Latest / Claymore: Become Who You Are / #541 Reclaim Our Christian Holidays Through Children's Favorite Secular Characters! With Best Selling Author Anthony DeStefano!

Transcript

#541 Reclaim Our Christian Holidays Through Children's Favorite Secular Characters! With Best Selling Author Anthony DeStefano! · Claymore: Become Who You Are

• 0:10
  Speaker 1: I am very excited, I'm very honored to be with Anthony DiStefano.
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: Anthony is an American author, television host, activist.
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: He's written five best-selling Christian books.
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: You're probably more than that, but when I say five best-selling Christian books, his first book, A Travel Guide to Heaven, was published in 18 countries.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: His second book, Ten Prayers God Always Says yes To, was endorsed by the National Day of Prayer Task Force.
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: But I'll tell you what.
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: I know him because I have kids and grandkids.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: I know him from his children's books.
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: He's written over 16 bestselling books for children.
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: My favorite is the story of the first Easter bunny, but there's plenty of other ones out there.
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: He's got another one coming up for Christmas, and here's why it's so important.
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: I meet with parents all the time and there's so much bad literature out there.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: There's so much that these kids are getting inundated with.
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: And then we have someone like Anthony come in writing these incredible stories that make it so beautiful and so easy for parents to get these messages down.
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: You want to have a story to tell your kids before they go to sleep.
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: You want to pray with them.
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: His books are a real treasure and a gift to all of us.
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: Anthony DiStefano, thank you so much for being on the show.
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: Thank you for having me.
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: Thanks for those wonderful words, I really appreciate them.
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: Well, I'll tell you, it's a gift when you do your work as an author correctly and you do yours.
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: I want to talk a little bit about your imagination.
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: You have an incredible imagination with this.
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: These aren't just stories about animals and different things.
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: These stories that you tell you know, like the story of the first Easter bunny.
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: I mean, this bunny is looking at Easter through his own eyes, through his own story.
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: Can you talk just a little bit about how you came up with that and that idea?
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: And then I want to move, because we're going to get into Christmas season.
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: I want to talk about one of your new books.
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: I know you've got more of them coming out, but Christmas in Heaven.
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: I want to talk a little bit about that.
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: But bring us into these characters and the way you come up with this and the illustration is unbelievable, anthony, in these books.
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: Well, thank you again.
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: Thank you again.
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: You know, just like there's not, you can't have too many books about the real meaning of Christmas.
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: You can't have too many books about the real meaning of Easter, because the society has secularized these holidays almost beyond recognition.
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: You know there's been a systematic attempt by the secular culture to take our most sacred holidays and transform them into almost pagan rituals and celebrations that don't have anything to do with Christian teaching or morality.
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: And, as I said, it's not just Christmas, it's not just Easter with the Easter bunny, it's Halloween too.
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: Halloween is a Christian holiday.
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: In fact I've got a book next year coming out about the true meaning of Halloween.
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: I'm always trying to entertain children and impart a theologically correct meaning.
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: But where possible, I want to try to reclaim, do my best to reclaim, some of these holidays, and that's what the impetus was to write this book and the story of the first Easter Bunny.
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: For years I've been so tired of that.
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: You know, Easter Bunny bouncing around.
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: For years I've been so tired of that.
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: You know, Easter Bunny bouncing around, I was trying to think well, how can we Christianize the Easter Bunny the way Thomas Aquinas Christianized Aristotle?
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: You know it's a long tradition in Christianity, of Christianizing these pagans.
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: How can we pagan things like the Easter Bunny and somehow make something Christian of them?
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: See, what a beautiful concept, right, Christian of them.
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: See, what a beautiful concept, right?
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: Instead of trying to push down to these kids, right, that there was no bunny hopping around, right, they're all into the rabbit what you've taken.
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: It's really genius, Anthony, and it's so beautiful the way you did it is to take say, hey, no, you can talk about the bunny, Let the bunny talk about Easter.
