“We are called to live the Beatitudes and one of them is blessed are the merciful.”
Anne DeSantis on greed and generosity
Who is Anne DeSantis?
Anne DeSantis is a wife and a “Mom” and the director of a non-profit called the St. Raymond Nonnatus Foundation for Freedom, Family, and Faith. In addition, Anne is a Catholic Author with CatholicMom, Catholic 365, and Catholic Lane. She hosts a weekly podcast with co-host Bill Snyder called “Sewing Hope” and a weekly on-line TV show called “Journeys in Faith with Anne DeSantis” on Fiat Ministry Network.
More information can be found about Anne DeSantis at www.annedesantis.com which includes links to the podcast and TV show. The website for the St. Raymond Nonnatus Foundation is www.nonnatus.org
Greed And Generosity
In this episode, Anne DeSantis talks about greed and generosity. She explains:
-Why is greed a sin and what does God say about it?
-How do we develop generosity since this is a gift of the Holy Spirit?
-What steps can we take in being generous towards the poor and marginalized?
-How can we give when we don’t have enough ourselves?
What Can I Give?
When Anne talked about her book, I was only thinking of greed and generosity in terms of material needs. Everyone’s struggling at this time. And yet, Anne challenges us to think in new ways. Be generous with our talents, our time, our presence, with ourselves. The advice is simple. Love God and Love neighbor.
Everyone gets the Hebrew prayer of the Shema accurately. It’s the call echoed throughout the ages right from Deuteronomy 6. That our God is one lord, and we should love Him with everything. This vertical aspect is easier. How do we love horizontally, especially people that try us and fight us.
In our own homes, sometimes it can be hard to do so when we lose sight of the forest for the trees.
Anne has some great takeaways about us just loving people. We don’t go about fixing anyone. God does the fixing. We don’t make ourselves look or appear perfect, God loves us as we are and He looks at the heart.
This Thanksgiving: Greed and Generosity
This thanksgiving let’s look at how we can give. Not just in material ways but in small simple ways. Smile at someone, acknowledge people’s presence, when tempted to lash out, zip our tongues, when keen on sharing another image to impress, express censure, serve in our parish, help out where needed and simply be an example of Christ. It’s tough but we can try. It’s tougher to do at home. I know! Let’s also be thankful for the smaller things in life. The running water, our health, eyes to see, ears to hear, a family (even a dysfunctional/ crazy one) and the gift of Jesus.
This thanksgiving, I’m also grateful to all our listeners. We’ve covered the globe in over 11,000 plays of this podcast. Something that wouldn’t have been possible without you and God’s favor. So I’m grateful for our guests and the people who help me in small ways, their prayers, their advice and their emails. Please continue praying for this ministry. To all of you, thank you!
And have a blessed Thanksgiving.
ENJOYED THIS PODCAST?
We hope you enjoyed this podcast. Check out our podcasts on Mother Teresa and Gratitude. Finally, if you liked this podcast, like us, leave us a comment and share our episodes on social media with those who may benefit from it. If there is a particular saint that you would like to hear about us, tell us and we’ll add him or her to our future episodes.
We are on iheartradio, Stitcher, Itunes, Spotify, Pandora and tunein.com. We’d love to hear from you.
Episode Transcript
Pamela: Hello listeners and fellow Christians. Welcome to a new episode of “The Christian Circle Podcast,” it is episode 79. And since it’s November, and it’s Thanksgiving month, I just wanted to convey my gratitude before we start this episode. First, thank you God for giving us 79 episodes. It’s been a long time. It’s been three years and we’ve made it this far. So, I’m really grateful for the opportunity to be able to have in this podcast. I’m grateful, especially to all our guests, we’ve had so many people who’ve generously come on the show and helped us out. It’s been difficult to arrange schedules, and they still make time to share their ministries with us.
Top 50 countries listeners
I’m also grateful to all the listeners. So, we’ve had so many listeners. In fact, over last year the top 50 countries that we’ve had listeners from the United States, Belgium, Ireland, Canada, Australia, United Kingdom, Germany, Philippines, India, France, Croatia, Spain, Malaysia, Uganda, Brazil, Italy, Japan, Switzerland, New Zealand, South Africa, Mexico, Costa Rica, Poland, Kenya, United Arab Emirates, Sweden, Puerto Rico, Ukraine, Albania, Cyprus, Russia, Jamaica, Iceland, Norway, Singapore, Republic of Korea, Finland, Romania, Nigeria, Honduras, Qatar, Fiji, Chile, Vietnam, Taiwan, Bahrain, Slovakia, Namibia, and Sri Lanka, rounding up the top 50.
