good afternoon and welcome to close to home as you know close to home is a program that highlights people and their vans that elevate the dignity of human life and we produce right down here on main street and most are of course we wouldn't be here if it weren't for the work of our producer frank frank and his helper angelo angela angela angela is new angela was no forgive me and angelo has a son here today helping as well and his son's name is i should say jaden angelo escovedo and guess what today is his birthday so we're going to say a huge happy birthday to angela angelo and jayden angelo the father and jayden the son happy birthday ja year right and we want to give a big thanks to frank and to angela angela for helping us produce the show forgive me for crucifying those names i apologize again we couldn't do this without their help technically if i'm here producing a show i have to have somebody this behind the scenes working the they can was and the audio so thank you so much frank thank you an and thank you jane for coming to visit us today you can edit that right out so we are very proud to have with us today i guess that you seen on my show before his name is age he is the assistant editor of michael magazine and today we're going to talk about all the ways that you and i can evangelize our our faith are the words of jesus christ the catholic heritage all the ways that we can bring the joy that you and i have in our hearts to the public so once again i thank you so much for coming thanks john receiving me your welcome and you're quite a traveler as i recall i think you're you're planning now not only do you work in springfield but massachusetts is we're busy yes you are very busy it's very hard to get a hold of you as a matter of fact he's always every time i call him he's either on the road or going somewhere for some talk or whatever but we are honored to have you with us i don't even know where to begin with eve's because he has so much offer one of the things that i enjoy most is receiving this magazine called michael magazine and again as i mentioned eve is the assistant editor of this man listening and what i love  magazine is it details some of the works that are going on in the vatican some of the programs that are pope has put forth like the new evangelization the holy door in addition to that also tells us a lot about in detail about the saints that we may not have heard of for example you have a whole issue that has three said newman who was a stigma to sin and what she brought to our catholic faith and how she she helps us become better catholics so i thank you for your education and i thank you for all the work you do in addition to that you do you bring us some wonderful speakers we were privileged by two years ago to have a wonderful woman by the name of florrie a pull well and i think that you and i talked a little bit about her and we'll talk a little bit more today gloria pola wrote the book struck by lightning and it's her journey back to her catholic faith so we have a lot to talk about and i'm going to let you take over and tell us a little bit about what you've been doing and what you're most passionate about this time that i that i have to is to really bring christ in the world and that's really the work of the pilgrims of st michael is to be able to evangelize in as laypeople because we're really the celebration of life that the second vatican council the the church is really set forth a mission for everyone to evangelize not only the priests and the nuns in the  but also in different forms of evangelisation also is the catholic social doctrine which talks about how to live in society and to bring christian principles to to our political and economics scene so that we could shine the light of christ in everything that we do and we are in desperate need of that in our society today and we seem to have the last the whole idea of faith or sharing our faith there seems to be a real shutdown out there we don't talk about god here or your religion as a private matter or what you think is not is not necessarily how i think and there the individual is an independence has really become predominant now and the sadness for me is the joy that i get from my own faith my own sharing of my my faith and  the wonderful gifts that are catholic faith brings us so it makes it difficult to sometimes evangelize but with your tools we are easily able to evangelize about two years ago i mentioned that  you and i got together and he was telling me about a woman named gloria paulo who is a was a dentist in colombia who had an extraordinary experience with christ she was actually struck by lightning and because of that she was she had a near death extraordinary experience and really extraordinary and so she was able to come to our parish john paul the second and tell the story of experiencing really experiencing hell but by the grace of god and her mother's person others prayers she was able to be lifted up and she now has come back to life and she tells a story so that we understand that yes there is a consequence to the way we live yes wolde gloria polo her story is not much different than the story of most ladies and a modern late then woman in in our time she was kind  of feminists she had a career she was you know fairly well to do but she she had as a young child fallen away from the faith and  it was through this experience where she was struck by lightning in it was a horrible expect experience where her whole body was completely charred and  grace of god through the prayers of a poor peasant especially but other people who was intercessory prayer that she claims that she was given a second chance in order to to to bring christ to the world and now she evangelize is all over all over the world she goes in every country she's been to massachusetts at least three four times and we're hoping