Latest / The Lila Rose Show / E236: Fasting, Fitness and Faith: How the Veil Was Lifted From My Eyes w/Franccesca Sevilla | Lila Rose Show

Transcript

E236: Fasting, Fitness and Faith: How the Veil Was Lifted From My Eyes w/Franccesca Sevilla | Lila Rose Show · The Lila Rose Show

• 0:00
  I did all the dumb high school things that you do, you know,
• 0:02
  partying and smoking and having sex before marriage.
• 0:05
  And I feel like I had always looked at people to have a close
• 0:07
  relationship with our Lord. I feel like I was almost jealous
• 0:10
  of them. It was April 10th of last year.
• 0:12
  Like changed my whole life. I never want to go back to
• 0:15
  anything that I was doing. I really want to inspire women
• 0:17
  to be healthy and to take care of their living Tabernacle,
• 0:21
  their walking Tabernacle. What has been the hardest thing
• 0:23
  about this shift in your life following Jesus?
• 0:26
  I think. She felt jealous towards the
• 0:31
  people who had a relationship with Jesus Christ and she wanted
• 0:34
  one too, but she didn't know how.
• 0:37
  Today in the Lila Rose Show, I sit down with the lovely
• 0:39
  Francesca Sevilla, who opens up about her journey going to
• 0:43
  Catholic school K through 12, hungering for something deeper
• 0:47
  but living in the culture, being into fitness and partying and
• 0:50
  modeling, and then discovering one day the sweetness of the
• 0:54
  love of God. Francesca shares the special
• 0:56
  graces that she experienced parents to bring her closer to
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  God, the role of a Protestant church in her faith journey, as
• 1:02
  well as her and her boyfriend and now fiance's relationship in
• 1:06
  pursuing chastity. I am so excited personally about
• 1:09
  the growing trend today of young people who are discovering God's
• 1:13
  love and mercy and hungering to be part of His church.
• 1:17
  Francesca's story will inspire and encourage you.
• 1:19
  Also, a huge thank you to everyone who is listening to the
• 1:22
  Lila Rose Show. We are growing by leaps and
• 1:24
  bounds because of all of you. I couldn't be more overjoyed to
• 1:28
  do this podcast and get to build this community with you.
• 1:32
  If you're not already subscribed to the show, make sure that you
• 1:34
  hit that subscribe button. And if you're listening over on
• 1:37
  podcast app, make sure to leave us five stars, leave a review
• 1:41
  that helps the show reach more people.
• 1:43
  Francesca Sevilla, welcome to the podcast.
• 1:45
  Thank you. Thank you so much.
• 1:46
  Fun to see you, thank. You for having me here.
• 1:49
  This is like seriously like a full circle moment.
• 1:51
  I feel like I loved watching your your I still do.
• 1:55
  I still love watching your podcast, but it was it had a
• 1:57
  really big impact on me, especially like coming back to
• 2:00
  the faith. So thank you so much for having
• 2:02
  me here. The world to me.
• 2:03
  Thank you. Well, I admire you and you're
• 2:06
  just beautiful example of faith and thank you.
• 2:09
  Everything you're doing, fitness is a huge part of your work, but
• 2:12
  you have this incredible story that I'm excited to talk about
• 2:15
  on the show. And I think also, oh, you got
• 2:18
  engaged. Yeah, just a week ago, yes.
• 2:21
  Literally like 5 days ago so just before getting on.
• 2:24
  Yeah. Thank you so much.
• 2:26
  Thank you. How are?
• 2:27
  You feeling? I'm so excited.
• 2:29
  I'm like, it's like all the emotions I feel like are hitting
• 2:32
  me at once. It's like, OK, now I have to
• 2:33
  find a church. Like what's our our guests look
• 2:36
  like, Like you know, everything. It's just I'm so excited for
• 2:39
  this like air in our lives and our relationship.
• 2:41
  We're like unlocking different levels of our relationship.
• 2:44
  So it's beautiful. Like seeing the transition, how
• 2:47
  did he ask you? I OK, so he he told me that we
• 2:52
  were going to go to dinner and he was OK, we're going to go to
• 2:55
  like a rooftop dinner. So I'm like, OK, and it's not
• 2:57
  like we, he likes to do stuff like that.
• 2:59
  So for me it was like, OK, normal.
• 3:01
  And I kind of had a feeling he was going to ask me, but I'm
• 3:03
  like, OK, I think he's going to do it after dinner, right?
• 3:06
  So we go up to like the L of it's a rooftop.
• 3:11
  I'm thinking we're going to get to like a rooftop bar and stuff.
• 3:13
  But we go up the elevator, the elevator doors open and I'm
• 3:18
  like, Oh, this is nice. But I was like, there's no one
• 3:19
  here. And I, I look over to my right
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  and he had like a mariachi there and like the music starts
• 3:26
  playing. So it was so beautiful.
• 3:28
  And I'm like, Oh my goodness, he, he really got me.
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  I thought we were actually going to go to dinner.
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  So he rented out the whole floor or.
• 3:34
  Yeah, I think, I mean it was like a space I think.
• 3:36
  I guess that yeah, you can like rent out.
• 3:38
  Yeah, that is so it was. Beautiful and you can see like
• 3:41
  like the whole city of like it was in downtown LA so you could
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  see like the whole like. Where in downtown LA with was
• 3:45
  the do you remember? I don't remember.
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  Yeah, I don't. I think it was like an it was
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  like an apartment building or something, but it was like a
• 3:52
  patio, yeah. Rooftop I love.
• 3:54
  That it was beautiful. And then he just gets down on
• 3:56
  one knee. Yeah, and he had like a whole
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  setup with like roses and everything.
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  It was so beautiful. Sweet, actually, we'll pull a
• 4:01
  little clip so people can see yes, yes, I got to already see
• 4:04
  it on social media. Congratulations.
• 4:07
  I know it's also so special because it's part of your bigger
• 4:10
  story so so I'm excited to talk about that.
• 4:13
  And for people that haven't seen your profiles online and what
• 4:18
  you're doing online, give people quick background on what your
• 4:21
  work is right now. And then we're going to go
• 4:22
  backwards into your story because I think it's such an
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  inspiring story for people listening so.
• 4:27
  Thank you so much, Lila. Yeah.
• 4:29
  So basically I am a Catholic women's fitness coach.
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  I, I mean, I can work with anyone, but I specifically love
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  working with Catholic women. And honestly, centering Christ
• 4:39
  at the center of your fitness during your health journey,
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  right? It's not especially for vanity
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  reasons. That's why I used to do fitness,
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  but now I completely changed my reasoning behind it.
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  And I want to inspire women to get healthy, not because they,
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  you know, it's a plus to look good, to have a muscular body,
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  right? That's just the plus that comes
• 4:57
  with it. But really to respect your
• 5:00
  temple, to respect your Tabernacle, which is your body,
• 5:03
  and to honor God and everything that you do, which is to, and
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  you know, why would you not honor him in the food that you
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  eat and the exercise that you do throughout the day.
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  So I really want to inspire women to be healthy and to take
• 5:15
  care of their living Tabernacle, their walking Tabernacle.
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  I love that. That's.
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  So I'm like, I need that French restaurant come over to my house
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  and help me out. Yeah, I was actually telling my
• 5:25
  husband recently I'm like, I'm about to have another birthday.
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  I'm like I've got 3 kids. We hope to have more.
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  I'm like, I've got to stay strong.
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  So maybe you can give me some tips afterwards about things I
• 5:33
  should be doing. I guess chasing kids keeps me
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  active. Yeah.
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  People are like, what's your workout routine, Lila?
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  Like chasing A13 and A5 year old, you know, carrying them up
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  a stairs a million times a day. Yeah, but I'm sure you could
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  teach me a lot of things. I love that and.
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  That's what I hear from a lot of moms do.
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  Like they come to me and they're like, the reason I want to do
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  this is because I want to be able to run around with my kids,
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  right? To be able to go to the park
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  with them. So that's what I hear from a lot
• 5:57
  of moms. So that's beautiful that you
• 5:58
  know you're able to do that. Well, I'm, I could do a lot more
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  because I used to do like strength training exercises like
• 6:04
  planks, yeah, or push ups, or I would do some sit ups, lunges,
• 6:09
  things like that, squats. Now, like some mornings I get
• 6:13
  out of bed and I'm like, I'm like Joe, my husband.
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  I'm like, my body hurts to walk right now.
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  Like I feel like I'm stiff and like, am I?
• 6:20
  Is that agent? He's like, well, you're also
• 6:22
  sleeping only four or five hours, so that might be why.
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  But I think maybe it's a combo so.
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  Anyway. Combo If someone is not in any
• 6:30
  kind of fitness routine and they need to do something that's
• 6:32
  extremely easy, extremely accessible, they can't have time
• 6:35
  to go to a gym. They don't have time to do any.
• 6:38
  This is for me, by the way guys and for you guys listening.
• 6:41
  But what would be years they're like, OK, everyday try to at
• 6:43
  least do what would be like the three small things you would
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  say. Yeah, definitely.
• 6:47
  I think move, I think first thing when you first wake up,
• 6:50
  it's obviously to pray first when you first wake up, but try
• 6:52
  and get some type of movement and drink a lot of water and
• 6:55
  then obviously get at least 10,000 steps a day.
• 6:57
  I have like a treadmill because I, you know, I work from home.
• 7:00
  I have like a little treadmill that I have at home, so I can
• 7:02
  walk like 5-6 thousand steps on there.
• 7:05
  But definitely walk as much as you can, drink a lot of water,
• 7:08
  and then I guess just focus on movement.
• 7:11
  It doesn't have to necessarily be even just, you know, yes,
• 7:14
  water. I have that come too.
• 7:16
  Yes, I should have brought it. But yeah, just movement, getting
• 7:20
  any type of movement in, getting your steps in and then just
• 7:23
  drinking a lot of water. OK, I think I can work towards
• 7:26
  at least some of that. All right, so tell me about so
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  you have this really powerful personal conversion experience.
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  You're on fire for your faith right now, as is your fiance.
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  And I want to talk more about your love story, too.
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  But tell me about Francesca before being on fire for God,
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  what life was like, and then the story of what was the conversion
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  point for you. Yeah.
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  And then also you're Gen. Z, right?
• 7:52
  I believe so, I'm 23. Right, definitely.
• 7:54
  Okay, you are 100% okay. So your story is also very cool
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  because I just feel like so many people are having these
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  conversion moments because they realize that the lies of the
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  culture were not what they we're not, are not bringing them
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  fulfillment. They're not they're not made for
• 8:11
  the human person. They they're opposed to it.
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  So anyways, excited to hear your story.
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  Yeah, so I mean, I guess I'll start kind of more towards the
• 8:18
  beginning. So I mean, I went to Catholic
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  school my whole life, so literally K through 12, so like
• 8:23
  years of Catholic school, but my parents are are still not
• 8:27
  practicing Catholics. Mother Mary's working on it, but
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  they for me, it wasn't like we never went to God was only like
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  a school thing. So it wasn't like we never
• 8:37
  talked about God at home. We never went to Mass.
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  My school would take the whole school to Mass on like Fridays.
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  So for my parents it was like, okay, well that takes care of
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  like her spiritual life. She's going to Mass on Friday.
