#001: Why the Abundant Catholic?

We all hurt and experience personal hardships. What does the journey into God's abundance look like? What does it take? Learn how The Abundant Catholic can point you in the right direction as you dare to enter into the deep with Christ on the journey to deeper freedom, restoration, & healing.

In this episode, Melissa will walk you through the journey to abundance while dipping into her own personal testimony & story of transformation, sharing how living in abundance is a call to something completely life altering. Have a listen for more!

✨Episode highlight: Listen to Shallow by Lady Gaga here!

Transcript

Hello and welcome to the Abundant Catholic Podcast. I'm your host, Melissa. I'm so glad that you can join me today on this grand new adventure that the Lord has my husband and I on. We are out on a limb taking this great and mighty holy risk to launch a podcast. Let me tell you, I am a full-time mother, full-time wife, full-time home educator. We also have a business in the trades. So this is no joke, people.

that we are stepping out of the boat and into the deep, But God has put a mission on our hearts. And here at the Abundant Catholic, we have a mission for the church in upholding what the Lord spoke to us. And so we're here to tell you about it. And today's episode, we're going to be delving into

how the Abundant Catholic came to be, why we're here, why did we name it the Abundant Catholic, and what we're planning on doing. We had launched our podcast trailer back in the summer saying that we're gonna be dropping episodes in the fall. Well, here you go. They're beginning now. And I realized as I have been kind of procrastinating and putting this off, the Lord didn't want all the stars to align. He didn't ask me.

to have the perfect setup. He didn't ask me to have all the right tech gear or I guess quiet mornings to do this, which I don't always get. He just asked me to give him what I have right now. And so that's what I'm doing today. And I hope that you're willing to walk with me and join me as I introduce you to our new mission at the Abundant Catholic and ⁓

the heart of Christ and what He has for you and how He desires you to live in the fullness of the truth, in the fullness of the faith with Him in His full intimacy as He is our ultimate fulfillment. And so I'm just really excited to delve in. yeah, it's good. It's good to be here. And I'm just really blessed that you're listening and that you've stopped by. And I hope you keep

an eye out for the episodes that are coming. I'm hoping to drop them bi-weekly. If I don't get to it bi-weekly, is because something took precedence in our family life. But once we get on a roll here, I really, have faith that my little crumbs, my little two loaves and fishes are enough and that God will keep providing. He'll keep making a way, which is so much

what our mission is about. So if you haven't checked out our website, go ahead and hop over to theabundantcatholic.com.

and there you'll see our offerings, what we do, our mission, a little bit about our team, our inner healing ministry, some of our blog posts. You can sign up for our bi-weekly newsletter, which is awesome and growing and just super, super good. So for such a time as this, right? This is the path that God has laid out in front of us.

I'm doing my best to stay present to it and I'm really eager to hear what the Holy Spirit has for you today. opened my heart in prayer. I've been preparing and I also have some things to talk about too. So united with the Holy Spirit, let's just open up in a prayer. Heavenly Father, thank you so much for this time that you've given us today, for the gifts that you give each one of us and no matter what is going on in our life that feels like

million bricks tied to our feet or maybe it feels like somebody's just like poking you on the shoulder non-stop kind of like when my kids do and it hurts right like what is that thing in your life that you know you have to deal with and you really don't want to deal with right now and it's just causing you a lot of grief Lord we just give that to you right now we just surrender it to you and we just ask you to just hold that

for us because it's just often too much for us to carry Lord. And we cling instead of worry and, anxieties and all of the feelings and the pains that come with our sorrows and our griefs and all of the things that weigh us down and burden us Lord. You instead offer us something light. You offer us your heart. You offer us hope. Hope never disappoints, right?

So Lord, we cling to your hope. We loosen our grip of the things we can't control that we're trying so hard to control in our lives. And we're gonna talk about this more when we delve into our podcast episodes and how living as an abundant Catholic, there's some steps to take. There's some interior work to be done. There's some places to go with Christ to let him into.

and a huge pool of grace and mercy that He's just waiting for you to bathe in. So good, so good, you guys. I'm so glad that you're here. Holy Spirit, come, we just call upon you. You know each and every soul listening today.

