Pints With Aquinas - Father Boniface Gives Matt Spiritual Direction For 3 Hours

Episode Date: November 15, 2023

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Good day. I want to say how are you but we've already been hanging out so that feels wrong. How are things? I don't know how else to do it. Great. Things are great. I've been hanging out with this guy, Matt Fradd today. It's been pretty fun. Yeah, it's been good. Why are you in Steubenville other than this? To record with you. That's it. Yeah, for this trip. I come out a lot to do spiritual direction. Met with a few people today. How many spiritual directees do you have? Or are you not allowed to divulge that information? I haven't ever really counted them, but more than 10 and less than 200. Yeah, it would be a lot though, right? Like it's got to be more towards 210, I'd think. Probably. Yeah. At what point did you think I could do this?

When did you know it was a gift? I really started giving spiritual direction right after I was ordained. So about 20 years ago. And I really benefited so much from spiritual direction. So I was baptized in 97, I joined the monastery in 98, and started getting real serious spiritual direction once I joined the monastery. And it was life-saving for me in many ways, maybe not quite literally, but certainly vocation-saving and helped me to open up areas of my heart.

And I just really appreciated how much that one-on-one ministry could do. So I was ordained, I went back to Penn State to study, get a doctorate in computer science. And then while I was there, students were coming and I wanted to offer the same gift I'd received. I'm hearing more about spiritual direction these days as far as like schools for spiritual direction

and things like that. So here's a fun question. How does spiritual direction go terribly bad? You must have encountered people who maybe had a spiritual director prior and well, I think the basic misconception about spiritual direction would also be the way to go really bad. So some people have the idea that spiritual direction is the spiritual guru who gives advice from his place on high. And if people actually behave that way, spiritual direction goes really bad. So I think that's the basic model. But if spiritual direction is erring on the side of more listening, less talking, Spiritual direction is erring on the side of more listening, less talking. Pope Francis actually gave a beautiful summary of Our Lady as a model. He said, she speaks little, listens a lot, and cherishes in her heart.

And when she says something, it really has an impact. It's a beautiful summary. So if people do spiritual direction that way, erring on the side of more listening, more understanding, not presuming that they know things, not projecting their own stuff onto people, not spouting spiritual maxims that they've come up with from some strange place, then it goes pretty well. And then obviously as you get to know the heart

more and more and understand some of the inner dynamics and more experience, all of that improves things. I know as a father of four children, I see how different each of them are. And if you were to meet my children, not knowing them as I do, you may think they're rather similar or that two of them are almost identical or something. But the more you get to know people, the more you know, just, is that your experience? Oh, absolutely. Yeah, people are so different. And people are all the same in the sense of really needing to be loved, but they need to be loved in their own individual ways, not in a generic way, but in a very personal way. And yeah, there's so much uniqueness.

It really is amazing. And I get the privilege of knowing a lot of people from the inside and just amazed at the difference in people. I remember I said to you once before one of our sessions, I was just a little nervous to just dump all a bunch of stuff on you. And I said something like, doesn't get exhausting. Like listening to all this crap. I'm so sorry for what I'm about to do to you.

And you said, no, you said vulnerability is the most beautiful. What'd you say? Something like that. Yeah, vulnerability is always lovable. It's not exhausting for you. It's not, not at all. No, defenses are exhausting. So dealing with people's defenses is really hard.

And bringing down defenses, helping people to feel safe enough that the defenses can come down. And then once you reach that place of vulnerability, that someone's really willing to open their heart, that's just so beautiful. I mean, you're really, like, this is the place inside of us, our deepest space of interiority where God is. I mean, there's something really divine, something eternal in that innermost space, but it requires a lot of trust to open up those places. The journey of developing trust is some work,

but it's so worth it, especially in getting to those places that someone can really open their heart. We've talked about this, about how defenses are necessary when you're being attacked. So we talk about letting your defenses, but if you've grown up in an environment where you needed to defend parts of your heart. Well, it's, on the one hand, we can look on the cross and see the fullness of divinity

revealed as infinite vulnerability. So that's what God is capable of. Divine power makes him capable of infinite vulnerability to make himself totally accessible to us. So, one might draw the conclusion, well, one should be vulnerable all the time then. But that's not what we see in Jesus. So he didn't entrust himself to them because he knew human nature very well, John 2.12, right?

Or they're going to throw him off the brow of the hill and he slips out of their midst. So he has his own defenses. He disappears. He doesn't show up publicly for the feast, he says certain things, he speaks in parables so that only some will understand him. He's using a lot of different things to not fully reveal himself, but it's not because he's not capable or is too afraid or something like that. He knows what's best for us, and so he leads us into a place that he can reveal more and more,

and then ultimately on the cross he reveals everything. But even then, he doesn't force us to see him. How many people reject the cross? How many of us even who don't reject the cross actually see the vulnerability of God there? So, yeah, learning to be vulnerable, because it's really repairing the fall. The fall was a distrusting God that led to a distrust in others that made themselves aware that they could be wounded. So in some sense, this is John Paul II's development in the theology of the body.

He talks about original nakedness, which Adam and Eve had originally. And so when Adam saw her, he gasped at last, flesh of my flesh and bone of my bone. But a little later, we hear him tell God, I realized I was naked and so I hid myself. So nakedness has now become vulnerable because of distrust entering in and the possibility of being wounded. And so now Adam, with the help of God, is in a process of recovering trust and moving back to an original unity. And that's the whole putting together of salvation history. And don't we see God sewing together animal skins for them? Yeah, that's right. So he's... What does that say about the

understanding of God? You know, he doesn't just say get rid of the fig leaves and... That's right. What can we learn from that? Yeah, so the animal skins are certainly a more comfortable defense, you might say. So giving them permission to hide themselves so that they can move into a place of trust and then intentionally reveal themselves in order to form a communion of persons. Do you find in spiritual direction that people keep trying to get you to be vulnerable with them so they can trust you more? I think that'd probably be like, that's how I trust people, is if I believe they're willing to share part of their heart with me, and yet that's not the point of spiritual direction, I suppose. Well, we, in our book, Father Tom and I talk about spiritual direction and the vulnerability of the spiritual director. There is a way that the spiritual director is vulnerable in the receptivity.

So I think someone really feels whether they're being understood and received. And that's a risk. To receive another person is a risk. It's to let down defenses of suspicion, skepticism, of we're entering into someone else's pain, we're entering into their story, we're taking them at face value. There's real trust in receiving and listening as well. And so that's really felt and a bond builds there.

Sometimes, and I'm willing to, you know, share a little bit. I sort of feel out where people are and what they need in order to trust me. I'm more and more visible, I suppose, and so that some of that comes a little bit easier for me, perhaps. But yeah, some people will ask questions, want to know a little bit of my story, and I'm always just kind of giving enough to build trust. Mason Eulers Go ahead and listen to the points of the coin. It's the first episode. Come back to me. Do you think sometimes people have the

misconception that spiritual direction should look like, say, a monk and the spiritual elder who live together in the same cell in monasticism? Do you know what I'm saying? Angus Well, that's some of the origin of it. Mason Eulers That's the origin of it, but it seems to me that if you were to live in that sort of close proximity with a spiritual father, then the obedience required of you to him is a lot more expected. And I think that some people think that they want a similar relationship with somebody that they meet once a month. In other words, you tell me what to do and that's infallible and I'll do that thing. Whereas that's probably inappropriate here, but maybe it isn't

in that relationship of, you know. Yeah, I think even in that close relationship, it looks more like the trust that develops between friends in the sense that Jesus uses it in John 15. He says, if you're my friends, do what I command you. And he doesn't expect that. I said it to my kids. I don't see it. But that builds on a trust that develops over time. And when you have close friends,

we know what that looks like. We look to our friend and he says, you're gonna love this movie or go check out this thing or try out this show or do, you know, and we say, yeah, because he's my friend, he knows me, he's not gonna tell me to do something that's bad for me. He's not just throwing out ideas, he's actually entering into my heart and then is speaking.

And I think that's even in the example that you gave with the spiritual father, the monk who lives in a kind of mentoring relationship with him, that's the level of trust that develops, but that's not some kind of like abstracted artificial thing. And I think in spiritual direction, even once a month, yeah, I mean, the spiritual director is not getting into the daily details of someone's life normally. Sometimes a thing comes up here or there, and being able to talk through something with a trusted spiritual father can be a great blessing.

But still, the sort of trust between a director and a directee with those monthly meetings can be very deep and beautiful. Do you think everyone should seek to have a spiritual director, or if not, who should? Well, I think what Pope Francis said in the Joy of the Gospel, I've sort of made a little should seek to have a spiritual director or if not, who should? Well I think what Pope Francis said in the Joy of the Gospel, I've sort of made a little bit of a life anthem, it guides a lot of my work. He says everyone in the church needs to be introduced into the art of accompaniment. And I think having somebody that I can share my heart with, that I can share the inner

places where God dwells in me and those vulnerable places. I think we all need that to really grow. That doesn't need to always look like a formal relationship between a spiritual director and a directee. I think it can take a variety of forms. I always say, so I have a spiritual direction school, the Institute for Ministry Formation,

and we've formed, well, we have a couple hundred people in the program. Well, that's not quite true. 150 or something that we have been through. But the, I would say that spiritual direction is kind of on a spectrum where you can think of the highly experienced, trained, knowledgeable, with the gift of it on one end, but then this accompaniment, someone who knows how to listen, who cares, who can set aside their own agenda to really receive the other person, to create a space that I can share my spiritual life.

And this person is going to gradually move in that direction as they get more experience and deepen their own lives of prayer and everything else. I think somewhere on that spectrum, I think we all need people in our lives like that. Yeah. My wife has a woman who's older than her, who's just a good, joy-filled, loving, holy woman.

And she's that. She's a spiritual mother of sorts for her. Yeah. Do you ever have people ask you to tell them what to do? Oh yeah. And how do you handle that? Well, I can usually explore the question a little bit and, and see what, what that's coming from and what they're getting at. And it's always the case that we're most likely to be successful at the things we discover ourselves. And so even though I may have some idea

what might be helpful, I'm still going to help the person discover that, explore where is that coming from? Sometimes it's really a running away from myself. I'm afraid to look at my own desires. I'm afraid to face my own weaknesses. And so a defense comes out that you tell me and I've really exiled part of myself in order to get you to be my conscience or my choosing or something like that.

So I don't want anybody to lose part of themselves. I want to hear with that. Where is that fear? Where's that weakness? Where's that struggle? Where's that deeper place that I can kind of help come forward? I think I have the kind of personality where I'd like you to tell me something to do, but ultimately if I didn't want to do that thing, I wouldn't. Do you experience that a lot? I'd like to say a part of you would like me to tell you something to do. But there are other parts of you that would not like to do that.

And so. Can we get into that, the parts work and what that means? Yeah. This is fascinating stuff. Yeah. You know, it's, to pull it out of a tradition, and I think where everybody understands, like we use language about head and heart, for example.

In my head, I know, in my heart I don't know, or I can't trust. We hear this language in St. Paul in Romans 7. He says, �I do not do what I want to do. I do what I hate.� And so there's another principle at work in me. So we have this kind of inner multiplicity. Darrell Bock I'm thinking of Pascal. The heart has reasons of which the reason knows not. Right, exactly. So we have a sense there are two different parts of me, head and heart. And even Freud with the ego, the superego, the id. So he's getting at experimentally and meeting with people some different inner, even potentially conflictual things in us.

So the idea of inner multiplicity, I think we all adhere to. And then there are some different models that have tried to like tease out what this looks like and how these parts relate. And internal family systems is one that I know a bit better. And- Are you tired of talking of it or? I know, I think it's fascinating.

Cause I'd like to hear about it. Yeah. I remember it being really helpful in my own life. Yeah, I, I, I've heard as I used to travel and speak and interact with people who were therapists for people with sex addiction and pornography addiction, you can quibble about the addiction terminology, but the point is things that have gained mastery over their lives. I remember someone telling me to say to people, they would say to people, you have to kind of almost like you, you say what I'm about to say way better.

Okay. Cause it's going to sound scandalous. What I'm about to say. He said, you almost have to like reconcile with that part of you that went to pornography. You have to, in a way say, and again, you're going to clarify this with people pornography. Thank you. Thank you for what you've been for me,, you're going to clarify this with people, pornography. Thank you.

Thank you for what you've been for me, what you've sought to be for me, the needs you've sought to meet. But I don't, I don't need you anymore. I no longer am in need of that. It kind of reminds me of when Gollum was having the conversation with himself and then he says to himself, go away and never come back because he now has master who he can trust, you know. Say that way better. Well, I might just generalise away from pornography for a moment, but there are different defences.

So when we, a part of us that's more vulnerable, often we think of it as being a littler part. So a part that's a little bit defenseless and easily hurt a little child in us. We have other defenses that come forward. So when I'm afraid that I'm going to get yelled at for doing something wrong, there's a manager part of me that starts to work really hard to anticipate every possible mistake.

And I'm going to anticipate every possible mistake. And I'm going to avoid any possible thing that might cause somebody to yell at me for doing something wrong. And so that turns into a kind of perfectionism and maybe sort of micromanaging, whatever that can get pushed into an extreme functioning is what we normally talk about. Manager parts are one kind of defense. Firefighters are another kind of defense where it's like as soon as that pain comes up, I'm doing something to wash out all the pain. That could be exploding, that could be running away, that could be some addictive behavior,

drinking or pornography. It could be some way of just trying to wash out that pain. Another way I've heard of it about the firefighter is when there's a fire in the house, the firefighters aren't interested in whether or not they're getting mud on the rug or breaking things. They just crash in and deal with the problem, but then leave a lot in their wake. And we have those parts in us too. That's right. Yeah. And varying levels of destruction. There can be other ways that we Yeah, and varying levels of destruction. There can be other ways that we run away or flee from ourselves even that are not quite as destructive and yet are having the same effect that I'm not really, I'm just sort of washing out the problem or the pain. So manager, firefighter, whatever. And then when those protectors come, stronger parts of us become more foreground and kind of take over,

and they tend to be a little bit two-dimensional. It's not the whole of us. And things like intellectualization is another, I mean, it's a kind of manager usually, but speaking of that head language, sometimes I go into my head because I want to distance the pain in my heart. I'm afraid to connect with somebody.

And so I ramp up into this intellectual space. Just another example using the head and heart language. And so what am I doing? I'm exiling my heart. I'm pushing it to the margins so that I don't feel these things. And then I'm not dealing with those parts. So we call those exiles or a part of us that gets exiled. Explain that to me because you brought that up previously in this episode. What do we mean by that? So driving a part of us to the margins outside

of our conscious experience so it sort of disappears. That might be a temporary thing, so I can be a little bit vulnerable. You know, when I'm around a powerful figure, sometimes a sort of like you. That's right. So when I'm around a powerful figure, sometimes a part of me that becomes hyper attentive and kind of fawning or appeasing can come forward. And other parts of me that really want to be seen and understood and that have things to share.

And those parts just get pushed so far to the background that I can't even access them in that moment. I had something similar happen when I began, when I left home and I was living with a family in a totally different state, I just, I realized that I was expecting the man of this household, I was much younger, to act in the same way that my father acted in certain circumstances. And I found myself continually shocked that he wasn't reacting to the way I expected him to react.

There was definitely this timidness, like I don't want to do anything that I shouldn't be doing, I don't want to annoy you. And it was, is that kind of what you mean? Yeah, that's right. So those kinds of connections and triggers and are precisely the things that we react to spontaneously. We can, shifting modalities a little bit, talk about that in trauma language,

it gets into our nervous system. Or we can talk about it in domestic language, it's in the cogitative power. So it's not even going up into our intellectual processing, we're not really conceptualizing, we're not making decisions, it's a spontaneous reaction. And we're doing that because of a face or a position of power or some other point of connection that's triggering some past trauma really.

It's strange when you meet people who aren't like you, which is everybody in a way. Why doesn't this bother you? Why do I react so negatively in these situations? Yeah, it's fascinating. I want to share with you a quotation that I'm going to just open this up, but feel free to keep talking while I look it up because it's very, very powerful. But yeah, that is, it's humbling to encounter people who are not like us and we wish that we were more like them.

