‘Speaking of Faith’

CATHOLIC MOM SPEAKS  Lisa Hendey, founder and editor of the website CatholicMom.org, speaks about life and faith at St. Paul Inside the Walls: the Diocesan Center for Evangelization at Bayley-Ellard, Madison, as part of its ongoing “Speaking of Faith” series. Father Paul Manning, St. Paul’s executive director and diocesan vicar for evangelization, listens, while engaging Hendey in conversation.

MADISON  How to you think God’s voice might sound? Lisa M. Hendey likes to imagine that the Almighty has an Irish accent.

“It [the Brogue] reminds me of our pastor, Msgr. Michael Collins, when I was growing up [in California]. His was the first voice I heard proclaim the Word of God. He also taught me about unconditional love,” said Hendey, founder and editor of the website CatholicMom.org, who visited St. Paul Inside the Walls here on Oct. 12 to engage in a faith-filled public conversation as part of the evangelization center’s “Speaking of Faith” series. “God’s voice also might sound like my father or my husband, Greg.”

That evening, Hendey brought her unique sense of warmth, wisdom, humor, faith and encouragement to Catholic families — similar to the reassuring words she hopes to hear from the Lord one day — to St. Paul’s. There, the married mother from California spoke to Father Paul Manning, St. Paul’s executive director and diocesan vicar for evangelization. They sat in chairs in between a small table in front of one the evangelization center’s classroom, while an enthusiastic audience listened.

“Speaking of Faith is series of conversations with people from all walks of life about their experiences of God and about how they integrate their live and faith,” Father Manning.

Hendey brings lots of encouragement to Catholic families the world over — and mothers in particular — through her website CatholicMom.com, which features columns by contributing columnists, who volunteer their expertise on topics from Catholic breastfeeding and Natural Family Planning to parenting humor. That night, she also spoke about the joy she receives imparting faith, as an author of more than 10 books, among them “The Grace of Yes” and the newly published “The Catholic Mom’s Prayer Companion,” which includes entries from Cindy Costello, Marriage Ministry coordinator for the diocesan Family Life Office.

A multimedia mogul in her own right, Hendey also hosted many programs, including Catholic Mom TV and travels internationally giving workshops on faith, family, and Catholic new media topics. She was selected as an Elizabeth Egan Journalism Fellow and traveled with Catholic Relief Services, the Church’s international humanitarian relief organization, to Rwanda to study and write on the effects of the 1994 Rwandan genocide, according to her on-line biography.

A longtime champion the faith-filled family, Hendey — along with her three younger siblings — received a solid Catholic foundation from their parents, as they grew up in California. She fondly remembered attending weekly Mass and also Catholic grammar school and high school.

“Our parents didn’t raise us with a Baltimore Catechism understanding of our faith, but I knew that Jesus loved me. For us, our parents were the domestic Church. I loved going to Mass,” said Hendey, who traveled to Leningrad in the Soviet Union to study, as a freshman at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, which kick started her love of traveling.

Throughout Hendey’s life, “faith has been constant” and flourished, while studying at Notre Dame, where she attended daily Mass. She experienced some challenges in her faith, after marrying her husband Greg, a doctor, and moving to Nashville, where she found it difficult to find a Catholic community in the Protestant South.

“But soon, I realized that I was not there [at Mass] for friends, but for the Eucharist,” Hendey said.

During the conversation, Father Manning asked Hendey, a lifelong active Catholic, what might seem a surprising question, “When did you become a conscious Catholic?”

“It happened, when I brought my son Eric up for Baptism. It was then that I realized I had a big responsibility — not for myself, but for this little one in my arms — to put him on the path to heaven,” said Hendey, who also spoke movingly about her husband’s decision to become a Catholic through the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults program — a process that required her to trust in God.

Hendey also talked about her writing ministry and the importance of words. She said that see still finds it difficult to call herself a writer, even after having authored more than 10 books. Hendey said that she loves telling stories — in books, articles or public speaking. She also called writing “a great gift” that has enabled her to get to know a great many people, including Costello, who has contributed to CatholicMom.com. and others that she met that night for the first time in person.

Toward that end of the evening, Hendey spoke with great emotion about having been diagnosed with a treatable form of breast cancer at 45 years old. Then, she answered Father Manning’s final question that looked beyond her own ministry and experiences: “What do you tell young people?”

“You [young people] are not the future of the Church; you are the present. You have gifts, passions and a sense that you can make the world a better place. You come to the Church with many questions and the Church cannot back down in giving you the tough answers,” Hendey said.

A question-and-answer period followed Hendey’s conversation with Father Manning. She gave the audience a preview of her 20-minute presentation that she delivered at the 2016 Bishop’s Symposium, “Reclaiming the Church for the Catholic Imagination,” from Oct. 18-20, at Notre Dame.

“We [in the Church] lose people at different points. There are broken marriages. People leave after [having received] the Sacraments. We have to show them the pathways to serve the world,” said Hendey adding that the Church needs to create much more dynamic outreaches to attract people. “We need to do more.”

That day, before the “Speaking of Faith” event, Costello delighted in meeting Hendey for the first time in person.

“Meeting Lisa in person was a great experience for me,” said Costello, a parishioner of St. Thomas the Apostle, Sandyston, and a married mother of five. “I admire her gifts as a writer but even more as a woman of deep faith and humble service. She’s answered a call from God — to be ‘present’ to the person in front of her and to share warmth, love, and companionship on the journey, especially for us Catholic moms,” she said.

Upcoming “Speaking of Faith” guests with include Christopher Bell, founder of Good Counsel Homes, on Wednesday, Feb. 22, 2017 and Deacon Brian Beyerl, M.D., chief of neurosurgery and vice chairman in the Department of Neuroscience at Morristown Memorial Medical Center on Wednesday, May 17, 2017. Both programs start at 7:30 p.m.