every confession that he heard was a small act of that great work of reconciliation. But he remained utterly certain for decades that God was calling him to end the great schism. And he kept going to his superiors and they kept sending him back to the confessional. Four months before he died he wrote now I am certain that God is going to use me to end the great schism. And then he died.

Meg:

And there is no epilogue to the story.

Joan:

It's not like and on the anniversary of his death.

Meg:

The patriarch, no, like he died, period the end. And I find it so encouraging because he died never having experienced the fulfillment of this deep desire of his heart. But he died happy, because what he really wanted was Jesus, what he really wanted was faithfulness. And it's very easy to look at these saints who prayed and prayed and prayed and then got what they wanted, and to begin to fix our heart on answered prayers instead of fixing our heart on the one who answers prayers. But Leopold Monaghan, I mean, he is one of my very best friends because when I am deep in the middle of my pity parties and I do love a good pity party, joan he comes and he sits next to me and he lays his little bitty head on my shoulder and he says it is not okay, but God is still good. It is not okay, but God is still good. And we have saints like God lover.

Meg:

St Raphka Pietraszuba Arias is just like yay, suffering I love suffering Like a doctor cut out her eyeball and she was like woohoo, I mean like a mess, um, and that's great that that worked out for her. But I need a saint who's going to acknowledge that the Lord has put a desire in my heart that he has chosen not to fulfill. Yeah, and that that is really hard. Yeah, and that God is really hard.

Joan:

Yeah.

Meg:

And that God is still working in the midst of it and through it. Right, there was something about his desire that the Lord needed him to have and needed not to fulfill, like there was work that was being done in him and in the world through that, and maybe it was like genuinely decades for him and God was working in him, because God never uses us without doing good for us as well. But maybe it really was just that I was going to break if I didn't have a saint friend whose life was a series of unanswered prayers, because that, I mean, my life is so many unanswered prayers and I sit with Leopold Mondage and he points me back to Jesus.

Joan:

Yeah, and he teaches us not to waste those desires and that suffering right.

Meg:

Yes.

Joan:

Okay, I'm not called to go end the Western schism, the way I thought I was called, but I've been called in obedience right? That's a very difficult virtue In obedience. I'm going to hear these confessions. Right, that's a very difficult virtue in obedience. I'm going to hear these confessions and I believe that there is grace and I believe that God can use this, even if it's not my plan and even if it's not how I thought it was going to be used. I think I know I waste so much suffering and in those pity parties and in that suffering I forget that I could be offering it for someone or I could be doing good with it. Jesus wants to do good with it and he can, um, and so that beautiful lesson of when our plan isn't the Lord's plan but yet we have that desire in our heart.

Joan:

Um and his story in a sense is over. But it's not in the grand scheme, Like maybe there is going to be this great reconciliation between the East and the West on his feast day. That is such a beautiful, that is so encouraging. I think we can hear that story and be discouraged, and we shouldn't be. We should be encouraged as you see, that encouragement that the Lord is good.

Meg:

The Lord is good and that sometimes he is the one giving you this desire, even though he intends not to fulfill it, because that unfulfillment is doing something because that desire is doing something. I pray frequently. I say Lord, I want to want what you want me to want even if you don't want me to have it, because for a while, I was like well, lord just deliver me of these desires If you're not if it's not your will to fulfill them, deliver me of these desires.

Meg:

And then I was like no, no, I love what you do through the desires that you give me that you do not intend to fulfill, and I hate it too. But, like, I have seen this bear fruit and so I want to want what you want me to want, even if you don't want me to have it.

Joan:

That's a powerful and very difficult prayer, right Wow.

Meg:

And so much of it is because I went on random pilgrimage to this random church of this random saint that I mean, maybe eventually I would have heard about him, but I don't think I would have really dug into him. There's nothing about him that like grabs me. You know, there are a lot of saints that I'm just like. I read their list of facts that are not stories and I say okay and I move on. I think in order to love him, it was going to take pilgrimage to encounter him in that way where I couldn't skim and then look away. Right, I had to really lean into that and I mean I have spoken about him, given talks about him, dozens, maybe hundreds of times. He is in both of my saint books, like he is one of my dearest friends, and it's because I went on pilgrimage.