Well, it can really shine a light on some area of our heart that may need some healing. And especially another nice insight from IFS is that in addition to these parts, some that function as managers, some that function as firefighters, some that end up getting exiled, but we also have a self, an innermost self. And that's meant to be like a conductor with the parts being the instruments of an orchestra. So it's meant to be integrated,

all working together harmoniously as one under the conducting of the self. And the qualities of the self, it's really kind of a fascinating thing. But anyway, the Dr. Richard Schwartz, who developed IFS, described the self with eight C's and I can never come up with all eight of them. But you get a sense of so compassion, creativity, connectedness, calm, courage, anyway, a few others, but curiosity. So that's one of the ways,

if we can look at some of those places, so we see somebody who responds maybe to a powerful person without some of the kind of fawn response that might come up in me. And I look at that and then I say, oh, I'm different. And then rather than condemning myself, why am I so bad? Why do I always appease? So that's another part of me that's trying to control.

It's another manager that's gonna kind of beat me up. And so to try to control the appease part of me, but it's not really helping get to the bottom of the problem. But if I can instead look at that, just be curious about that. Why is that a peace part coming up? Why is that response happening in me? Why is it different in me than that person? And that compassion and curiosity is the quality of self that I can step back into.

And then I can start to see a little bit better and then start to work with those parts a little bit more. And you make much more ground with curiosity and compassion than condemning yourself. Absolutely. Yeah. Have you heard of Father Mark Foley? Yeah, I don't know him real well. He's a carmelite and he wrote a book on Therese of Lisieux and psychology. I want to read this and as I do I want to talk to you about it because it's one of the most powerful things I've read lately. He says, the nature of healing. Freud once said that therapy ends when we are dealing with our problems and they are no longer dealing with us. 35 years ago when I was a gung-ho undergraduate psychology major, Freud's viewpoint sounded

pessimistic and depressing. Now as a man in his 60s who is still struggling with the same fears and neurotic tendencies that I wrestled with in my youth, I see Freud's perspective as being realistic. For are not our deeply rooted, deeply embedded and deeply entrenched personality traits chronic, obdurate and unyielding by definition? Even though I believe that by the grace of God I am not the man I was 35 years ago, I can honestly say that much emotional healing has taken place in my heart. Nevertheless, during times of stress, when my old fears and erotic compulsions well up within me in all this savage intensity, I feel that nothing has changed.

I say to myself, when will I ever be rid of this fear? All right, friends, listen to this, because this next thing I'm going to read to you is such gentle and kind news for frightened hearts like my own and your own. OK, so when am I going to be free of this? How often have you said that to yourself? You know, once I could accept the answer, never. I felt a great weight taken off my shoulders for I was released from the impossible goal of trying to become someone other than myself. Oh, I'll end it with this last line. Working on yourself can be an insidious mask of self-hate, for it makes you feel that there is something wrong with you until you are quote unquote healed.

That's really beautiful. Wow. I have so many times in my life. I'm like, when? Why can't I be like that? Like, what is so wrong with me that I can't seem to get this part of me right? And you would never think that the answer is, oh, never you'll never be free of it. Like, who would have thought that would have been so relieving? Where's that from? Oh, I wish I could tell you. If you look up Father Mark Foley, it has Therese Lezieu on the cover.

Oh, it's a context of holiness. That's it. Context of holiness. Okay, that's a question. Let me just finish this because it's golden and then I'd love you to wax eloquently on it. I have often told people who come to me for spiritual direction to never make it a goal to conquer their faults. Huh? Simply ask for the grace to resist the temptation of the moment. Take it for granted that you will always have tendencies towards sin and self-destructive behaviors, which will always be opportunities to grow in virtue and rely upon the grace of God. I had no need to grow up, says Therese. Therese did not

make it a goal to get beyond the effects of her childhood, but to do the will of God in the midst of them. Therese understood that the emotional wounds of her childhood were not obstacles to spiritual growth, but the context of growing in Yeah. Therese understood that the emotional wounds of her childhood were not obstacles to spiritual growth, but the context of growing in holiness. Therese can help us to refocus our goal in life. She tells us to keep our minds on doing the will of God. If our emotions are transformed in the process, all well and good, praise God. But if they are not changed, they are the context in which we will grow in God's love. That's really beautiful. Yeah. Yeah, and I'm moved in hearing that

and then just kind of reflecting on some of the things we've said already to highlight the necessity of other people and the goal of communion. So going back to what we were talking about, the separation, so in original nakedness, Adam and Eve could behold each other and form a communion of persons on their mutual self-gift and receiving of the other.

And then as sin enters in, the division enters in, the distrust enters in, the defenses enter in, the self-covering enters in. And then we work towards a trust that can again reveal any, you know, obviously in nakedness, we're talking primarily about the interior nakedness, self-revelation. And so, can we receive the other, can we be received with all of those limitations? So the things that he's working on, his faults. And I think it's a turn that a lot of spiritual tendencies, spiritual traditions have taken and even it's a danger with something like IFS because it's developing self-insight, that I'm gonna do it all on my own.

I'm gonna sort out all the things, I'm gonna understand all the inner dynamics, I'm gonna conquer them all, and then I'm going to be able to enter into all these relationships. But as a broken person who can't fully see everything until in fact I share it with somebody who can receive me see everything until in fact, I share it with somebody who can receive me

in a vulnerable way, who can receive me in a non-judgmental, compassionate and curious way, then all of my mess can still enter into communion. And it's that communion, which is what heaven is made of. Heaven is total communion. Heaven isn't everybody being perfect on their own and these sort of separated monads of self-sufficiency. Heaven is a perfect communion of love in which everyone has something to give and something to receive and

and it's only in the communion that we ultimately find some stability, harmony, some resolution with those things. Or to say it another way, you know, strength and weakness match up. And so my weakness is always a near occasion of communion. When my weakness can become a way of receiving the strength of another, then the strength makes sense and the weakness makes sense as they come together and mutual support. Or you need to say that in a different way so I can fully get that I think. So when I have a, we can we can say it in a really utilitarian way, you know I have

a hunger and you have a sandwich and so your sandwich finds its value in my hunger. Okay. I have a heart that needs to be understood, a weakness I can't solve my own problem. Well, I have things to share and you have a YouTube channel, right? You know, so like things fit together. Or another way, even miracles, right? I had this kind of stark experience

of being at an encounter school of ministry intensive training about how to pray for miracles of healing. They taught the method and then they were going to demonstrate and they said, is there anybody who needs healing? So you can't do a miracle unless somebody needs healing. So what's more important? The one who does the miracle or the one who needs the miracle? Well they're both important together.

And so many things find their resolution in communion. And so it's not all about me figuring out all of my faults. It's about me learning how to bring my faults into communion for them to be received and for me to be loved. And the person who loves is blessed by having those faults and my weakness, my brokenness to love. And this is how healing and restoration, this is how we move closer to heaven. And what has Jesus done? Of course, he's brought all of the strength of God and we could say the weakness of God.

He brings all of the vulnerability of God. He makes himself weak by giving us freedom. He gives us the power to reject him, to run from him, to turn away from him. He gives us the power of genuine free will. And then he makes us beggar. He makes himself a beggar before us. He can't give himself our free will. He's really given it to us. But then we also can't do it without him. I'm just thinking how diabolic it is to then think that I can't come to God unless I have my stuff together. Right? Yeah, absolutely.

When it's, are you trying to say to me that it's, it's, it's my weaknesses and sins and all that, that gets healed in communion. That's right. And so if I think to myself, well, I can't come into communion until I get this taken care of, then I won't ever have this taken care of. Yeah. And even, you know, the idea that we don't bring it into communion just so that it will be healed so that we don't need communion anymore. That's another, it's one of the problems with the image of Jesus as divine physician. Most of us don't want a lifelong relationship with our physician. Maybe that was the case in the past. It tends not to be in the present. We want to be healed so that I don't need to go to the physician anymore. But Jesus wants to bring us into relationship with Him.

He doesn't need us to fix all of our things. He wants to keep loving us there and providing for us there. That changes how people should think of confession then, doesn't it? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, we don't go to confession so that we'll never go to confession again. Confession is part of our relationship with God, that I'm always bringing my weakness, my need for healing, the places in my heart that are still imperfect and just need His love. Drawing on that wonderful book, I Believe in Love, he says something to the effect, I think I'm paraphrasing, but surely it's a delightful thing for the savior to save.

You know, like you're a delight to him. And if you've sinned, then what a delightful thing for you to get to confess your sin to the one who finds it delightful to forgive. Like even in your sin, you can be a delight for him by turning to him. Yeah. Yeah. And it's, I really experienced that so much in spiritual direction and in confession. I mean, it really is so beautiful to be able to forgive sins.

It's so beautiful to receive brokenness, to be, to be tender with weakness, to help someone to feel understood and safe. tender with weakness to help someone to feel understood and safe and all of my fatherhood grows in the process of having sons and daughters who trust. So that's really mutual. I think I'm sure you can say from the perspective of being a parent, I mean, you know, the fact that you have something to give your children

doesn't diminish you. But they can refuse your gift and that's painful. I do these things with my kids frequently whenever it occurs to me. I say, all right, until tomorrow morning, you can tell me anything you've done wrong and there'll be no consequences at all. I'll do this occasionally. Clearance sale. I say, be anything. Like if you stole somebody's bike and then like set it on fire, like you can tell me anything at all. Like I give them these outrageous outlandish ideas so that they can bring to me things they might

be struggling with what they've done. And oh, like all I want as a father is, is vulnerability from them because they're so beautiful. I had a particular child, I asked this particular child about something. Did you do this? And the reflex was to lie. And then later on at night, as everyone was in bed, this particular child came downstairs and what's up? This child cried and said that they didn't know why they lied.

Oh, are you kidding? You've never been more beautiful to me, you know? That's right. So I would encourage parents to do that, to have this kind of like jubilee day that they didn't know why they lied. Oh, are you kidding? You've never been more beautiful to me. You know? That's right. So I would encourage parents to do that, to have this kind of like jubilee day where there are no punishments. There are no consequences at all.

And if you've stolen a bike and set it on fire, then dad will pay the money and you won't be nothing. It's all, that's all I want from my kids is I want them to know that there's nothing they could ever tell me that would make me, you know? That's really beautiful. Oh, I love that so much. Cause isn't that what we want from our children? We just don't want them to, that there's nothing they could ever tell me that would make me, you know, beautiful. Oh, I love that so much. Cause isn't that what we want from our children?

We just don't want to, please don't hide. Please don't hide. Yeah. Cause as soon as you start hiding, you start believing there are bits that are unlovable that you have to keep away. Oh, well it goes back a little bit to your question about how do you develop trust? Does that require me to share my life? Well, no, these generous gestures also develop trust that you can really say anything, that my love is unconditional.

And when it develops to the point that I know how you're gonna receive me, I know what you're gonna say to me. Sometimes I have directives that say that. I know what you're gonna tell me, but you still need to hear it. But I'm so glad. I have the courage to share something that I wouldn't share with anyone because I know I'm going to be loved. Mason Harkness People hearing this might think to themselves,

this is a little too airy-fairy. I don't like all this talk about gentleness. I mean, there are parts, there are certain things that should be yelled at and should be kicked into line and made to function better. Stop making bloody excuses for yourself, you know? So where does that come into it? That sort of language? What's right about that particular language? I would encourage that person to look at that manager part with curiosity and passion. We've picked that up from, from different places.

So you don't think that's ever called for? Well, I like, I mean, Jesus did put a whip together and, yeah, that's right. He was stern. That's right. People whitewash terms. He wasn't gentle there. Yeah. His Matthew 23 verses one to 36, his nearly chapter long tirade against the Pharisees. Yeah, he certainly drives a point apparently with people who

that's already, there's some defense against that and he's trying to pierce that in some way. Yeah, these weren't people repentant before him. That's right. To all those who committed the most grievous sins who were repentant before him, he showed you won't find one example of him. Every time, yeah, that's right. That's right.

Yeah, yeah, people seeking mercy always receive mercy. And his main goal clearly was always to draw out a heart that wanted mercy so that he could give the mercy. That's good. So when he speaks some of those harder words, when he exposes some of those other problems, I mean, apparently for the sake of drawing out mercy, not just for the sake of punishing, putting down,

for the sake of building himself up, or wasn't for any of those reasons, that often is in the sake of building himself up or wasn't for any of those reasons that often is in the kind of narrative that you just shared a moment ago Don't we need to beat these things up? What one insight I got from a Priest who is talking about Saint Ignatius is 14 rules for discernment in the first week is the first two rules are setting up two different paths.

One is a path of going from bad to worse, from mortal sin to mortal sin. So he's really setting up the picture of someone who is firmly going in the wrong direction. And he says the method of God in that case is biting and stinging the conscience, putting up obstacles and making the person feel uncomfortable, hurting them, stopping them in going the wrong direction. Whereas the enemy is enticing with pleasures in order to keep the person on that path. So that's a certain mode.

And then Ignatius contrasts that in rule two, and that's what all of the rest of the rules apply to, are rule two people who are really trying to do their best, going from good to better, trying to turn away from mortal sin, working in the right direction. And in that case, it's the enemy who puts up obstacles and temps and pushes and desolation,

all of these kinds of things, whereas God is encouraging and guiding and desolation, all of these kinds of things, whereas God is encouraging and guiding and building up and inspiring. So this particular priest was applying that to this concept of when do we put up obstacles and really try to stop a person? Well, when they're really like firmly moving in the wrong direction, then there can be a place of putting up obstacles. And that would be, you know, not enabling, for example,

somebody who's whatever, drinking themselves, addicted into certain things. We don't want to keep providing what's going to play into the addiction. And there may be a need to say, you know, I can't give you any more money. I can't, if you have, there are certain rules and you have to follow these rules. I can't, if you have, there are certain rules and you have to follow

these rules. I mean, in halfway houses or in addiction treatment facilities, if you're not following the rules, you can't stay here. So, so there's certain limits that, that expose a person to the, the wrong that they're doing so that they can desire repentance, not just so you can punish them and hurt them for doing. Yeah. Like I'm thinking of, uh, well, there's things called interventions where a group that they can desire repentance, not just so you can punish them and hurt them for doing that. Yeah, like I'm thinking of those things called interventions where a group of people show up at someone's house and imagine the efficacy of that. People saying, we love you and you're going down the wrong road.

And I don't, I've never been a part of that. I don't know much about it. I haven't looked into the research of how efficacious that is, but I have to think that's probably more helpful than just shouting at someone you're choosing not to care about anymore. Yeah, that's right. All of those kinds of interventions I find require a lot of self purification, because I think our temptation to kind of attack things and to put people down, to punish things, we want to force things, to, we want to force things

into resolution, we want to control things, we want, you know, we have, and that comes out of a lot of, a lot of hurt and, you know, I mean, I'm compassionate towards that desire to bring things to rapid conclusion or just get things out of my space or feel like I did what I need to do and have a little bit of a kind of self-righteous thing around that.

To actually enter into relationship with people and, and, and put up certain boundaries or, or to call people to a deeper faith. It takes a lot. Speaking of boundaries, how do you personally do that? I'm sure you have people asking you for spiritual direction or you know, you tend to be quite responsive when I text you, but I hope you never feel obligated to. How do you not feel obligated to do that? Or how do you?

Well, I'm asking, I guess I'm asking an example from yourself so that I get a lot of texts and a lot of emails from people. And I just don't respond to most of them. And I've had to choose not to feel bad about that because the people who are emailing and texting me, I've never heard of these people. Had somebody text me, I asked you for your opinion,

I'm giving you mine, but had someone text me the other day, I don't know who this person is, and if they're watching, I apologize, but I don't know who they are. And they asked me if I could please read their manuscript and endorse it, and if they could get it by Saturday. I don't even know this person, I don't know how they got my number. I don't know why they would think that I have the kind of time to do that.

I get that a lot. There might be a better way to go about it, like actually replying to everybody. But I just I've chosen not to do that. Yeah, I think I mean, we live in a time where there are some particularly weird spaces. I mean, a lot of people know you. I feel like people can send you a message on Instagram, private message, and then get offended that you didn't respond to them. I'm sorry.

