The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Juanita: The Life and Spirituality of Saint Teresa of Jesus of Los Andes by Jennifer Moorcroft

Episode Date: May 23, 2025

Juanita: The Life and Spirituality of Saint Teresa of Jesus of Los Andes by Jennifer Moorcroft Jennifermoorcroft.com Amazon.com Juanita Solar, Saint Teresa of Jesus of Los Andes, is the first-fruits of holiness of the Discalced Carmelites in Latin America. Thousands of people, especially young people, flock to her shrine each year, seeing in her a young girl who became a saint while at school, loving sports, sharing holidays with her family. She spent only eleven months in Carmel. Pope St John Paul 11 said of her: 'For her, God is infinite joy. This is the new hymn of Christian love that rises spontaneously from the soul of this young Chilean girl, in whose glorified face we can sense the grace of her transformation in Christ.' Jennifer Moorcroft tells this remarkable story for English-speaking readers so that they, too, may catch the fire of the love of God from her, and find the joy and happiness that living in the love of God gives.

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Today's featured author comes to us from bookstolifemarketing.co.uk. With expert publishing to strategic marketing, they help authors reach their audience and maximize their book success. It's a very amazing young lady on the show. We're going to be talking about her books and her latest book. It is called Juanita, The Life and Spirituality of Saint Teresa of Jesus of Los Andes. It's out March 4th, 2022 by Jennifer Moorcroft. She'll be joining us in the show. We're going to get to know her better and some of the other books and works that she's written on.

Welcome to the show, Jennifer. How are you? Jennifer Moorcroft I'm fine, thank you. Pete Slauson Thank you. And thanks for coming to the show. Give us any dot coms or wherever you want people look you up on the interwebs. Jennifer Moorcroft Yes, my website is jennifermoorcroft.com. And the surname is M-O-r-c-r-o-f-t. Pete So, give us a 30,000 over you. What's inside your new book?

Julie It's the life of St. Teresa of the Andes, it is properly known. And I was drawn to her when somebody gave me a prayer card showing her face, this beautiful face of a young woman, and on the other side a short biography of her. And it showed that she was a typical teenager, loving sports, she was excelled at swimming, horse riding, all sorts of sports, and excellent at school. And yet she's been raised to the altars, as it were, canonized for outstanding holiness. And I was intrigued to find out a bit more about her. So I got

the only books in English that I could find that were written by Michael Griffith, and what were those? Her letters, her diary, and then various testimonies and the accounts of beatification and canonization. And I've always in my writing wanted to show the beauty of the Catholic faith and how living it to the full brings real joy. And Juanita just seemed to fit what I wanted to say. And then she said, God is all joy. That is the title of the first book that I wrote. So the first book that I wrote of her was God is All Joy, which is a biography of her. And then about four or five or so years afterwards, I wanted to find out more about her spiritual journey.

journey. And so I wrote this book, Juanita, which gives a short introduction to her life. And then it goes into the various aspects of touches as it were to her holiness. And she spent only 11 months in Carmel before she died of typhoid, perforated typhoid. Pete Slauson That's no fun. And so, that's why I wrote about her. Pete And you said she's been vaulted by the church, sainthood or something like that? What was the term that you used? Edna She's been canonized. Pete Canonized. Edna Yes.

Pete Is that the same as sainthood? I'm not up to speed on how that all works. Edna Yes, it is. Yes. Pete Okay. She's well revered by the church and the work that she did. And so, has her story been told before? Is this the first time someone's told her a story?

That's it. I don't think there is any other books. There aren't any other books in English apart from Michael Griffith's books and my books. I've written three. The latest one is actually Godhead Here in Hiding because I was very struck by the centrality of the Eucharist in her spiritual life. And so I wrote this book giving extracts from her writings and showing her journey, really giving advice to people like her father who was had given up going to mass, for example, because he felt that often he wasn't able to get to mass and therefore he felt that he was unworthy to go when he could. And so he gave advice to him. And then, like for her friends, some said, you know, I don't like to go to Mass, it's

so boring. And she said, what do you prepare beforehand about it? What do you bring to the Mass? And so she encourages her friends to make this journey with her. And so, she was a great friend and very well loved by a whole host of friends and family. Pete Slauson Hmm. Yeah. And it's well revered. So, you've written a lot of books, I can see here on Amazon, you have a whole plethora

of books that are available. Tell us, how many do you have and what do you tend to usually write about? Dr. Mary Anastasia Mostly, I do write about biographies of saints because I wanted to show the joy, the peace, and the fullness of life that comes with living a Catholic life. I'll say that, I mean, other people can live a full life as outside the Catholic Church. I'm a convert myself and so I just wanted to try to give to other people how I feel about the Catholic Church, because so often it gets a negative press. You don't hear the good things about it. And so practically all my books were written to show what a wonderful thing the Catholic Church is if you live life to the full within her.

Pete Now, did she pass away when she was the young age of 19? Mary Jo Yes, she did, yes. Pete Wow. Mary Jo And that is why I was saying… Pete So, she accomplished a lot in… Mary Jo Yes. Pete She accomplished a lot in quite a few years. Mary Jo She did, yes.