You know the plans you have.

for each person.

Ignite our hearts, help us to have ears to listen, Holy Spirit. Amen. All right. So how did the abundant Catholic get started? That's the first thing I want to talk about. It really blossomed from my personal testimony of how the Lord took me out of the grave and into his abundant freedom. I should just note to start off that living in abundance is a choice.

It's not like my whole life has just become perfectly aligned with everything I ever dreamed of and wanted, right? Like living in abundance is an interior choice. It's a process. It's the welcoming of a mystery in our lives at the cross. It's choosing to walk alongside Christ in all things and giving him all things. And so as I go forth talking about this, I just want you to know

my life isn't perfect. There's a lot going on. but much of my life, much of my story has been redeemed because I've had this renewal of heart and mind and spirit and experienced a

Total 180, ⁓ where God has radically transformed my life. And then also our marriage, my husband Anthony, his life too in our marriage and truly what he called us to is what he calls each and every one of us to. He calls you two as well. And so the Abundant Catholic came from our own journeying.

in freedom, through Christ, where he began to remove the scales from our eyes, where he began to teach us many lessons in love, ones that we didn't even know existed until we really, truly became followers of him. So as Catholic Christians, we proclaim the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, and through our baptism, we enter into that mystery.

And many of us are like walking zombies where we wear this label for our own security, right? And I was there. I did the same thing. Like, yes, I was a churchgoer. Yes, I've always been faithful and I've always had a special relationship with God. But it was nowhere near where it is now because I was really wearing it on my sleeve as an image. I did not have an intimate relationship.

with God the Father or with Jesus Christ I wasn't showing up in my life and willing to give all for Him. I was hanging on to a lot and I was very blinded and He had so much to give me. But I didn't know at the time. Right? So I'd experienced all these losses, what I felt were losses and He really was teaching me, no, this is true love. This is real. This is good for you. See, when Christ comes in our life, He

He doesn't take us in a place where we'll be left without. He always has more for us. He's always willing and ready to give us something, but at first it might feel like we're in this new territory.

coming into the new country with Christ. coming to know Jesus actually following him and actually doing his will and being obedient to what he's telling you And so...

Yeah, for me it was really my personal story, my personal recovery of living in deep sin and confusion and bound to many idols, many many idols. Material, emotional, sexual, gosh, I don't even know, like media. Everything but God, like I was clinging to everything, everything but Him.

And so our mission is based on John 10 10. I came so that they might have life and have it more abundantly. But before then in John 10 10, Jesus says, a thief comes only to steal and slaughter and destroy.

The thief is not God. The thief is the enemy. And most of us are giving in to the enemy. Most of us are taking in whatever he's offering us to cure our illness, to aid us when we feel sore or sad or without. We're just gonna go and band-aid it with whatever is coming at us. And in the world today, everything is coming at

through media, through social media, through the algorithms online with what you can buy to make your waist look better, to get over

whatever disorder you're dealing with or dis-ease in your body, right? There's always something coming at us. And Jesus is saying boldly in the book of John, no, that thief is gonna come steal, slaughter and eventually destroy you. But I came so that you might have life and have it more abundantly. He is the way, right? He's the only way to find what you're looking for.

The only way to lift the burden. The only way to deal with whatever problem you have in your life. The only way to overcome whatever disordered behavior or disordered sin you're dealing with. And I'm here to tell you, I wrestle myself. I still have many sins I deal with on a regular basis that I call thorns in my side, that I'm constantly bringing to the confessional.

And I wrestle with the Lord because I'm like, God, I don't want to keep trying this on my own. It's self-reliance. Lord, help me, But he knows the intention of heart. He could read our hearts. He knows our disposition. And so for me, For years, I was battling with

so many things. And we talk about that on the website and you can go under the About tab on our website at theabundantcatholic.com and click testimony and I really delve into my personal testimony. And throughout the podcast you're going to find that I dip into it here and there in different areas and there's only so much that I can share in the sense of like nobody will ever fully understand.

just like all of us has our own unique stories and there's so many pages in our book, only God can see everything, right? My husband doesn't even see everything. Like he can only see to an extent that he's not in my soul. God can see my soul. And so I rest in knowing that he knows what he's doing with my life. And it took a lot to get here, but what the enemy meant for harm, God is using for good. And we've seen this over and over again.