I mean, but I'm not sorry. So we just, yeah, we live in a little bit of a weird time with all of that. I won't claim to know what exactly the right thing is. I guess I can say there's some things that I appreciate. Well first of all, I mean in terms of myself, I have committed relationships. I mean my directees, my community, my students, my staff, there are people that I'm in committed relationships with and I have to give priority to those people. And then within that space, I'm, you know, trying to balance according to need. And I try to really be careful of my own,

my own excuses or even things that my spiritual director, Father Tom, will say, those who are afraid of running out of time always will. And I let that challenge me on a regular basis. I try to put up, I don't have time for, it's like, okay, well, it's true. I don't have an infinite amount of time, but if I'm trying to protect my time and I start to get around that, that does bad things in my heart. Whereas if I try to be generous, if I try to be present, if I do what I can, you know. So another is kind of related to it. St. Benedict speaks of the one who is in charge of the monastery's goods, we call the procurator. And he says the procurator should receive every request. And if he cannot provide what's requested for, at least he can provide a kind word.

And so I try to really stay in that space too, when I say I would really love to do this, but I just can't. Rather than getting defensive or putting down or how dare you or, you know, so, and I can't respond to every email and text message I get either. And I'm sure it's like that for you. But yeah, again, where I have, where there's something, some organic connection, relationship, and then I try to be open to the Holy Spirit. I mean, sometimes there is a random thing that comes in

and I feel like he really wants me to respond to, and there are things that can develop from that, but I don't hold myself bound to respond to every thing I get from somebody that I don't even know. I think it's CS Lewis would respond to every letter that he got. And his thought was, if I put something out there, I've started like the book and this is a conversation. So I'm sort of obligated to carry on the conversation. Yeah.

It's easy to say when you get snail mail. Yeah, it's easy to say when you get snail mail. Yeah. It's a different thing where people can find your number online through a service and call you randomly or email you and Instagram you and all sorts of things. I guess I try to measure that a little bit, too. It seems like the amount of investment that someone puts into it. Yes.

So there's a little different, you know, text message costs nothing. Hey, Matt. Yeah. OK, so that's going to be less of a draw for me then. Yeah. Somebody who's put a lot of effort and maybe even begins to share their heart in some way. And yeah. How do you think that we should pray at all times? I mean, thinking about this a lot lately

about sort of standing present before the Lord, who is present within me as his temple, hey? And that this idea that I'm alive while I'm present before him, I'm awake. And I've been thinking a lot lately, and I'm sure this isn't unique to me. I think the Eastern Fathers talk about this as like sleeping, like we kind of, we get drowsy, when we're supposed to wake up, wake up. And like the allurements of sin make us drowsy when we're supposed to wake up wake up. Yeah, and like the allurements of sin make us drowsy You might think of sleep being in sin sort of thing or as I want to I want to be attentive to the Lord at all

times In the Summa Theologiae Thomas Aquinas says well, you can't pray at all times in one way because you got stuff to do But I believe he quotes Augustine as saying that we can pray at all times and continually desiring God. But how do you respond to that kind of injunction from St. Paul to pray without ceasing? Yeah, 1 Thessalonians 5.17. That's it. Yeah, and of course, the way of a pilgrim is such a delightful story about the pilgrim's quest for that and kind of praying the Jesus prayer. But yeah, in terms of desire, I also,

the Catechism defines contemplation or contemplative prayer as being that kind of prayer that we can do at all times. And one way to come at contemplation or contemplative prayer is in the way that St. Francis de Sales does. It's a loving awareness, a loving attentiveness to God's presence. So we can be attentive to someone,, a loving attentiveness to God's presence.

So we can be attentive to someone's, we can be aware of someone's presence while we're very devoted to another task. And I think of like St. Joseph in the workshed, he knows Jesus is there, but he's also focused on not sawing his finger off. He's not having a conversation with Jesus, but he knows that he's there.

And I think there's that way that we can develop that kind of attention, and that'll be connected in with desire. There's a word in the way of a pilgrim, one of the Stasi says, it's a continual aspiration, a yearning for God. So aspiration, attention, desire, these are things that we can have

while we have focused mental attention on some other task. Loving attentiveness, is that what you said? Yeah, yeah, to God's presence. So there's something habitual, habitual recollection that develops and an openness to the gift of God in the midst of that. I was saying to you the other day that for me, the Jesus prayer has become like, when I call my dog off, call my dog back from wandering far afield,

hey, Zellie, come, come, come. She's gone out of my sight. It's like I say that to my heart with the Jesus prayer. My heart is now in the concerns of tomorrow and regrets of yesterday and all sorts of just burdened Lord Jesus Christ Son of God have mercy on me like redirecting the heart to wake up. And I think to use the language of internal family systems of IFS that notion of the innermost self or the self that's the place where I have compassion, creativity, courage, connectedness, calm. So when I'm in that place, I'm engaged with the world, so I can have certain parts that are interacting, but I'm also really in that place. That's the

place where God dwells in me also. And I can be kind of attentive to his presence when I'm also in that place of self. So I think just to sort of merge those psychological and spiritual concepts together, the word that they use in Greek, in sort of Greek anthropology is the nus, N-O-U-S. So it's, in Greek, the word for repent is metanoete. So noete is from nus. It's to transform that innermost self, that disposition

to have a fundamental interior transformation. So when Jesus says metanoete, repent and believe in the gospel, that fundamental reorientation towards Christ. So the noose is also, I would say, where the innermost self is. And so being in that place and having sort of living out of that deepest interior center is part of that ongoing prayer to remain in communion with God. And it's kind of like healing, it seems to me. You talk about the importance of inner healing and it sounds exhausting, but it's not nearly as exhausting as not finding healing.

And it's something similar, like the fathers talk about the one thought that drives out the other thoughts. It can sound exhausting to continually desire Christ and to worship in our innermost self, but it's a lot less exhausting in the long run than attending to all the other idols clamoring for our allegiance and giving them our attention. Yeah, the other idols are far more demanding than the Lord God who wants to give us rest. Can you talk about what it means,

like we talk about Jesus living in us. Jesus himself says this, what does he say? I'm in the Father and- Whoever does my commandment, my Father will come to him and we will live in him. Yeah. We've got that, right?

They will live in us. We have this very materialistic view of ourselves. We see ourselves the way drug companies advertise how their drugs work. You know, mouth open and then stuff going into our bodies. Right, right. So you've got that. You've got this language of us being temples of the Holy Spirit. Right.

All right, so, okay, wow. I'm really, what does that mean? I'm a temple of the Holy Spirit and Jesus Christ dwells in me? To quote John Eldridge, does this not make me an outpost of Eden in a world, in a depraved world? Like, it's not far off to say I'm like a monstrance

as I walk around Sodom and Gomorrah, like being the cause of forgiveness and mercy and gentleness. I actually get to be Jesus Christ. What? I mean, I don't think we believe that at all. Um, this idea of our Lord being within us and that we can be attentive to Him truly in us and then love Him there. Please talk about that. Well, you just spoke about it beautifully. Yeah, carrying paradise around within us. Elizabeth of the Trinity uses that imagery. Heaven is Jesus and Jesus is in my soul. So I have heaven in my soul. And carrying that around. So for us to be in touch with that, again,

it's Augustine gives us this, you know, you were within and I was outside. Yes, exactly. You were within me and I was seeking for you. Rushing about. Everything else. And because I didn't want to face the ugliness that I perceived in myself, that idea

that we have a deepest interior center. He's more innermost than my innermost self, you know, to again, quote Augustine and even that idea, Thomas Merton actually uses this image of, there's a place in you from which you are still being created, like there's a font of life that's sort of deeper than yourself because yourself is coming forth from it, but yourself is coming forth from it. So you're really connected to it.

So that idea of deeper, deeper, deeper that the Lord dwells there. But then to not go pantheist, he is also higher than my highest self. He is also higher than my higher most, my highest self. He is also far beyond me. So don't lose a sense of what heaven is in its infinity and its transcendence, and then also make it intimate. And that's the paradox that we live in. Something really beautiful in that. And then, yeah, what a confidence.

I don't know if you know Monsignor Essay, if he likes to say, you know, he goes, I read the Pope Pius XII's encyclical, Mystici corporis,, that's, I read, I read the Pope Pius, the 12th, encyclical, mystici, corporis. And that's when I realized I'm Jesus. I am Jesus. I went and told my parents, did you know that I'm Jesus? But that idea like to, to know that we're carrying that kind of grace, we're carrying that kind of healing

power, that capacity for communion, for mercy, that we're bringing a taste of paradise around into the world. And how to believe that that's more than poetic. Yeah. And by poetic, I mean, nearly symbolic. Yeah, well, I think I suppose we have to tap into our own experience a little bit, try it and see what happens. I mean, I think we can testify to it.

And I want to say also, I'm pressing into this. It's a good opportunity for it. Like, as much as we're talking about myself, heaven in myself, my body, my temple of the Holy Spirit, again, it has a tendency to move towards that, I'm self-contained, self-sufficient, I'm my own thing. John Paul II acknowledges the sovereignty of the person and the individuality of the person and the free will of the person, and that the person is in the image and likeness of God. He calls that original solitude. He says, we are in the image and likeness of God, but we're even more in the image and likeness of God

when we're in a communion of persons, because God is a communion of persons. And so it's precisely bringing this capacity in us. And that's what he says, Adam is looking around the garden for another original solitude, which he doesn't find in any of the animals. And I learned this line from Christopher West.

He says, what is an original solitude? It's eyes that open up to a heart that has a story. So when I can look into eyes and see a heart that has a story, that's an original solitude. And that's capable of forming a communion of persons. And I would say that when we experience that, I mean, I have to say, I'm sort of tasting this now

and talking with you anyway, and spending time with you in general. But you know, it's like we get a little taste of paradise. We get a little taste of, yeah, this is how things are supposed to be. There's mutual love, respect, peace, understanding, truth. God is here. God is in this place.

This reminds me of a conversation I had recently with Dr. Ben Reinhardt about CS Lewis talking, these fellows, I think it was Lewis who said something to the effect that, you know, let's say there's three of you. You would think that when one of you leaves, the two would get more of each other. But he says what happens is often less because it's that third one who brought out something that the other couldn't. Beautiful. Yeah. There's that communion again, huh? Yeah, that's right. Yeah, there's more than the sum of the parts. Yeah. Yeah. So that, we have all these, how does this become more than symbolic? How is this more than, again, try it. It's, uh, we give it's no less mysterious

than saying that the host is the body, blood, soul, and the unity of Jesus Christ. Certainly. If you can wrap your head around that, then just regardless of how you look, you perhaps far more mysterious than you think you are. And so just begin with that assumption. Begin with what Christ has said and believe it, regardless of how things seem and act accordingly, maybe. Yeah, yeah, that's right. I want to tell you about a course that I have created for men to overcome pornography. It is called strive21.com slash Matt.

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like that. Strive21, that's Strive21.com slash Matt, or as I say, Text STRIVE to 66866 to get started today. You won't regret it. Would you lead us in a sort of prayer of descent? Would you lead us in a sort of, I want to love Jesus in me. I want to like feel affection for him. You know, could you lead us? Let's try it. Yeah. Let's do it. All y'all listening, turn off all other distractions and pray with us.

Yeah. Yeah. Let's just take a, take a few moments in, in silence. And I do. So if you're, if you're driving, you might not want to enter into this right now, listen to it later. But if you can close your eyes, if you can set aside distractions, just listen and just enter into a, into an interior place and just be aware, first of all, of what's going on inside of you.

Maybe there are a lot of things pressing. See if you can just let that go, get to it later. It'll still be there when you get back. Just enter into a deeper place. As you allow yourself to settle, maybe you can think of throwing a pebble into a stream and this has a way of getting picked up by a current but it sinks a little bit deeper. Maybe picked up by another current, a feeling, a thought,

something going through, but just keep applying gravity. Let it fall, come to rest. fall, come before you. Allow eyes that look at you with unconditional love to see you, to see into your eyes. Any defenses of insecurity or feelings of unworthiness, ugliness, try to let those fall beneath that gaze. Let his gaze melt those away. He sees you with all the limitations,

all that you've done, he sees you. And he loves you. Let yourself come to rest beneath that gaze. And then he asks you, will you take me into your heart? Will you make room for me? Will you let me of something you've done or something he'll see, you can tell him. But he tells you, I'm not bothered by any of that. I see you. I love you. And I want to live in you always.

You are a home for me. And maybe you can imagine him just taking a seat on a couch in your inner heart. And can you just come sit next to him there? No demands, no expectations, no obligations. Just be with me. Rest in that innermost center of yourself with me. And I just encourage you, if this is taking you to a new place, if it's taking you to an experience or maybe refreshed or renewed an experience of God's presence, I just encourage you to take a kind of snapshot, the feelings, the images, just what's happening in you right now.

This can be a little place to return to. It's a place to bring to mind when you're sitting in traffic, a place to bring to mind when you're walking through a street or waiting in a line. Just come back to this place of resting with Him, being in communion with Him. And if your heart's really settled down, it helps to just move out of this place. Bring this into regular life gently.

So why don't we just pray the Lord's Prayer together. Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. Amen. Going back to what we said earlier about the surprise we feel when others aren't like us, when they don't have the same irritations that we do, I got that sense you know, that when you were saying about Lord coming in and I

just had this image of me like running about the place, like, so sorry, just cleaning up. I'm so yeah, welcome. And, and him not caring, like you said, just not being bothered. How can you not be bothered? I'm terribly bothered. What, what do you, what do you want? I don't want anything that can't be true. Surely you want? I don't want anything that can't be true Surely you want something mmm. Yeah, I Have a friend like that. Dr. Jerry Creed. I love him. He's a guy. There's a man who when I'm in his presence. He's just Hmm. How are you? I'm fine. What do you want to do? What do you? Just very often at peace and just sort of

Yeah It's just very often at peace and just sort of, yeah. And then you kind of relax a little, oh, okay. Learning to do nothing, just to be in his presence. And it's again that the importance of relationships, we need people like that in our lives. We're not just expected to do that for ourselves. Thank God that's a, he has a presence that can bring you calm. I'm sure you have a presence that energy energizes him in some way.

You know, it's a, it's beautiful. That's what we always support each other. Yeah. I love that. I love that Mark Folley's line again just about, when will I be free of this? And often what we want to be free of is the thing that our friends love us for. It's so true.

Yeah, those little idiosyncrasies, the little personal problems, the struggles, that's a place that can really be brought into communion. I look at my children, if they wanted to be different, it would break my heart Yeah, I like you so much, you know, please don't be different If I want you to be different what I'm what I mean by that is I want you to scrape off the things that aren't You anyway so that you can be you again, right? That's all I want

Yeah. Yeah, we project ourselves onto people. Why can't you be more like me? Oh Do we really want mirror images of ourselves running around everywhere? It's not a pleasant thought. It's beautiful thing being married because it's the same thing. Like I'm constantly surprised at my wife cause she's not like me. I don't know if there's a, there's a cynicism, you know, like, like she watches these videos. I would not watch. I would not watch her videos. I don't want to watch her.

Like if she does a video with a friend, I don't want to watch it. Not interested. I like her. If she tells me to, then I'll try. And I'm sure I'll enjoy it to some degree. So what do you mean you watch? She'll comment under it. She's, and I know she's watched like three hours in. She'll say something nice. I'm like, who are you? Oh, that's sweet. That's really beautiful.

What do you think of marriage? I mean, as someone who's celibate doing this work with another human being, laying your defenses down in front of each other. And then just when you've got her to lay hers down you punch her right in the throat Not literally you understand but with your words, you know, you try to hurt you find you manipulating You didn't realize you were she feels the same and then you're supposed to turn them again. Oh That's what your vulnerabilities your defenses come up and hit her vulnerabilities

I was chatting with Jacob Imam and he was saying to me, he's like, you know, people say marriage is hard. It's hard. It's not hard at all. I'm like, dude, you just must be a better man than me. Maybe Alice is a better woman than my wife, dude. Cause it's hard. Oh man. No, I'm always amazed that two human beings can commit each other, themselves to each other for an entire lifetime. To keep putting their shield down. To keep going deeper, to keep discovering. Yeah, it's amazing. It's amazing. But it's no less painful than your own journey

into sanctification. Yeah. You think of how painful it is for yourself to unearth these things, these defenses, to find yourself lovable in the midst of it, like how hard that is and yet how good it is. It's no less difficult with a woman. And you see why people in Hollywood

bail on each other constantly. Oh, yeah. Yeah, because it's the cross. Yeah. It's another place, you know, the theology of the body does this kind of communion in difference through sexuality. So Adam is not Eve and Eve is not Adam, male is not female and female is not male. And we could talk about it in terms of weakness and strength.