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: This is a beautiful story.
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: In that particular book there were rabbits and hares around Palestine, so I didn't just pull that out of thin air.
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: In fact, rabbits have always been symbols of fertility and there's a tie into Christianity there, because as Christians we're called to be fruitful and multiply and spread the message.
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: But it wasn't very easy to tie that particular fertility into a children's book.
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: So what I merely did was I made this rabbit a witness to all of the events of Holy Week.
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: You know he witnesses the Last Supper, the crucifixion and even the resurrection.
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: So by making him a witness.
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: We've Christianized him.
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, when we step in, I want to step into Christmas in Heaven.
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: The book that's going to be coming out Is it out yet?
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: Anthony, yeah, it's out.
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: They have to have these Christmas books out early in the season early because otherwise so we can get it now.
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: We can get it now.
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: So that's awesome.
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: But before you go into that, give us a little background on yourself, the way you bridged from being a best-selling author in general to start to write these books Now.
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: You gave us a little background already.
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: You know, to help parents, to help families, to help kids.
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: Take some of these secular you know these secular themes and bring it back into our faith.
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: But there's more to that story, isn't there?
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: your background and how you bring it Well, I mean there's a lot of different things that combine to make me a writer, but you know I mean the first-.
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: I want to know a little bit.
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: I want our audience to know a little bit about you, because you're a very special human being and I want them to know.
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: My head's going to get too big.
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: You've got to be my publicist, you have to be my publicist.
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: It's too much.
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: No, no, I'm a kid from Brooklyn, you know, and I grew up and went to public schools.
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: I didn't go to Catholic schools.
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: I didn't really become committed to my faith until my late 20s, and that wasn't because of any aha moments or mountaintop experiences, it was because of reading CS Lewis and GK Chesterton and people like that, and, of course, I always the only.
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: We didn't have a lot of money growing up, but we always had a lot of books in the house, something I'm afraid for kids today, because they don't have books in the house.
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: And, of course, being exposed to great literature made me want to see if I could be a writer.
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: So, as far as children's books goes, aside from what we were talking about, the culture war and the children being the first line in the culture war, because you know the other side doesn't hesitate to jump over the head of parents to try to propagandize children, so we got to do something proactive to get to the kids.
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: Aside from that most important reason, I've always been very fascinated with the parables of Jesus Christ.
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: You know, they're amazing, those parables.
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: Young people can understand them, people with very little education can understand them.
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: At the same time, they have the greatest depths.
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: They have such great depths that the most intelligent philosophers and theologians in the world have been trying to explain them for thousands of years.
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: So I've always been attracted by that kind of story that has lots of layers of meaning, and early on, when I started to write children's books, I thought wouldn't it be great if I could write books for children that entertain children but at the same time made an impact on the adults and even help children as they were growing up?
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: You know, I'm very, very aware that children don't read these books by themselves.
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: A lot of times their parents and aunts and uncles and siblings are reading these books, and the grandparents are reading these books to the kids, sometimes 10 or 20 times.
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: They read the book over and over again.
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: So why miss the opportunity to evangelize them or re-evangelize them, remind them of these truths that sometimes they may have forgotten?
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, what a beautiful way to put that.
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: And again, people think well, am I going to buy a book and maybe my child is going to look at this once or twice?
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: But it's not true when my grandkids like I have seven grandkids now, six of them are girls, and they all have your books and so they don't want it read once.
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: I want to read that book again about the Easter bunny.
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: They want to hear those beautiful stories over and over again.
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: It's beautiful the way they do that.
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: When I see a child, to your point, you put a couple of books out.
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: When I see a child pick up a book and not a phone, not some device, there's something that happens to those kids and there's something that happens when a parent starts to dialogue with this stuff.
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: You know, what you just said is so powerful.
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: Why did Jesus tell parables?
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: Because our life unfolds like a story, doesn't it, anthony?
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: It unfolds like a story and that's what you're doing You're telling these stories.