Joan:

So you know I'm a fan. Yeah, the beauty of that encounter and we talk a lot about letting the Lord work in your pilgrimage and not having there are certain expectations you can go in with. But if you go in ready to let the Lord work with your pilgrimage, that he's going to introduce you to the people you need to be introduced, whether they are canonized or whether they're fellow pilgrims. He's going to work through that pilgrimage in a way you can't even imagine. If we're open and I think we can be closed to that, but if we're open to it he can do amazing things in that encounter.

Meg:

Yes, I'm I'm really excited about our pilgrimage to South Korea. You guys should come with us, um, because there are so many South Korean saints that I know people are going to come away with new best friends who I have never heard of you know?

Meg:

I mean, I think at this point I've read all of their stories once, but like, haven't retained, like didn't get excited about, but like I don't know there's something really special about just the massive number that we're going to encounter. Like it, it is very hard to get this high. A number of stories per square mile, right, Like named saints per square mile.

Meg:

Italy can probably hang, yeah, but like actual stories per square mile, italy can probably hang Um, but like actual stories per square mile, like I, I really should do the math, cause this is now a fascinating question to me. But once you include all 103, 124, 252 and that one venerable um, there's a lot of people a lot of stories, a lot of personalities, a lot of circumstances.

Meg:

Right, like there's one I can't remember her name at the moment but she, her dad, wanted to marry her off to a non-Christian. So she just pretended her legs didn't work for two years, like like, who are you and why are you my favorite, you know? I mean, that's totally the kind of thing I would have done when.

Meg:

I was 17 years old. And then finally he was like all right, fine, don't marry that guy. And she's like, oh my gosh, my legs work again. Weird, you know. Like I mean, it's that that kind of personality that we see in these stories that we're going to encounter when we find these people. Um, and I'm just, I'm so excited to see the new relationships and the new inspirations that the Lord is making when you have so many encounters in one 10 day period.

Joan:

Yeah, there's so long for everyone. So the food, the whole. We believe in a holistic view of pilgrimage. You have to experience, you know everything I mean, joe.

Meg:

what could be more fun?

Joan:

So, as we wrap up, I would love for you to talk a little bit about how people can find out more. Like maybe there is someone listening saying you know, I don't really, I don't think there's a saint for me, or I agree with you. I think the saints are plaster statues or stained glass windows that don't relate to me, or what would you. And be sure to have a shameless plug. It's not so shameless, but how could people find out more about the saints? What would you recommend?

Meg:

So you can read my books. I've got two books on the saints out. One is called Saints Around the World. It's 100 stories of saints from 70 different countries showcasing just an incredible variety of personality types and states in life and family situations and hobbies and joys and struggles. And that's a children's book so beautiful illustrations. But I always tell people it's good for ages 3 to 12 and then 18 and up 13 to 17, you're too old for it, but at 18, you're old enough for it again.

Meg:

And then Pray for Us 75 Saints who Sinned, suffered and Struggled on their Way to Holiness Again highlights a really diverse group of saints. I would say most people most like serious practicing Catholics who opened that book would maybe have heard of like five that's awesome.

Meg:

Lots of brand new friends, lots of different circumstances. They both have really good indices where you can look up mental illness or divorce or bullying, or scientists or athletes, or courage. I mean just like all kinds of different ways that you can approach this search. You can also go on my Instagram and look at my story highlights. I've got like black saints, Asian saints, Latino saints. Especially if you have felt underrepresented in your ethnic background, We've got a saint for that. So those are the ways that you can look up my resources. I really recommend books by Ann Ball. She does a good job. If you I don't remember the, we can link it in the show notes.

Joan:

We will definitely link all this in the show notes.