One of the weaknesses of men is that they're not women. One of the weaknesses of women is that they're not men. You know, you could sort of say it in that way too, but it makes communion possible. But it's always this communion and difference. And so there's always a fascination there because it really is different. And there's also a difficulty there

because somehow I never quite get inside of the other to fully, I don't understand it in myself. I understand it v it from in myself. I understand it vicariously in love. And, but there's a continual opportunity for communion. And then as you say, brings up all of our stuff, any two human beings living together and supporting each other, we'd have to work through all of that kind of stuff.

But then obviously the special complementarity of male and female is it's own unique wonder. I assume my mate Bob Lesniewski, he's a little few years older than me. And we were talking about the importance of having friendships with married men and women who are like around the same age as us. Cause cause like when you're friends with a newlywed couple, they don't understand what you mean by intentionally hurt the other. He went, Oh dear.

Like you need to, yeah, you need to, I'm sure it's similar in the priesthood. Just being with another man who. Yeah. Yeah. There's a certain thing that looks at the crosses and trials of celibacy or being obedient to a bishop or. or being obedient to a bishop or, yeah, there's probably like a something you come to know that you can't communicate with a novice or something, but he shouldn't be expected to know. Yeah.

I mean, anything with the celebration of the sacraments, how easily one can, I don't know, start taking the Eucharist for granted or some of the struggles in being present in confession or just some of those aspects certainly in the context of the of the presbyterate or the relationship with the bishop relationship with the people, a congregation, ways to embody our own spiritual fatherhood that we fail at. And we understand each other in that in a particular way, the needs that we have that it would be inappropriate to get from spiritual children and yet for those to be met and seen and for us to have people to share with. And so yeah, certainly.

So what else you've been up to? What else you've been working on? You seem like someone who's constantly thinking and reading and processing and... Well, I'm a... Well, a couple of things that would be fun to talk about. So I just published a book on the fruit of her womb, a Marian consecration, 33 day consecration. Can I tell them what I told you over text message? Yeah. This book came to my office and I read the title and I almost rolled my eyes like, Oh great.

Another Bloody Mary. God's just what we need. And someone who with father pine wrote one, you know, and then I saw your name like, Oh my gosh, I got to read this. So that's actually a compliment to believe it or not. Yeah. Why I feel complimented. Thank you.

And it's very beautiful. It's really beautiful. Yeah. Sophia Institute Press did a beautiful job publishing it. It's full color pictures for every day of the consecration. Yeah. Yeah, it's really nicely laid out. And I think I read a bit of the intro, but that's it. So how, what is it?

Why did you feel the need to do it? Yeah, it's a 33 day consecration that follows de Monfort's structure. So he didn't actually write a consecration. He provided a structure and he didn't provide all the readings and reflections and prayers. He mentioned a couple and he gave, but the base basic structure is 12 days of self emptying from the world, a week of knowledge of self, a week of knowledge of Mary, a week of knowledge of Jesus, and then the consecration. And the consecration is a total handing over of my will to Jesus through Mary.

That's the basic thing of it. So I took the same structure, but then I provided readings and prayers and things that I found really accessible. I've done a lot of reading in part because of my work on We Are One Body Radio from the Popes. It was in some ways my greatest hits collection of writings from Pope Benedict, Pope John Paul, Pope Francis, some of the Saints on some of these different aspects. Something that's also been so central in my own spirituality and in helping others is the whole concept of littleness,

which St. Therese, of course, captured and expressed so beautifully. And the thing about littleness, I think St. Therese makes such a beautiful turn in this because littleness is about limitation, but it's lovable limitation because we love little children. So she shows us how limitation can be lovable and gives us a kind of visceral connection with that. So instead of slavery, which Louis de Montfort uses, this is my one kind of critical

adjustment of his language, and that's what I explained in the introduction. But instead of slavery, which I don't think you can do well maybe anywhere, but certainly not in the United States, we don't get the sense of limitation and lovableness from slavery. So I took this turn, also using a word from Louis De Montfort, he's actually quoting St. Augustine, which is that all Christians are baptized into the womb of Mary until they're born into eternal life. So the womb is very limiting, and it gives us permission to feel like really closed in,

very small, very helpless, very needy, and yet not disgusting for that reason, but really embraced in love by our mother. So I use this kind of theme of being in the womb of Mary and emphasizing the lovability of littleness to give us permission to really embrace our limitation through Mary's love and to let us bring that to Jesus. So that's kind of the arc of the consecration.

And so I did that because I believe in all of those things and I wanted to put them together. And in a particular way, I wanted to put them together for my seminarians. I'm the spiritual director for St. Vincent Seminary and I wanted to create a Marian consecration. I found them to be either a little bit angular or a little bit shallow or a little bit, and I wanted to put together some reflections that I was hoping would kind of encounter the heart, bring out the poverty limitation, bring it into littleness deep in the surrender and be something for them.

And I actually had it on my website for a number of years and then sent it to Sophia and they were interested in publishing it. And then they did such a beautiful job with all the images. And then they did such a beautiful job with all the images and I don't even buy paper books for the most part anymore. But that's one that's actually worth buying

in the paper form, yeah. So do you know of people who've gone through it? Yeah, a lot of people. So as I said, I wrote it six or seven years ago. So even in the buildup, and that was part of the thing, so many people encouraged me to send it off for publication. These, a number of people said, it's the most beautiful one that I've done.

It really deeply affected me. Our priest friend, Father Ryan, he actually wrote this review on Amazon, so I won't be revealing any secrets, but he said, it actually saved Mary in consecration for him. He could never do a Mary in consecration, but he managed to go all the way through that one and found it deeply moving and really connected with him.

So yeah, a number of people have really found it helpful, which I'm just so happy about. So Mary in consecration must have been something big in your own life for you to want to do this, I imagine. Yeah, thanks. That's true. I had so little about Mary when I was on my journey into the church. I was engaged by an evangelical who invited me to a one-on-one Bible study. You were engaged to?

No, no. Engaged by. Encountered by. Oh, I see. Sorry. Yes, you're encountered by an evangelical. Thank you. I wasn't engaged to. But just a total stranger invited me to study the Bible with him. He was evangelical, didn't have any knowledge of Mary, didn't really have any knowledge of the Catholic Church.

Beautiful person. He really opened my heart to the scriptures, the word. I started making up my journey into the Catholic Church and I was challenged by some other evangelicals from the same group about Mary. And I didn't really understand all their arguments, but I looked at Carl Keating's Catholicism and Fundamentalism.

I read the stuff on Mary. I didn't really understand what he was saying either, but it sounded convincing and I figured, somebody's already figured this out. I'm not worried about it. I like it. I had very little on Our Lady and RCIA. So the first time I ever prayed the rosary

was five days after I was baptized as an adult. So I didn't even know the Hail Mary actually. So this is how ignorant I was. But in that moment, and because of all of this other rumblings beforehand, I just had a moment that I thought, okay, and because of all of this other rumblings beforehand, I just had a moment that I thought, okay, and so I made this prayer. Mary, I know you're really important, and I don't know you, but I want to.

Please reveal yourself to me. And then over the course of nine months, I eventually talked to a Franciscan of the Renewal who introduced me to De Monfort and Mary in consecration. And so with some other men at Penn State who were discerning a vocation, there were five or six of us that went through that little booklet, the total consecration booklet. And then I entered the monastery and then had some very beautiful encounters with Our Lady as I was really letting go of femininity in my life in a certain way in celibacy and just encountered her in a very tender way,

very beautiful way. She stepped into kind of that ache in my heart in those moments. And so that just really plunged me deeply into a relationship with her. But I always ground that in that initial prayer, Mary, reveal yourself to me, and then attribute the consecration for really taking me

deeply into that journey. So I think to know ourselves as sons is a key part of intentional discipleship. So it's part of the reason I promote it in the seminary. I really want all of the seminarians to deepen their personal relationship with the Lord, to know themselves as sons of Mary and also, of course, as sons of God. You've probably seen how Kolbe differentiates his consecration to de Monforts. He says, well, in de Monforts, you're a slave, but a slave still has his own will to some degree. So in mine, you're an object

That's not a verbatim, but that's what he says. I love it. Yeah, I I have a big fan of Mary and Well in the womb You really have given everything over there you go, but you don't become an object or a slave I like it can be a human being I like but one that's profoundly surrendered. That's beautiful. What advice do you have to those? We have a lot of Protestants who watch and I love you all. Hi. Even if you never become Catholic, you're welcome here. But many of them have written and said they're converting and they're in the process and Mary's a big hang up for them.

And so as soon as we start talking about consecrating ourselves to Mary, it's like, come on, are you trying to end this conversation or begin one? This doesn't feel like very ecumenical. Without watering down the consecration and what it means, why should they not be afraid of it? And Catholics as well. Well, I would say for one thing, I mean, I think my consecration, I'm really, I'm sensitive to these things. Having made my own journey and I was being careful in all of my ownration, I'm really sensitive to these things, having made my own journey.

And I was being careful in all of my own ways as I was getting into this. I didn't want to overdo this and I was careful about that and really trying to think through those. So I think I'm still sensitive to that. And I think the consecration would still be sensitive to that. It's using the gospel principles. And I think the compelling teaching of Pope Benedict, Pope John Paul in that space is really beautiful. So I guess I would invite those,

the reflections in the approach is already, I think, helpful. But just to say it very simply, you're never gonna love Mary more than Jesus does. And so I think to want to love her the way that he does, to trust her the way that he trusted her to place his whole life in her hands, his whole life in her womb, to get to know her. And I think it's fine to, you know,

I don't wanna push people either. I'm appreciative that I had space to explore and to kind of find my way and to ask the questions and to be careful. And I think that's all fine. That's so helpful to say that. No one's telling you, you have to do the consecration. You're not a good Catholic.

If you don't want to do it, don't do it. It's freedom here. And I would say also that the consecration is really a matter of baptism. So it's really in baptism that we're consecrated, we're set apart. And the title of the book, it's really, Sophia did this as well,

it's a 33 day consecration to Jesus. So 33 day preparation for consecration to Jesus. So they didn't even put the through Mary on there, because that's really what it is. That's why the last week of prayer is on Jesus. Everything else is leading up to Jesus. So if there's a willingness to go there, then that's really what happened in baptism.

Baptism is our consecration to Jesus. In a real way, it's just a renewal of our baptism. It's being intentional about our baptism that I give myself totally over to him, that I place myself in the womb of my mother, the church, which is the womb of Mary, that I allow myself to be little and formed, that I place myself in the womb of my mother, the church, which is the womb of Mary, that I allow myself to be little and formed, that I place myself in a position of need

and trust in God's providence. And then that providence comes through a mother and mother church and mother Mary, just as Jesus came through mother Mary and comes to us through mother church, but that there's a maternal, a feminine quality to that is very sweet. And so anyway, I always try to build towards positive things.

Some of those building blocks. Well, that's great. Yeah. What else? Because you said there was a few things. That's one. Well, I'm also in the process of teaming up with Exodus 90. Okay.

What are you doing with them? Well, as I mentioned earlier, a real keynote of my life is accompaniment and fostering what I've been talking about, a communion of persons and helping people to know how to be with each other and to receive each other. We tend not to do that. A lot of times if I say, hey, I'm working on, I'm doing this program on prayer and asceticism and I'm having a hard time. Yeah, me too. And so that's the wrong response.

If you're gonna accompany someone, you say, tell me about your struggle with that. I wanna hear more about it. I can understand it. I've had my own struggles, but I wanna hear about your struggle. So we just, it's shifting a mode of conversation to be receptive, to give a person space

to really reveal their hearts in a way that, because a lot of times when we speak about vulnerable things, we don't always have the language and we stumble a little bit. And if somebody is ready to jump in with their own story and cut us off and change the subject, we'll never have the trust that we need to open up those tender places. So one of the things I love about Exodus 90 is together with prayer and asceticism, there

is company, a companionship and an anchor. There's a place for accompaniment. And so anyway, they reached out to me and I said, well, I'd love to share more about that. I don't know how well that goes. And they said, yeah, some of the criticism that we've gotten is that we don't always give enough formation around accompaniment to how to make this journey together. Mason- For those who aren't aware, Exodus 90 is a 90-day ascetical program for men only, who in a small group with other

men journey through a 90-day period reading the scriptures, fasting from certain things, taking on ascetical practices. I should have maybe said that in the beginning. So fraternity is a big part of Exodus 90, so is that where you come in? Well, so I'll give some formation this fall about ten lessons on accompaniment, using their structure of a scripture and a reflection to get into some of the dimensions of listening and interiority, vulnerability, some of the different dimensions of how to accompany. And then I'll be the spiritual guide starting January 1st is when Exodus 90 starts and have weekly videos for them to just help people along on the journey. I'll be sowing some of the seeds of their company.

That's probably how. That's right, yeah. So they, yeah, through the app, which can be on a computer, on a phone or whatever. You know, just, I always love talking good about people behind their back. It's like one of my favorite things to do. We did this clip once. It was called the truth about Scott Hahn. It's just me praising him for 10 minutes because he's so amazing.

He's just a great fella. Exodus 90. So my mate Derek works for Exodus 90 and he's just, he just started working for them. I don't know, six months, maybe more, but he's just continually shocked at how great they are. What a real deal they are. How just so many examples of the retreats they put on for their staff. He said when he joined the head of AccessNauti, he sent flowers to his wife to thank her.

Just like, he's like, it's better than I expected. These guys are just really living the life walk in the walk. So in a day and age where we all feel so cynical about a people really all deeply wretched and hypocritical at their base. They're not. And as I'm really proud of the work that they're doing, it's really grown into something. Yeah, I think they said 80,000 men went through Exodus 90 last year.

And, and it's a, I love the fact that it's, that it's also for men. And, and it engages men at kind of the right level. You know, what I love about it, and then yours will be more interesting. What I love about it is that they could make bank by starting a woman's program. Speaking strictly from like a capitalist point of view, if they wanted to, they could just roll out a woman's program and bring in a ton of cash, adopt it, adapt it. No, we're not going to do that. We feel called to stick to men. Yeah. Wow. Cool. Good for you. Yeah. Yeah. No, I really appreciate that too. It's like, this is our lane. Such a hard time staying in our lane these days, right? Yeah. But you love that it's for men.

Yeah. So, and it engages men at a place of summoning them to more and then set some standards for what more can look like in terms of prayer and asceticism. So things to take on spiritually, things to give up. And then what could easily turn into a kind of will-based spirituality, white-knuckled and gritting your teeth and gonna force your way through it because of the dimension of accompaniment and the group that you're with. And then also I did write an article for them which I entitled

Try, Fail, Surrender. They really understand that dynamic of growth in the spiritual life, which is you're gonna fall. You're gonna fail at this. Again, for those who are watching who may not be too familiar with this, cold showers every day, no alcohol, no snacking between meals, No like YouTube surfing, right? No unnecessary Internet activity at least an I think an hour of prayer a day There are certain other things, but I mean, it's not easy. No, I mean you're excited the first week Yeah, it's kind of novel and then it's kind of second week the third week. Yeah the 13th week Yes, I really I like that a lot because there is this yeah, this may be Maybe I was afraid when I did it really well for 25 days as a joke, I did do it

really well. Is that like, if I fail at this, like I've screwed up as opposed to, no, well, of course, of course you're probably, that's right. Some people may not, but most of us will. And then what are you going to do with that? Like, are you going to throw it in or are you going to try? Run into our limitations. This is where I like, you know, so it engages men on the one hand with with a sort of like puff out your chest, face the challenge, put up your fist, fight through it, like engage in the thing. You're summoned to more. So I love that. But then also you're going to run into your limits, and you're going to feel your own littleness. And then you're summoned to more. So I love that. But then also, you're going to run into your limits and you're going to feel your own littleness and then you're going to need support and

you're going to have to be in communion with other men. So that's exactly where we need to be. It's just running some electricity through that to bring us alive in a way that then builds us up, but also brings us into communion with each other. Yeah. That's awesome. Yeah. What do you, because you, are you busy? Busy is the wrong word, because busy sounds like you're not in control of your schedule. Do you have a, do you have full days where you're studying and writing and recording and...