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: Everything is a story and there's nothing more important, I think, for our children than to have an adult who loves that child sitting next to the child reading a book with them, and the child knows that that person loves them and can take time to explain the pictures.
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: There are lots and lots of teaching moments.
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: It's a beautiful bonding moment and I think if a child at that formative part of their lives where everything means something, if they can associate the reading of a book with something deep and emotional and enjoyable, then they are going to go on to read more in the future and then they will read to their children.
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: So it will continue going on, and on and on and we won't have this lost generation of of of kids just wrap, you know, all alone with their electrical devices.
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: You ever see a room with seven kids in it and there you would think that they'd be together, but they're not.
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: They're all alone on their phones, playing games.
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: It's all so internalized.
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, what a beautiful thing.
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: I picture why you were just talking there, me sitting there with one of my grandkids, and we're sitting there together, right shoulder to shoulder, kind of opening a book.
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: What does a book do, anthony?
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: That you know I.
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: I have a couple of books on something like a Kindle thing, but I stopped putting them on there because I have a library, like behind you there.
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: My office is full of books all over the place.
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: Something about touching a book feeling a book.
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: It's tangible, yes, and kids at that age?
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: They're still at that age, even up to 10, 12 years old, where their hands are very hungry.
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: They're reaching out with everything They've got to touch and feel.
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: So there's something about the tactile power of a book over just electrical image on a screen.
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: Something real.
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: Something real comes alive, doesn't it?
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: And the other point you made so beautifully there is that I'm bonding with that child because we're enjoying something together and time passes very, very quickly, doesn't?
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: it, and you know it's even more deeper when you're reading Christian story or something that's Bible-based.
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: And it's a story, and it's a story as you said what you're doing.
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: I forget what writer said this.
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: It was CS Lewis or Chesterton.
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: Someone smarter than me said this it's like you're baptizing their imaginations.
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: Their imagination is being baptized with a holy story, with something that is going to mean something to them, not just for entertainment value, but for the good of their soul.
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: So if you're there reading this book to them, you're helping to baptize their imagination.
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: It's a very profound thing and parents and grandparents shouldn't miss out on that.
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: Yes, yes, yes, you know I wasn't thinking about that, but I just put that note down, anthony, I'm going to remember that because, of course, because you're declaring the word, you're declaring the word of Jesus Christ, the word of, you're declaring the word of Jesus Christ, the word of God, in a story, telling it to kids, and there is going to be a power in that, isn't there?
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because you know, the word is the truth, the truth, jesus is the truth, the way, the truth and the life.
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: And there's something about the truth it has a power of its own.
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: You know, you don't have to argue the truth.
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: You don't have to argue the truth.
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: Sometimes you don't have to persuade anybody.
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: The truth, because it has a power of its own.
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: All you have to do with the truth is proclaim it.
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: And that's something for all of us to remember.
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: In this age where everybody is arguing and we're so afraid that we're going to say something and somebody's going to argue and we're not going to know what to say.
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: When it comes to the truth, all you have to do is speak it.
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: You speak the truth and, like the word of God, it has a power all of its own and maybe at that very moment, the person won't be moved or convinced, but it will live on its own inside the person and it will be fruitful.
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: Wow, I just got off the phone before I jumped on this Zoom call with you.
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: I just got off the phone with somebody and they're in charge in a diocese of catechism and we're just speaking about the moral relativism that's going on today.
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: Right, we're stewing in this sludge of moral relativism and these kids are, and we were just talking about this.
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: I was talking about this with Bishop Athanasius Schneider on a show a couple of weeks ago.
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: He said the time is unprecedented because we've thrown out the truth what you just said.
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: I'm going to reiterate this because what you just said is so powerful.
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: When I am called in to speak to young people, I just say what you just said, anthony.
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: I said I'm going to speak the truth, I'm not going to hold back, I'm going to speak the truth.
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: And they go, jack, they'll never accept the truth.