And we’ve had so many other places, people from so many other places, Moldova, and places that I’ve never even heard of. So, I don’t know where all of you guys are coming from, but thank you so much for listening to our podcast and for being a part of this show. It is with your support and with your prayers that we’re able to go forward. And going forward, we’re not asking much, we’re just asking you to pray for us, pray for our ministry, pray for our team, and also pray for all the people who, you know, come on to our show.
Finally, thank you to our team. So, we have people that contribute in terms of their time, we have transcriptionist people who translate or transcribe some of the shows into show notes. So, for all these people, I am so grateful that, you know, you’re part of this team. And I’m grateful to the listeners, to the people, and everyone who comes on the show. Everybody, a big, big thank you to everyone. And as we celebrate Thanksgiving month, I just hope you have a wonderful, safe Thanksgiving. So, God bless and have a wonderful Thanksgiving 2021.
Podcast Intro
Welcome to a new episode of “The Christian Circle Podcast.” And with Thanksgiving around the corner, we have a new guest, and she’s been on this show before. So, Anne DeSantis for the second time, tell us a little bit about yourself and your ministry.
Anne: Thank you so much. I am the Director of the St. Raymond Nonnatus Foundation for Freedom Family and Faith. We’re headquartered in the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania area. I’m also a Catholic, wife, mother, an author, and a podcaster. And I’m the author of the new book called “Love and Care for the Marginalized: 40 Meditations for Catholics.” Thank you.
Pamela: So, Anne, you’ve been with us on the show before and we’ve often talked about various things that affect Christian life. And with Thanksgiving around the corner, everybody’s, you know, celebrating, they’re giving away stuff, they’re buying more stuff.
And we wanted to talk about greed and generosity, especially since you wrote this book. So, why is greed a sin? And what does God say about it?
Anne: Well, greed is a sin because we’re not called to be selfish, we’re called to be giving. And since we are not just made of soul only, we are made of body, soul, and spirit, right? That we are called to be generous in every way in our daily living. And also, we’re living in a world where there are so many people who are in need, both in a corporal way, and that’s why we have something like the corporal works of mercy, and in a spiritual way. And when I wrote the book, “Love and Care for the Marginalized,” it was taking into account both of those two aspects, the corporal and spiritual works of mercy. But probably more especially the spiritual works of mercy, because this is a way that we can minister to people that are around us, people that live in our neighborhoods, people that we go to school with, work with, and most importantly, those in our own family.
Pamela: So, are there any specific messages that God gives us about greed and generosity? I know, you know, He talks about the lady in the temple who gives away everything she has, and often there’s been this reference.
So, are there other messages perhaps in the Old Testament, or the New Testament which God specifically directs us to be generous?
Anne: Well, yeah, it’s all over the place. And I think the most important thing that we have to look at is that the model of our faith is our Lord. And what did our Lord do? Our Lord gave of himself through the pastoral ministry, through the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of himself. And that was the most giving act that anyone could ever do. And so, in terms of Bible verses, I mean, I think you could probably open up just about to anywhere in both the Old Testament and the New Testament, but the gospel of Christ, those three years of ministry, and most especially as I just said, the life, death, resurrection, and ascension, and especially the suffering that he went through because he didn’t do that for himself. He did it for all of humankind, and for all of us, and in following God’s will.
So, when we are generous people, okay, when we’re people who are following what God wants of us, we’re not doing it for ourselves. There’s really no selfishness involved. We’re doing it because that’s what we’re called to do. We’re called to live the beatitudes. And I think if I had to say, where in the Bible, where in Holy Scripture does it talk the most about that it probably would be in the beatitudes when you look at each of those eight, and I won’t read every single one. But, you know, blessed are the merciful. And that’s just one. But, I mean, the two great commandments are probably where we see it the most, that we’re called to love God first with all of our hearts, soul, mind, body, and spirit, and to love our neighbor as ourselves. And also, I would also look at the parable of the Good Samaritan, where the Lord talks about someone who is [inaudible 00:06:31] suffering, and the example that he gave us, that we should help him to find what he needed.
Pamela: So, the opposite of greed is generosity.
And this is a gift to the Holy Spirit. Is there a way that we can actually develop generosity?