This is about as much of a not full day. This one? Sitting here and talking to you for an extended period of time. Yeah, I have pretty full days. So we have a monastic schedule. I'm a monk of St. Vincent Arch Abbey. We gathered together at 6.15 in the morning. I try to spend an hour of prayer before that

we pray the vigils and morning prayer have mass together and Then I'm often in spiritual direction meetings for a couple of hours. I run an institute So I'm working with my staff or developing programs doing some more spiritual direction I teach classes and writing some books. So are these things that you have to get permission for from the abbot? Because it sounds like you've got a lot of flexibility. And I'm wondering, do other monks have different jobs that they do and different interests they pursue, like you do with spiritual direction?

Yeah, we have certain assignments and there are things that go with that. So part of my work is director of the Institute for Ministry Formation or spiritual director for the seminary or a faculty member. That provides a certain structure. We need permission to be away overnight. And then in general need permission to be on media and things like that. Yeah, it's part of, I think it's important to think about permission in terms of, first of all, there's a surrender of the self. Well, it's doing things in communion. It's fostering a harmony and community. So it's not just a, my wife doesn't

just leave the house and not tell me where she's going. If she's going, Hey, I was going to do this. Is that okay with you? You know, right. So, and, and just like, it's not a matter of controlling each other and marriage. It's, it's a matter of really harmonizing as a unit. Right, so, and just like it's not a matter of controlling each other in marriage, it's a matter of really harmonizing. Working as a unit. Yeah, that's right. So we help each other to choose between multiple goods. Yeah.

So I do have a bit of flexibility, and I also have an abbot who will tell me like, haven't seen you around as much. And that's a blessing. It's not easy for him to do and it's not easy for me to receive, but that's what love and community fosters. And so, yeah, I'm grateful to have a community

that does have a little bit of breathing room. Other smaller communities, because I'm not sort of as essential for the day-to-day things, I can disappear a little bit and come back. I can manage my own affairs in terms of people that I am responsible to or response, you know, that I care for, I'm committed to. But a smaller community where it's like, you know, if the organist disappears, then like they don't sing and morning prayer. So their smaller communities tend to have a little

bit tighter structure also, like it would be in marriage for the most part. So y'all are the biggest? Benedictine monastery in the world, yeah. How many monks? So we have 150 some that are part of the house. You got one abbot overlooking that many, overseeing that many people? Well, there are a couple of breakdowns in terms, I don't mean that in a bad way, divisions, separations, groups. One being in Brazil, we have a priory in Brazil that's basically self-autonomous,

self-governing, and there are about 18 monks there, I think. But that's not part of your- It is. So there's still a dependent priory. I see. So their abbot is still our abbot. They still make vows to our monastery, but eventually they could go independent and then they would be a separate monastery. That's how. My understanding is that the Carmelites sisters have no more than nine or something like that. They can have up to 20, 22 or three. My understanding was incorrect. But 9 would be an average.

And then there would be some, I think, something like that. 24, 25 is the absolute upper end. But I would see great wisdom in that. It sounds like what you're doing sounds like it would be a complete unruly show. Well, yeah. So different things, again, there's different layers of responsibility. There's a prior that helps the abbot. I have other, you know, I have a rector of the seminary who I'm also connected with. I'm in relationship

with a spiritual director who helps out with different things. So there. Would you rather be part of this kind of monastery or a monastery of nine other men in the desert somewhere? I don't really know what that was like. Depending on the day. Yeah, I mean I I've had some experiences and living more extended kind of contemplative Extended 40 days, you know a couple of months and It has its own beauty to it for sure

So tonight our monastery is is very fruitful. It's very productive Did y'all throw off the habits back in the eighties, seventies and eighties? I don't think we ever did. So there's still a little bit of flex. You know, I'm on one extreme. I'm really always in my habit. Everybody wears the habit sometimes

to acquire things like that. Most people wear the habit most of the time, you know, so, but there's a little bit of flex there. Guys are going out to dinner or something. It seems easier to have a uniform. Well, all the time. Right? I think it's really comfortable. It's legitimately the coolest habit in the West. It's the coolest in the West, don't you think? Like what beats it? What compares to the Benedictine habit? I like the, I like some of these new Franciscan orders that are all like super traddy

and they've got like burlap sacks and boat ropes wrapped around their waists. That looks kind of cool. All patched up. Yeah, right. But I'm pretty sure the Benedictine habit is the coolest. Well, yeah, it most approximates the East, doesn't it? Yeah, probably. Yeah. Yeah. And you don't have

to worry about dropping stuff on you all the time. Like the Dominican is definitely, I would not be, yeah, white would not be good for me. That's about my, did I tell you about my trip to Ukraine where I went to that monastery? No, I don't think so. All right, so I won't be able to say where this monastery was because I forget the name of it, but we were driving a long way out of... Where were we? We're in Kiev and then we drove a couple of hours into rural Ukraine. Our driver was driving like this because of all the potholes along this road and we're driving down these beautiful little houses. He's like you can get there for ten thousand, there for ten

like I want to move here, I want to move here. We get to this glorious Ukrainian Catholic monastery and the peace that was there man it just I wanted to be a tree. I looked at a tree and envied the tree because I wanted to be that tree and live here forever and you was going in as they were praying one of the hours and it's just like 13th century chapel with these monks chanting the hymns and none of them speak a lick of English. And they invited me and father who obviously speaks Ukrainian for lunch. It broke my heart. It was the most beautiful thing ever. I go in, I sit down, and something just, the Lord in His goodness overwhelmed me. I just felt so unworthy. And of course,

I know that the answer is we're all sinners and they're wretched like I am. And I'm not putting them up on a pedestal, but there was, I had this feeling of being like a gross creature that was led in to the womb of Mary with these saints. And they were feeding me, you know, they were bringing me food and everyone was eating in silence. I started weeping, dude, the whole time I could not stop crying. You know, sometimes you cry,

but you can control the cry, but you choose to let it go. And then there are other times you're like, there's no hope here. So I'm just like, everything I can do to not let anyone know that I'm crying because it's silent. It's very embarrassing. You see. Yeah. So I'm just tapping my eyes constantly.

I was just I had this random resolution that I would always be kind to cats. Because I was a gross creature let in among, and they were so kind to me. Wow. And I made this kind of decision and kind of I told the Lord, I'll always be kind to cats, which I have hated, but love now, they're great. See? Don't like cats at all. But I came home, I'm picking up my cat, trying to love it, trying to love other people's

cats. But he was powerful. And then the, the Abbott or whatever they call him offered me coffee at the end. And I just, I had to leave like such a weirdo. It's like, so bad. And father Jason, I think he thought I had like really bad allergies. But I, me and father, we keep talking about that place. thought I had like really bad allergies.

But I mean, father, we keep talking about that place. And I just want to go back there and live there. And I know. And yeah, but yeah, gosh, what a place. Have you been to Austria? Austria? No. What do you say that? What do you ask? I might be going soon. There's a Cistercian monastery in Austria, Heiligenkreuz, which is not too far

from the Franciscan campus in Gamming. And it's a beautiful, it's also 12th, 13th century foundation and gorgeous. I don't know any of these architectural categories, but Baroque, some Gothic anyway, the chapel is gorgeous and then the refectory is just like out of this world and yeah it just made me think of that this also eating in silence and arranged. I felt like I was in the womb of Mary. I really had that image of I'm in the womb of Mary when these are all my like these are all my

twin brothers and sisters hanging out. Yeah, exactly. Um, did I say I went to France? You need to tell me about it. Yeah. All these monasteries that you hear about, you know, all these, not just monasteries, but uh, like Mont Saint-Michel, that big monastery on the rocks and that big in the middle of the ocean, it looks like, and all these churches are all owned by the state. Oh, this is so gross. Yeah. And and Mount Saint Michelle was so disappointing.

Because Christ is barely an afterthought. Oh, so all these tourist shops throughout it so painful. Thomas Aquinas, right, I went to his tomb. Have rainbow lights up for Pride Month. Not the church, I think the state. Yeah. OK, you you tell me, right?

It's it's game month, right? There's flags all over the city. I go into this church. There's lights, don't don't don't don't. And they're all the rainbow color. So you tell me what kind of conclusion I'm supposed to draw. I guess I could pretend that it was meant to be like God's promise to Noah.

That's crazy. But then where's his body? Could you look that up? I forget. It's in France. Yeah. But where is that? That's the end.

You're well, that's the answer. France. Now he's going to look it up. But they also have, you know, because it's run by the state, because the deal is in perpetuity to the Catholic Church, but will also upkeep these things, you know, rather than putting like a money in the slot lighter candle. They've got these big iPads where you put credit cards in and put money. It was pretty to lose.'s it thank you yeah it was very

hard to be there it was very hard to be in those churches and not feel yeah just like okay maybe it would be better to have our ugly little churches and be faithful mmm I mean be better at both but as I was at Mont Saint-Michel I thought to myself this should be the West's Athos, Mount Athos, right? You should pack this place with all sorts of Benedictine orders. Someday let's pray. Yeah. Yeah. I just visited my Institute for Ministry Formation, made a little, taught a course in Rome at San Tonsamo, the Benedictine College, and then we did some day trips. But I went the weekend before

and stayed in Freiburg in Switzerland and then made a day trip to Annecy, where St. Francis de Sales is lived. It's where he ran his diocese of Geneva from since he was always in exile from his own diocese. He's never took possession of his own diocesan see. But Hennessy was beautiful.

It's really just tender. St. Francis de Sales is so tender and he and the church that he was baptized in. Oh gosh. Just love him. Love him. Yeah. Somebody counted like enumerated how many analogies he uses in introduction to the to rediscover him in a profound way. Oh gosh. Just love him. Love him. Yeah. Somebody count, like enumerated how many analogies he uses in introduction to the devout life and it's off the

charts, which is such a sign of a brilliant intellect who continues to help you understand a spiritual reality. Yeah, that's right. And he's a, he really receives, he made the 30 day retreat of Ignatius three times, I think. So he really receives kind of Ignatian fonts. He also had connections. He helped to bring the Carmelites to France, I think. So he really receives kind of Ignatian fonts. He also had connections. He helped to bring the Carmelites to France, I believe. And so he has these nice Carmelite connections. He really synthesizes kind of those, those fonts of the tradition.

And yeah, it was really. What's with the French saints? Why are they so beautiful? It is like this, this is tradition, right? The good, the bad, the ugly, isn't it? Yeah, there's a tradition in French spirituality. I don't know if it stems back to a reaction to the Jansenists with the revelations of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, but I mean.

Yeah, well, it's even before, so Cardinal Baroul and the French school and the beginning of the 17th century. So a lot of the, maybe the flow of the council of Trent went into some areas of France became the first sensual piece was, was founded as one of the first seminaries really implementing the council of Trent. But yeah, then the response to Margaret marries a bit later with the response to Jansenism, but yeah, St. Vincent de Paul, Francis de Sales, Terez. Yeah. And then later on, Terez. Like the gentleness, the mercy. And then modern spiritual authors who are writing too,

like that Jacques Feller, that's his name. Like that. And then you've got that fellow who wrote, I believe in love. And like, whenever I find something that you just meet the tender heart of Jesus, like I bet they're French. They usually are. That's interesting. Yeah. Yeah. That's very interesting. The eldest daughter of the church. So Mary Magdalene founded the church in France, right? That's the Mary Magdalene and, and, and Martha and Lazarus were, that's the reputed foundation of the church in France, the eldest daughter of the church. Oh, is that why they call it that? Yeah, so maybe those sinners who really understood the mercy of Jesus and were foundational. Yeah, a lot of beauty there. Hello, I want to say thank you to Hello,

which is the best, not just the best Catholic app on the App Store, any App Store, it's the best app out of any app that's ever existed, Catholic or otherwise, I think it's finally time to say that. If you want to grow in your prayer life, please check out hello.com slash Matt. If you sign up on their website at hello.com slash Matt, you can get the entire app for free for 90 days! That's ridiculous. After those 90 days, if you don't agree with me that it's worth the money that you're going to get charged after that monthly, which is a relatively small amount, you can just cancel. You won't be charged a cent.

They have sleep stories. They have My Catholic Lo-Fi on there. They've just added the Gospels, a dramatized version of the Gospels. They have daily exegesis on mass readings, which you can listen to. It is fantastic fantastic So if you haven't done it already hello comm slash Matt sign up over there try it for free for three months So I have a bit of whiskey here that some kind soul brought starlight distillery single barrel hubers Rick I don't know what's going on. There's too many words on this for me to know How's the smell? Smells like bourbon. And all bourbons the same.

I like bourbon on a lot of ice. Mm hmm. How's that going to work out? It won't today. Cheers. Cheers. Mm hmm. Oh, that's yum, yum, yum, yum. Yeah, that is very strong.

Let's see. That is. Oh, dear, I'm sorry. That's 57 percent alcohol. Go easy, Padre. All right. So I'm going to like this gigantic pipe. These are all things we can't do during Exodus 90 by the way. Yeah, that's right to be clear I don't know but I don't know the whiskey. It's not yeah any loophole I could find All right questions from our handsome local supporters

Rian says how can we listen to old broadcasts on We Are One Body Radio? Which is? We Are One Body Radio is the radio network that I helped form and have done quite a bit of programming on. It's a good question how you can listen to old broadcasts. We rebroadcast things, you can listen to old broadcasts. We rebroadcast things.

So by listening to current broadcasts, you will also hear old broadcasts because like one of the formats is we do, we've gone through all the Wednesday audiences. So every time, every week the Pope has a Wednesday audience. And then I have a conversation with another priest about the Wednesday audience. And we've done different homilies,

Pentecost, Christmas, Easter, and then a variety of other occasions. So we keep kind of playing those things through. You also seem to go through a lot of encyclicals. Every time I hear you speaking, you're commenting on encyclical. So we have a, well, yeah, anyway, we have a program in the afternoons

that the reading and commenting on encyclicals, also Doctors of the Church, program on the catechism, the Vatican Council documents, commentary on scripture, kind of Lectio Divina, so a lot of different programs. But the programs are all what I call catechetical and contemplative, and for that reason they're not really current events, and so the ones from 10 years ago are really kind of just as good as the ones from today because the church's teaching is immemorial. So I'm evading the question.

We don't have a coherent way to go through all of the programs. We're in the process of making more things available on demand. And how long have you been doing it for? Since 2010. Wow. Yeah. So it's, there's a fair amount out there.

The one thing that we have been putting out on the Facebook, the We Are One Body Facebook page is interviews, I interview priests on their faith journey. And I don't know, there are a hundred and some of those at this point. And they're really beautiful. So that certainly is produced on a regular basis. And then if there's something that you hear, you can always email the studio and they'll send you a link to the, to the reason you're not releasing them as podcasts shows as well. It's not, it's,

it's only a technical and manpower reason. It's not a ideological reason. Yeah. So if anyone out there wants to offer some, that's correct. Where would they go? Email the the w aob org and then you can email on there if you wanted to contribute to the cause Mr. Dauphin says I would like to evangelize my atheist father. He's an intellectual type who values physical evidence Where can I get info on physical evidence of Catholic miracles like the Shroud of Turin and incorruptible saints? Obviously, my first answer is going to be the excellent interview I did with Father Andrew Dalton, has over a million views, like over a three-hour episode on the Shroud, and it's the best thing I've ever come across online. So they can check that out.