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: I said they will accept the truth if they're open to the truth, and I said that's the best thing we can do share the truth, and we're free creatures.
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: I have never had a disappointing time talking to an audience of young people, anthony, when you just proclaim the truth because of what you just said, I think we're afraid sometimes to do it because we live in this sludge, like I said, and we say, well, nobody's going to accept this right.
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: Everybody's grown up in this culture of moral relativism.
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: But your books are cutting through the sludge and getting to the truth, because the truth has a power on its own.
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: So thank you so much for saying that You're welcome.
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: I hope they're accomplishing some of that, I hope so, yes, well, let's talk about your latest book, and I know you have others coming out, so let's mention a couple of them.
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: And what I'd like to do before we sign off here today is I want you to give me a list from parents that don't know you yet as an author.
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: Shame on them.
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: But if they don't, just a list of a few books that they're going to start out with for Christmas presents, because you're just bringing a gift to them.
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: But anyways, I want to ask you about this unusual Christmas story.
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: Where'd you get this idea for it?
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: And tell us a little bit about the plot Christmas in Heaven I'm talking about.
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: Well, it goes back to this idea of writing books about the true meaning of Christmas, the true meaning of the holiday.
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: As I said, it's been secularized almost beyond belief.
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: I've already written several Christmas books.
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: This is my fourth or fifth Christmas book and the other books I've written about the nativity seen from different points of view.
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: One of them is called Little Star, seen from the perspective of the star of Bethlehem.
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: Another one is called the Grumpy Old Ox, seen from the perspective of this prideful old ox in the stable in Bethlehem.
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: Another one is called Joseph's Donkey about the donkey that Mary rode on, and so each of these stories are told from different perspectives and they highlight different themes of Christmas, but they're all about the true meaning of Christmas.
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: This time, I wanted to do something different, though, and I remembered when I was a kid very young, I didn't understand why we gave each other presents at Christmas.
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: You know why we received presents from our parents, or Santa, for that matter and I remember asking my father about this when I was very young, and the way he explained it was that Christmas is Jesus' birthday, and since we can't give presents a physical present to Jesus because Jesus is in heaven, we should give presents to each other, because that's what makes Jesus the happiest, and this was a very easy concept to understand.
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: All children understand birthdays and gift giving at birthdays, so, from an early age, I knew that Christmas wasn't just the celebration of Jesus's birth, it was his birthday, and that's an important distinction for children, and that childhood idea led me, a couple of years ago, to ask myself well, how do they celebrate Jesus's birthday in heaven?
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: Obviously, the saints have great joy, and the angels, but I was able to make it finally into a story by having this little boy who is sad because his grandmother has died and it's Christmas time and he's wondering how she's celebrating Christmas in heaven.
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: And so his grandfather, who is the husband of the woman who's died, sits the boy on his knee and tries to paint a very consoling, fun picture of heaven and this big birthday celebration that's going on there because it's Jesus's birthday, with all the angels and the saints and, of course, with Our Lady and Jesus and, yes, with his grandmother too.
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: So that was the genesis of this particular book, and it is kind of unusual.
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: And you're bringing in I love it and you're bringing in saints and angels we meet in this book.
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: Give us a little taste of some of the other characters that are playing roles in here.
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: Well, I thought that, in addition to being a Christmas story, the book could also serve as a kind of an introduction to the saints.
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: So I tried to include some of the most famous angels and saints, ones that everyone would know, like St Michael the Archangel, and St Gabriel and St Joseph and St Francis and St Peter and St Patrick and St Nicholas, you know, and St Joan of Arc and St Therese and, of course, Our Lady.
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: But I also include some lesser known saints too, like St Honoré, who's the patron saint of baking, had to include him because there's got to be a birthday cake for a birthday.
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: So this story dictates everything.
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: Saint Cecilia and Saint Gregory are there because they're the patron saints of music and they joined two angels to sing a quartet.
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: So the idea was to also find saints doing what they were famous for.