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  She doesn't need to go on Sundays.
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  So for me, I never grew up going to church on Sundays.
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  It would only just be like with my school.
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  I always believed in God, but I never had a personal
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  relationship with with our Lord. And I went to high school.
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  I, you know, did all the dumb high school things that you do,
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  you know, partying and smoking and stuff and having sex before
• 9:08
  marriage, you know, all these things because and you know,
• 9:11
  mind you, I'm going to Catholic school, but it was just more of
• 9:14
  like, like, it's just a school thing, right?
• 9:16
  It's just a school thing. I never really had a God.
• 9:18
  I never thought of God like outside of my school life.
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• 10:18
  Because I went to like a public university, I completely stopped
• 10:23
  going to mass. So I completely stopped going to
• 10:26
  Mass for those four years and it wasn't until that I, I started
• 10:32
  dating my now fiance Emmanuel, and he started going to Mass
• 10:36
  like he was going to Mass every Sunday.
• 10:37
  So he was raised Catholic too. And he would go to Sunday Mass
• 10:40
  like like by himself every Sunday.
• 10:43
  And so I call up my sister and I'm like, I'm like dating this
• 10:45
  guy. He's like taking me to Mass
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  every Sunday. Like I don't have church
• 10:48
  clothes. I need to go my church clothes
• 10:51
  because we would wear like uniforms at at school.
• 10:53
  So he starts taking me to Mass every Sunday.
• 10:57
  But we were totally, you know, like living in sin and and
• 11:00
  still, but we would still show up to Mass and we would just go
• 11:03
  to like have it was just a part of like tradition, you know, So
• 11:08
  I started doing a lot of dumb things in college.
• 11:10
  I was, you know, drinking like every weekend, partying a lot.
• 11:13
  I even did bottle service for like a couple months and I was
• 11:16
  doing like music videos with like rappers and stuff.
• 11:20
  Yeah, it was. Which isn't necessarily a bad
• 11:22
  thing, but. Like the outfits I was wearing,
• 11:24
  yeah, the outfits are very like scandalous outfits.
• 11:27
  So it was that was like the type of life that I was living, like
• 11:31
  before I came to to Christ. So I graduated college.
• 11:36
  We're still dating. I have a quick.
• 11:39
  Question, I know you're, I know there's so much to share where
• 11:43
  you're going with it, but I have a quick question about before
• 11:45
  you started to have this sense of maybe, you know, beginning to
• 11:51
  change, which is for Emmanuel, right, Your lovely fiance.
• 11:55
  And by the way, congratulations to him because you got an
• 11:58
  amazing person, such a beautiful person.
• 12:01
  But anyways, you said he would go to Mass and he'd take you and
• 12:06
  it sounds like he was raised that way and you were kind of
• 12:09
  raised that way, although your parents weren't taking you on
• 12:10
  Sunday, but they were like, let the school take her to some
• 12:13
  math. Anyways, did you guys ever have
• 12:15
  conversations about, oh, like in order like the church's teaching
• 12:20
  or did you even know? Like the church's teaching is
• 12:22
  you don't receive the Eucharist if you're living in mortal sin,
• 12:25
  as an example. Most people do not even realize
• 12:27
  these teachings, right? Both Christian or non
• 12:30
  Christians, but or you know, the Catholic Church teaches that
• 12:34
  you're supposed to go to Mass every Sunday, like keep the
• 12:37
  Sabbath holy and it's for our benefit and to give, you know,
• 12:41
  glory to God. And you don't just get to pick
• 12:43
  one day a week exactly. You know, things like that.
• 12:44
  Was that stuff that you guys talked about or even had a sense
• 12:47
  of or was it more just we're going to do this because you
• 12:49
  know, Emmanuel did it growing up?
• 12:50
  Yeah. I mean, we knew we were living
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  in sin. So we both knew like we would
• 12:55
  never receive the Eucharist. So we never went up to receive
• 12:58
  the Eucharist. We would, I think we would just
• 12:59
  like receive blessings, like go up and receive a blessing or we
• 13:02
  would just stay back in, in the pews, but we would never receive
• 13:05
  the Eucharist. And as far as, I mean, we knew
• 13:08
  that we were living in sin. It was just like never, we never
• 13:12
  felt, I, I guess felt conviction for it because it was just like
• 13:15
  normalized, right? Like nowadays it's just normal
• 13:17
  to like just go to church. And I think because we were just
• 13:20
  not maybe catechized properly, it was just, OK.
• 13:24
  Well, we can agree with some things that the Church teaches,
• 13:27
  and we can disagree with some things you know that the Church
• 13:29
  teaches as well. And so it sounds like you guys
• 13:32
  were having other than that, like your relationship felt
• 13:34
  good, it felt healthy and it just was like, well, this is
• 13:37
  everybody sleeps together before marriage.
• 13:39
  Like why would you not? And.
• 13:41
  We want to also be Catholic because we love Jesus and, you
• 13:43
  know, the Saints. It sounds lovely, but we're not
• 13:45
  going to do like the crazy, like, you know, I don't put
• 13:48
  words in your mouth. There's like this whole thing
• 13:50
  about, like, no sex before marriage.
• 13:52
  That just seems like a bridge too far.
• 13:53
  Oh yeah, 100%. And it wasn't like we were, I
• 13:57
  wouldn't say we were honestly, we didn't have a personal
• 14:00
  relationship with our Lord, like at all.
• 14:02
  Like we would just go to Mass because it was just, he was just
• 14:06
  brought up going to Mass every single Sunday.
• 14:08
  So he just like, would kind of bring me along.
• 14:09
  But we would like fall asleep in Mass.
• 14:11
  Like we would be like joking around in Mass.
• 14:13
  And like, I look back at it now and I'm like, oh, my goodness.
• 14:15
  But yeah, yeah, yeah, we were there.
• 14:18
  We were going, but we didn't understand it.
• 14:19
  We didn't understand it. It was just like, OK, let's just
• 14:22
  go because we have to. And then just like, live our
• 14:24
  lives as if we just didn't go. Got it.
• 14:27
  And then you were saying, so you're doing this for how long
• 14:30
  had you been dating at this point?
• 14:32
  When? You we started seeing each other
• 14:35
  in like 2022. I like the very end of 2022.
• 14:39
  So I guess like mostly into 2023.
• 14:42
  And how did you guys meet? It's funny, so I, he deemed me
• 14:47
  like on Instagram and I never, I know Genzi, I never, I never
• 14:52
  really even answered my DM. I don't know why I answered.
• 14:54
  Obviously it was God's plan, but I answered him and it started
• 14:58
  off as like friends, like totally friends.
• 15:01
  I wasn't even living by him at the time.
• 15:04
  I was, you know, I'm living at my, at my house, which is 3
• 15:07
  hours away. And so we start talking totally
• 15:10
  friendly at first, but we, he was super big in the gym and I
• 15:14
  was really big in the gym. So I moved out to my university
• 15:19
  and my university campus was like 15 minutes away from his
• 15:22
  house. So he's like, OK, now you're
• 15:23
  back at school. Like why have we not met?
• 15:25
  You know, like, let's meet up, let's go to the gym or
• 15:27
  something. So we ended up meeting at a gym
• 15:30
  and it literally just started from there at the gym.
• 15:34
  Were you doing fitness coaching at this point or not yet?
• 15:36
  No, no, I was not doing fitness. I was just just working out.
• 15:39
  But I was not not doing coaching.
• 15:41
  Got it. And so when did coaching start
• 15:43
  for you? Yeah, coaching started last year
• 15:47
  around early last year all. Right.
• 15:49
  So it sounds like so and that's post conversion it sounds like.
• 15:52
  No, it was before my. Yeah, it was before, yeah,
• 15:55
  before my reversion, yeah. All right, got it.
• 15:59
  Well, let's go back. So I know I took you on a on a
• 16:02
  segue about how you met him and your kind of experience of faith
• 16:05
  before your conversion or I'm sorry, we're calling conversion,
• 16:09
  I should say reversion. It's OK.
• 16:11
  It's OK. Getting deeper in with our Lord,
• 16:13
  right? And the only reason I even call
• 16:14
  it is like a reversion is because like I had taken my
• 16:17
  first communion like I'm confirmed and everything.
• 16:19
  Baptized everything. Yeah.
• 16:21
  And we do talk about this on the show a lot because we talk about
• 16:24
  conversion reversions are just deepening in faith.
• 16:27
  We have evangelicals on, Protestants on, Orthodox on,
• 16:31
  Catholic on. Of course, everyone knows I'm
• 16:33
  Catholic, but I think 1 universal principle is that
• 16:36
  baptism In baptism, we are regenerated.
• 16:40
  In baptism we are adopted into the family of God and we are one
• 16:44
  Christian family. Now as Catholics, we're like,
• 16:47
  come on in for the other sacraments, guys.
• 16:49
  But we are all Christians like our Protestant brothers and
• 16:52
  sisters, Orthodox, evangelical, everybody.
• 16:55
  So you, you know, you had that. I had that as a Protestant
• 16:57
  growing up. But then later on, you can often
• 17:00
  discover that deepening. Yeah.
• 17:01
  So. 100%. Yeah, so tell me what happened
• 17:04
  next. Yeah, so, I mean, we were
• 17:06
  dating. I stopped doing like, the
• 17:07
  modelings and stuff because it was like, causing a lot of like,
• 17:10
  problems in our relationship. Of course, you know, like he
• 17:13
  doesn't want like his, you know, his girlfriend, like, going out
• 17:16
  and like doing music videos and wearing, you know, outfits and
• 17:18
  stuff. So I totally stopped doing that
• 17:21
  and then I moved back home and that's where I got, I like,
• 17:24
  thank God that I got this job, but I like, I'm grateful that I
• 17:27
  got this job, but I really like really hated it.
• 17:29
  It's like, you know, you start a job where you know, you have
• 17:31
  like no end goal at. So I felt like I was really just
• 17:34
  like wasting my life, I guess for like 40 hours a week.
• 17:37
  And I honestly got like super depressed.
• 17:39
  I didn't know I'm just out of college where I had just
• 17:41
  graduated college. I just got this job like a month
• 17:44
  out of like college. So I don't even know what I want
• 17:47
  to do with my life. I'm super lost.
• 17:50
  I have no relationship with God and I'm like I'm just very
• 17:53
  confused in life. I'm asking questions like what
• 17:55
  it what is my purpose? Because I really the degree that
• 17:58
  I have a psych degree, but I didn't want to do anything in
• 18:01
  psychology because I would have to like get my masters and I
• 18:03
  didn't want to continue going to school.
• 18:05
  So I couldn't really do anything with my psychology degree and I
• 18:11
  started working this job. I wrote it out for like 7 months
• 18:15
  and because I wanted to, you know, give it a try.
• 18:17
  I don't want to just start something and then just quit
• 18:18
  right away. But the first day I knew that it
• 18:20
  wasn't for me. I, I always knew I wanted to
• 18:23
  make an impact. I don't know what it was, how I
• 18:25
  would do it, what field I would do it in.
• 18:27
  And ultimately it was my fiance now, but he was like, why are
• 18:32
  you like, why are you still at this job?
• 18:34
  There's no reason for you to still be at this job.
• 18:36
  You you're living with your parents.