Yeah, that's a better answer than I have. But yeah, it depends a little bit on, in terms of all of the canonized saints have verified miracles. I don't have names of books at my fingertips, but if you look up some of the canonized saints, you'll get the stories with detail of those miracles. Also, things like lords have 50 documented miracles that have been like investigated and criticized and proven authentic. I think a preceding question before laying this out there is what kind of evidence would actually help you be open to this? Do you think this is something you actually could be open to? And yeah, yeah, I think that's an important predecessor precursor to the investigation

is actually finding out. I mean, those those investigations that the Vatican does are, they're usually trying to find non religious doctors to do the validation, to sign that there was no human way that this could have taken place, that the cure has to be sudden and dramatic and lasting. And so the criteria are pretty steep for those miracles. Yeah. If one of them is authentic. Yeah. So the problem is with anything in the realm of faith,

you can't prove it. You also can't disprove it. And so one could push the burden of the evidence the other way as well and say, well, prove to me that this isn't authentic or prove to me that the faith isn't true. So you can't do that either. Sometimes we're so much on the defensive. But certainly in the, you know, respecting the needs of the person

or what the person appreciates, how they learn epistemology, as we were talking about earlier, is worthwhile. I. Moulton says, how does one learn to lean into childlike trust in the Lord when also having to navigate being independent and single though desiring marriage? Independent and single. Yeah, so, well, in general, I mean, we are from the time that we are born, I suppose, pushing forward into more independence, and we should do the things for ourselves that we can do for ourselves. So one is not fostering infantilism in saying the childlike way of spiritual childhood that

St. Therese is teaching. So on the one hand, we do what we can do, and that's part of the strength that we're going to bring into communion with others by supporting their weaknesses. So I have my own, sometimes I think of it like puzzle pieces. They have knobs and holes and they fit together in that way. So strengths are like knobs and weaknesses are like holes and we fit in some way. And so our strengths and what we can develop becomes a gift. And our weakness also and where we need others also becomes a gift

of receptivity. And so, so we're always developing what we can develop. There's certainly nothing wrong with that in terms of, uh, vocation and trusting in God, uh, as opposed to, I mean, well, it's for somebody who's single and desiring marriage, and it's hard out there. Do you encounter a lot of that with your spiritual daughters? I do.

Yeah, yeah. It's really, and I, I give spiritual direction to one of the owners of Catholic Match also. So he's obviously doing his part and there's, you know. Oh, I thought you were trying to say, and he, is he married? Doesn't matter.

Yeah, yeah, he's married with a bunch of children and he's a, he's a great guy. But, um, you know, Pope Benedict's parents met through a classified ad. Really? Yeah. His father put out a classified ad. Come on. Seriously. He looked it up. Yeah. And, and, uh, you know, requested things that he's looking for in a wife and Pope Benedict's mother responded. And they were both married a little older. I don't really want to know what he said. Yeah, it's listed. I wouldn't want to quote it, but yeah, it's sort of like domestic qualities of, you know. That's beautiful. Yeah, yeah. So that obviously worked out. Do you think things are getting harder in the realm of finding a spouse? I think primarily, I mean, I hope I sound like a broken record in the importance of

relationships and building a communion of persons, because I think most of the problems in society are a result of the absolute shredding of community, of relationships, of commitments, of responsibility. We just have moved into places of independence, isolation and self-reliance in ways that are just causing havoc everywhere. And that goes for family, for marriages, for families, for friendships, for communities, for employment, for extended families, for nations, for, I mean,

just everything that used to have coherence is falling into incoherence. And then I think a lot of this stuff, you know, even things like gender questioning and sexual struggles and pornography and addictions and I think a lot of that is grasping after things to fill the desolation of relationships. So in terms of the dating realm, I mean, just the organic connections that we used to have, the capacity to commit to somebody

and to really embrace, I mean, as you were talking about in marriage, it's hard. It's hard to deal with, it's hard to face our own weaknesses that come out. It's hard to embrace the weaknesses of others. And relationships are hard. And I think we're getting worse and worse at them as we're not getting the kind of others and relationships are hard. And I think we're getting worse and worse at them as we're not getting the kind of practice

and support that we need growing up. We don't have the foundations being laid from family, from society. So I think for those reasons, one could also postulate other reasons. I mean, when a third or more of people starting just before our generation were aborted, you know, when you think about the number of spouses there could have been, people that would have been around, and there's just a, anyway, it's a mess, I think.

Maybe one of the solutions is to find a community of people who do healthy human living together, such as here at Steubenville, you know? And I can't speak of other places because I don't live in other places, but I'll just say I came back from Florida the other day and I was going to my cigar lounge and I pulled in and there was all this ruckus going on. It's because there's a big swing dancing jazz night at the top of Leo's. All these beautiful young people and students who are dancing and, you know, so if not here somewhere else

But find a place where people still interact like human beings It seems to me you'd have a much better chance of finding your spouse and you can interact with them on a natural normal way Well, that's right And and that's you know, we have to probably be a little bit gentle with ourselves in that and working up to that I mean, we've been so starved of healthy relationships that sometimes the vulnerability it takes to go to a place where I don't know anyone, to reach out in a way, to be vulnerable, to share my need, open my heart. It's hard and there's some work involved there. And so yeah. That's good. Aaron says, what do you do with feeling stuck, wheels spinning in terms of spiritual life

and growth and virtue? I'm not getting worse, but I don't feel like I'm growing it either. Well, I think I want to honor that restlessness. First of all, that there's even a desire to ask the question is a sign that the Lord is doing something there and is pushing. And then I think, you know, maybe I'll say something, it's great to reach out, it's great to start looking around.

Maybe something like Exodus 90, sometimes there's a way- It's a woman, but- Oh, okay. There is something called Fiat 90, I guess. I don't know who developed that, but anyways, things, you know, entering into maybe a certain group, a certain program, a certain, you know, maybe there's a way to- Going on retreat? Going on retreat is a great step. Sounds like a certain group, a certain program, a certain, you know, maybe there's a way to-

Going on retreat? Going on retreat is a great step. Sounds like a simple answer to when was the last time you've done it, you know? Not you, I know you do it a lot. Yeah, yeah, and there are a lot of, you know, even a weekend retreat or a time away in prayer. We both love the Christ the Divine Bridegroom Monastery, they have a pustinia, you can just spend a day with the Lord in prayer. I was sitting with a fellow called Father Ken Barker, who's the Australian priest,

wonderful guy, founder of the Missionaries of God's Love. Yes. And he says that at the beginning of every month, as he's looking at his calendar, he always sets, I think, two or three days aside, and that's his, that's the first thing he does every single month. And he's been doing it for decades now. And it seems to me that that's, that's actually quite doable. It's beautiful. You know, like when you just get thrown into life and you're responding to emails and demands, the idea of two or three nights away sounds insane. But if you can schedule something like that in, I know we don't all have that kind of freedom, but like a night away a month, a night away every two months?

Yeah, anything? Even an afternoon is a great start. Yeah. You know, just taking a little bit of time out in adoration, taking time in a different place. Yeah, maybe an overnight from an evening, take off a morning, go to the work in the afternoon if that's a need for you.

So yeah, I think there are a lot of little ways like that. And then, so what to do? So really there are a thousand different things to do. What do you choose? Well, what's coming up? And we did that little prayer exercise. I don't know, I'd love to hear how that went for people. But what comes up in that space?

When you just take a few minutes to sit with Jesus, when you ask him the question, I want to do I want to give you more, I want to step more into my spiritual life, I want to take on a little bit more what what comes up, what emerges from that kind of peaceful interior place. And that's where we were talking about parts. A little bit earlier, sometimes we have parts that are like kind of task masters, they're got gotta do this, ought to do that, you know, and they're sort of beating us up with, yeah,

with certain ideals that they've picked up from this place or that place. And so that's not the best part to take instruction from. But when we're in ourselves, again, calm, compassionate, curious, connected, this creative, courageous, that's the place that we want to kind of pay attention to. We tend to be more in the presence of God. And then when we hear a movement, well, why don't you reach out to this person? Why don't you start a little Bible study with this person? Why don't you take a little time on retreat? Why don't

you take an extra hour in adoration? And that can have a way of stirring things up. Also, this will be the last thing. And another thing is, as you start to pray, Lord, I want more, I want to grow, I want to take steps forward, then God has a way of providing those passive purifications. He has a way of bringing up some of the problems and challenges. He has a way of confronting us with ourselves in a way that forces us to look at it. A lot of times we would like to grow in this kind of peaceful way. Like, I can do the 100-yard dash and I'd like to be able to do the 200-yard dash even faster. And we have this kind of dreamy thing about growth. But growth often happens in failure and surrender.

It happens in running into our own limits, and a lot of times those are brought up in relationships and our hearts are exposed, and that's where real growth takes place. Yeah, I've been thinking about that lately, you know, that I wish that the path to whole, I wish I could write my own path to holiness. You know, like I wish the Lord would say, all right, and Maddie, look here, here's what I need you to do. All right, you take notes, right. Bible in a year. Cool. I can do that. I'll listen to that on my little morning walk, you know, and like you to go to mass or something, maybe daily. I need you to pray the rosary. Good, good, good. Okay, great. But if the

Lord were to say to me like, don't cause any unnecessary grief to those around you? Oh, no, I'm screwed. I don't know if I could do that, you know, or like, and, um, submit to my will, you know, which is either something I've ordained or permitted and submit to it. Fiat Voluntas Tour, surrender to the circumstances of your life. Oh, that's, oh, I don't want to do that. So it's funny cause I think like my, I think a lot of people thinking myself included that, okay, holiness is about the things that I do as opposed to like submitting in the appropriate way to what's being done to me, maybe through suffering or annoyance or yeah. Yeah. Acceptance of trials is hard. Yeah. Yeah. Another framework to thinking that's, it seems so tedious, our trials, don't

they? You know, when you read about the lives of the saints prior to modern medicine and they explain the sort of suffering they were undergoing, the lack of a medical diagnosis makes the thing sound very mysterious, you know, but like, you know, Saint so-and-so died of colon cancer or something like that. Like that. It's like we have a name for it now and therefore there's something unmysterious. And like our trials just seem so annoying and so tedious that these

can't possibly be the things you're calling me to surrender. Right. You know, have me die at the hands of the Mohammedans or the LGBT squad. I'll do that maybe. But like a child I don't get along with or a spouse I can't seem to reconnect with or not enough money in my bank account. So I need to take this other job that I hate. That's killing my heart, which is the one thing I want back, but can't do it. You know, like these, these things, they feel so, if they didn't feel tedious, it would give us some nobility. We'd be like, well, yes, I'm fighting a frigging battle here, but I can't claim any of these things as real crosses. This isn't what the Lord

memories to take up your cross. These, these, these pathetic little things can't possibly be it. But I think it is exactly those things. Do you see what I mean? Like, no, absolutely. First Peter five, seven cast all your anxiety upon the Lord, for he cares about you. But I'm convinced that, well, you don't mean all. You mean just the things I'm actually allowed to complain about, which is stuff that saints apparently went through.

But it seems to me that the more we know about the saints, especially as they come to the modern era and we have more information about them, the kind of more realistic view we have of their life, you know? Yeah. Yeah, I think a lot of that is the result of a materialistic worldview compared to bad food or something or some random decay of the human body. And this, it's a sort of materialistic reductionism. Whereas the sacramental worldview is more what you were describing, like more mysterious. It's an affliction that's somehow allowed by God, which he gives me to share in the sufferings of Christ, and it's really

open to the transcendent. All of the things mean more than they mean at a scientific and sort of measurable medical level. And when we lose that sacramental worldview of seeing the trials that we go through as crosses, then it starts to sap a lot of those things of their meaning. Now we've had the opposite problem too, and over-spiritualized things that, you know, it is good to go to a doctor and getting chemotherapy

is also a good intervention. We shouldn't just, you know, surrender to prayer. The things that are going on are alive. But holding the tension in that I think is challenging. And that's where it's helpful for us in community to build that up and to say, like, well, if you take from Matthew 25, I was sick and you visited me. That means that when there's a sick person, if you're the sick person, you are Christ. Because the person that comes to visit you encounters Christ.

And so your disease brings someone else into encounter with Christ. Your life has more meaning as a result of the things that you're going through. And so all of that can build up to something greater that can give us that kind of vision. Yeah, more Tolkien, less Daily Wire. You know, like the Silmarillion is truer than the history of America. Yeah, that's right. The Lord of the Rings is truer than any textbook you read in geography. Yeah. And I think like, I mean that, you know, no, that's fiction is more factual.

That's right. In fact, books about the world. Yeah. Poetry is poetry. More real than prose. So take your head out of the less real and you'll discover a sacramental world Yeah, yeah when we reduce things to symptoms we lists we miss a lot but when we see poetry allows layered meanings and Not just dipping into the description of details Yeah Okay into the description of details. Yeah.

OK, this person asked to be anonymous. Hi, Matt and Father Boniface, for the next few years. I'm blind of my life. I'll be undergoing a large trial that will tear me as a way to constantly remind myself of the Lord's presence in my life throughout this stressful time. I've decided to take on certain vows of the Nazarites. Don't cut hair, don't drink anything of the fruit of the vine, virginity, etc. Is this too much?" I mean, it's difficult to give a good answer to a short question that seems quite intense, but... Yeah, that's a... I certainly, if I, if that person were in spiritual direction with me,

I would be exploring where some of those things are coming from. Kind of making that contrast, like I was saying before, is this, you know, a kind of manager part that's trying to take control of my life and get his hands around the difficulties that I'm going to be embracing by taking on certain spiritual practices that I expect a certain result from. So that's not the kind of thing that we want to aim at. So where is this really coming from?

And now that can be something beautiful also, that there can be a real surrender there and a way of meeting Jesus and an intentional kind of sacrifice, a certain asceticism, and that can find a real companionship with him in the midst of whatever the difficult encounter is. But yeah, it would be hard without a little bit of interaction to see what the best path is. Well, if you're looking for something to do, anonymous, I would say get Father Boniface's

book, Fruit of Your Womb. Fruit of Her Womb. Fruit of Her Womb. And anonymous, if you you can't afford it let me know in locals on the main chat and tag me and I'll buy you a copy and send it to you because I think taking 33 days of intentional prayer couldn't be a bad thing Andrew says best place to start reading about the discernment of spirits I was recently introduced to this incredible way of thinking and was wondering where the best place to learn more could be. Thank you for your gift to the church. Well, a lot of times I think people mean by discernment of spirits, the Ignatian spiritual exercises, the 14 rules for the first week.

In that case, I'd say anything Ignatian. Father Timothy Gallagher is just the best teacher. And I would say he's written two books on those first week rules. The first is called Discerman of Spirits. Even he would recommend the book that he wrote 10 years later called Setting the Cactus Free. I think he describes the rules in an even more accessible way. He grew a lot from questions and presentations that he gave over that time, but both of those books are excellent. Plus he has podcasts and videos. He has a whole course on

hallow as well. Nice, yeah. Yeah. Okay, Mike asks, is it possible to forgive an unrepentant person? In other words, does true forgiveness require something from both parties? Usually we call two-way forgiveness reconciliation, as opposed to forgiveness, which can be just from my side, which is important to know if the other party is dead, for example, it's still possible to forgive things that have been done to me by somebody who could never reconcile or people who are out of my life. And so I'm not in a place to actually reconcile with them.

So there is work that we can do on our own side, which is hard work. There's a, I'd really recommend the teaching of Dr. Robert Enright at the International Forgiveness Institute. He's actually a Catholic and Father John Burns did his dissertation on a Thomistic analysis of Enright's forgiveness model

and found it very rich and supported it totally from the teaching of the summa. So it's a 20 step process basically, and really goes through a number of the layers of what we have to go through emotionally. Do you mean to forgive people who have deceased or? Just in general, to forgive somebody who's hurt us. That's interesting. Yeah. Because I've always, you kind of, we always get told it's

just make a decision. You're like, all right, thanks. Well, he's really good about saying, you know, just to think about it from a perspective of releasing a debt, it's important to know what the debt is before we release it. Yeah. So that's one aspect. How do I estimate the debt based on my own pain? and a lot of times that goes together with my anger at what's been done to me, the injustice. My emotions measure the offense against me. Now my emotions are dependent on my concepts

and I'm not always getting everything perfectly, so it's not to say my emotions are a perfect estimate, but it's what I have to work with. So as much as I understand what's been done to me, I allow myself to feel that I estimate the debt. And then I'm never saying it's okay. I'm in fact, if it's okay, there's no debt to release. there is a reparation for the sake of the other person. A person who has deeply wounded me has, anyway, maybe they've done it somewhat intentionally, maybe they've done it intentionally. They need to be in touch with what they've done. But forgiveness is releasing my responsibility

to carry out that process for them. It's handing it over to Jesus. It's saying, I give you permission, Jesus, to confront that person, to bring them to repentance, to heal them, to transform them. Whatever you need to do, I entrust that to you. I give that to you. Eric asks, what compressioners do, if anything, to help and support their priests spiritually? spiritually. Well, thanks. I think that's really important. When he says, there, priests, I'm thinking especially of your pastor, it probably goes

into what we were saying earlier about the shredding of relationships. We have that in terms of parish communities too. There just isn't a commitment to the community. So I think pressing into some commitment to a parish community, a support of the pastor in that sense is a great blessing. Finding out ways from the pastor, ways that you can support him,

encouraging him and building him up, certainly. And giving him the benefit of the doubt and if there's a question, a problem, obviously bringing those things up, not devolving into gossip or slander, those kinds of things. And then obviously all of that is brought into prayer for the person.