Anne: I think that the way that we can develop generosity in our lives is by not looking at our faith as a checkbox of things that I have to do in order for me, just for me to go to heaven, it’s not just about myself going to heaven, it’s for other people. And it’s not like receiving a report card, or grades from college, or from high school, where we can look and say, “Well, I got all A’s on everything, I’m a good person.” It’s not about that at all. It’s about the fact that God loves us more than we can imagine. He wishes for not just me to go to heaven, but for all of us. And the way that we do that, and my book, “Love and Care for the Marginalized” is modeled after the 25th chapter of Matthew in Scripture, where the Lord talks about what does it take for us to get to heaven. And even if we were doing all of the right things in terms of our faith, in terms of staying away from sin, in terms of as far as being a Catholic, getting an exercising the use of the sacrament of confession, and all of the other sacraments. On top of that, as far as our Catholic faith is concerned, we are to feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, clothe the naked. And when the Lord talks about in Holy Scripture, when it says, “When I was in prison, did you visit me.?” And part of that, I think, is being generous of spirit with people who need to have someone to listen to them.
That if we knew and we were able to walk, to see the lives of some people and what they’ve been through, we would never treat them the same way. Because not all of us, some of us were raised in a home, were raised in a good home where we were shown the love of God, there’s just so many people who haven’t had that opportunity. And so, our job is to love them. We don’t need to prove to ourselves that we evangelize and that they’re going to church every week and doing all the things that they need to do. We are to love them and show them the right way because their relationship with God, of course, is between them and God. But the most thing that we can do is by loving and serving them, just like St. Teresa of Calcutta did.
So, I think that if we look at those, not only the Beatitudes, Matthew 25, and just look inside yourself and say, “How can I be less selfish?” And I think one of the greatest ways that we can do that is just by doing something called active listening. And active listening is where we can let a person say and speak what they want to say, and give them a full opportunity to speak without interruption. We don’t need to fix anyone, God does the fixing, right? We’re not God, so we’re not called to fix anyone. We can’t do that. And we also have to understand that we’re sinners as well. We’re not perfect. So, there’s aspects about our personalities that might also be incorrect. So, these are just some ideas.
Pamela: So, I was actually gonna ask you what steps can we take and I think you’ve covered quite a few of them in being generous towards the poor and the marginalized. So, are there any other steps?
Anne: The biggest steps that we can take are always very small, aren’t they? Because when we wake up in the morning every day, you say your prayers and you begin your day. And before we know it, there’s a wrench that’s thrown into our plans, right? Whether it’s a text that we get from someone who wants something from us, whether it’s something unexpected, whether it’s some comment that someone makes that we don’t like so much. You know, life is not all about us and it’s not all about me, myself. And so, I think the sooner that we learn that we become more selfless instead of selfish. I think the beginning steps would be that wake up every day with an attitude of gratitude, say your prayers, stay close to God. But just remember that life is not about getting what you want, or what I want. We can have our hopes and our dreams and there’s nothing wrong with that in any way, but we have to remember that we are part of something much greater than just ourselves. We’re part of community. And so, when we live our lives every day, we have to remember that the way that we treat people, I think as Catholics we need to hear this, the way that we treat people is very important.
So, it’s not a checklist of who I am as a Catholic, and am I doing all the right things and taking all the right steps so that I, just I, can go to heaven someday like a report card. My report card is not only do I love God, that I love others, and how flexible of a person am I with other people? Right? How flexible am I if someone says to me they wanna talk to me at three o’clock this afternoon, and if I have other things to do, well, that’s fine, I work, I’m busy. But take into consideration to be a little flexible with other people. You know, I just try to be flexible with other people when they reach out to me. Not that I allow other people’s needs to take up my entire day with phone calls and texts and questions, but I leave myself open to the Holy Spirit.
I don’t just say, “You know what, I have a schedule, I have these things that I need to do.” You know what, if at the end of the day, I have five minutes to get back to someone, I will. I don’t think that’s living the Christian life. There’s nothing wrong with boundaries, but we have to leave ourselves open to the needs of others, right? And also, when we listen to people, is that we really learn to let them say their piece. I don’t need to fix anybody. And as Catholics, I think we need to learn that, that we don’t do the fixing, God does. So, we can show them by our examples. We can give them advice if they ask, but we don’t need to fix anybody. We only need to really work on ourselves, and our relationship with God, and our response to God and His grace in our lives. So I think that’s the best advice that I can give.
Greed and Generosity during a Pandemic
Pamela: No, it’s great advice. So, there’s gonna be a lot of people who are gonna complain that, you know, it’s pandemic time. A lot of people have lost their jobs. Lots of people are struggling, definitely. So how are we supposed to give when we don’t have enough ourselves, and there’s so many people who are asking for help?