The thing is that in one sense she was very ordinary and her friends never knew the depth of her spiritual life because, and it only came out really when she made her first Holy Communion. And she said that on that day that I'll read a little bit about it. Yes, she said that she said a delicious, for the first time after receiving Holy Communion, for the first time I experienced a delicious piece. A delicious piece preparing for this day had been a hard journey. And then she said another remark, I experienced his dear voice for the first time. So the thing is up till now she had been hearing our lady's voice giving her guidance and then from her first Holy Communion she began to hear the voice of our Lord guiding her. And she thought that it was that everybody had that, and it wasn't until she mentioned it to her mother

and realized that no, not everybody did. And she never spoke of it to anybody except to her spiritual director and confessors, and not even to her, the prioress when she entered Carmel. She didn't even mention it to the prioress. So she kept all that very secret, and you only saw the fruits of it in her, the externals of her life. Pete And so, she led a pretty interesting life in a very short time. Sounds like she got a lot done. The, vitally, her spirituality reflects what's called the broader Carmelite tradition. What is that? Can you explain what that is to us? The Carmelite tradition, yes, Carmelite itself, the tradition goes back right to St. Elijah and St. Elisha and the school of prophets on over as crusaders in the Middle Ages, and then

they stayed and set up this monastery on Mount Carmel. And they stayed there until, of course, when the Muslim invaders forced them out. And that's when they came over to Europe and then to the rest of the world. The most famous saints within the Catholic, within the Carmelite order are of course St. Teresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross, who are two of the great doctors of the spirituality of Carmel. And then of course St. Therese of the Carmelite order has three doctors of the church, those that have got special gifts of teaching within the church. Pete Slauson Interesting. There you go. Now, have you written three books on her? Did I

understand that right in what you're going to get? Dr. Annette Cain Yes, that's right. The first book I wrote was God is All Joy, which is the first book I wrote, which was a biography of her. And then Juanita was the second book that I wrote, which goes more deeply into her spiritual life, and it shows her spirituality within the context of the charism, as it's called, of Mount Carmel, of the Carmelite order, as expressed by St John of St. Therese of La Silla because when she was 14, she was very seriously ill with appendicitis, which was almost fatal at that time. But anyway, she survived and she was taken to the hacienda of Chakrabuco, which belonged to the extended family. And her sister Lucia, who was the eldest of the five surviving children,

was also unwell. And she began to cry because she thought that Lucia was getting more attention than she was. And then gazing at a picture of the Sacred Heart, she then heard our Lord say to her, what? I Juanita am alone on the altar for love of you and you can't even suffer one moment of solitude. And from that time she realized that there was going to be suffering in her life. But as she said that I find a sacrifice bathed with tears is no sacrifice, so that externally she had this great joy, an outgoing personality, and inside she was following our Lord on the cross and with the sacrifices that came with changed circumstances in her family, for example. And then the third book, of course, is Godhead Here in Hiding, which, as I said, is her writings on the Eucharist.

Pete Slauson What is the Eucharist? Elinor What is the Eucharist? Elinor A meditation, a book for meditation, really. Pete Okay. For those who might not be aware of that. Yeah, that's really interesting. Do you hope to write about her more in the future? Is she someone you're going to study and research and put more stuff out on? Elisabeth I'm not really quite sure. I think I've sort of written the three books that I feel cover what I wanted to say about Juanita. Pete Slauson

Mm hmm. So, very fascinating, wonderful story. Do you do any consulting or coaching or do you do any speaking, I guess, of these sort of topics that people can reach out to you on your website to know more? Jai Radha No, not really. Okay. Okay.

Any other books that you have coming up, maybe that you're writing or cooking up that you, you know, putting together that people should know about? One book that's at the editorial stage is the life of Sister Lucia of Fatima, who was one of the three children of Fatima, who had the visions of the apparitions of Our Lady, and Sister Lucia entered Carmel, because I do have this interest in Carmelite spirituality and our Carmelite saints. So that should be coming out hopefully sometime this year but it just depends if the editing can be done in time. And then the last book that I've written, which should actually appear perhaps in about two or three months' time is actually a book on the Rosary, because I've been praying the Rosary for over 40 years. And then I suddenly thought, I just want to write down

some of the thoughts that I have on it. And then I thought, I think this is another book coming on, and that is actually with the publishers, and should be published within about three or four, about two or three months. Pete So, we can look forward to that. People can follow you on your website to find out what it comes about and stuff. And then, you know, with the books you've written, who's been your favorite character out of all the books you've written, who's been your favorite character out of all the books you've written about and stuff? Mary Farris The first book I ever wrote was on St. Elizabeth

of the Trinity. And I came across just one book in English of her when I had just been received into the church. And I was absolutely fascinated by her. And she was my spiritual guide, as it were, the spiritual teacher that I enjoyed most. And so the first book that I ever wrote was about her and then the book on Juanita, God is all Joy, is the second one. And then Juanita, Elizabeth, and then alsoic who lived in the 19th century, born in the 19th century and died in the 20th century. And her cause for canonization is coming up. And she again is my favorite, one of my favorites. Those three are the ones that I love best. Pete Hmm.

You know, it's good to have that you like that. So as we go out and round up the show, give us a final pitch out for people to pick up your books, get to know you better, etc., etc. etc. Really? I haven't, I've only got the website and so if anybody wants to contact me, can I give you, give them my email address? Yes, please do. That's jdm79 jdm79 at vtinternet.com. Pete Slauson Mm hmm. It's been wonderful to have you on in Delightful, Jennifer. We certainly appreciate it and very insightful and what an amazing story as you weave and tell and we'll look forward to seeing your future works.

Jennifer Thank you. Pete Slauson Thank you and thanks, thanks so much for tuning in. Order up your book where refined books are sold and check out our other books on Amazon. Juanita, The Life and Spirituality of St. Teresa of Jesus of Los Andes by Jennifer Moorcroft. Thanks for tuning in. Go to Goodreads.com, Forchess Chris Voss, LinkedIn.com, Forchess Chris Voss, ChrisVoss1 and the Tik Tokity and all those crazy places on the internet. Be good to each other, stay safe. We'll see you guys next time and that should have us out, Jennifer.