• 18:38
  You don't have to worry about bills.
• 18:40
  You like right now is the time to do it.
• 18:42
  You don't have kids like we're not married or anything like go
• 18:45
  find another job. You can find another job.
• 18:47
  And I was like, OK, you know what?
• 18:48
  And that's when actually I was already kind of doing like the
• 18:52
  fitness stuff. So that's when I, I started
• 18:53
  doing fitness in like college, like posting like fitness stuff.
• 18:57
  That job that I had, I already had a, a pretty big following, I
• 19:00
  guess on Instagram and I started doing fitness.
• 19:03
  So I was already with, I'm with young LA right now.
• 19:06
  So I'm sponsored by them. So I was already sponsored with
• 19:08
  young LA when I was working the other job.
• 19:10
  So he's like, why don't you just try doing the, you know, like
• 19:12
  social media full time? And I'm like, I don't know if I
• 19:14
  can do that. And he said, well, just try it.
• 19:16
  You know, you don't have any bills to worry about.
• 19:17
  Like just try it. So I quit my job last year in
• 19:22
  January and that's when I was like, OK, I don't know what I'm
• 19:26
  going to do with my life. I I just know that I'm going to
• 19:28
  quit this job and I don't know what I'm going to do.
• 19:31
  I don't know what area I'm going to do.
• 19:32
  I don't know what every anything is going to look like.
• 19:34
  But. And I'm so lost and I need
• 19:36
  answers and I just need a guidance.
• 19:38
  So that's when I was like, OK, you know what?
• 19:39
  I think I need to start going back to church and I think I
• 19:42
  need to start praying because that's when I needed the most
• 19:45
  guidance in my life. So I was, I had like a 30-40
• 19:49
  minute commute to work every day and I just started listening to
• 19:51
  like prayers that whole morning. And I like always cry when I
• 19:56
  tell a story, but it was, it was like a long, I feel like I had
• 20:02
  always looked at people. Like to have a close
• 20:06
  relationship with our Lord. And I was like, I felt like I
• 20:09
  was almost jealous of them. Like they have a glow to them.
• 20:12
  They have like they look so full of life and I wanted to be that.
• 20:17
  And because I felt like they had so much more guidance in their
• 20:20
  life. I like I wanted that and I feel
• 20:24
  like I was really missing it and I needed it at that time.
• 20:27
  So I start going to, I start listening to those prayers.
• 20:30
  I start praying every morning and I just wanted to have that
• 20:34
  relationship with like, you know, the, the relationship that
• 20:36
  other people have with, with Christ.
• 20:38
  I wanted to have that in like, I know he's real, but I had never
• 20:42
  made the effort to like pray or like, you know, talk to him or
• 20:44
  anything. So I start praying and
• 20:48
  everything and it was about four months because I remember it was
• 20:52
  April 10th of last year. It was April 10th of last year.
• 20:57
  I quit my job in January. I'm praying these these next
• 21:01
  four months. I started attending, Oh, and
• 21:04
  then I started attending like a Protestant church.
• 21:06
  So the reason behind that was because I told myself like I was
• 21:11
  ready to become anything. Like I was ready to become like
• 21:13
  Buddhist anything, like anything.
• 21:15
  I just wanted the truth. Like that's literally what I was
• 21:17
  searching for. I was searching for the truth.
• 21:20
  So I opened up my heart to anything and I was like, OK, you
• 21:23
  know what? I've been a Catholic Church my
• 21:25
  whole life and I don't really get it.
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• 22:35
  I start going to these Protestant churches, I bring
• 22:38
  Emmanuel along with me and we're like looking at these different
• 22:41
  Protestant churches and we liked it.
• 22:43
  We actually did kind of like it at first.
• 22:45
  We liked the message. It's a lot easier, I guess to
• 22:47
  like understand. But we started attending those
• 22:52
  and it was in again, April 10th of last year.
• 22:58
  I was, I did a fast the month before, so I really hold fasting
• 23:03
  close to my heart. I did a fast in March, but it
• 23:08
  wasn't for like spiritual reasons.
• 23:09
  It was just for like I wanted to lose weight and I wanted to see
• 23:12
  how much weight I could lose in like a three day fast.
• 23:15
  So I, I did a fast and I, it turned a spiritual.
• 23:19
  It turned spiritual that first fast that I did.
• 23:21
  Like I remember I was driving down to LA and like the drive.
• 23:26
  Usually it's like there's fields and it's super like brown.
• 23:30
  I remember this day, it's like always brown, like the grass is
• 23:32
  like dried up. And I remember the day that I
• 23:34
  was driving, I was, I think it was in like my second day of
• 23:36
  fasting and everything was green.
• 23:39
  Like the clouds were beautiful. And I remember like it was like
• 23:43
  a love that I had never felt. And I was like, Oh my goodness.
• 23:45
  Like this is what it feels like to have God's love.
• 23:47
  Like I feel like I got like a little snippet of it and I was
• 23:50
  like, I'm going to fast again. But for women, it's a little bit
• 23:54
  different fasting because we're only supposed to fast like 2
• 23:57
  weeks out of the month because our cycles are different.
• 24:00
  So I was like, OK, next month I'm going to do another fast
• 24:02
  because I want to feel like this again.
• 24:04
  And again. My intention wasn't to like make
• 24:07
  it spiritual, but because I had felt this, I was like, wow,
• 24:10
  everything is so beautiful. I feel like I was really just
• 24:13
  experiencing like God's creation and, and being appreciative of
• 24:17
  it because everything looks so beautiful, like it was all green
• 24:20
  and the skies were beautiful. So I think that moment I had had
• 24:26
  like a little realization like, wow, this is really God's
• 24:29
  creation and it was beautiful. So the next month on April and
• 24:34
  April, I did, I do another fast with the intention, you know,
• 24:38
  for spiritual reasons. So I do the fast.
• 24:40
  I'm like 24 hours into my fast and I have like this, I, I call
• 24:45
  it like a supernatural like experience.
• 24:48
  Like I don't know how to explain it, but it just felt like I was
• 24:53
  like, hi, almost like I felt like I was on a high.
• 24:56
  I felt like a love that I had never ever fought in my life.
• 25:00
  And I like for the first time, I feel like I felt God's love.
• 25:03
  And because I knew what it felt like, I was like I never want to
• 25:06
  go back to anything that I was doing.
• 25:09
  So it was April 10th of last year like that.
• 25:11
  Literally that whole that whole day like changed my whole life.
• 25:15
  That day I like, I was like, I'm going to give up secular music,
• 25:19
  I'm going to give up cussing, I'm going to give up like all
• 25:22
  these things. And then like 10 days later we
• 25:25
  made like the Emmanuel. I made the commitment to, you
• 25:27
  know, abstain and to have a chased relationship.
• 25:30
  So since last year. Wow Francesca, so beautiful.
• 25:35
  It gives me chills listening to that, listening to you.
• 25:39
  No, I'm sorry for. It's beautiful.
• 25:41
  It's worth crying tears of joy. Yeah, seriously.
• 25:45
  Seriously. My God, love is so big.
• 25:48
  Oh my goodness. And.
• 25:49
  He loves you so much. Thank you.
• 25:51
  Yeah. It's so beautiful.
• 25:54
  Oh, and also, I'm sorry, it was crazy that same day I told you I
• 25:57
  was like, I felt like I was on like a high, right?
• 26:01
  I felt like so happy, like so full of life that day.
• 26:05
  Oh my goodness, I remember it. I was just, I had never felt
• 26:08
  that in my life. And again, I felt like for the
• 26:10
  first time, I had like felt God's love and I felt like hole,
• 26:13
  right? Like we all have like a God
• 26:15
  shaped hole in our heart and the only thing that can feel it is
• 26:18
  God. And I felt like seriously, that
• 26:20
  day was filled and I'm thinking still like, what am I going to
• 26:24
  do with like my life? You know, what am I going to do
• 26:28
  with my career? Like I'm, I'm trying to do
• 26:30
  social media full time. But, you know, it's like when
• 26:33
  you're first starting out, it's hard.
• 26:35
  So I was doing fitness at the time.
• 26:37
  I was kind of considering doing like, that's when I was
• 26:41
  discerning if I should start coaching.
• 26:43
  And I remember that same day that I had like that experience.
• 26:46
  I'm walking in the park and like a random girl comes up to me and
• 26:50
  she's like, it was so random. You know, she's, I'm praying,
• 26:54
  I'm listening to like a prayer on my headphones.
• 26:57
  And I stopped there for a second to just like take in.
• 26:59
  I don't know. I just felt so good.
• 27:00
  I was taking in the sun and this random girl comes up to me and
• 27:04
  she's like, I follow you on Instagram and like just keep
• 27:06
  doing what you're doing. Like you inspire me to like work
• 27:09
  out and stuff. And I was like, I literally felt
• 27:11
  like it was a confirmation from God.
• 27:12
  Like, keep doing what you're doing.
• 27:14
  I love that. Yeah, it was beautiful.
• 27:16
  I still remember. I love that I feel like the
• 27:19
  guardian angels sometimes tap people to do things and they
• 27:22
  don't even know fully know why, because there's a supernatural
• 27:25
  plan to help other people and and their souls.
• 27:28
  And then you said something else that was really, I think,
• 27:31
  meaningful. You said, like, you always had
• 27:33
  this sort of sense of other people's faith.
• 27:36
  You knew some other people that had this glow about them, yes,
• 27:39
  this joy, this peace. And you're like, they had this
• 27:40
  special relationship with God, with Jesus, and you wanted that,
• 27:44
  even though they didn't feel like you knew how to have that.
• 27:47
  Can you share it? Like, were these people you saw
• 27:49
  like from a distance? Were they people you knew
• 27:51
  personally? Yeah, I think it was just, I
• 27:54
  don't think, not personally, I think it was just from, I guess
• 27:58
  being in Catholic school my whole life, I think like some of
• 28:01
  my teachers and I guess I I was always exposed to the church.
• 28:05
  So I think just maybe just people around me as in like
• 28:08
  teachers, but not like close personal relationships.
• 28:11
  I think also like social media too.
• 28:12
  I think you can just tell like when someone has like that glow
• 28:15
  to them. I love that and I know what
• 28:17
  you're talking about. Like there's something
• 28:19
  attractive and just captivating. Yeah.
• 28:22
  But it's not some superficial human beauty or charisma.
• 28:25
  There's something deeper. It's like this.
• 28:27
  Well, of peace and joy. That's from the spirit.
• 28:29
  Yeah, exactly. And when you when you when you
• 28:32
  feel it, you feel it, you know it, and you just want to be
• 28:35
  close to it. Yeah.
• 28:36
  So when you and Emmanuel were. So it sounds like he was on the
• 28:40
  journey with you a little bit too.
• 28:41
  Yeah, yeah. I mean, he always believed in
• 28:43
  God. Like, I mean, his grandma, like,
• 28:45
  wanted him to be a priest. Like, like, you know, he's
• 28:48
  always. Been still with us, by the way.
• 28:50
  Yeah, yeah, she must love you. Yeah, yeah, yeah, she's awesome.
• 28:53
  She's awesome. But yeah, I mean, he, he had,
• 28:57
  we'd always like believed in God.
• 28:58
  It was just never like we would put him first, I guess.