Anne: Yeah, I agree with you completely. That’s true. There are so many people that are asking for help. And I think that when it comes to the marginalized, most people think of the homeless, someone who’s been rejected by society for some reason or another. But I think we also have to remember that there’s marginalized people, and people who are being rejected, who might not necessarily fit the definition of who we think they are. You can have someone who’s marginalized, who may just well live in a home and have the financial resources in order to get by in life. What they don’t have, and this is my own personal definition, is they don’t have the love and support that they deserve. And I know the people that are listening, they might know someone like that, Pamela, and I think there’s times in our own lives where maybe we’ve even felt that way where we didn’t have the love and the support that they deserve.
And I’ll just give you a quick example, it is a personal example of my own. I have two adult daughters that are in their 20s and I happen to be in my 50s. But a long time ago, we’ll say 12 years ago or so my daughter was around 10 years old, and she was going through a very rough time in her life where we did have to go and get some outside help regarding counseling and things like that.
Now, thankfully, everything worked out. But it was a very challenging time not only for her but for the whole family but most particularly for myself because I did most of the work in terms of getting her the help she needed. And I did share the situation with some friends of mine. But unfortunately, I learned pretty fast that when you’re a person who’s going through a rough time or some kind of an anxiety or depression or something like that, that not everyone wants to actually be there for you. They’ll say, “I’ll pray for you, I’ll pray for you.” But what I found for myself was that as much as I was surrounded by a group of very devout people that I knew from church groups and things like that, I was very much left alone for a period of years. And the reason that I got from some of the people in my small group community was that they felt like I needed to get myself and things together and that they would pray for me and kind of wait for me to come back.
Well, in the meantime, years went by and I suffered a lot because I went from having a nice group of community and friends to basically no one. And not saying that people didn’t care, if I saw them somewhere, they’d come over and say, “How are you” or something like that, but gone were the invitations to get together, gone were the texts, gone were the phone calls. And I do have family who cares very much, but I didn’t wanna share everything with my extended family and things like that. And it was hard enough for what was going on inside the house.
So what I learned from that was that there’s so many people who go through things, that they might have food on the table, they might have family, they might have a good marriage or whatever but maybe the group of people that they counted on for community aren’t there for them anymore. And no one’s really to blame, because some people don’t know how to handle suffering, right? And my group of friends, to be honest with you, Pamela, I mean, they were very, very good Catholics, people who attended daily mass and charismatic prayer groups. But I think sometimes when we don’t see that those prayers are being answered, or we’re around someone who’s seeming kind of depressed and you just don’t know what to say, or the next time you go back to prayer group, and everybody says, “Hey, how are you doing?” And you say, “Not so good.” And week after week, it’s the same thing. Well, they begin to look at you as kind of someone that, let’s just pray for her and wait for her to get back to her happy self, instead of being there for someone when they really need it.
And so that would be my words of advice is look out for those people in our lives that even if you don’t have that much to give, people just wanna know that they’re cared about. People just want to know that you’re still a friend and not someone that you’re waiting for that you to come back and be this normal, happy person when you’re going through the worst time in your life that you’ve ever been through.
So, I would just say we don’t wanna give up on people.
That’s my best advice. Don’t give up on a friend who’s going through a real tragedy or a trauma. Don’t pray that they get back to who you want them to be, pray that they feel your support. You know, sometimes people say, you pray that people know how much God loves them. You know what, when I went through a hard time in my life, I never had any doubt how much God loves me. I’ve always known that since the day I was born. What I didn’t know is how much people love me. Does that make sense?
Pamela: Yeah.
Anne: So sometimes we know, with absolutely the deepest part of my heart I knew that God loved me. But I didn’t see that coming out through the people, especially very devout-minded people that I knew. I didn’t feel it from them if that makes sense. And so, I would say sometimes people’s issues aren’t with God. Sometimes they are, but sometimes it’s with us. We’re not giving them the love and support that they deserve from us because God works through us, doesn’t He?
Pamela: And we are supposed to be the arms, and the feet, and the eyes, and ears of Christ, right?