to bring her in october again to speak and to give the testimony of her  died at that moment but god gave her a special grace because of the prayers of her parents and also as a peasant who was just her name and started praying for her parents there heard her dad was very very deep down very low because of the sins of adultery and infidelity in marriage where has the mom was very close to heaven she was very very very close so she was able to to to experience that the torments that people were experiencing in this the sadness of you know being unfaithful or single sin that was like it was this started with the first commandment to love god with all your heart with all your soul and i lord says do you follow did you follow this commandment she said yes i do i iowa said no and then she explained all the reasons why she was not mauling the commandments and how she actually worship false god she had she loved money she was in love with her body she had all these these idols and so our lord just took the veil off so that she could see herself as she is and  it's a it's a great catechist this as well because people use this this book struck by lightning to to to learn the ten commandments because i think that's what's liking a societal lot of people think oh well i'm a good person i am not certain anybody but the reality is you know there's grave sins that are being committed and you know it's very displeasing to god and there w examples of abortions that she had of course other people to have and also the abortions that she had had as well so it was just it's just an amazing story to not just one aspect there's every single sin even the sins of missing mass on sunday or or going to confession and not revealing all the sins that she she had so it is a remarkable story and as i recall from the time she came to john paul the second jesus actually opens up the book of life which i found remarkable because we hear about the book of life it's not a story it's a true story each one of us have a book of life and jesus has it god has it for each of us so god opened up the book of life for her and when when she realized she was in the depths of hell she said oh no i'm catholic i belong i don't belong here and then jesus began to and ask her questions well and did you love me above all of course i did and then he opened up the book of life and he gave her examples of where that did not happen so we have the honesty like con yes there is the book of life yes we do follow the ten commandments it's just that in this world today it's not always brought to our attention as it should be we might get the mass on sunday but the fact is there are ten commands and god will hold us to it the other thing that i thought was remarkable was when she went to heaven when she met when she died and went met jesus christ her parents were right behind her with her guardian angel and as a mother that made me realize that i will be with my children when they meet jesus and they die and it made me aware that i'm responsible to keep giving them encourage men in their faith and to do the right thing so there were so many points that she brought up for us as you we mentioned the other night we have some we have i'm from  paul the second parish unselfish and we have a we have a wonderful parish there are many wonderful parishes but i find that we're very blessed and for our parish priest it was father peter for some reason glory opened up the whole idea of  and what it means to be a priest and what happens when the hands are laid on the priests had it with the priest and our parish was so delighted to hear that story and they were really affirmed by it and they haven't forgotten it yet so  don't miss an opportunity to see gloria paul alive because she is just she will bless you she will give you an insight into your life that we all needed to sustain so she's going to be here in october we don't know what date order this book and start reading it it's just like an examination of conscience and people will call up and say i just read the book in the first thing that came to me is i need to go to confession because the see that you know sometimes you soldier that's not a sin but you know that all of sudden you know it's just like the holy spirit gives you the lights to be able to see things as the as the ar many yeah it's the reality it's they stark reality that what you learned as a child is true that there are ten commands and you're responsible for them because in this world today we've just covered them up and cover them up and kept them up and and so you know that the necessity of people really examining their conscience and learning their faith well so that they could be able to to to to change to convert and when we do live in the life of grace you know god poor as in us all kinds of graces in order to and love in order to want to be able to share to others because if if if you're filled with on fire for him in order to share the love that i that we have received in order to to to to shared with others that that cup of love that we have in us flows the overflow so much as you want to share with the love that you received receive and that's what pope francis is talking about he's talking talks about this new evangelization which was started by saint john paul the great which was really to to to evangelize ourselves to to fill ourselves with that love in order to so that we could become great evangelism and that's  what the pilgrims of st michael our interest is to share the faith that we have this is you know the magazine that we promote but there's loads of beautiful insights of the faith that you wouldn't get  elsewhere or you will get elsewhere but we promoted as well like in the next magazine we were going to be mentioning the the miracle there's two miracles in poland eucharistic miracles consecrates the bread and wine becomes the body and