• 29:02
  So when I like had this, when I was going through like the
• 29:05
  prayers and everything, like I would tell him like, look, I'm
• 29:07
  doing this and we should do this together.
• 29:10
  And so he started praying a lot more.
• 29:13
  And then when I was like, OK, I'm going to start going to the
• 29:15
  Protestant churches, like I would bring him with me and he
• 29:18
  would be like, he was always super open about it.
• 29:20
  Like he would never like deny it or I know I don't want to go.
• 29:23
  Like he would always always like be open to like going to Mass or
• 29:26
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  Use the code Lila. So then at what point?
• 30:20
  So it sounds like you were getting some good fruit and food
• 30:23
  from the Protestant churches. Because I, I mean, I, I think
• 30:26
  I've said this on the show before, but I think the Holy
• 30:27
  Spirit is moving obviously across the body of believers
• 30:32
  united in baptism and even just people that haven't even had the
• 30:35
  chance to be baptized yet. You just you know, any soul
• 30:37
  that's receptive to the Lord, to the truth, to the to love, even
• 30:42
  if they haven't had the catechesis yet, right, The
• 30:44
  formation or even the connection through another human being like
• 30:46
  the Lord's at work. He's at work in every heart,
• 30:49
  which is so amazing how generous our Lord is.
• 30:51
  So anyways, so clearly, like the Lord was moving through the
• 30:55
  prayers you were listening to on the channel through in your
• 30:58
  heart, Manuel's heart, even you know, you were going to these
• 31:02
  churches and you were kind of getting this more sense of
• 31:04
  Christian identity. It sounds like like I'm I don't
• 31:06
  want to be like the world. I want to be a set apart for
• 31:09
  God. He said through with the secular
• 31:10
  music you threw away the OR did you say you stopped modeling at
• 31:14
  that point or? I had already stopped modeling
• 31:16
  at that point, but it was just like I gave up like that day,
• 31:19
  which is like music and like cussing.
• 31:21
  I think that was, yeah. Yeah, and then you and then you
• 31:23
  decide you commit to chastity with.
• 31:25
  And what was that like? Because I, I even think in
• 31:28
  Christian circles, there's some misunderstanding about what
• 31:31
  chastity even means. Now, there's obviously this
• 31:35
  bright line of like sex is sex, but then there's a whole world
• 31:37
  of like sexual, you know, connectivity, like things that
• 31:41
  people can do to like feel close to each other.
• 31:43
  Like this isn't sex, though. It's like, it still would be
• 31:46
  grave matter from like a Catholic view, moral standard.
• 31:48
  Like if it's, if it's engaging sexual activity of any kind,
• 31:53
  right, it doesn't have to be intercourse.
• 31:54
  Like that's still grave matter. That's still very sinful.
• 31:57
  Again, some people like don't see all these distinctions yet.
• 31:59
  Maybe they haven't formed their consciences yet.
• 32:01
  But how did, what were those conversations like with you
• 32:03
  guys? And how did you even get a sense
• 32:05
  of like, oh, we need to stop this activity versus that?
• 32:08
  Yeah, so it was, I mean, like I said, it was only like 10 days
• 32:11
  later after I had that experience at, again, we're long
• 32:14
  distance. So I called him on the phone and
• 32:16
  I'm like, hey, you know what? Like we're both getting closer
• 32:19
  to God and like, I'm really feeling like convicted over
• 32:22
  this. Like I, I really feel like we
• 32:24
  should stop engaging and, you know, sexual activity.
• 32:26
  And he was just like, OK, he just said OK, Like he didn't
• 32:30
  like, like no butts or anything. Like he was just OK.
• 32:34
  And then like literally we both made the decision to like stop
• 32:37
  everything. I at that point we didn't stop
• 32:39
  kissing. So we did.
• 32:40
  We were still kissing, but we did stop engaging in like any
• 32:44
  sexual activity. It wasn't until most recently
• 32:48
  that we like, spoke to a priest and like everything.
• 32:50
  And he really gave us some guidance on like what to do and
• 32:52
  laid out the rules for us. So it's like we stopped kissing.
• 32:55
  We tried. We even stopped kissing.
• 32:56
  Yeah, yeah, we kissed on like the cheek, but like, not on the
• 32:59
  lips. Yeah, but yeah, it was, I mean,
• 33:02
  it was difficult at first, especially because we were
• 33:04
  together for almost a year of us, you know, living in sin and
• 33:08
  having this type of relationship to where now we're trying to
• 33:12
  learn to be intimate in like other ways where it's not being
• 33:16
  not involving sexual activity, you know, so we're trying to
• 33:20
  navigate our relationship to pray together every night.
• 33:24
  Right now we pray our rosary together every day.
• 33:26
  So it's a matter of, OK, now we have to implement these things,
• 33:29
  start praying together, remove these things, figure out what it
• 33:33
  is, you know, what church we're going to be a part of too,
• 33:35
  because we were both discerning that, you know, what's the right
• 33:38
  church, You know, that's what we were kind of trying to discern.
• 33:40
  So it was like a whole process of just like us learning
• 33:43
  together and learning about each other and learning how to
• 33:46
  navigate our relationship from there.
• 33:48
  I want to ask you about the secular music really quick
• 33:50
  because that's so interesting. Like that felt in your spirit.
• 33:52
  This is not like helping me get close to God.
• 33:55
  Yeah, 100% because I was super big.
• 33:58
  I mean, if anyone knew me like before, I was like, I love like
• 34:00
  reggaeton, like Bad Bunny, you know, like all these different
• 34:04
  artists. That was like the only music I
• 34:06
  listen to. So then during that day I was
• 34:08
  actually filming for, I was trying to film like exercises
• 34:11
  for the app that I was going to do.
• 34:14
  So I was at the gym that whole day for like 3-4 hours just
• 34:17
  filming. And I was listening to music in
• 34:18
  my headphones and I remember like I was playing my playlist.
• 34:22
  And when that whole experience happened, I was like, what am I
• 34:25
  like, what am I listening to? Like I would listen to these
• 34:28
  lyrics that I had never, I guess, like, really paid
• 34:29
  attention to before, which is like kind of just stuff that I
• 34:32
  would listen to, but I just kind of thought to myself, like, what
• 34:36
  am I listening? You know, like what is this?
• 34:38
  Right. When you actually stop and
• 34:39
  listen to the lyrics, a lot of them you're like, what is this?
• 34:42
  And my mom would always tell me, too, Like, my mom's Hispanic.
• 34:46
  So she's like, why are you listening to this?
• 34:48
  Like, this is so gross. Like, this is so vulgar.
• 34:50
  Don't listen to this. And I'm like, yeah, I know now.
• 34:52
  You're right. You're right, mom.
• 34:53
  Like yeah, I don't know why I'm listening to.
• 34:55
  So I'm just like, yeah, like, I'm like, if you type in Bad
• 34:59
  Bunny lyrics, you're just like, OK, yeah.
• 35:01
  Yeah, they're very bold. But they're great beats, right?
• 35:04
  So that's what's so, so tricky with secular music is and
• 35:07
  there's obviously secular music that is good and beautiful and
• 35:09
  true. It doesn't.
• 35:10
  It's not all bad. But yeah, that is unfortunately
• 35:12
  like the climate that we are in. So what was it like with you and
• 35:18
  Emmanuel then to decide? So you're going to Protestant
• 35:20
  churches, but then you end up now you're on fire for your
• 35:23
  Catholic faith. So what?
• 35:24
  Tell me that. Yes.
• 35:25
  So it was, I mean, yeah, so it took like those.
• 35:29
  OK. So that I remember I came back
• 35:31
  to the church in May of last year.
• 35:33
  So it was, you know, those whole like months that I was like
• 35:36
  discerning, I guess, because I was like, OK, now I know God is
• 35:39
  real, right? I know he's real.
• 35:41
  I know Jesus is real. But I guess I was just feeling
• 35:44
  very conflicted or like, OK, well, I grew up Catholic, but I
• 35:47
  like these Protestant churches or, you know, at those times I
• 35:50
  was calling them just like Christian churches.
• 35:51
  You know, I didn't know what Protestant was.
• 35:53
  I don't know what the whole Protestant Reformation was.
• 35:55
  I guess the whole my whole point was like, OK, I feel conflicted.
• 35:58
  I don't know what church I guess is like the right church.
• 36:00
  I just wanted, I just wanted to follow it the right way.
• 36:04
  And the way I went into it was like, OK, well, if I can't
• 36:06
  figure out it myself, like, let me just go back into history.
• 36:10
  Like how did the first Christians do it?
• 36:11
  So that's how I even went back into the whole, like, Catholic
• 36:14
  faith. And the whole reason actually, I
• 36:17
  was trying to prove the Catholic Church wrong.
• 36:19
  Like that's the whole reason why I even dove into the history of
• 36:21
  the Catholic Church because I'm going to Protestant churches
• 36:24
  and, you know, they're telling me like, purgatory is not real.
• 36:27
  Like all of these different things that like you need to get
• 36:30
  baptized again. And so it all it like never sat
• 36:34
  right with me. So I was like, I don't know if
• 36:35
  that's true. Like, you know, because I'm, I'm
• 36:37
  growing up Catholic, I learned the Catholic faith and I'm like,
• 36:39
  no, I think purgatory is real. I think, I don't think you can
• 36:42
  get baptized again because I wanted to get baptized again.
• 36:45
  I know it sounds, it sounds wonderful, right?
• 36:47
  In one sense, like, of course, do it again.
• 36:49
  Like the first time didn't count as much because you were a baby
• 36:52
  or you don't really know what you were doing, what you were
• 36:54
  doing, but it's like actually God was doing it, not me.
• 36:57
  Exactly. So I was like this close to like
• 37:00
  actually getting re baptized because I wanted to I guess show
• 37:04
  that outward expression that, you know, I'm a believer.
• 37:07
  I know he's real. So I think I was just really
• 37:10
  conflicted again, what church I should be part of.
• 37:13
  So I went into, OK, you know, I'm how did the early Christians
• 37:16
  do it? I think the Catholic Church is
• 37:18
  honestly kind of wrong because the Bible says this, but then
• 37:21
  like the pastors are telling me this, they're telling me
• 37:24
  Catholics don't have it right. So I'm like over here, like
• 37:26
  conflicted because I grew up Catholic.
• 37:28
  So I was like, OK, you know what?
• 37:29
  I'm going to prove the Catholic Church wrong because I think
• 37:32
  some of the things they're teaching are like, not correct.
• 37:34
  So I start diving into history. I find out I went to Catholic
• 37:38
  school my whole life. I didn't even know Peter was the
• 37:40
  first Pope. So I find like, I'm learning all
• 37:43
  of these things. OK, This is why we go to
• 37:44
  confession. This is why the Eucharist is the
• 37:47
  source of our faith, right? Peter is the first Pope that the
• 37:51
  Catholic Church has been standing for over 2000 years.
• 37:53
  So then I'm like, well, if the Eucharist is true, then I have
• 37:57
  to come back to the Catholic Church.
• 37:59
  So I hadn't gone to confession for like I think six years at
• 38:03
  that point. And I made an appointment.
• 38:06
  I didn't want to go to like Saturday confessions.
• 38:08
  I wanted to like lay everything else.