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: So if you're a patron saint of, say, St Anthony, the patron saint of finding lost items, in this book I have, St Nicholas can't find a present under the Christmas tree.
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: And who comes to help him out?
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: St Anthony, of course.
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: So children get an idea then of what these saints were known for by the somewhat playful, lighthearted manner we treated them in this book and at the end of the book.
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: We've included a two-page glossary too, very simple, with a little paragraph for each saint and a little thumbnail portrait so you can refer back in the book to see what these saints were famous for.
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's so important when kids get introduced, anthony, to saints and they catch on a couple of details on them and you can continue to bring those stories right, weave those stories of those saints, and the angels too, but especially, I think the saints for kids are something really powerful, right, because you know they have their own children's stories, don't they?
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: Of growing up, and so, yeah, this is a great exposure.
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: If we can get.
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: Go ahead.
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: I was just going to save a little bit.
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: If we can get the kids to start to read some of those about the saints and that's what you're introducing them to they're going to find a whole different perspective on life, won't they?
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: They will.
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: And yes, and that's the reason why I wanted this book to have sort of a comprehensive, fun kind of introduction.
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: It's a stepping stone for children to say, oh, I'm interested in that saint, I'm interested in that saint, and then they could read more about that saint.
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: The saints are important and this is one of the things our Protestant brothers and sisters don't quite understand.
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: Why are the saints so important?
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: Because they show what Jesus would have been like in different time periods and in different occupations.
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: We see Jesus in the gospel you know, the son of a carpenter 2,000 years ago.
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: But how was Jesus as a lawyer?
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: How would Jesus be as a nun?
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: How would Jesus be, you know, as somebody with some other occupation?
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: That's what the saints show us how to be Christ-like in the world that surrounds us.
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: That's an important concept.
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: Yes, and how about I'm just thinking, while you're talking about this, how you set this up so his grandmother, this child's grandmother, dies?
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: Yes, you know, if I have, and we have grief all around us, right?
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: And how do we explain this?
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: I'm going to to a awake tomorrow and there'll be children there, and so how do we explain this?
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: I mean is, is you know I I could see this book being besides christmas and bringing the christmas story and a way to bridge that gap of uh, of grief with the child.
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: I hope so.
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: It's one of the reasons why I wrote the book.
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: I never shy away from talking to children about death and about grieving, because it's something all of us have to face.
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: Children have to face it too, not just in going to wakes.
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: But they lose pets, they lose grandparents, they have other kinds of permanent loss as well when they move to different places and they experience this kind of grief.
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: It's very important that we don't sweep these sad feelings that they have under the carpet, because when we sweep them under the carpet, they don't go away, they grow, they fester, they transform into complexes and depressions and phobias and all kinds of psychological problems.
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: Fortunately, as Christians, we believe that death doesn't have the final word.
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: We believe the final word is resurrection and life everlasting in heaven, and that's a tremendously consoling message that we could deliver to children.
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: It makes it possible for us to talk to children about death so that they can grieve in a healthy way.
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: And heaven, especially if I could say a word about this heaven is a very easy subject to talk about to children.
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: Children understand it very, very easily because heaven is just God's home.
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: When people die people who love God they go to live in God's home.
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: They just move homes.
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: They go from their home on earth to their home in heaven.
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: Kids are very familiar with the concept of going to different places going over to their grandparents' home, going over to their aunt's and uncle's apartment, going to different buildings for school.
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: They understand the concept of moving from place to place.
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: So the more we're able to show children how wonderful a place heaven is, the more consolation they'll experience when they're grieving about their loved one who's moved to that place.
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: How about a harder theme for you sometimes to get across to kids?
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: How about purgatory?
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: There's a note to readers about purgatory in the beginning of the book.
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: How did that get in there and was it to help bridge this gap?
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: How did that end up there and was it to help bridge this gap?
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: How did that end up in there, Anthony?
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: Well, even though this is a book about heaven, I don't want to give the impression that I don't believe in purgatory.