Anne: That’s right. Yeah, I mean, when Christ ascended back and the Holy Spirit came, part of that was good. It was very good. Because now the whole world who are filled with the Spirit, ones who are accepting Christ in their hearts and lives, can be little Christs for so many, like someone like St. Teresa of Calcutta, right? We can be like that. We can be sacrificing and loving and caring. Like Mother Teresa said, some of the most starving people in the world are rich people, are people who have, like, they’re spiritually poor. They’re not always the poor that are, you know, not that they don’t have the food on the table, or shelter. Of course, we want to do that, that’s one of the most important things is to minister to the material before, but we also have to minister to those who are spiritually poor.
Pamela: And I feel also at this point being somebody who is generous, being somebody who wants to help, is going to be a little inconveniencing. And I think a lot of people don’t like to be inconvenienced. But doing this actually will cause you some amount of disturbance in what your normal schedule or your normal budget, or whatever your normal thing is.
God is asking you to be a little more uncomfortable before or as you help someone.
Anne: That’s exactly right. Because I think what it comes down to, sometimes we live in a culture that we teach young people from a very young age, that life is all about me. It’s all about my success, it’s all about where I go to college that I can tell all my friends that I graduated from this college, that my hair looks beautiful, my face looks beautiful, I have beautiful pictures on Instagram. I mean, I’m just making this up. But I think you know what direction I’m going in. It’s a very selfish world that we live in right now. And even parents are fed into the fact of saying, “My kid has to go to this school,” I’ll just say Penn State, okay, I live in Pennsylvania. All right, “My child has to go to Penn State.” Now, why does he have to go to Penn State? Because that’s something that I think is the best school and I’m so determined that he does what I want him to do, or her.
Okay, I’m making this up. But I mean, the point being is that it shouldn’t be my way or the highway. Life isn’t just about what I think my child should do. It’s about what God wants my child to do, what direction their lives and what kind of person they are, right? It doesn’t matter if you went to Harvard, or Yale, or the University of Pennsylvania, but your character is no good, right? That you’re morally, you know, not a person who cares about other human beings. Maybe you’re very academically high on the chart and did very well successfully in your life in terms of socialization, and connections with society, whatever that is. But your character is not good and you don’t care about other people, and maybe lack any connection with God of any sort.
And so we need to remember that character and the type of person that someone is, has a great value in our society, it should, right? And that’s why we have something like what we call Judeo Christian values, right? And as Catholics, it’s very important for us to live that type of life that is a sacrificial life toward others, and not just for me to get ahead. It’s not about me having a beautiful home, of perfect furniture, a perfect relationship with my spouse, a beautiful, perfect-looking family. Because even if everything isn’t a shovel, God still loves me, right? And people should treat somebody perfectly and nicely and kindly, even if they don’t have all those things.
Examine Ourselves For Greed and Generosity
Pamela: So, given what’s happening with the world right now, and the way things are going, it’s harder to recognize our brothers and sisters, especially if things are not in the cookie-cutter standard that we have, especially if they’ve been to prison, or if they are anti-lifers, you know, people who are against our own principles and morals who are doing all sorts of things, even addicts, immigrants, refugees, or people who don’t fit the mold that we or our Christian values hold. So, these people are, some of them will be vehemently against us. They’ll be vocal, they are punishing, they are destroying lives.
But how are we still going to be able to recognize these brothers and sisters and still love them the way Christ is asking us to love these people?
Anne: Well, I think the first step, as I said, is that we have to examine ourselves and our thoughts and our desires, and even how we were raised. You know, some people were raised where that they weren’t raised with some kind of godly or moral or character-driven values, but more about the exterior parts of who we are, right? It saddens me when I see on social media, especially like Instagram, young women and young men too, sometimes who it’s all about the way someone looks or the way that they present themselves or how many likes did they get on a post and a lot of immodesty to, I hate to say it, which we see a lot. But we have to examine what is important to me? Do I have to be a perfectionist for the world’s sake? When I put a picture on social media, does that picture have to be perfect so that everyone can think that I or someone else is beautiful or wonderful or perfect or whatever, you know? At the end of the day, people are forgotten pretty fast after they die. I hate to say that. So, what’s good tomorrow or, you know, what’s remembered today won’t always be remembered tomorrow, will it?
So, we have to remember what’s important to God. What’s important to God is how we treat other human beings and how much we love Him. That’s all He cares about. First He cares about how much we love Him. Not a checkbox, not to say did I do all these right things, which is important that we, you know, for Catholic we’re following the Catholic Church and our faith and the sacramental life. But do I love Him with all my heart? Right? That’s the first commandment. Do I say everything I do is it based on how much I love God? Or is it based on a certain selfishness about who I am to make sure that everybody gives me a pat on the back for being a great person and having a perfect family?