Really being intentional about praying for your pastor is a beautiful thing. A Hail Mary a day would be wonderful and really cultivating a positive disposition, compassion towards him. It's a great help. I love that about the benefit of the doubt. It's so helpful. It's so important. It's very easy to stop giving anybody the benefit of the doubt, isn't it? You just descend into cynicism. Yeah. Yeah, so easy. And, you know, we do that out of our herd and it's not just being mean-spirited or something can be challenging, but all the same, the more that we can work for that, it's what we want from people and we should try to give it. Here's a good question from Sherelyn who asks, can you expound on redemptive suffering?

When Paul says, by my sufferings, I fill up what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ. What a wild statement. Like if that wasn't in the scriptures, and then any saint said that, I mean, he'd be like heretic. Yeah, right. I mean, you might say that. Yeah. What does that mean?

Yeah, Colossians 1.24, right? That's, yeah, the making up in my body what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ for the sake of his body, the church, his, well, a couple of things we can take from that. One thing that he can't provide that only I can provide is my free will. So we talked about that a little bit earlier.

God really makes himself, he limits himself in that sense by giving us free will. He takes away his power over us by giving us a kind of power over him and being able to accept him or reject him. So my participation at one level is just my willingness and entering into that suffering of Christ.

He can't do that for me. And then I really also see that as, again, coming together in communion, really learning to see the way that my suffering goes together with his suffering. When I was on Pints the last time we talked about incense, in the meantime, that little clip has spread its way. Sister Miriam is showing it everywhere. And the Father John Burns I just mentioned developed this really nice insight.

So the paschal candle is a place where we make this connection between incense and wounds. And in the paschal candle, when the priest is marking it, he's supposed to put grains of incense. Now normally they're little wax things with a stick, you know, with a pin on them, but anyway, they're supposed to be grains of incense, and as he inserts them in the five points of the cross, he says, by his holy and glorious wounds, may Christ our Lord guard us and protect us." And Father John Burns pointed out, usually the paschal candle already has the hole carved in it. So if

you think of the incense as my wounds, he's already carved in his body the hole that fits my wounds. Now he's done that by actually suffering all of my wounds on the cross, but there's something missing in them until I place them in his body. Wow. And so it's like he's he's he's aching for us to complete the offering by accepting it also and making our wounds, not just something that we numb or amputate or shove exile, but making them a point of communion, bringing them into the hole that he has cut in himself specifically for those wounds that I bear.

Thank you. Shona says, I've been listening to Father Rippinger's talks on types and levels of prayer and the active and passive-pergative process that happens in association with that. One point Father Rippinger made, according to the history of purgative process that happens in association with that. One point Father Ripinger made, according to the Church of Avila, was that some people exercise several severe trials and tribulations as passive purgations, and that those who receive them can correspond to them. How does one correspond to or unite these trials most effectively in prayer. So we actually talked about this. That's the other listener

question about how do I grow? I feel like I'm kind of stagnating. I'm at a plateau. Asking to grow will often invite some of those things to come up, the trials to come up. And the thing about the... so active purification is like some of the Exodus 90 things. I'm going to fast, I'm going to give up television, I'm going to give up alcohol, I'm going to do these active purifications. I choose.

Passive purifications are things that I don't choose. And so they tend to be hit us from the side. We often don't recognize them as purifications, as you were saying earlier. And they are often the things that really take us deeper, really expose some of the places in our hearts that need deeper conversion. So that's what the passive purification,

the passive night is about. Not the thing I inflicted on myself, but rather the thing that came to me unwanted. Yeah. David, oh sorry, Brian asks, what should I be thinking about when praying the Rosary? Contemplating on the same mysteries over and over doesn't keep my attention or focus. Any tips or suggestions here? Well, those mysteries are infinitely deep. So it's your problem. But I appreciate the question because unless we take time explicitly

to kind of open up different elements of the mystery, and I want to affirm Brian as well, because he obviously has the capacity to grow into more. So not everybody needs that. A lot of people can happily kind of repeat and enter in. It's like the daily life is more drab for some people than for others anyway. So there's a way that we can go deeper in the same things,

but he obviously has the capacity to grow more. So I would study different mysteries and read things about the Annunciation, read things about the Ascension, pray explicitly, take a half an hour on each of those mysteries, and that's going to open up different dimensions. I, without falling into shameless self-promotion, wrote a book called Pocket Guide to the Rosary. There we go. It's put out by Ascension. a book called Pocket Guide to the Rosary. There we go. It's put out by Ascension.

It's called Pocket Guide to the Rosary Reflections from the Bible on the Saints. And what I do in each of these mysteries is I show how each mystery is the fulfillment of a type in the Old Testament. And then I'm always inserting language and insights from the Church Fathers. So it's quite dense in its biblical and patristic reflection. So that might be a help to you. Also Louis de Montfort suggests that we might insert a little phrase after our Lord's blessed name to help us remember which mystery we're on.

So if we are praying the birth of Christ, say the third joyful mystery, you know, thy womb Jesus, born in a manger or something like that, you might insert even quietly in your own mind to kind of help yourself stay on track. Yeah, it's a regular German practice to do that. And Pope John Paul and his letter on the Rosary, it's also quite beautiful. He gives a little reflection on each of the mysteries when he gave us the mysteries of light as an addition. And then in general talks about contemplating the face of Christ through Mary.

And then invites that insertion of a little versicle in the Hail Mary or a verse of scripture between the Hail Mary. So that's what we always broadcast on We Are One Body, a scriptural rosary that way. Having an image of Our Lady, of the mystery itself that we're looking at as we pray the rosary, a number of little tools. Yeah, that is a good point. There is a little book called The Scriptural Rosary. Me personally, I'm not a fan of this every single day because it just makes the rosary, I think, far longer than it needs to be and it's kind of clunky. But

personally, I think that if you're doing it every every day I think the rosary is something to take on the go that you kind of you know but it's a nice way to kind of re-engage with the mysteries because often when you say pray the third joyful mystery or the second whatever you have one image in your mind and that kind of tends to be the one thing you keep coming back to one thing this that's the name of this book, by the way, type in scriptural rosary. The one thing this nice book does is it leads you through, you know, as you just said, a verse of scripture between each Hail Mary, which can help you have a more holistic view of the mystery you're supposed to be meditating on.

And then even at the beginning when announcing the mystery, leaving 10 seconds of silence, you're adding 50 seconds to a rosary. You'll be fine. But that 10 seconds can really do a lot to kind of open up a space and encounter the mystery in a deeper way. Marshall says, any advice for making time for prayer amidst greatly busy lives and schedules?

Well, I think that's a, that's kind of a life coaching question, huh? How do we make time for anything? Love it, or want to love it. Yeah, that's right. And I mean, we have to, yeah, we have to prioritize what's important to us. So, so I guess I would ask, you know,

again, with some compassion and curiosity, if there's a part of you that's resisting that, what's going to us. So I guess I would ask, again, with some compassion and curiosity, if there's a part of you that's resisting that, what's going on there? What are you afraid you're going to miss out on? What are you afraid it's going to do in your life? What are you afraid is gonna happen if you open up 15 minutes, half an hour? There's a book called Atomic Habits

that's quite useful for understanding how we can enter in to develop some of those habits in our lives. One of the things they suggest is coupling things together. So it's harder to start multiple times. It's easier when you go to mass, stay an extra 10 minutes, than it is to find 10 minutes in the middle of the day to pray. So sometimes stacking it up a little bit, but a lot of little techniques like that. I think it's also worthwhile, a priest friend of mine did this with a direct D and I was

kind of astounded, but I can appreciate it too. It was, I think a woman who said, you know, I just don't have time in my day. And he said, okay, well, great. Why don't you bring in your schedule, your calendar from about 7 a.m. to about 10 or 11 p.m. and let's sketch out a whole week and see what that looks like. And let's see if we can find some space in there that you might be able to insert time for prayer.

So anyway, that might be helpful for somebody as well. Yeah, that's more intense than Brutal Vipers. I mean, ouch! Yeah, that's good. We always make time for that which we love. Yeah, and if you don't yet love prayer, then want to love it. And what do you do when you want to love something? Yeah. Yeah, and again, I, you know, without any shaming about that. So then look at that. What is it that you don't love about it?

I had a woman in spiritual direction, you know, that part of the resistance was feeling like she needed to perform in a certain way in prayer and feeling inadequate or that she wasn't doing it right. And so there was a part of her that would always come up and find something else to do when she was heading towards prayer. And so anyway, it's helpful just to look at those things, be a little gentle with ourselves. And also be realistic about what you're meant, what you think you should be experiencing in prayer. You know, like if my wife and I decide that for the good of our marriage and for the good of our children, we're going to have a date night once a week. Good. Let's be faithful to that. Sometimes

it might be beautiful and ecstatic and funny. And sometimes it might just be kind of boring and interrupted with things and text messages from the kids or phone Calls and but we did it Yeah And the point is that you do it not that you have a certain experience when you do it because I do think that I don't know if it's women as well I know as a man I tend to shy away from things that I fail at yeah And if I think that good prayer time means feeling something in particular

Right, then if I don't feel, then I'm failing at it. So I'm not going to do it anymore. Yeah. Yeah. Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. That's good. What is, what is Peterson? Jordan Peterson says it a different way. Yeah. He says, what is something you could do that you actually would do that would make your life better?

Isn't that good? Right, right. Not something you could do, because if you could do anything Yeah, but you won't because look at you. You know actually you're like the anti-peterson because Peterson you know you're ratchet Like I just want to be gentle you piece of crap of course you can't do this look at you But I like that what's how you could do that even you worthless as you are would do and And it's like, well, I could roll out a bed and fall on the floor and put my forehead to the ground and say, I love you father, guide me throughout the day.

Look at that. Yeah. Well, I love the way he, you know, start with something manageable. What's one way that you can put a little bit of order into your life today? What's a burden that's heavy enough that it matters, but is light enough that you can actually carry it? What's,

what's something that you can actually accomplish? Start there and, and do that. That's good. Yeah. Luca says, what does it feel sound like to hear Jesus speaking to you? Wow, what a beautiful question. Well, I think I appreciate the kind of comprehensive category of St. Ignatius in spiritual consolation. He gives a number of different ways that it can feel for Jesus to speak to us. One is that our hearts are inflamed with love. There are moments that we hear His voice, that we feel His closeness to us, and it just

lights us up with love, lifts us above all creation. Everything kind of melts away before Him. Other times that it's a real joy to encounter Him. I was going to say, you asked me what else I was up to. Other times that it's a real joy to encounter him. I was gonna say, you asked me what else I was up to. I told you a little bit about my trip to Europe. I had some beautiful encounters in Subiaco, the cave where St. Benedict sort of started his journey. Tell me about that.

And then also in Assisi at the body of St. Francis. Just beautiful. Is this the first time you went to Subiaco? No, the second time. The first time was, I don't know, almost, yeah, 15, 18 years ago. What's that like going into that cave? Are you with a bunch of people?

Do you get to go individually? We were on a tour, but there was also some space there. There were a number of things that kind of opened up over a little bit of time for me. One was there's a little bit of artwork in the cave. There's an image of St. Benedict kneeling, and then he's kneeling before a cross, but then there's also a basket up on the ledge. And I just never really put this together. So the basket is because when St. Benedict at age 17 entered into the cave, he was first of

all clothed in the habit of a hermit by the monk Romanus, who lived in a nearby monastery. And Romanus kept his secret to himself. And so Romanus came almost every day giving him a portion of his own bread. So from self-sacrificial care, St. Benedict received the revelation of God, right? Through the cross and through the basket. And so human love, that communion, that connection, personal accompaniment, and also through long hours of solitude, prayer, asceticism, sacrifice, really meditating on the cross. So I was really struck by the centrality of human relationships, human compassion, in the foundation of Benedictine monasticism,

which is really the cradle of Western civilization. And so that was very moving to me. And then I just had a moment, a little bit after that, of I have some wounds around my older brother, and just heard St. Benedict kind of stepping into that place and saying, I'm your big brother, and I choose you. I want you, I care about your life. And that's just been this relationship

that's really developed in the last couple of months since that encounter in the cave. So how did I receive even that word? I mean, there was a resounding quality of truth. One of the signs that Ignatius gives is an inner peace and internal quiet. It's like all of the distracting chatter just dissipated and then that kind of word comes through and it has a sort of substance to it. There's something heavy and tangible to it that he's making this statement and then that kind of elaborates over time. So that was my experience of St. Benedict. But words from Jesus are like that too. Also, sometimes moving us to tears.

When I was first discerning my vocation, I was at World Youth Day in Paris, and kneeling before the Blessed Sacrament, I read that I was reading the Gospel of Luke, the call stories of the apostles in Luke chapter 4. And I was just struck in that moment. Three months after I was baptized. I certainly had been attracted to it. I'd visited the monastery. I was attracted to priesthood and giving my life to share the gift of prayer.

And I was just moved in that moment to say, Jesus, I want to do whatever you want me to do. Do you want me to be a priest? And I could really say that that landed in that moment. I just heard a yes. So it's my yes, you know, it's my thoughts. And yet there was something about the inner quality of how that landed that I could say that wasn't just from me, that was also from Him.

Again, that was a rather busy environment. It was quite warm, uncomfortable. All of that melted away before this yes and this encounter with him. So those are the kinds of things that accompany hearing his voice. And then as we become more used to it, and this isn't like happening every day in prayer by any means, we can develop a sensitivity to more subtle degrees of communication, but it's still, mostly he wants to do that by embedding it in our flesh. He wants the dynamic of our interior to be formed by his logic. He wants to make us into him in a way that my will is his will, that

my desire is his desire. So it's always what he's moving towards. He's not moving towards more dictation from the outside. He's moving toward more inner prompting that feels also like mine. But we have some of these more extraordinary moments where he guides us a little bit more explicitly. And then we learn to recognize, you know, there's something that's always personal. Each human being is drawn into a unique, exclusive,

and unrepeatable relationship with the Lord himself. And so there's a kind of personal quality that develops as we get to know His voice, the way He speaks to me, how He draws me. Thank you. Sam, a woman, says, what are some ways I can connect mine and my husband's spiritual lives if my spouse keeps theirs hidden and doesn't pray out loud, is it OK if a wife is more of the spiritual leader of the family if the husband isn't comfortable taking on that role yet? Yeah, it's a we were saying earlier, marriage is challenging. Yeah. And yeah, we always work within wherever we are and maybe the husband would benefit

from Exodus 90. I immediately think of Monica. You know, there are certain instances where you don't have a choice. The husband isn't going to be the spiritual leader as he ought to be. That's right. And so what are you going to do? Not lead your children in the faith? Yeah. It's not ideal for you to be the spiritual leader, but in this situation you are.