• 38:10
  I made an appointment with my priest.
• 38:12
  I, like, wrote everything I wanted to confess on like, my
• 38:14
  phone. And it was like a 45 minute
• 38:16
  confession. That poor priest.
• 38:18
  I was like sobbing my eyes out. He was like, well, you seem very
• 38:21
  repentant. So yeah, I went to confession.
• 38:26
  And then I received the Eucharist for the first time in
• 38:29
  six years last year, May, on Mother's Day.
• 38:33
  Yeah. Beautiful.
• 38:34
  What was that like? I cried.
• 38:36
  I like sat in the back of the church and I started crying like
• 38:39
  a baby. It was beautiful.
• 38:41
  And it's like, I can't believe I went the whole like, I can't
• 38:45
  imagine my life now without the Eucharist.
• 38:47
  Like I go to daily Mass now. So it's like I can't even, I
• 38:49
  can't believe that there was a time that I just didn't care
• 38:53
  about the Eucharist or I didn't believe in it.
• 38:56
  That's so beautiful, Francesca. Sorry.
• 39:01
  I feel the same way. And and it's like the days I
• 39:03
  don't go to Mass, I feel it. Yeah.
• 39:06
  And the Lord is still with us, obviously, like in spiritual
• 39:08
  communion. He's so gracious.
• 39:09
  Like this morning, quick side of, but I was with my kids and I
• 39:13
  was like, OK, they didn't want to go to mass.
• 39:14
  They were kind of like having, you know, just a kid morning.
• 39:17
  And so I was like, Lord, I'm not going to go to mass because, you
• 39:19
  know, I want to be with them and then I've got to I'm going to go
• 39:21
  do some other work things. And but I was like, since the
• 39:25
  Lord telling me, well, like live the mass spiritually with your
• 39:29
  kids. And I kid you not, I did not put
• 39:33
  this idea in my kids had I did invite them to go with me in the
• 39:35
  morning. And then they were like playing
• 39:36
  and they're like, you know, some mornings I do take them, but
• 39:38
  this one I was like, let's just see do their kid activities.
• 39:41
  I kid you not, my son Peter was like, mom, I really want to play
• 39:44
  Mass. And so he set it up very
• 39:48
  beautifully, his little play Mass and he wrote out like, like
• 39:52
  Gloria and a little like, and so we did like, you know, they were
• 39:55
  like doing kids stuff and everything, but I was just like,
• 39:57
  Lord, you are so like the Lord is so sweet because it was like
• 40:02
  a little way, the Lord saying like, I'm, I'm, you know, I'm
• 40:05
  feeding you. We feed the church on the
• 40:06
  Eucharist universally, but you can enter into that in into that
• 40:10
  receiving spiritually when you don't don't go physically.
• 40:13
  And so it's just like the Lord was meeting me in my motherhood,
• 40:15
  like because I used to go every day before kids, like without
• 40:18
  fail. It was like the most important
• 40:20
  thing I did in the. And then now with kids, like I
• 40:23
  don't go every day, you know, it's hard to do that.
• 40:25
  And mom's listening probably real late.
• 40:27
  And now it is possible, but it's difficult.
• 40:29
  Yeah, of course. But anyway, so like the Lord is,
• 40:32
  so he's so good. I know, I know.
• 40:35
  And that's another like thing I try to tie into like my face
• 40:38
  too. I mean the fitness because you
• 40:42
  know, when you receive our Lord, you are a walking Tabernacle.
• 40:45
  Like, you know, you're receiving our Lord.
• 40:46
  It's like, what are you going to wash him down with?
• 40:48
  Like, you know, a coke or something, you know, so you have
• 40:51
  to watch like what you eat, how you're stewarding your body.
• 40:53
  Because when you receive the Eucharist, you have God living
• 40:57
  in you, you know, So it's like, OK, how are you going to take
• 41:00
  care of it after after you leave this Mass?
• 41:02
  I remember one time my priest, he gave a homily and he was
• 41:05
  like, when you receive the Eucharist, are you going to
• 41:07
  leave here? And are you going to go get in a
• 41:08
  fight with someone? Are you going to go cuss someone
• 41:10
  out? Like, no, you have God living in
• 41:13
  you. You can't do that.
• 41:16
  So I'm like, yeah, that's right. You know we're a living, walking
• 41:18
  Tabernacle when we receive our Lord.
• 41:21
  Wow. And when you receive him daily,
• 41:23
  it's like you just get one up every.
• 41:24
  Like it, like the extra batteries every.
• 41:27
  That was the word in my mind this morning.
• 41:28
  Spiritual batteries. I love that.
• 41:30
  It's like the spiritual which the Lord can charge at his at
• 41:34
  his pleasure, right? So it's not like like we do need
• 41:37
  the Eucharist, but he can give us supernatural graces as he
• 41:41
  pleases. And he works, he works with his
• 41:43
  institution, the Church exactly and through the Eucharist and
• 41:45
  through the sacraments. But he has the power, the spirit
• 41:47
  has the power to blow where it will.
• 41:49
  Exactly so. But we can still, we should make
• 41:51
  ourselves, you know, avail ourselves often of what we get
• 41:54
  from the Church because it's so rich and so like, you know, it's
• 41:57
  the feast, right? So, so, so when and so when when
• 42:01
  Emmanuel was and again, it's his story to tell.
• 42:06
  So you just say what you're comfortable, he would be
• 42:08
  comfortable you sharing. But I am curious, like when
• 42:10
  you're having this like deep, profound spiritual experiences,
• 42:13
  you go to confession after six years, like you said, and you're
• 42:16
  like, you know, crying after receiving the Eucharist.
• 42:18
  Is he kind of just like supporting and kind of going
• 42:20
  along with it? Is he having his own deep
• 42:22
  experiences? Yeah, I mean, definitely.
• 42:25
  I think just the faith that he saw me have, I think that kind
• 42:29
  of inspired him to, you know what, like she's at this level.
• 42:32
  Like I want to get there too. And I think, I mean, I'm just
• 42:34
  speaking for myself, but I think that's what it was.
• 42:36
  So he totally went to confession after he, he started receiving
• 42:40
  the Eucharist too. We both made the decision to, of
• 42:42
  course, you know, stay in abstinence.
• 42:45
  So I think just him seeing, I think the way that I was
• 42:50
  changing because it wasn't like anything of me like it, right?
• 42:52
  It wasn't anything that I did to change.
• 42:54
  It was all the, the work that the Lord did in me.
• 42:56
  And I think he saw that change and it was like, what is going
• 42:59
  on with this girl? Like I want to, I want to get
• 43:02
  there too. So he was totally on board with
• 43:04
  everything like went to confession as well.
• 43:07
  And we started going to mass and actually started to understand
• 43:10
  the mass because that's at that point, we had both returned
• 43:14
  back. I had gone, we were going to
• 43:16
  like this Protestant service. And I remember one time I think
• 43:20
  honestly just, and this doesn't represent all Protestant
• 43:22
  services, but I think one day like I really just got mad
• 43:26
  because the pastor had like 2 like Disney characters up on
• 43:31
  like the TV. And I think I like, I was just
• 43:35
  got so mad because I was like, why am I at church?
• 43:37
  I'm looking at Disney characters.
• 43:40
  And I just felt like it was disrespectful in a way.
• 43:42
  And because I had grown up Catholic.
• 43:44
  For me, it's like you don't talk when you go to mass, you don't
• 43:46
  clap, you don't do any of this when you go to mass.
• 43:47
  It's like quiet. It's reverent.
• 43:49
  So me growing up Catholic, I, I remember I turned to him and I
• 43:53
  was like, I'm going to walk up out of here.
• 43:55
  Like I, I don't like this. And I think that day we like
• 43:58
  went, I was like, I didn't even feel like I went to church and I
• 44:01
  went to, we went to the Catholic Mass, like Catholic Mass right
• 44:04
  after that service that we attended and like we never
• 44:06
  looked back. Wow.
• 44:08
  Did you have any Protestant friends around this time that
• 44:11
  you were talking about this with or was it more attract that you
• 44:14
  and Emmanuel were on kind of like privately or did you have
• 44:17
  any Catholic friends that were really practically just in
• 44:20
  Catholics? No, it was just a more of like,
• 44:23
  like what we did it together. And then me just honestly,
• 44:26
  that's why I love, I love social media and the power of like
• 44:29
  social media because what helped was like a lot of podcasts, you
• 44:32
  know, apologetics, like listening to that.
• 44:35
  That's what really helped me find my way back to the Catholic
• 44:38
  Church. And I think now it's beautiful
• 44:39
  that, you know, in the world that we live in, it's so
• 44:42
  information is so easily accessible.
• 44:44
  It's so easy to find the early letters of the church fathers,
• 44:48
  right? It's so easy to find all of
• 44:50
  these letters. And I think that also had a lot
• 44:53
  to do with my reversion of, like, why I came back to the
• 44:55
  Catholic faith. And I realized that the
• 44:57
  Eucharist really is him. So yeah, I think it was just a
• 45:02
  combination of us doing it together, but also putting in
• 45:05
  the work to try to understand the Mass, right?
• 45:07
  Because it was so easy for us to leave because we didn't
• 45:10
  understand it. But now that we understand it,
• 45:11
  it's like we're raised and I'll die a Catholic, right?
• 45:15
  I I something you said that really struck me about Catholic
• 45:19
  school because I've heard this from other people.
• 45:22
  You said that you had spent years in Catholic school.
• 45:25
  It sounds like was it elementary, middle K through
• 45:28
  812, K through 12, K through 12, Catholic school and you had
• 45:32
  never heard that Peter was the first Pope as an example.
• 45:35
  You had heard some things that sounds like like about purgatory
• 45:37
  and had some catechesis, but you never felt Jesus was your
• 45:41
  personal like best friend, like you like this sense of intimacy.
• 45:45
  You hadn't even had your first experience of God's love on a
• 45:47
  very sort of deep spiritual personal level until years
• 45:51
  later. And yeah, you know, note you
• 45:55
  shared your parents were not practicing a faith.
• 45:57
  They were just saying send her to the Catholics.
• 45:59
  You know, I think about my mom because she was raised similarly
• 46:03
  in that her parents would send them to Catholic Church.
• 46:06
  Like with, with the on Sundays, they even like the kids just
• 46:09
  walk there to the local parish. It was in Boston.
• 46:11
  And she would they would not go. So there was no catechesis in
• 46:14
  the home. There's no sense of like God is
• 46:16
  real. He's Jesus is our friend, Jesus
• 46:18
  is our Lord. Like that was not the family
• 46:20
  culture. There was a there was a lot of
• 46:22
  beauty in the family culture, but that faith was missing.
• 46:25
  So she was born again, Protestant, born again
• 46:28
  experience when she was 20 where she really did feel like she met
• 46:31
  the Lord for the first time. So kind of similar to what
• 46:33
  you're describing. Now she's back in the Catholic
• 46:35
  Church. She's like sees the whole
• 46:36
  picture. But I'm curious if you have any,
• 46:39
  like, perspective or theory on why.
• 46:42
  Yeah, we are here. Yeah.
• 46:43
  Where like there's so much of the Catholic Church, not all,
• 46:48
  but there is a Catholic education.
• 46:50
  I want to say let's narrow this down.