I realized that, as I said, when I went through my own tough time, that as soon as I was dropped down a notch in terms of what type of family, once I was labeled as a depressed person who’s going through a rough time, I went from a group of 10 pretty close friends to zero in a pretty quick period of time. And I’m being very serious about that. Now, whose fault was that? Was it mine? Maybe it was. But at the end of the day, I didn’t need to be a perfect person to have support. And then when things start to go good, you find that you have more friends. It shouldn’t be that way.
You should have as many friends and support as when you’re going through a rough time, as when you are having a very happy, great, and perfect little life, if that makes any sense. And we have to do that for other people, you know. Who are my friends? To be honest, Pamela, I’m friends with people who I feel are real human beings. Okay? People who don’t care about me for exterior reasons or want something from me, we should never want something from someone. I’ll not be friends with somebody because they’re good-looking, rich, smart, live in a nice neighborhood, or are well-connected. And we should think the same way just like the Bible and Holy Scripture tells us. When Jesus invites people to the table, he invited everybody at first, they didn’t show up, he said, “Go out and get lame, the sick, all them. That’s who we should become friends with. Right? And I’m not saying that sometimes people who need us come in all different packages and varieties, don’t they?
Pamela: Yeah.
Anne: So, maybe I’m not necessarily saying you need to go out and just search for people who are “needy” to be friends with, but just be friends with people where there’s a genuine love and commonality there and not for any other reasons. Like, don’t pick a reason that, you know, “I’m friends with this person over here because she lives in a really nice neighborhood and she’s friends with everybody else I know. Or, you know, she’s a party-er like I am,” I’m making this stuff, right? And we like to go out to bars together. You know, people are friends with people for kind of not really important reasons. Okay. We should be friends with people, reach out and make quality friendships with people in imitation of what Christ would do. Christ didn’t care about influence at all. In fact, he kind of rejected it. So, we should too. We should too. We shouldn’t just say that we’re friends with people because of their influence, even if it is in the Catholic Church too because I need to say it, people do that as well. People will be friends with someone because they work at the Archdiocese or they’re friends with this priest, or this popular Bishop, or this popular Christian or Catholic family, who everybody’s friends with. I mean, it’s not about that. It shouldn’t be at all.
Advice During Thanksgiving
Pamela: Since Thanksgiving is around the corner and we’re actually taping and recording for Thanksgiving, do you have any last bits of advice for people who are struggling with greed and who want to be more generous this Thanksgiving?
Anne: I would just say thank you so much, think about what you’re thankful for. And when you think about that, I mean, you can of course thank Him for the clothing and the house and any money that you have. Yes, thank Him for everything. But most especially thank Him for your faith, just thank Him for Him. Thank you for Him. Just say, “Thank you for being you, Lord. Thank you for being in my life. Thank you for waking me up every day. Thank you for the quality relationships that I have with other people.” Because at the end of the day, and at the end of our lives, when we are put inside, our bodies are put inside a coffin, or if you’re cremated, whatever that is, whatever you do, you don’t take any of that with you. You don’t take the house, you don’t take the clothes, you don’t take the jewelry, you don’t take the friends, you don’t take your reputation. All that matters is God and you and the love. Love is most important. So, thank God for the love. Thank God that you have love in your life somewhere with some of the relationships that you have. And the ones that you don’t have love, you can just pray for those people, but we can’t force anything on anybody either. God provides love, we don’t need to go searching for it. God will provide. Does that make sense?
Pamela: Yeah.
Anne: We don’t need to search everywhere. God provides the love with people that are there with us. And we can love other people. The love in our hearts is meant to give away. And so that would be my words of advice.
Pamela: Agree. That’s fantastic. And if people are gonna, like, wanna talk to you or they’re gonna wanna search for you or even find your book,
where can they find you online?
Anne: Oh, thank you. I have a personal website. I’ll give you two websites. My personal one is annedesantis.com. And my work email is nonnatus.org, where we help families in crisis. We offer free pastoral consultation and you can make a free pastoral appointment with one of our Mercedarian friars by contacting me at nonnatus.org. My book is “Love and Care for the Marginalized” available on Amazon and Kindle, but all the information is on my website at annedesantis.com. Thank you so much.
Pamela: Well, thank you so much, Anne, for coming to our show and for talking to all of our guests and for sharing about your new book, and I know it’s a busy time, Thanksgiving’s coming, everybody’s busy with fall preparations. So, thank you so much for joining us and talking to us.
Anne: Fabulous. See you, Pamela.