But how, I wonder how she can lead the kind of spiritual life of her family in a way that invites her husband to take the lead, not in a way that sort of shuts him down. Yeah, that's right. Or makes him seem unnecessary in this. Yeah, I guess one of the reasons I mentioned Exodus 90 was the, I mean, as you know, there are certain dynamics that develop between husbands and wives

and, and they're not always, uh, in fact, they're normally not each other's best spiritual director. It's just, just a little different dynamic. So we're always want to grow towards greater vulnerability, intimacy, sharing what's happening interiorly. But anyway, certain dynamics can develop that kind of shut those things down. Things like a marriage encounter, teaching the sort of dialogue technique of, you know,

really stopping a person, letting them repeat what the other person said, kind of slowing down the communication. Things like that can help also, but sometimes just having somebody else to talk with, her husband might be more comfortable sharing with some guys that kind of understand his situation, trying to grow in a different context, and then maybe he can bring that back to the marriage also,

can be a beautiful way. But certainly she should do what she needs to do, always bringing him along as much as possible. You don't want that to get developed into a big gap, if possible. I'd like to suggest one way I've learned to pray with my wife that's extraordinarily doable. All right. Bob Schuetz, Dr. Bob Schuetz, teaches people this at these marriage conferences. When my wife and I pray together, it'll sometimes take three minutes

and it happens very formulaically. Is that a word? Good. I will place my hand on my wife and I will thank the Lord for her. I'll then ask that the Lord bless her in a certain way or give her a gift I know she needs. And then she will put her hand on my shoulder

and she will thank God for the gift that I am to her and she will ask that the Lord give me something that I need and then we pray the our father. It's beautiful. I mean, it's just we all have probably, you know, I, again, it goes back to like, well, how should this feel? And this doesn't feel the way I thought it should feel. And we're not like both crying in each other's arms and having these experiences. That's lovely. I mean sometimes my wife and I have kind of gone to bed a little

peeved at each other and I have to make the tremendous courageous effort to reach my hand over and touch her on the shoulder and thank God for her out loud. You know? It can be a difficult thing but yeah that's a nice way to begin praying with your spouse if you're looking for one. I've encouraged a lot of married couples also to do something like night prayer together. The church's night prayer is not long. It's about eight minutes. It gives a little structure. But upfront, you could even just begin with, are there any particular intentions that we

can include in this? That sort of opens up a variable space space because even the structure you just described can be quite difficult if there is some, anyway, a little bit of weariness or a little bit of woundedness or a little bit of, you know, and it's like, okay, I can express an intention, which can be variably vulnerable. Which is dangerous when you have children. The intentions, and it goes off the rails in my family within 3.5 seconds. But that's okay. Yes, you might want to put some upper limits

on those things. Everyone gets 20 words each. No, but that is beautiful. Like it's important. Because what are we doing when we share intentions? We're expressing the desires of our heart. However simply, however poorly. Yeah, and then something like night prayer

is kind of easy to pray. It's already a formula and it really is, unites us with the church's prayer and be a nice way to end the day. Jill says, we are new Catholics, thanks in part to you and Pints with Aquinas. We come with a solid understanding of scripture and we look at the smorgasbord of Catholic spiritual pathways that are available and we don't know where to begin. We are in our early 60s, so we don't have forever in this world at least. Where would you recommend we start with our spiritual formation? I'd like before you answer, I want to give a, uh, just a reminder of

something CS Lewis said. He said that when a, when a Catholic looks at a Protestant spiritual life, he sees a desert. And when a Protestant looks at a Catholic, he, he sees a desert and when a Protestant looks at a Catholic He sees an overrun jungle What is the need for all this stuff and I've encountered Jill just so you know many Catholics who say new Catholics Who are just so overwhelmed and I completely understand it I think it was San Jose Maria Escrava who said there are many Devotions within the church's treasury choose only a few and be faithful to them. So just kind of go easy and don't burn out.

But I think Francis de Sales is similar. And it tends to be the ones that we start with are the ones that we stick with. And that's pretty helpful. Yeah, there isn't, obviously the fruit of her womb would be, but genuinely, I mean, the kind of readings that daily exposes you to certain prayers and devotions along the way. And at the end of 33 days, you can keep it or leave it, right? But yeah, I would just, there isn't a rush. And I think to wade into those things with what's kind of catching your heart or what people close to you recommend.

And she mentioned a spiritual pathway she's already familiar with, namely scripture. That's right. Believe it or not, we're into that as well. So you could stick with that and be fine. And Benedictines are known for not being devotional. I was talking with a Dominican and he said, is it really true that when you ask a Benedictine about his devotional life, he says, you mean besides the liturgy? By which he means just the hours as well. The liturgy of the hours and Lectio Divina. I mean, that's really the heart

of Benedictine spirituality and that'll carry you the distance. So there isn't a need for more than that, but then otherwise it's a connection of the heart. It's different, I guess, whatever. If you look at interior decorating, if you look at the things that are in your house, if you look at the things that give texture and quality to your life, how did you choose those as opposed to 7 million other ones?

Well, they were the thing that can't cry. They were the thing that you drew in. You saw them in somebody else's house. It fits in some way. Something like that. Don't overthink it. Yeah. Jonathan says, as Catholics, we have so many resources for becoming holy adults, but as

parents, our vocation is to gently teach our children to grow in holiness throughout childhood. As fathers and mothers, how should we approach spiritually directing our children? Are there any voices in the church teaching this?" One movement that I have really appreciated is the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd. It's a Montessori approach to Catechesis that's really scriptural, liturgical, and contemplative with accompaniment for children. And so there's a degree to which you can take that into the home, but it's a whole model of approaching the mysteries, taking seriously the fact that children are baptized and therefore they have the indwelling presence.

Children are contemplatives already by grace because they're baptized. And so when we introduce them, and especially up to age six, children are sponges. They really have an uncritical absorption of everything. So fill them up with scripture and liturgy. Fill them up with the language of God, which is ultimately what that is, parables and the symbols of the liturgy and make those things present. And that's what Sofia Cavalletti and Gianna Gobi in a very systematic way, they were both Thomists trained at the Angelicum and they laid out building on the Montessori approach to human development a pathway for formation of children in those mysteries. And it's amazing.

So really, and they've added since the death of Sukhviya Kaviladi, they've added a toddler atrium. So starting at 18 months, they're exposing children to real basic elements that then get built up in level one, which is ages three to six, and then a layer deeper in level two, six to nine, and level three, nine to twelve. That's all in accord with the readiness in human development. So, the religious potential of the child, Sofia Cavaletti, would be a great book to read for these parents. Mason Hickman I think a lot of this too doesn't have to

be kind of, and you're not saying this is something separate, but when we don't, I think sometimes we have this idea that we have to somehow artificially funnel in religious information into our children in a way that feels artificial, but foreign. But if you love Jesus Christ and your wife loves him and you're both trying to love him more and you pray as best as you can, You're saying that your children will go, they'll imbibe that. I got to share a beautiful story about my daughter, Kiara. So there was a prostitute in town and she became pregnant and thank God decided to keep the child. And we were praying about the possibility of adopting this child

who would have had many problems because the mother was on crack and stuff that didn't end up happening because of some different reasons. My daughter Kiara has not stopped praying for this woman. It's she out here two or three stories and I'll try not to cry. Whenever we pray grace, I look over her and like for about 20 more seconds. She's just doing stuff I'm like, what are you she's praying for this woman and the baby. We now know the name of the baby, right? we went to France and we went to Lisieux and we got to pray in front of Therese's tomb and

Just up against the great was my little daughter Chiara and she's like, you know, 12 and she's praying for this prostitute, you know, just so beautiful. Anyway, this prostitute just went to confession. Really going to Holy mass. Really? Someone just told us this the other week. That's amazing. But the point is like, it's not like we gave a catechism class on the efficacy of prayer and the import. I mean, those things are good. Don't get me wrong. And they might be appropriate, but there's something to it just about like my daughter sees my wife concerned for people praying for people saying like, you know, miss so and so, this particular prostitute, I won't say her name, you know, we pray for her.

She's made many bad decisions and she's in a lot of trouble, a lot of pain. And we're going to pray for her. I just, my daughter's heart caught on fire, you know? So it's, it's just, a lot of it's so natural. Yeah. What I love about Catholicism is how natural it is. Yeah. More caught than taught. Yeah. Yeah. Can you speak saysey, 1988, to the spirituality of a stay-at-home mum? I used to be able to do daily mass and holy hour. Now I'm lucky if I make 10 minutes of silence. How can I make an act of faith that Jesus is within me? St. Augustine says something along the lines of we go looking far and wide for God but

never realize that he's within us. Yeah, we covered that a little bit earlier, that indwelling presence. And I think that is such a beautiful movement of spirituality. Again, Elizabeth of the Trinity is a beautiful teacher of that. There's a nice book by Claire Dwyer published by Sophia Institute Press on Elizabeth of the Trinity and really integrating her into daily life and her teaching. But just the simple act of recollection just to remember, you know, and we did that little meditation and maybe that was helpful for someone to get in touch with the

indwelling presence and maybe just that image of sitting with Jesus on a couch in our inner heart is enough to kind of bring it back up. St. Francis de Sales, you talked about his use of images and parables. He says, in our meditation we enter into the garden of paradise. Before we leave we should pluck a flower and put it in our breast pocket. And then as we go through the day, just take a sniff from that flower to bring us back to paradise. So that's a little act of recollection. It's a little remembrance of our prayer

said earlier in the week or earlier in the day. It's just a little way to reconnect with the presence of God within us, recollect ourselves, get back into our innermost self, our noose, be in touch with God in the depths of our soul. And it's amazing, just a few moments of silence, the Jesus prayer, you described it beautifully, just kind of calling you back into his presence. Those little acts of recollection then steadily become habitual.

And I know if my wife was here, she would say to you, dear sister, that, you know, when you're up in the middle of the night, breastfeeding your child, that's your holy hour. Yeah, that's right. Which I suppose is easier said than felt, right? It sounds, it sounds nice. Indeed. When the baby throws up down your back and you're exhausted, it's a little more difficult to accept that.

But I think just to kind of relieve yourself, I mean, even the catechism makes it clear that parents with young children are exempt from holy mass and not to say that you might, it's not, obviously it's a good thing to go, but you don't have to, is the point. And so just to kind of take the burden off of yourself, you know, be gentle with yourself as a new mom. It's not easy. How does, how do people be gentle with themselves? We all kind of want that, but sometimes telling someone to be gentle with themselves when they don't know how to do it, it just feels like you've just imposed

something else on them. Well, I do think again- Be gentle with yourself and hurry up. Ah! Yeah. Well, I think all of these things we learn in relationship and that's why it's so important to have somebody else who's gentle with me.

Yeah. And I can connect with that and then sometimes that gives me permission or a way to repeat that inside of myself. And so maybe it's remembering a time when somebody was really gentle with us. It can be a beautiful effect of a well-heard confession, a priest who is not disturbed by your sins and who hears what you've done and has compassion. And you hear that he's not deregulated by what he's receiving from you. And so that gives you permission to model that, copy that interiorly.

Yeah. Do you think that people are finding it harder to relax today? What do I mean by relax? I mean just sort of calm down, sit, do something contemplative. I think that, I mean it's a constant thing that I keep banging on about. I'm sure people are sick of it, but these bloody phones, like they kind of whip us into a state of frenzy and at the same time promise us ease, promise us control, and yet we find ourselves increasingly reactive, having to be reactive to that text, that email, that Bing. And then when we go to sit down and relax, a lot of people are saying to me that they

can't do that. Where does that come from and how does from and how do we fix that, do you think? I often think of those things in terms of some of the teaching of Conrad Barz and his, so it's a reapplication of the emotions according to St. Thomas to modern psychology. And one of the things that he points out is the set of emotions,

which are about the thing in itself. So our joy at the possession of the good or our sadness at the presence of evil or our love, desire, or aversion, disgust, these things felt towards the thing in itself. Often when we don't know the value of ourselves in itself, often when we don't know the value of ourselves in ourselves, then we also have a hard time feeling those things.

And so what do we have the other emotions, the energy emotions, which are like anger and fear or courage, kind of striving, hope in the, anyway, courage, I suppose, is more so. The, but pursuing those things, those energy emotions have a way of suppressing the humane emotions and then I'm constantly striving for things. Because part of what I feel is that I'm only good as far as I'm useful. I'm only good insofar as I can be something help someone with something or achieve something or prove myself or and

And that sense of striving in order to prove my worth I can get into that cycle and so I'm constantly suppressing the appreciation of of things in themselves goods in themselves So what do I need to to remedy that I need to feel? So what do I need to remedy that? I need to feel that I am good in myself. And that comes from someone who actually experiences that and lets me see it. And so affirmation, he uses,

Conrad Barz uses that as a technical term. And he basically says, affirmation is, when I see you, I recognize your unique goodness and worth apart from and prior to any good or worthwhile thing you might do. I allow myself to be moved by that unique goodness and worth without desiring to possess you or change you. And then I let you see it by my psychomotor reactions, my eye contact, my smile, my small gestures of encouragement,

but I let you feel how you are a gift to me. Gosh, you're quoting Aquinas here, you know that, right? Keep talking, I'm gonna find it for you. So when we experience that from another, then it helps us to have confidence to really own, let it settle into our being that I am really good and worthwhile, that I am a gift, to use John Paul II's kind of application of that language in his theology of the body, the logic of the gift, that every

human life is a gift. But I can know abstractly I'm a gift, but until it settles into my heart, and that happens through a lived experience of affirmation and really in an extended way. This is what mothers and fathers do for their children and holding them and delighting in them without expecting anything out of them. But a lot of us, again, that ravages of relationships in our society, of commitment and presence, the busyness that has kept mothers and fathers from really spending the emotional, supporting time with their children has left a lot of people with deprivation that makes us constantly

striving, hurrying, busying. And I think the cell phones are a symptom of that. I don't think they're a cause of it. So when Aquinas talks about remedies for sorrow, his third is the sympathy of friends. He says, when one is in pain, it is natural that the sympathy of a friend should afford consolation where of the philosopher indicates a twofold reason the first is because since sorrow has a depressing effect it is like a weight whereof we strive to unburden ourselves so that when a man sees others saddened by his own sorrow, it seems as though others were bearing the burden with him,

striving, as it were, to lessen its weight. Wherefore, the load of sorrows becomes lighter for him, something like what occurs in the carrying of bodily burdens. The second and better reason is because when a man's friends condole with him He sees that he is loved by them and this affords him pleasure as Stated above consequently since every pleasure assuages sorrow as stated above it follows that sorrow is mitigated by a Sympathizing friend. Mmm, beautiful. Yeah, you are. Yeah, that's it's just the same thing as you just said there. Yeah. Yeah.

So it really gives us permission to feel those humane emotions and to stay there in places of sorrow and of joy that, you know, a sorrow shared is half the sorrow. A joy shared is twice the joy. Yeah. And to be able to bring that into relationship and then ultimately that helps us bring it into relationship with God as well. So my final question, you're like, thank goodness. My final question, which I may have asked you before, which I like to ask a lot of people is what's something you do for leisure? That's

the least impressive thing. What's the least impressive thing you do for fun or leisure? Wow. Don't say like read St. John's gospel in Greek or something. You can if you want. If that's the least impressive thing, I'll let you say it. Least impressive thing. One of the least impressive things. Yeah. Yeah. Gosh. Um, I mean, I like to spend time with people. I, it's, uh, I love people and I do a lot of, of listening. And so when I'm in a relationships that I can also,

there's a kind of mutuality. It's really restful for me. I don't need to perform. I don't need to prove myself. I can just enjoy. I really love this, you know? Really love to share about these things that I've discovered and collected.

And so I don't know if that's unimpressive. I mean, for this, a similar reason, I like to write books when I'm, when I have free time. I love writing. I love expressing things. I love learning and gathering things together. That's, it's really renewing for me. But I mean, I like a nap too.

Like I, I'd usually take a nap in the afternoon. If I can get like 10 minutes. It's amazing what that does. You just like touch unconsciousness. And I'm just good to go for hours again after that. But I don't know who this is, but there, I don't know if it was a poet or an author or somebody who would hold a spoon in their hand and have a nap.

And when the spoon hit the ground, he'd wake up. Right, right. He's like Alphonsus Ligure or something. Is that right? Yeah, but I'm with you. I love a nap. I love a nap I'm also reading Jeeves and Wooster right now by Woodhouse Have you ever read them before those little stories when I read that? I just think this is why what reading supposed to feel like this is recommend those to you. He didn't Jacob Adores those he's right. He is so far far you gotta like English humor, which I absolutely love. It's very similar to Australian humor

I had someone who said it's far too English just not you know, but I I just love them So I've been just kind of reading them on the porch and just laughing to myself I rarely laugh over fiction, but I'm just oh My goodness, so if you get a chance if you like English humor anybody check that out well thank you so much for taking the time I know it's a big chunk out of your day and we'll put links to your excellent new book and I'm gonna I'm gonna do it I'm excited that's great I think you'll do you have a little chart in the beginning of the book that

suggests when you know I should have did you know what to put that pressure on people right because then there's the. You know, start anytime. It's fine. Every day is a feast day of Our Lady in one form or another. It's fine. Yeah, just have it end on a Saturday.

Yeah. Any day, yeah. All right. Well, it's such a joy. So nice to be with you. You too, thanks.