• 46:53
  Catholic schools, not all, but many like especially these
• 46:57
  diocesan schools that have had these huge gaps with their own
• 47:01
  students. I think, I mean, I was 22 when I
• 47:05
  like opened up the Bible for my first, like the first time in my
• 47:08
  whole life. I, I, maybe I just don't have
• 47:10
  the best memory, but I think going to school, like I'd really
• 47:14
  don't remember opening up a Bible ever.
• 47:16
  Like it was just, you know, we would, this is what we had like
• 47:19
  religion class, but we would just learn like stories about
• 47:22
  the Bible or, you know, stories about Jesus and like the 10
• 47:25
  commandments and, you know, the stations of the cross, like all
• 47:28
  these things. But I don't think we ever like
• 47:30
  actually opened up the Bible and like learned or they never
• 47:33
  taught us like how to pray. I think that's maybe a big one,
• 47:36
  not learning us, not learning how to pray and then also not
• 47:39
  teaching us what the Mass is like.
• 47:41
  I think they would just kind of send us to Mass and just be
• 47:43
  like, OK, like don't talk, don't like mess around in Mass.
• 47:46
  Kneel here. Stand here.
• 47:48
  Yeah. Exactly.
• 47:48
  I don't think they actually taught us what the entirety of
• 47:51
  the mass is. And I think that's the huge
• 47:53
  problem, yeah. That's such a good point.
• 47:56
  Yeah. And I, it makes sense because I
• 47:58
  think that's the experience. Like I, there was a, a, a close
• 48:02
  friend of mine and I was her confirmation sponsor.
• 48:04
  This was years ago for high school.
• 48:07
  And she like I was with all the kids before the confirmation
• 48:12
  mass or the confirmation happening at the mass.
• 48:15
  And we're like talking, there's a couple hours like these, like
• 48:18
  10 other kids. And I was like, how's everyone
• 48:21
  feeling? You're getting confirmed.
• 48:22
  And this is me fresh out of being confirmed myself, you
• 48:24
  know, as like a college student. I'm like, are you guys excited?
• 48:27
  They're going to get like this special like graces from the
• 48:30
  Holy Spirit and like the, you know, the strength to be a
• 48:33
  martyr, even potentially, you know, because of the faith that,
• 48:35
  you know, this, this beautiful sacrament.
• 48:38
  And I was like, you know, do you want us want to pray?
• 48:40
  And they're like, sure. Like they didn't like everything
• 48:42
  I was saying, like didn't seem to be landing.
• 48:44
  They're like, I mean, this is just what we do.
• 48:46
  Our parents are having us do this right?
• 48:48
  And then I was like, do you guys want to like pray?
• 48:49
  We, they pray the rosary and they're like, they didn't, they
• 48:53
  didn't know how to pray the rosary.
• 48:54
  And I was like, we could say some Hail Marys.
• 48:57
  They didn't know how to say Hail Mary.
• 48:58
  And I was just shocked. I was like, what are we doing?
• 49:02
  You know, because this is unfortunately not every parish.
• 49:04
  There's some amazing parishes and amazing Catholic schools.
• 49:07
  You know, there's, there's some, there's like this amazing
• 49:09
  Catholic Swan Orange County called Camino schools that I'm
• 49:11
  so excited about and some amazing, you know, Jay Sarah
• 49:14
  High School is amazing. Like, there's some great stuff,
• 49:16
  but there is also this catechesis gap that so many
• 49:21
  people are experiencing because of the, the, the lack of
• 49:25
  education in our own Catholic school system.
• 49:28
  Yeah, lack of education too, but I I'm not trying to blame it on
• 49:31
  my parents. I feel like they they're, they
• 49:33
  obviously did the best they could, but I think it was also
• 49:35
  just a lack of not having that at home either because again,
• 49:41
  God only existed like at school. It was never like, OK, it's just
• 49:44
  a school thing. It's not like a everyday.
• 49:47
  Like, yeah. Not a family thing, Yeah.
• 49:49
  So what does faith look like for you now?
• 49:51
  What are your what's your experience of it?
• 49:53
  What are your prayer practices? Yeah, so my faith, I mean, it's
• 49:57
  the biggest part of my life. I got told like, first I'm a
• 49:59
  Catholic, then I'm like a coach, then I'm a now a fiance, right.
• 50:02
  But first I'm a Catholic before everything.
• 50:05
  And I think now my my faith just looks like I'm just living it
• 50:09
  out every day. I'm growing as I go.
• 50:11
  There's so much to learn about the Catholic faith because
• 50:14
  there's so much history. That's why I love it so much.
• 50:15
  I feel like I learn new things every single day, but I guess
• 50:19
  just now I really, I feel like have my routine now.
• 50:21
  So I go to daily mass, I pray my rosary and I've been getting
• 50:25
  into novenas now. So I'm, I'm starting novenas and
• 50:29
  just learning more about the, I'm actually doing a Marion
• 50:31
  consecration right now. But yeah.
• 50:34
  And I, I started praying my rosary not even that long ago.
• 50:37
  So again, we would pray the rosary like as a class and
• 50:40
  everything, but I never like again knew the history or the
• 50:43
  meaning behind it. Why we do these prayers and
• 50:46
  everything, why we ask for the intercession of like the same
• 50:48
  and her mother Mary. So now I really see the
• 50:51
  importance of it. So now, oh, and then now also
• 50:54
  we're actually going to go to Mexico and we're going to go see
• 50:58
  Our Lady, the Guadalupe. Just a quick up.
• 51:01
  Here you guys can't see it on the camera, but I have her up
• 51:04
  here on the top shelf looking down at us.
• 51:05
  So beautiful. I love her.
• 51:07
  Quick little story my my mom when she was trying to get
• 51:10
  pregnant with me, she had a miscarriage before me and they
• 51:16
  were my mom and my dad they like owned a carne city like a meat
• 51:19
  market. So they had like a lot of stress
• 51:21
  on them at that time. So she had a lot of stress.
• 51:24
  She miscarried. So she made, and she's not very
• 51:28
  practicing, practicing as a Catholic, but she made, she told
• 51:31
  me she made a promise to Our Lady that if she helped her get
• 51:34
  pregnant, she interceded for her, that she would go see her
• 51:37
  in Mexico. And to this day, she still
• 51:39
  hasn't gone to go see her. But Mother's Day of this year, I
• 51:43
  gifted her a trip to Mexico. So next week we're going to go
• 51:45
  see her. Oh my goodness, that's so
• 51:48
  beautiful, Francesca. I'm so excited.
• 51:50
  I'm so excited. To understand that that's so
• 51:52
  beautiful. So you and Mama, just the two of
• 51:55
  you. My sister are two, so the three
• 51:56
  of us, Yeah. And we're gonna go wedding dress
• 51:59
  shopping, too. In Mexico, how fun.
• 52:02
  Yeah, so there's. Some amazing.
• 52:04
  It's Mexico City, right? There's some amazing yeah
• 52:06
  wedding dress boutiques there. Yeah, and in like Guadalajara
• 52:08
  too. They have like a whole like,
• 52:09
  Blvd. of like wedding dresses. Yeah.
• 52:12
  So Our Lady of Guadalupe, like the miraculous image is there.
• 52:16
  Yeah, which we've talked about on the show before.
• 52:19
  We actually had Father Spitzer. I think it was talking about the
• 52:22
  science behind the apparition and I.
• 52:25
  Totally watched that episode isn't.
• 52:27
  He amazing. Father Spencer, it sounds like
• 52:29
  you said your mom is an amazing mom, but she wasn't like
• 52:32
  practicing a faith. Yeah.
• 52:33
  What's where's her faith at now? If you can share If you don't
• 52:35
  want to share. It No.
• 52:36
  Yeah, Yeah, no, it's OK. I mean, I try to.
• 52:38
  I ask her to go to Mass with me like every day.
• 52:41
  I'll just ask her, you know, I'll throw it out there for her.
• 52:43
  And then, like on Tuesdays and Thursdays, they have the Blessed
• 52:47
  Sacrament. On Tuesdays or Thursdays, I'm
• 52:49
  like, come with me. Like they're gonna have the
• 52:50
  sacrament and she's like, no, like, it's not like I'll go on
• 52:53
  Sundays, so she'll go on Sundays with me.
• 52:55
  Sometimes I try to get her to pray like.
• 52:57
  They're going to Mexico, yes. Yes, and that's why I'm like I'm
• 53:00
  gonna consecrate her whole family to to Our Lady and I'm
• 53:04
  like it's perfect cuz we're literally gonna go see her in
• 53:06
  like the middle of the consecration so.
• 53:08
  I'll pray for your. Trip, thank you.
• 53:09
  Thank you so much. Really special.
• 53:10
  I wish I was coming. I haven't been yet to Mexico
• 53:13
  City. I'm excited.
• 53:15
  That's gonna be amazing. Yes.
• 53:17
  And let get special blessing for your marriage.
• 53:19
  Yeah, yes, yes, that too. And like everything, just
• 53:22
  everything happening is just seriously God's plan.
• 53:24
  Like I would have never imagined even like being here right now,
• 53:26
  at this moment, like a year ago. Like so much can change in in a
• 53:30
  year when you really surrender everything to God and it's just
• 53:32
  a matter of having your heart open and and being open to His
• 53:36
  will, you know, because sometimes it's not what you
• 53:38
  want. What has been the hardest things
• 53:40
  about this shift in your life to following Jesus?
• 53:44
  Practicing your Catholic faith? Like the decisions you've made
• 53:47
  in your relationship with Emmanuel?
• 53:49
  Now you're engaged, what have been the biggest challenges for
• 53:52
  you? Just disconnecting from the
• 53:54
  world. I think when you when the veil
• 53:56
  is lifted, you see how evil the world is and all the things that
• 54:00
  you're influenced to do, you know, have sex before marriage.
• 54:03
  It's normal. It's normal to move in together.
• 54:06
  You know, before you're married, it's normal to go out and party.
• 54:09
  It's normal to like, you know, do all these things, not go to
• 54:12
  church. You can totally go to church and
• 54:14
  just like go home and like, you know, have sex before marriage
• 54:17
  and do all these things like that's normal.
• 54:19
  So I think separating myself from the world has definitely
• 54:24
  and I'm still like, it's a work in progress.
• 54:25
  I'm not saying I'm like this, like, you know, amazing
• 54:28
  Catholic, right, But I think it was just a matter of separating
• 54:33
  myself from the world and trying to differentiate like I've been
• 54:36
  lied to about this. I've been lied to, like even
• 54:38
  like about abortion too, like, and I really want to thank you,
• 54:41
  Lila, for your work too, because I think it was your work that
• 54:44
  really helped me become like fully pro-life because I would
• 54:47
  consider myself like, you know, Catholic.
• 54:49
  But it's what I feel like a lot of people would say, like, I
• 54:51
  would never do it, but who am I to say that another person
• 54:55
  shouldn't do it? So that was definitely my
• 54:56
  standpoint. But after watching even like
• 54:58
  your debates, you know, all of these points that you made and I
• 55:04
  think it really, you know, again, helped me differentiate
• 55:08
  from the world Cause like, no, you know, this is truly evil.