blood of christ it is such a hard concept in many ways for people but jesus is revealing over and over again that no this is instance that i'm remembering happened in argentina and in fact our hope today is the one that approved this miracle they found a host and what happened was it was bleeding and they sent it i'm giving you a very short version of this they sent it off to blindly to a lab that knew nothing about this tissue and the lab results came back and said yes i know exactly what this this is tissue that's been brutally harmed it's and in program called science test phase and it's really wonderful because for you know what i think i grew up as a catholic and said yeah it's a body blow the price and i believed it but i didn't enter into my heart it really didn't and the more you receive the in the more you ask for that knowledge more you understand jesus is truly present and the body and blood and when you receive him you become that we've come to jesus in the world you become a human tabernacle it's awesome it's it's it's in the michael magazine these wonderful magazines this is the two thousand and thirteen magazine in august so if you get a copy i highly recommend that you get it and now recently there are two other miracles that you're talking about jesus is present h he wants to get your attention and this is one of the ways he's doing it and if you open up your heart the love that will rush in this translates to pure joy and you'll find out that this love is just too good to keep to yourself and you jump out of bed every morning and can't wait to get a mass and you want for me it's very frustrating it's like it's like a one before secret that you want to share with everybody jesus is here for you in this dark world and he loves you and he wants you to spread his love he's present though that that's what god he him makes himself available for us each and every day through the  the things i've noticed is that when people realize for sometimes for the first time that jesus is present body blood soul and divinity i know there's a friend of mine he's a pr and he was he was an atheist he had no faith his parents were buddhist and when he became a catholic he still did not understand the concept of the true presence  unfortunately there's a small they say it's only maybe thirty or thirty five percent of catholics that actually are true believers in the universe some people that the they believe but they're not sure where as once you recognize jesus is present body blood soul and divinity it change it changes your life and that's what happened with the father chang from san francisco from a good friend of mine when he adoration from from eleven to six in the morning the whole night every single day so i mean that's a special grace that you receive but that's how important it is to in the beauty of our faith it changes and because jesus does changes in his eucharist certainly does and for those of you that have never been to out a ration or for those of you that pass a church every day pull over go in and sit down in front of the tabernacle and just ask god just just open your heart to him and say god is this true are you really here believe me he knows your heart you knows every hair on your head he knows your heart and lo shrine like maybe the fatima shriner when i went to medical warrior one been to lourdes or any of those i always ask our lord what is this for real is this true does this really happen and you know my heart he knows i want to know the truth and the truth is always revealed softer revealed it's just again it's a joy it's a peace it's an understanding that you deserve to have and i every one of you to give yourself that opportunity the other thing that i'd like to mention also is is the your mercy i know that a lot of your already done a lot during that this time of mercy but there's still a lot of people that are unaware of the graces that that we could receive in this year of mercy and i'm thinking that such a dark i i don't know if you but there seems to be so few people that are attending church there seems to be a darkness out there i don't know if you've experienced but we see you know we have a political struggle we have struggles in the you know with our military with struggles over there in syria and iraq and afghanistan and in france and it seems like a worldwide struggle for peace that's what i'm expecting i'm feeling and and of course we're just still in america and we still safe here but where do you find the peace where you and you were just saying that where you find the peace is in front of the tabernacle you know if you do i'm sorry i'm thinking about the pope the pope and heritage this through the holy spirit he became our pope pope francis he's very different than maybe our last two popes but boy does he have a spirit he wants us back in wants us he wants to give us god's mercy so out of his big heart he decided to have a year of mercy and jubilee of mercy and he's given us some tools to do this and one of the tools is the holy doors and for those of you aren't aware of this every diocese has what they call the holy doors can you help me with that you know well prior to this year of mercy  year but this year was was given to us as a special grace for the times that we're living and it's a time of mercy because like pope francis says because we need we need his mercy desperately and so god is giving as does this this time in order to to change an invitation to everyone so everyone there is no exception there's no established the feast the the sunday after easter and i remember when this devotion was just starting people were unaware of it now all over the world it's being promoted and it's  it's just taking off you know picking up a great deal however you know there's a great chance with this year of mercy to to go the next step it's a quote to the streets like