God is still with us when life is like a soap opera

Mari Pablo

By Emily Woodham

Staff Writer

“There are no perfect people, although some pretend to have perfect lives where everything is fine,” Mari Pablo said in her first keynote talk at the 2025 Idaho Catholic Youth Convention (ICYC). Pablo, who is Hispanic, joked that people’s lives and families are like the ones in TV novellas—soap operas.

“There is no such thing as perfect families because humans are in them,” she said. Pablo added that human drama in which many things go wrong is also seen in the Bible, which concerns real people in real situations.

“In the Bible, so many horrible things happen, and God shows up in everything,” she said. “Our families are not perfect, and God shows up. If we invite Him in, He can do incredible things that are so good and so beautiful.”

However, Pablo noted that mental health issues are at an all-time high, affecting one out of four people. “I’m a huge advocate of theology and psychology. I think that everyone can benefit from Jesus and a good Catholic counselor. We’re all going through stuff, and we all have different things that we’re carrying.”

Because the Lord cares about every aspect of our lives, she continued, He also cares about each person’s mental health. “I’m not saying, ‘Pray and then all your mental health issues will magically disappear.’ I’m saying that the Lord cares about everything you’re going through and knows you better than you know yourself.”

Mari Pablo gave three keynote talks, each focused on having a relationship with Jesus through prayer, sacraments, and trust in every aspect of life. Pablo used different stories from her journey to illustrate how circumstances, relationships and suffering can be used by God to draw us closer to Him.

In prayer and sacred Scripture, we invite Jesus to speak truth to us. Satan wants us to have the mindset that tomorrow will not get better—this is only darkness and a lie,” she said. When we turn to Jesus and invite His truth, she continued, we’re able to cling to hope.

Pablo encouraged continuing to pray the vocal prayers of the Church, such as the Our Father and Hail Mary. However, she said that to grow in our relationship with Jesus, we need to speak with Him freely as we would with a friend.

“Communicate with the Lord authentically when you’re happy, when you’re upset, and when you’re sad. Jesus is Jesus, and He knows it all. But He wants to hear it from you. He wants to hear it from your heart. It says in the Catechism that prayer is a surge of the heart. And so, when we talk about prayer, it’s just your heart talking to His most Sacred Heart and communicating. And this is how things are transformed.” 

When Pablo was a child, she had multiple illnesses and ear surgeries. At one point, she almost died. Although she was raised in a Hispanic Catholic home with parents who were leaders in their parish, she said she struggled with really knowing Jesus. It wasn’t until she was a young adult and helped at a youth camp that she was confronted in Confession about her hypocrisy—living one way with her family and church friends and another way with friends outside of church. 

“It was the first realization that I had been living a little bit too ‘in the world’ and the Lord has called me to something greater than that, something higher,” she said. The experience in Confession was an invitation for self-reflection and change.

Later at the same camp, during Adoration, the same priest at Confession said to stop fighting and surrender to Jesus. “Then finally all the walls fell down, and I was able to look at who’s in front of me. The Eucharist is not a symbol. The Eucharist is a Person. It’s Jesus’ body, blood, soul, and divinity. I had a lot of doubts about my faith, but I knew that Jesus was present in the Eucharist. When I looked at Him, everything transformed and was changed.”

After the camp, Pablo spent five weeks changing her life so that she could live her faith with more integrity. “I needed a change in my life, and giving my ‘yes’ to the Lord was the best thing I’ve ever done. It was only then that I was able to understand that my hope is in Jesus. There’s a Bible verse that says may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit” (Rm 15:13).

“Every single human will probably fail you at some point in life,” she said. “You will probably fail others because we’re human. Hope is in knowing that today is not the ‘end-all-be-all.’ Hope is knowing that we’re made for more, that we’re made for heaven. You and I are called to be saints. Our hope is in Jesus. He wants a relationship with you.”

After each keynote talk, Father Caleb Vogel, vicar general for the Diocese of Boise, led the more than 1,500 teens and adults in an “activation,” a method of mental prayer that uses imagery to invite deeper listening to the Holy Spirit. 

In one activation, Father Vogel invited the audience to imagine receiving the love of the Trinity. “Love is something that can’t be held on to. It has to be given away,” Father Vogel said. Just as one needs to open opposite windows in a room to let a breeze blow through, the more we share the love we receive, the more God’s love enters in to us. He encouraged the audience to prepare for Adoration by surrendering to God’s love through worshipping Him.

“In worship, we’re giving God love. Like the breeze in the room, the more I give love, the more love comes into me. We can never outgive God’s generosity—He’s that eternal waterfall. When we love and worship, that cycle continues, and our lives become filled with the Spirit of God. And when that happens, and the love of God is pouring through me, I get transformed in it. I get pulled into the very mystery of God. That’s what I want for you.”