• 55:11
  Like all this stuff is evil, all this stuff that we're influenced
• 55:13
  to do and it's pushed out in the world, in the media and music
• 55:17
  and Hollywood, you know, all these things, it's separating
• 55:19
  yourself from the world. So your, your work really helped
• 55:22
  me do that, especially when it comes to like the abortion
• 55:24
  movement, the anti worship movement, that really helped.
• 55:28
  But I think, again, just separating yourself from the
• 55:30
  world and really noticing how evil the world is.
• 55:33
  What were some concrete ways that you've been able to do
• 55:36
  that? Yeah, because I do think that's
• 55:38
  a struggle for many people today because the world is the world.
• 55:41
  And, you know, it's not like there's a malicious plot from an
• 55:44
  individual. There's a malicious plot from
• 55:46
  the devil. Like the only enemy is the
• 55:48
  enemy. But there's all these other
• 55:50
  people that are just, like, bopping around trying to do
• 55:52
  their thing. And like, unfortunately, we're
• 55:54
  all caught in this web. And so like, you know, to live
• 55:57
  in the spirit and live in truth and put on the shield of faith
• 56:00
  and, you know, the armor of Christ like that is it acts of
• 56:03
  intentionality with God's grace that we need to choose.
• 56:06
  So what is that? Like, what would be some of your
• 56:07
  tips for people for how to, you know, be in the world but not
• 56:12
  out of the world, especially when you're in the fitness?
• 56:14
  I mean, like also like contextualize your social media,
• 56:17
  your fitness. Like these are things that are
• 56:19
  not always used for God, but often they're used against him.
• 56:22
  So exactly, I think what I would just say is like the more you
• 56:26
  know, I feel like the harder it gets because sometimes it's
• 56:28
  like, well, I didn't know how big of us in it is to have, you
• 56:32
  know, sex before marriage. I didn't know how big of us in
• 56:35
  it is to receive the Eucharist while living in a state of
• 56:39
  mortal sin. You know, So I think it's just
• 56:40
  knowing the gravity of things and it's not a matter of like,
• 56:45
  OK, I need to stop sinning because of my own will.
• 56:47
  It's like, no, I love our Lord so much that like, you know, I
• 56:49
  don't want to disappoint, disappoint him.
• 56:51
  I don't want to ruin that relationship that we have
• 56:54
  because it's also, you know, like, imagine if I was like with
• 56:56
  my fiance and he kept cheating on me and he kept, you know,
• 56:58
  doing all these things, like keep kept backstabbing me.
• 57:01
  It's like that's what I'm doing to God when I fall into these
• 57:04
  sins. So it's a matter of like, I love
• 57:05
  you so much. I don't want to let you down.
• 57:08
  Of course I'm going to fall but and you'll always pick me back
• 57:11
  up. But it's a matter of, you know,
• 57:12
  I want to make you proud. I want to live the way that you
• 57:15
  intended us to do. So I think just surrounding
• 57:18
  yourself, things that you can do is surround yourself with
• 57:20
  community too. We actually lived a retreat last
• 57:23
  August and the men's go 1st and then the women go after the week
• 57:27
  after. So he lived the men's retreat
• 57:30
  and then I live the women's retreat.
• 57:31
  And then after that you get put into like community.
• 57:33
  So being in a community of like Catholic individuals that are
• 57:37
  learning, that are wanting to strive in their faith, I think
• 57:40
  that's really big too. And I'm not gonna lie, I think
• 57:42
  the Protestant churches beat us when it comes to like things
• 57:45
  like that. They're.
• 57:45
  Really good at community. They're really, really good.
• 57:47
  It's like when I was going to the Protestant church like they
• 57:49
  would. They gave me like a mug.
• 57:51
  They got my home. My mug, yes.
• 57:54
  And they plug. It's like get into a small
• 57:56
  group, get into a Bible study. Exactly.
• 57:58
  Which is. Beautiful.
• 57:59
  Yeah, it's beautiful. Yeah.
• 58:01
  And they like got my phone number, my e-mail and
• 58:03
  everything. They're like texting me.
• 58:05
  But it's really you just have to look.
• 58:07
  There's communities like that. You just have to look and you're
• 58:10
  asked, call the rectory, you know, if it's not start your
• 58:12
  own, talk with the priest and start your own if you want to
• 58:14
  have a community. But I think being in community
• 58:17
  and I think just learning more about your faith and staying in
• 58:20
  deep prayer, receiving the Eucharist, of course, receiving
• 58:22
  the sacraments, going to reconciliation when you can,
• 58:26
  because the priests are there, like use the priests.
• 58:29
  The priests have gave up so much of their life to follow our
• 58:33
  Lord, right? Like I respect priests so much.
• 58:35
  It's so beautiful. And they're there to help us
• 58:37
  out. They're our spiritual fathers.
• 58:38
  So it's like, go to them if you have spiritual help or if you
• 58:41
  need spiritual help, go to them. Ask for advice on anything that
• 58:45
  they can do. But yeah, I think even like the
• 58:48
  fitness world too, it was a little bit difficult because I
• 58:52
  mean, when I was posting, it's like normal to post in like
• 58:55
  little spandex or like, you know, in your in your sports
• 58:58
  bra. For me, I was normal to go to
• 59:00
  the gym like that. But now coming into my faith,
• 59:03
  it's like again, the veil is lifted.
• 59:04
  You see different, you see things differently now.
• 59:06
  And it's like, OK, you know what, I should dress a little
• 59:08
  bit more modestly at the gym. I should.
• 59:10
  So I changed up, you know how? And it was kind of difficult,
• 59:13
  I'm not going to lie, to switch my content from, you know, like
• 59:17
  me in the gym, like posting in like little shorts, like you can
• 59:19
  see everything and everything now to like, OK, you know, I'm
• 59:22
  going to go more modest. I don't want to be showing off
• 59:25
  my body as much because again, I want to honor our Lord and I
• 59:28
  don't want to do it now for vanity reasons.
• 59:30
  Before I was totally doing fitness for like, because I just
• 59:33
  wanted to look good. I mean, it was never for like,
• 59:35
  you know, I wanted to be healthy and stuff.
• 59:37
  And you know, honor my body was more for vanity reasons.
• 59:40
  So I think just having that huge switch of like everything I want
• 59:43
  to do is for God. So how do I because I still love
• 59:46
  fitness, right? I don't want to give up fitness,
• 59:48
  but I want to just do it in a way that I can honor you.
• 59:51
  That is so beautiful because there's so much intentionality
• 59:53
  there and like self-awareness, which I think we are in the end
• 59:57
  judged on what we know, right? So the Lord is so merciful.
• 1:00:00
  He is so merciful, but we are called higher constantly to
• 1:00:04
  learn more, to be more formed. And like the intentional
• 1:00:08
  approach you're taking of like getting serious in all parts of
• 1:00:11
  your life. Like that's not easy, but
• 1:00:13
  obviously with God's grace, it's, it's so beautiful.
• 1:00:17
  I'm curious if you have advice for.
• 1:00:20
  Especially women listening who, you know, maybe they have a
• 1:00:23
  little check in their spirit about the way they dress or
• 1:00:26
  about the way they're approaching relationships or the
• 1:00:28
  way they're approaching social media vanity.
• 1:00:31
  Like one of these issues that women and and effects men too
• 1:00:35
  wrong but like obviously can affect women.
• 1:00:37
  Yeah, of course, I think I mean especially with relationships
• 1:00:40
  too. I mean, again, our a
• 1:00:44
  relationship is only going to work if it's with three people,
• 1:00:46
  if the God, if God is the third person in your relationship.
• 1:00:49
  So if you, if the way you're approaching a relationship is
• 1:00:53
  like, OK, I just want this person to love me.
• 1:00:55
  I want this and this like this person is going to fulfill me.
• 1:00:58
  Like no, your, you know, your partner's not going to fulfill
• 1:01:00
  you. They're going to love you and
• 1:01:01
  you're going to, it's going to be a beautiful relationship, but
• 1:01:04
  the only thing that's actually going to fulfill you is God.
• 1:01:06
  So you have to run to God first. And then after that, you're
• 1:01:09
  going to find your person or that person's going to find you,
• 1:01:12
  you know, at God's timing. But you have to put God first in
• 1:01:15
  order for the relationship to be fruitful in a way that God
• 1:01:18
  intended it to be, right? Because he has these, I mean,
• 1:01:20
  he's our father, right? He has these rules for a reason.
• 1:01:24
  There's a reason why we don't have he told us not to have sex
• 1:01:27
  before marriage is a reason why, you know, we don't support
• 1:01:29
  cohabitation, right? So they're all of these reasons.
• 1:01:32
  They're not just because like God wants us to be boring.
• 1:01:34
  You know, it's not because of that.
• 1:01:35
  It's like because there's actual reasons behind it.
• 1:01:38
  So I think it's just putting really putting God first at the
• 1:01:41
  center of your relationship. Let him work in you.
• 1:01:44
  Don't don't make it a matter of like, I have to be perfect,
• 1:01:47
  like, you know, let him work in you and do it genuinely.
• 1:01:51
  Let him work in you genuinely, but also being intentional with
• 1:01:54
  like the way that you dress. And this is also, you know,
• 1:01:57
  something that is still working in me.
• 1:02:00
  I'm not completely, you know, I'm not going to say like I'm
• 1:02:03
  like super, super like the best at like modesty.
• 1:02:06
  Like I think there's definitely areas that I think maybe I can
• 1:02:08
  work in or maybe that I'm just haven't God hasn't revealed to
• 1:02:11
  me yet. So I think just being a little
• 1:02:13
  bit more intentional in the way that you dress.
• 1:02:16
  I think because that I used to dress to get attention, like I
• 1:02:19
  would go to, and I say this from personal experience, like I
• 1:02:22
  truly would go to the gym in like little shorts and you know,
• 1:02:28
  sports bras and everything because I knew I looked good and
• 1:02:30
  I wanted like everyone to see that.
• 1:02:32
  So now my intent now, because my intention is not that, it's OK,
• 1:02:35
  you know what, Why would I not dress differently?
• 1:02:37
  So because my intention is not that anymore, let's dress a
• 1:02:40
  little bit different, you know, let's put on a little bit more
• 1:02:43
  clothes. Let's, you know, just watch the
• 1:02:46
  way we present ourselves. Because it's also, I think
• 1:02:48
  someone explained it to me too. Like you don't want to, you
• 1:02:51
  don't, you don't want to cause another brother in Christ to
• 1:02:54
  fall into sin because if not like that, sin can be on you.
• 1:02:57
  So I, I want to prevent others from like falling into sin too
• 1:03:01
  and be mindful of that too. But it's also things, you know,
• 1:03:04
  you have to be mindful of it. If it's it's your intention
• 1:03:07
  behind it too. You know, what's your intention
• 1:03:08
  behind like the clothes you wear, you know, the way you show
• 1:03:11
  up to the gym or like your intention behind even working
• 1:03:14
  now or you know, living a healthy lifestyle.
• 1:03:16
  But I think you're having that intentionality going about, you
• 1:03:20
  know, what's your intention wearing at the gym?
• 1:03:23
  What's your intention in the relationship?
• 1:03:25
  What's your intention into all aspects of your life?
• 1:03:28
  You know, your intention should be God first.