And so this is why we're here because we've gotten so much feedback over the years and sharing our testimony publicly and privately and walking with couples, walking with individuals that there is something to this. And really, it's not about me. It's about him. It's about him. Right. And what he can do. And so I'm just I'm just here to share with you what he's told me and taught me as his follower and how that is reflected in sacred scripture.

in the Word, How it's reflected the Catholic Church, the sacred tradition, the pillars of the Church. We're going to echo that and we do already with upholding the teachings of the Catholic Church and that really obedience isn't meant to restrict us, it's meant to allow us to be set free. It might feel restricting at first, but the lie is that...

our freedoms will be taken away, but really on the other side of it, there's so much more freedom. So much more freedom when we actually live in the obedience, you know, of what God asks us to live in, what's rightly ordered. He knows what's best for us and he wants to reorient us to him. We're so disoriented.

I personally had identity struggles and I didn't know who I was, whose I was. I was functioning out of my wounds for years of my life, years. And the Lord, by His grace and mercy, He saved me. Just.

There's so much to that. I don't even know how I can just tell you the whole story right now. I can't. But ⁓ I do want to tell you about the abundant Catholic and what he's doing. So this apostle came about from our testimony. Like I said, we got a lot of feedback and then,

the abundant Catholic also came out of a personal word that was spoken into my life. Years ago, I had done an inner healing session through encounter ministries, if you've ever heard of that. And in the inner healing session, one of the things that I brought up to the individual as a lie that I battled on a regular basis was that I'm often feeling like I'm too much.

And for many of us it's, not enough, I'm too much. Nobody likes me, I'm not seen, I'm not heard. My life's not worthy, I'm not worthy. So many of us have these lies that we just cling to where we are again giving it to the thief who comes to steal and destroy. But Christ speaks life into our souls, into our lives. He speaks his goodness, his abundance of love and mercy.

Let us not refuse it, right? And so I had to learn that over the years to not refuse his love, to not be so prideful to say that I don't need it, So in this session, one of the things was like the lie was that I feel like I'm too much. I often feel too much. And I have little parts of me that have felt that way for a long time in my life. I don't know if you're familiar with parts work, but I had done so much of it through my years of intensive trauma recovery.

It really helped me better understand the symptoms I was experiencing that they have these root level, you know, don't even, parts. They were parts of me that were never integrated or these little parts of me that never fully got to grow up and so I was functioning out of them. You know how sometimes people say like, well, that was an adult temper tantrum,

We actually are made up of all of these experiences in our life. We're not just suddenly adults and then we all have everything together. We have these parts in us and these areas of our hearts and our souls and as body and soul composite, it's complex, right? It's not just cut and dry. It's not black and white. I know you can relate because all of us experience this. So in my parts work, I have many parts of me that...

I like, okay, I'm just too much and there's probably a little part as well. Because one of the things was like, I must be too much to be loved. Right? Because I felt like I'm unloved for so long and unlovable and that was a lie that I really let take root in my life that slowly was destroying me and keeping me from the love of God. I was just a train wreck I was looking for love in all the wrong places with just many of our stories.

This is prior to getting married, but even then in my marriage, again, how do I learn to receive love? When I feel like I have been rejected, you build up walls in your heart, right? So here I am working through this lie, and God the Father speaks to me and he says, no, I've given you this deep understanding of me, and I've given you an abundance of me. I've given you my abundance, and it's overflowing.

And so for me, that was a huge lesson in love. And that what I've been claiming as a lie much of my life, the Lord was actually saying, I've given you a special gift and I want you to use it. And I'm going to teach you how to use it. And I'm going to teach you where, when and how, but it also requires taking risks, right? Like when we grow in our faith and in our life and when we grow in relationship with God, just like anything, takes risks.