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: You know, we've all been to funerals where the speakers tend to eulogize and canonize the people who are deceased, and I understand that and I'm sympathetic to that.
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: But we never want to deprive the person who has died of prayers that they might be in need of because they might be in purgatory.
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: Purgatory is the doctrine of the Catholic Church.
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: It's been a doctrine since the very beginning.
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: It's based on the fact that, as Revelation 21 says, nothing unclean cannot enter heaven.
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: There's the fact that people have died, they've been saved by Christ, but they still have on their souls some stain of sin that's been forgiven and sometimes their souls might have a certain attachment to certain sins.
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: And purgatory is a place where we get cleaned up of those.
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: We get cleansed of those imperfections so that we can see God face to face without any shame or guilt or attachment to what is unholy.
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: So I put in this book a little message to parents who want to help explain that to children and I basically say look, if you're going to meet the president or the pope, or if you're going to attend a wedding party or some big party, you would presumably wash your face or comb your hair, or maybe change out of your gym clothes.
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: Well, heaven is the biggest party of all time and we're going to meet the most important person of all, the Lord.
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: So purgatory is the place where we get cleaned up for that.
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: So I didn't want this book to be about purgatory it's about heaven.
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: But I thought there should at least be some mention of purgatory so we wouldn't give the idea that we believe in universal salvation.
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: Yes, thank you for that, because there's a lot of confusion about that.
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: I was just smiling because I'm thinking about this wake tomorrow and there's going to be people again, like you said, canonizing this, but there's also going to be people that know that person and go.
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: You know what?
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: I'm not so sure.
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: I'm not so sure I know that person right.
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: So we know we all have flaws, don't we?
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: Dads and moms?
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: And everybody has a flaw and at the end of the day, he's a merciful God, but he's a just God and I'll tell you what, how he handles all that stuff.
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: I know this, anthony, that my guardian angel.
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: I'm going to meet him someday and he's going to be wagging his finger and he goes do you know what I had to put up with to get you anywhere near this place?
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: And somehow we know that not all of us have paid.
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: The, you know, have burnt clean, right?
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: I mean, we're meeting God, that's right.
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: And at the end of the day, you know we're not perfect and somehow we have to attain that right.
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: How can we be united to the perfect being right, the perfect person, our creator, our father?
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: You know we have to get washed up, like you said, and it's important to talk about those things.
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: That's right and that's why next year not this year, but next year I have a book for children coming out called All Hallows Eve, and it's an attempt to take back Halloween and it's about purgatory, and it's about the souls in purgatory and the fact that they need our help too.
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: And also about two years from now.
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: I have a book for adults coming out called Purgatory A Guide.
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: So I'm getting to purgatory.
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: I've written a book on heaven.
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: I've written a book on hell too, and purgatory is next on the list.
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: Well, what you just said is the key.
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: I think that we have to remember to pray for other people you know, and then hopefully, they, you know at some point they'll be able to reciprocate and pray for us.
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: There's no doubt about it, when you open up your heart, we're a thin veil away, aren't we, anthony?
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: I mean, god is all around us.
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: We're a thin veil.
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: It's just a slip on a banana peel to finding out what the truth is and to be able to do it.
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: Something else comes to my mind right now, before I throw this back at you.
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: I know I got a couple of things on my mind, but I was picturing again when you were describing, you know, an adult reading to a child.
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: This is a beautiful time to know what questions your children have on their hearts, isn't it?
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: I mean, we don't do that enough.
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: When we're reading a book, like the books that you write, and get a conversation going and allow a child to speak, allow a child to ask questions, you're going to find out.
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: Wow, while I was on the phone, not paying attention to my child, my child was having all of this confusion, all these ideas, all these questions, all these things that I because I sat here and read this book to my child and talked about it.
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: All these other things come up.
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: It's a real gift, anthony.
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a joy to be able to write these children's books for children.
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's nothing like a kid coming up to you and saying that you wrote their favorite book.