Meg:

I wrote an article on my favorite saint books at one point. Oh, perfect, because a lot of times if you're just Googling you're not going to find the right person and you're not gonna find the story told right. There's so many websites that are just like oh, here's this one public domain. Three sentence right. Piece of nonsense right or a quote that they never said. Oh mercy, I feel so many feelings about that when you're like no 16th century human would ever have said something like that, let alone a Carmelite.

Joan:

Come on.

Meg:

But I mean I understand, because so many of the resources that we have are just so banal, like there's nothing exciting. There's nothing interesting, there's nothing that points to Jesus, there's nothing that points to Jesus. But I think if you feel there is no saint who can speak to me, it's because you're not listening to the right stories, reading the right stories.

Meg:

So I would keep digging, and if you come on pilgrimage with me, then you can just pick my brain on the saints all the time. I don't always respond to Instagram messages, but if you're sitting next to me on the bus I really feel like I will answer your question.

Joan:

Well, there's the answer and we will have that in the show notes as well, if you want to join Meg on pilgrimage. One thing I really love about the saints book is the um, the stickers that you get to add when they're canonized and beatified. I think it just reminds us that we're in the middle of these stories and that, like, the Lord's still working and the Lord's still speaking, and you know, like when this book was published they were venerable or beatified, and that changes and the church grows and our body of Christ grows, and it's really exciting.

Meg:

You know, it's great because St Margaret of Costello was a medieval saint and she was beatified hundreds of years ago and she was a blessed through the 15th century and the 16th century and the 17th century and the 18th century until 2021, the week after our book went to print.

Meg:

Her cause didn't move at all and then she was suddenly canonized with no advance notice, and so the book was not up to date for even one minute and I was like, oh, I got to figure out a way that I am not devastated by canonizations. This is not. So we came up with this sticker concept and I tell people it is the world's slowest interactive book, because every several years you may get to put a sticker in. So if you had a first edition, you have put in two stickers.

Joan:

Now there was one recently right, yeah, because it's on Instagram.

Meg:

Yeah, st Maria Antonia de Paz y Figueroa. Yes, she's called Mama Antula. She was the first Argentinian woman to be canonized, very exciting. Yeah, and like everyone was like oh, I'm going to put my sticker in.

Joan:

So not only are you not devastated by canonizations, it's super exciting.

Meg:

Exactly it gets even more exciting and people send videos of their kids putting the sticker on and I'm like, all right, see you in seven years when this happens again, but it unites us with that universal church.

Joan:

That, um, I remember going to a beatification. I was just in Rome so I went. I think it was a canonization of like seven people, and don't ask me who these seven people were. I was just there because it was a canonization and the Pope was there and it was exciting and it was lovely and I probably should look up who those seven people were.

Meg:

But it just I know that's terrible. Okay, that's what I'm going to do, okay.

Joan:

I'm going to try to remember what day that was, um, but it's just one of those things that we can be so disconnected from the universal church, and this is just yet another way to unite us to the universal church, to the Holy Father, to our best friends.

Meg:

Well, and just thinking about all of these little American kids who were so excited. And nobody else was excited except. Argentina right, and so it was like Argentina and this like random subset of American children who were like in solidarity in that moment right and they'll probably never meet each other, but like they were celebrating on the same day.

Joan:

I love it. Oh, the saints are so good. So we'll link everything in the show notes and thank you so much, Meg, for joining us, and I can't wait to see what new best friends people discover through your books. The books would make great confirmation presence. They'd make great sacrament presence. You know, don't let your, you know, encourage your confirmandi child to pick some saint that they discover and for the first time.

Joan:

I would really encourage that so, but thanks for joining us, Meg. My pleasure. Thanks for having me. God bless listeners, you want to share this episode, especially with a friend who might not really know much about the saints. Appreciate much about the saints, who need to meet the saints, share this episode with them and let's enlarge that knowledge of the body of Christ. God bless.

People on this episode

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Joan Watson

Host
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John Paul Lichon

Co-host