I don't know about you guys, but when I got married, that was a big risk, right? when we go to have kids, we're taking risks. We're building relationship. We're building families. We're building our vocation, whatever it may be. When you go get a new job, you're taking a risk, right? And so we do the same with God the Father. We take a risk by saying yes to Him and listening to Him and adhering to His word. And we're stepping out in this blind obedience sometimes where we can't see what's in front of us. And we go anyways, right? And so

The abundant Catholic really sprouted a lot from what he spoke into my life personally, my personal testimony, our marriage, but then also this need that we see in the church right now amongst our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, where we see this emptiness. And I talked about it earlier where we're like walking around like zombies with our heads cut off and chickens with our heads cut off. Right? That too, but zombies where we're just lifeless and we're claiming we have the light. How is that?

What's going on? What are these masks we're wearing? And so I challenge you, where are you sitting in your life right now? You're listening to this. You clearly are drawn to this message of living an abundant Catholic life, right? Living in God's abundance. Whether you're Catholic or not, you're welcome here. Right, he calls us to live in his abundance and he says he came so that we might have life.

He didn't just stop at offering us life, he wants to give us more, plenty. So if we look at the etymology of abundance, present in great quantity, plentiful.

The Latin word of it, overflowing, full, rich, abounding, to flow in profusion, to have an excess. And this brings me right back, kind like what I was saying earlier in my opening prayer, my little loaves and fishes, my little crumbs, right? What did he do? He fed the people. He fed the multitude of people, the 5,000, with such a miniscule amount. And then they had...

their fill and they had some left over. And we hear about this in scripture, it's sprinkled throughout where when we give, he's gonna give us even more packed down and overflowing on our laps. He'll give us a good measure plus some, right? Like this is his promise. But what gate are we entering through? That's the question here. And that's what I wanna invite you into because living an abundant Catholic life doesn't just happen.

It takes effort, takes intention, it takes time and investment. Who are you living for, right? And we're going to delve into all of these topics, how to have a real relationship with God. Many of the barriers in our life that people are dealing with, especially in the church with disordered addictions and desires and behaviors. We're going to talk about all of these things because it's important. And we're going to delve into it because my husband and I have lived through enough in the last 11 years of our marriage and

30 plus years of our life where we know a couple things to be concrete truths, right?

But I want to invite you before we depart ways, I want to invite you into something. A really special invitation.

I want to invite you into intimacy with Christ and to just give you a fair warning that your life will never ever be the same. It will never be the same and it will be the craziest wildest most exhilarating most heart-wrenching most heartbreaking life once you invite the man who died for you.

the man who will fulfill you in all of your sorrows, all of your griefs, all of your joys, the fulfillment of everything. Once you let him into your life, nothing will be the same. And sometimes it's a slow trickle and other times it's a burst of water rushing forth, of graces, of glory, right? But Christ never said that we can have life without the cross.

And so much of what we talk about at the Abundant Catholic is how to take up your cross, how to learn to live with your cross and look at it as a gift in your life, a gift in which on the other side of it is eternal life. On the other side of it is God's glory. On the other side of it is fulfillment. On the other side of it is intimacy with Christ, where soon eventually like what we long for.

There will be no more, right? not in this life, But in the next. But God still does. He promises us this in what I've been saying over and over. He does promise us to have life and have it more abundantly. He's not telling us that to just tell us only when you get to heaven will you experience that. No. He's saying you can have joy in this life. You can experience my love because when we know we have a good shepherd, when we know who he is and whose we are,

We're not afraid anymore. We don't give into the enemy's lies, into his footholds, into his snares, into his traps. All of that, right? Like we realize, I have the power to overcome that and to rebuke that with Christ. And He is the way. He's the gate. We have to enter in through the gate. But the gate's narrow, The gate's narrow and it's constricting. That leads to life.