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: It sort of validates your whole life.
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: What you said about being a banana slip away the same God who gave you the morning does not promise you the evening, and we see that all the time.
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: But yes, there's so many teaching moments and I'm thinking right now, as you were talking, I was thinking you know a book about saints.
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: You know what?
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: How does that?
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: How does that feed into what children are curious about?
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: Well, children want to know that they're loved, and this book and others will show them that god loves them.
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: They want to know that they're special.
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: They want to know that they're special.
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: They want to know that they're special.
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: There's nothing wrong with wanting to believe that you're special.
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: You know, we have two needs.
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: We have a need to love, which is to go outside ourselves and give ourselves away and be in union with people.
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: But God also gave us this need for significance, this need to feel special.
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: And when we talk about the saints, we're highlighting that because all the saints they're so different from each other.
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: They each have their own little specialty areas.
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: So St Anthony is different from St Joan of Arc, is different from St Therese, and the whole meaning of life for us is to find out, or one of the meanings is to find out what our special mission is.
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: Every single person has something that they are uniquely talented at, that God has given them a key that only they can open up a unique lock in the universe, and a good part of our lives is spent discerning what that special thing is.
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: It might be some conversation we have with someone, it might be the children we raise.
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: But telling children that they have a special mission in life and they're going to find out what it is and someday they're going to get a reward for it in heaven, I think that could make a child feel wonderful.
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: Wow, that was beautiful.
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: That was beautiful.
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: Listen, I know that you have, you're going to have to run, so as we wind down, I want to you know in my audience's mind, I know they're asking what ages are you writing for and have you written for various ages?
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: And what I'd like to get from you is and you can email it to me but I'd like to put four or five books in the show notes, because this is what people want, right?
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: They want to be able to say, yeah, I can order these two or three books and hit this age.
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: I'm going to break in here for a quick station break.
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: We don't run any ads on the audio, please.
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: The only way we make this is by donors, so please consider it a small monthly donation or any donation at any time, of any amount.
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: We really need it.
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: It's the only way we can keep this show running.
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: And a quick reminder that we're up on Rumble now.
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: So if you want to see the video of this and share it from there, go to our Rumble station and you'll be able to see that in the show notes.
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: God bless you.
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much.
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: Well, I think you know I've written close to 30 books.
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: Believe it or not, I've been very, very blessed.
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: And when I was a kid, I didn't think I had any talent whatsoever for being for coming up with stories.
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: I thought I was totally talentless in this.
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: Why did you think that it's very curious my?
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: father used to tell us bedtime stories every night and I could never.
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: And he didn't read us stories, he imagined them.
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: He told us stories and I would try to do the same thing when I was very young and I couldn't do it.
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: So I thought, well, I didn't get that gene.
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: But then sometime in my mid-20s, I believe it or not, I consecrated myself to Jesus through Mary.
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: Using that consecration, and after that it was like the floodgates opened up.
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: I wrote my first book of travel guides to heaven, and there hasn't been a year where I haven't had certain books and I'm not bragging, but a lot of them have been big bestsellers and so God has just been tremendously.
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: I mean I can't stop the ideas from coming for some reason, and I don't think it's attributable to any.
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: I'm not the smartest guy in the world.
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: I've just been the recipient of a lot of grace.
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: I do pray to God to keep giving me stories, and it seems to be a prayer that he's saying yes to.
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: So I'd be happy to give you a list of those books.
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah Well, let's talk.
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: We got two or three minutes left.
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: Let's just talk about age groups.
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about and have you written for various age groups or most of your books, anthony, falling within a category of certain ages?
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: Well, first of all, I have written adult nonfiction books for adults, you know like Ten Prayers God.
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: Always Says yes To Hell.
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: A Guide Angels 10 prayers God always says yes to hell a guide angels all around us.
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: There's one coming out, called in the next year, called the miracle book, a simple guide to asking the impossible.
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: And those are all for adults.