• 1:03:30
  And then also what I like to do is like, I ask myself even the
• 1:03:35
  way I act too, because it's like temperament too.
• 1:03:37
  That's a part of modesty. It's like, all right, well,
• 1:03:39
  would Mother Mary crush out right now?
• 1:03:42
  Like, you know, would Mother Mary do this?
• 1:03:44
  Beautiful, Francesca, it's a great question.
• 1:03:46
  To ask. I'm like, would Mother Mary do
• 1:03:49
  this? I'm like, yeah, I don't think
• 1:03:50
  she would act this way. So let me recuperate.
• 1:03:52
  Let me, you know, take a second to like, you know, think about
• 1:03:55
  what I'm going to say or like what I'm going to wear.
• 1:03:57
  I love that. What would Mother Mary do?
• 1:03:59
  Yeah, OK. I mean, it's what would Jesus
• 1:04:02
  do? You can ask that.
• 1:04:03
  But like Mary is the model he gives us like she blesses us
• 1:04:06
  with, especially as women, because she's a woman, you know,
• 1:04:09
  she was a mother. She's like did all of the she
• 1:04:12
  was the she had the epitome of femininity, but it wasn't sort
• 1:04:16
  of the like flashy or like overly like I'm girly girl
• 1:04:21
  femininity that I think sometimes it's how femininity is
• 1:04:23
  represented today. Like I'm so feminine.
• 1:04:25
  Check me out. It's like, OK, is that
• 1:04:27
  femininity or is femininity truly captivating a soul to aim
• 1:04:32
  them higher, you know, using like beauty and also gentleness
• 1:04:37
  and modesty and humility and like all of these beautiful
• 1:04:40
  virtues which we got to work on right, with God's help.
• 1:04:44
  You were when you were talking about modesty, though, I thought
• 1:04:47
  that was so beautiful, what you were describing about like this
• 1:04:50
  idea of God lifting the veil and just kind of revealing more to
• 1:04:53
  you about, you know, what is modest?
• 1:04:57
  How do how to do modesty? And I do think that this is this
• 1:05:00
  could be its own episode, its own whole conversation on
• 1:05:03
  modesty. But I do think there's a lot of
• 1:05:05
  confusion today about what modesty means.
• 1:05:07
  And there's also a lot of like, well, this is modest and that's
• 1:05:10
  not modest. And yes, that's true.
• 1:05:12
  I think there's some things that are objectively not modest and
• 1:05:15
  other things that you would say, yes, this is objectively more
• 1:05:17
  modest or better. But I also think like you were
• 1:05:20
  saying, it's a disposition like modesty is about not seeking
• 1:05:24
  attention to ourself. That's the wrong attention
• 1:05:26
  really is like a core principle of it.
• 1:05:28
  And like that you could be dressed super modestly and still
• 1:05:33
  be like trying to seek attention in a way that's inappropriate
• 1:05:36
  too. Like there's this different
• 1:05:37
  ways. So what have been some of your
• 1:05:39
  sort of ways that you have kind of helped guide your modesty
• 1:05:43
  decisions, especially in this journey that you're on of like,
• 1:05:45
  I'm a fitness influencer who's on a journey and trying to like
• 1:05:48
  transform and do what does mother marry fitness influencing
• 1:05:51
  look like? I don't know.
• 1:05:52
  That's a good that's a good project you're working on.
• 1:05:54
  But yeah, what what has been some things that have been like
• 1:05:57
  helpful to you in that process? Yeah, I think just again, the
• 1:06:00
  intentionality because I I had like gone to my priest and I'm
• 1:06:03
  like, am I Because I would get, you know, comments and again,
• 1:06:06
  I'm totally wrong. I'm totally OK to being wrong.
• 1:06:09
  Like I'm totally open to being wrong if, you know, I'm still, I
• 1:06:12
  guess more newer in my feet. So it's like I don't have it all
• 1:06:16
  right. I'm never going to have
• 1:06:17
  everything all right. So I'm always open to being
• 1:06:18
  wrong. So I remember I was getting like
• 1:06:20
  a lot of comments on my post like you're going to go to hell
• 1:06:23
  for like wearing leggings. And I'm like, is this true?
• 1:06:25
  So I like took it to my priest and he was like, it's the
• 1:06:28
  intentionality. He was like, what you can do is
• 1:06:30
  like cover up, maybe like your your back part.
• 1:06:33
  So that's what I do now. So it's like, because you know
• 1:06:34
  what, I feel like also there's a lot of nuance because it's kind
• 1:06:38
  of hard to tell someone, OK, go running in like sweats, right?
• 1:06:40
  Go do sprints and like sweats or something, right?
• 1:06:43
  So I tried to wear like, I guess more like baggier clothes at the
• 1:06:47
  gym. But it's also when you're doing
• 1:06:48
  certain movements, like it's better or it's even safer
• 1:06:51
  sometimes to wear tighter clothing because for like
• 1:06:55
  certain movements that like, you know, the barbell can like get
• 1:06:57
  caught or something. So when I, when I, what I try to
• 1:07:01
  do is just like, again, I try to just wear, you know, T-shirts,
• 1:07:04
  not like my sports bra anymore. Just at the gym, I wear T-shirts
• 1:07:07
  and like my cargo pants or, you know, sweatpants.
• 1:07:11
  And if I do wear leggings, I'll wear like something around like
• 1:07:14
  to cover me behind. But it's definitely something
• 1:07:16
  that we're trying to work on. It's definitely in the works
• 1:07:20
  where I haven't announced it yet, but it's coming out soon.
• 1:07:23
  We're going to, we're going to do a modesty line.
• 1:07:25
  So I love it in the gym. I can't wait to wear it, I guess
• 1:07:29
  at my house in my own garage where, you know, I don't go to
• 1:07:33
  the gym really. I'd like to.
• 1:07:34
  I mean, I, I was actually talking to who's like to a
• 1:07:37
  friend and she's like just go to the local gym twice a week for
• 1:07:40
  30 minutes and she's like pumping me up.
• 1:07:42
  I'm like, OK, I'll take, I'll take Gigi, my one year old.
• 1:07:45
  She'll like go running, running through the gym.
• 1:07:47
  But that's exciting. That is really exciting.
• 1:07:50
  Congratulations. I think that's going to be a
• 1:07:51
  huge hit. I'm really excited.
• 1:07:53
  I can't wait to share it on my pages.
• 1:07:55
  And I love that you're doing that, that that's such a
• 1:07:57
  beautiful. It's just so beautiful because
• 1:07:58
  you're what it is, is like you. You are taking the everyday
• 1:08:02
  events of life and your particular life and gifts that
• 1:08:05
  God's given you with fitness and coaching, and you're sanctifying
• 1:08:09
  them. Thank you, thank you.
• 1:08:10
  I'm I'm trying, we're we're trying and and it's again for
• 1:08:13
  the glory of God. I, I, I don't want like I don't
• 1:08:16
  want it to be an excuse of like, you know, well, all gym clothes
• 1:08:20
  is, you know, not modest where it's like that's a reason why
• 1:08:22
  you wouldn't go to the gym, right.
• 1:08:24
  So it's, you know, I want to help women out to you can still
• 1:08:26
  feel good. You can still wear like their
• 1:08:28
  nice outfits. You can still feel good, but it
• 1:08:30
  can also be modest, right? And it doesn't have to.
• 1:08:33
  You don't have to wear like super like baggy T-shirts and
• 1:08:35
  everything. It can still be modest and make
• 1:08:37
  it modest, but also comfortable. I love that.
• 1:08:39
  When's the wedding? Do you know it's so I?
• 1:08:41
  Don't have the date. I we have no idea.
• 1:08:43
  We wanna, I mean, it might be a little bit soon, but honestly, I
• 1:08:46
  have no idea what even the process looks like.
• 1:08:48
  We're already talking to a priest that we wanna do marriage
• 1:08:51
  prep with. He's telling us it's gonna be
• 1:08:52
  around six months. But honestly, I think just for
• 1:08:55
  the timing and everything, I want to have it.
• 1:08:57
  We want to do it as soon as we can, but I want to have it, I
• 1:09:00
  think like April, May of next year.
• 1:09:03
  I think just the timing is beautiful.
• 1:09:04
  I think in April, too. It's still like the Easter
• 1:09:07
  season. Tenth.
• 1:09:08
  Yeah. Is that a Saturday, Right?
• 1:09:09
  I don't know. I don't know.
• 1:09:10
  Right. Is it?
• 1:09:11
  Oh. My gosh, that would be
• 1:09:13
  beautiful. So special.
• 1:09:14
  That would be beautiful just because it's fun.
• 1:09:16
  I mean, obviously you got to find all the venues and make
• 1:09:18
  sure like it all lines up or whatever.
• 1:09:20
  Exactly. April 10th is a Friday, but
• 1:09:23
  that's I mean, it's still it's still a special.
• 1:09:25
  You can get married on a Friday, but either way, April or May
• 1:09:28
  wedding is so beautiful. And so that's going to be that's
• 1:09:31
  going. To be the best, Yeah, I hope so.
• 1:09:34
  I hope we can do it in like that timeline.
• 1:09:35
  But again, whatever is in God's plans.
• 1:09:37
  How can people find you online and find your coaching your your
• 1:09:42
  future line that's coming out soon?
• 1:09:44
  Everything else you're up to. Yeah, so I have an Instagram.
• 1:09:47
  You can follow me on Instagram at Just Francesca Sevilla, my
• 1:09:50
  TikTok again, Just Francesca Sevilla and then my website,
• 1:09:53
  it's linked on all of my social medias, but my website is fit
• 1:09:57
  for his. That's my whole thing.
• 1:09:58
  Fit for his glory dot LA. So that's my website.
• 1:10:02
  You can reach out to me on any of these social medias.
• 1:10:04
  We also do have a Catholic women's podcast called Lily's
• 1:10:08
  among Thorns. Oh I love.
• 1:10:10
  That. Yeah, so I'm doing it with my
• 1:10:11
  friend Julie. She's awesome.
• 1:10:14
  So we, yeah, we want to target like culturally Catholics and
• 1:10:16
  bring them into confessionals. And I love that in front of the
• 1:10:19
  sacrament. Amazing.
• 1:10:20
  Yeah, so you can find me there. Thank you so much.
• 1:10:22
  Thank you come back. This is so fun.
• 1:10:24
  Thank you so much, Lila. Congratulations again.
• 1:10:26
  Thank you. Thanks so much for listening to
• 1:10:29
  this episode of the Lila Rose Show.
• 1:10:31
  Check out Francesca's work. It is lovely and it's going to
• 1:10:33
  be so edifying for you. Also, make sure you're
• 1:10:36
  subscribed to the show if you haven't already subscribed.
• 1:10:39
  And if you're listening on podcast app, please leave us
• 1:10:41
  five stars and a review. It helps the show grow.
• 1:10:44
  Thanks so much and we'll see you all next time.
• 1:10:46
  A huge thank you to our partner EWTN, the largest religious
• 1:10:49
  broadcaster in the entire world. EWTN is reaching millions of
• 1:10:53
  people every single day with the beautiful truth of the gospel.
• 1:10:56
  You can watch new episodes of the Lila Rose Show 24 hours
• 1:11:00
  before they hit podcast app over at ewtn.com On demand.