And so we want to support you in the journey for those who feel that they're ready to enter into the deep, much like Jesus said to his apostles, he said, throw your nets out into the deep over there for your catch. And they had been trying to catch fish for a long time all night. And Jesus comes and tells them to throw it out into the deep. So we're inviting you too, to throw your nets out into the deep so that you may have your fill, so that you may have an abundance.

of the gifts and the treasures and the lessons in love and God's mercy and all of the things in which God wants to give you so that you can become the man or woman He made you to be and really walk in His freedom. In the times we're living in, we need this. We need your soul. Right? We need your vulnerability. We need your abilities, your capable self because when God made you, He didn't choose anybody else.

He knew you before you were formed in your mother's womb. all of us are unique, unrepeatable, irreplaceable, one of a kind. He didn't choose somebody else. I love how Christopher West puts it. He says, you're a beam of God's glory. You are a beam of God's glory, never to be repeated ever, ever again. How incredible is that, right? If only we all live like that. I'm sure a lot of us would.

stop changing the way our face looks or we'd probably start to learn to love our bodies more, It's all connected. Our behaviors, the things we do, the things we say, what we choose to live for, it's all connected because our souls and our bodies are one. And God doesn't...

come so that we can just live a life of mediocracy. Like he didn't just come so that we could just be okay, cool, like yeah, everything's fine. It's great. Everything's good. We're living our life, you know. I could get into that some more, but you know, a lot of us live in mediocracy. Ask the Lord, Lord teach me the depths of your love.

Teach me the depths of your love, Lord. It's wide, it's deep, it's as high as the mountains, right? Like he wants to take you into himself. What did he do when he invited the doubting Thomas? He put his hand in his side. He let Thomas enter into him. He knows you're doubting him. He knows you're afraid. He knows you're weary.

He knows you're just over it, right? Whatever it is. He knows you're burdened. He knows you don't want to keep doing this anymore.

He knows you're on the last leg and you're waiting for the next shoe to drop, right? He knows everything. He sees you. Are you going to look back at him? And I invite you to really just pray on this, on this word from the Lord, the word that he says, I came so that you might have life and have it more abundantly. want you to pray on that if you can. That's my challenge to you.

And again, go visit us at TheAbundantCatholic.com. Read our testimony, my personal testimony is on there. Then you have to type in your address to join our newsletter in order to get our marriage testimony he makes away. It's really fantastic what my husband has overcome. He's in recovery from various addictions. We've walked with many people on the journey and it's just awesome. It's amazing what God's doing. And so he's actually...

with men in the mountains right now on a retreat, which is really, really exciting. And really just pointing them to Christ, which is what I'm doing for you as well, is pointing you to Him, right? Like, may we decrease and He increase. And if you're left with anything today, I hope it's a witness. I hope it's a witness that you know if it's possible for us with a family that we have, we were married when we went through a lot of our stuff, you'll see we have five children if you go on the website.

you know, if it was possible for us, it's possible for you, right? Like if one of us, if another brother in Christ, another sister in Christ can go through these things that come out the other side, it's possible. But what I just said is key. You have to go through it, right? You have to enter through, you have to go into the deep. He doesn't say like stay on the surface. He invites you out of the shallows.

and into the deep. Right? Where nobody can touch us anymore. It's like that song by Lady Gaga, Shallow. It's a really good song and I recommend you listen to it. It's really, really great. Don't watch the movie. The movie's terrible. But this song is really good and if you put on your Holy Spirit lenses and your Holy Spirit goggles, remember God's in all things and all art.

you know, I mean, points to him. We hope, I shouldn't say all art, some of it's evil, right? But all beautiful things come from him. So Lady Gaga's voice is a beautiful gift to the world when she uses it for good and for his glory. And so I just can't recommend that song enough. Shallow. Yeah, you know, like nobody can touch us anymore when we're in the deep, because that's where we find Christ. That's where we find this pool of grace. That's where

Under the water there's these treasures, these hidden treasures, these hidden gifts he has for you. It's so incredible. It's so amazing. I just can't wait for you to join us in the journey. And I'm so excited for what's coming, the episodes that are coming. We have interviews lined up. We have exciting topics we're going to be covering. I am just so excited. This is going to be awesome. So thank you again for stopping by. I hope you guys have a blessed day.

And yeah, all glory be to God.

Alright friends, until next time,