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: For children, they're all picture books, which means that you can read a picture book to a little child as young as three years old.
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: They won't understand everything, but they'll be amused by the pictures, because I use only the very, very best artists for these books.
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: I only use Disney quality artists.
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: But then I think, if you want to read, if a child is going to be in a position to understand the book themselves probably seven or eight years old, six, seven or eight years old they'll really get a lot out of it.
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: Or eight years old, six, seven or eight years old, they'll really get a lot out of it.
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: But I kid around facetiously and say that these books are for kids that are who are, you know?
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: You know five and 55, you know because they really are meant for adults as well.
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: I put a lot in this.
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: I put a lot into these books, trying to make them for adults as well.
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: Well, you know, what's interesting is my, my one of my daughters is here.
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: She's a medical doctor, she's she's been visiting for a little while I was, I told her I was going to have you on the show.
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: I told her about the story of the first Easter bunny and and and how all her, her, her, her nieces and nephews have have that book.
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: And she said can I read it?
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: Can I read it?
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: Uh, you know she's a dog lover.
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: And she says oh my gosh, I want to read you because I just gave her a little background on that.
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: So you're exactly right.
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: So here's a very astute, bright young woman that wants to read that book.
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: Oh, there's nothing that's more gratifying than hearing that Mission accomplished, mission accomplished.
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: Well, let's do this.
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: Give me your website, because I know that you have a lot of resources, and the books are listed on your website, yes, so let's start there.
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: Sure, if your viewers don't mind my long Italian name, it's wwwAnthonyDeStefanocom.
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: That's it.
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: I don't sell books there.
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: I don't sell books at all.
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: I just let the publishers do that.
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: But they can see all of my books there and have more information about every single one of those books.
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: All the children's books are all pictured right there.
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: Okay, good Now.
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: Maybe they can find everything that I'm talking about there.
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: There and on Amazon and Barnes Noble, I've been very blessed.
• 33:54
  Speaker 2: The distribution system is all over the place For these particular children's books.
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: In the last couple of years, sophia Institute Press, great Catholic publisher, has been publishing them.
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: You can go to their website and get a good handful of them, okay, good, but I also like to always plug the local Catholic and Christian bookstores.
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: We should do our best to patronize them.
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: If we can find them there, that's the best place to start right.
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: Okay, give us one adult book that you say, hey, if you haven't read me before, grab this one, Look it.
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: I know that that's a difficult thing for an author.
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: No, no, no, it's not no, no.
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: Travel Guide to Heaven was my first book, and Ten Prayers God Always Says yes To is probably the one that's most accessible If you're grieving over someone and you want to know about heaven, or if you're afraid of death.
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: Travel Guide to Heaven, but Ten Prayers God Always Says yes To is a terrific book to give to an atheist or someone who is having trouble with their faith, because God really does say yes to certain prayers and, as I said, that's a very accessible book.
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm going to put those in the show notes.
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: And then, okay, just two or three kids' books, just the top.
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: You got the new one coming out, so we got to get that one.
• 35:03
  Speaker 2: Christmas in Heaven.
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: The Story of the First Easter Bunny.
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: There's another.
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: Easter book called the Donkey that no One Could Ride.
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: Love it Very big bestseller, the Sheep that no One Could Find.
• 35:13
  Speaker 2: A big book I'm very proud of, which introduces people to Our Lady, to children to Our Lady, called Our Lady's Wardrobe.
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: This came out a couple of years ago and it's all over the place Our Lady's Wardrobe.
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: It introduces children to Our Lady based on all the different outfits she wore in the apparitions that have been by the church.
• 35:36
  Speaker 2: So you've got all these beautiful things that she wore in all these different time periods and it's a beautiful way to learn about Our Lady for girls and boys.
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: Hey, God bless you.
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: You are such a treat and you're bringing some wonderful gifts to kids and to families.
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: I know you got to run.
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: It's so good to be with you.
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: I hope we get you on the show again soon.
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: Thank you very, very much.